GRU Gravity Fall 2014 by Augusta University

FALL 2014 VOL. 2 NO. 3

MARVIN VANOVER GAME CHANGER

Day of Service

Alumni Association Physical Address: 1061 Katherine Street Augusta, GA 30904 Mailing Address: GRU Alumni Affairs 1120 15th Street, FI-1000 Augusta, GA 30912

On Saturday, September 6, nearly 1,000 GRU volunteers performed thousands of hours of service to dozens of organizations across the Central Savannah River Area. This fourth-annual event has grown each year since it began in 2011. Together, participants cleaned, sorted, mentored, coached, cooked, served, landscaped, painted, and much more, in an inspiring day of community service and connection.

706-737-1759 Associate Vice President, Alumni and Donor Engagement Kristina Baggott kbaggott@gru.edu Senior Director, Alumni Affairs Scott Henson shenson@gru.edu Director, Alumni Affairs Rhonda Banks robanks@gru.edu Alumni Affairs Coordinator Anneliese Woodall anwoodall@gru.edu MCG Alumni Affairs Coordinator Kim Koss kkoss@gru.edu Administrative Assistant Cori Robbins crobbins@gru.edu

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GEORGIA REGENTS UNIVERSITY

Georgia Regents University’s Alumni and Friends magazine is published three times a year by the Office of Advancement and the Office of Communications and Marketing to connect the university with alumni, friends, the state, and the world.

FALL 2014 VOL. 2 NO. 3

Senior Vice President, Office of Advancement: Susan Barcus

Interim Vice President, Office of Communications and Marketing: Jack Evans Executive Editor: Kristina Baggott Senior Editor: Karen Gutmann Alumni Affairs Liaison: Rhonda Banks

DESIGN & PRODUCTION Art Director and Graphic Designer: Heather Young

PHOTOGRAPHY Senior Photographer: Phil Jones Special Assignments: Anthony Carlie, Michael Johnson, Matt Lindler, Joel Silverstein, and Paula Toole

Living the Deep-Water Dream Basketball Visionary ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

Alumni couple turns lifelong passion into lifesaving vocation.

Legendary Coach Marvin Vanover quietly blazed a trail in Georgia.

ADVERTISING 706-737-1759 alumni@gru.edu

Georgia Regents University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, religion, age, veteran status, gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation in its programs and activities as required by Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act

A Woman Who Left Her Mark ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

Hollywood & Broad Relive Augusta’s red carpet moment.

The enduring legacy of Kath Engler, artist and lifelong adventurer.

of 1964, and other application statutes and university policies.

EVERY EDITION 4 Campus Happenings 6 Calendar of Events 30 College Catch-Up

35 38 42

Alumni Advocacy Update Growing GRU Class Notes

DEAR READERS WINSTON CHURCHILL ONCE SAID, “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” In this issue of GRavity, we decided to write some history; to record stories of students, patients, faculty, and staff who walked these halls years ago and paved a history of notable and impressive accomplishments that continues to resonate today. Our cover feature (p. 14) tells one story from the legendary history of beloved coach and basketball visionary Marvin Vanover, who ignored turbulent times to blaze a trail in college athletic recruiting. Focusing always on the skill of the players and love of the game, he helped advance race relations in Georgia. Sixty years ago, medical history was rocked when two of our MCG alums treated a local woman with what was then called “multiple personality disorder.” A best-selling book was turned into a Hollywood feature film, and “The

Three Faces of Eve” became one of the most renowned cases of the disorder in American history. Learn about the real “Eve,” and relive the glamor of the movie’s world premiere, which happened at the Miller Theatre right here in Augusta, Georgia. (p.24). Sadly, the GRU community recently lost several of our more contemporary trailblazers, women who touched us with their unique gifts and contributions. Through Kath Engler’s art, Louise Shivers’ literature, and Dr. Connie Drisko’s leadership, these women left a legacy that won’t soon be matched in our history. Finally, Alan and Bridget Thomas are making history in the world of aquatic medicine through their love of the sea and its creatures and their commitment to medical advances in the field. Enjoy their story of creating a valuable vocation from a lifelong passion (p. 8).

Kristina Baggott, MBA Associate VP, Alumni and Donor Engagement, Georgia Regents University, Office of Advancement

As the holidays approach, I encourage each of us to remember that we are writing our own history every day. Let’s be sure to take the opportunities we have to make it count and make our mark. Wishing you and your family the happiest of holidays. n

SPOTLIGHT ON STUDENT SUCCESS WELL INTO OUR SECOND ACADEMIC YEAR AS GEORGIA REGENTS UNIVERSITY, WE CAN BEGIN TO MEASURE THE IMPACT OF THE TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGES WE’VE BEEN THROUGH TOGETHER. I’D LIKE TO SHARE WITH YOU EXCITING PROGRESS WE’VE ALREADY MADE IN THE AREAS OF STUDENT ENGAGEMENT AND SUCCESS. WHILE WE KNEW consolidation would bring opportunities, there were also concerns: As a research university, our admission standards and tuition rates would need to rise. How would we maintain the access mission of our undergraduate programs? How could we ensure our undergraduate students successfully progress to a timely graduation?

Our academic and student affairs professionals went to work, with impressive results. Firstly, we are making the transition to research university admission requirements and tuition rates gradually, over a period of years, so students in our community and already here are not negatively impacted. And we partnered with East

Ricardo Azziz, MD, MPH, MBA President, Georgia Regents University CEO, Georgia Regents Health System

Georgia State College in a program where local students who don’t meet university admission requirements are admitted to EGSC and pay EGSC tuition, but take their first 30 hours on GRU’s Summerville Campus and get enhanced support services to help them

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succeed. Those who meet the transfer GPA requirement can opt to transfer seamlessly into a bachelor’s degree program at GRU. Fall enrollment is nearly 350 students! To encourage timely completion while keeping tuition costs down, we introduced “4 Years 4 U,” an awareness and commitment campaign aimed at increasing the number of entering freshmen who take a full 15+ credit course load each semester, with the goal of graduating in four years. By signing the official 4 Years 4 U pledge, new freshmen join the growing ranks of GRU students who take and successfully complete 15 or more credit hours per semester. Just moving from 12 to 15 credit hours per semester means graduating a full year earlier! That’s one year less of tuition and living expenses and a one-year earlier career start.

The success of this program has been phenomenal: In Fall 2012, only 8 percent of entering freshmen attempted 15+ credits, and 3.5 percent succeeded. For Fall 2013, the first year of 4 Years 4 U, 71 percent of freshmen signed up and 42 percent successfully earned 15+ credits. This fall, 89 percent of our new freshmen signed the pledge and are enrolled in 15+ credit hours! The pledge is a great tool, but to be successful, students need our support. So we’ve strengthened our advising program, centralizing services and hiring more professional advisors; implemented early alert systems to identify students who may need targeted help; and we’ve introduced a full complement of programs to welcome students when they arrive and provide them tools to seamlessly transition to university life, so that they

can immediately engage with the GRU community. We know these are critical predictors of student success. And there’s much more on the horizon, including our master campusplanning project, which will address student housing and residential life among many important elements of GRU’s physical future. So stay tuned to Discover What’s Next at GRU. Thank you for staying engaged — and for recognizing that working together is the best way to ensure the success we all want for our students, our university, our community, and our state. n

The Class of 2018 takes their first official photo together.

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CAMPUS

10-11

18-22

HAPPENINGS

AUGUST

10-11 Freshman Move-In

570 freshmen, joined by administration and faculty, gathered in the Maxwell Theatre to kick off their college journey.

18-22 Week of Welcome

Students returned to campus and enjoyed back-to-school festivities.

Incoming freshmen settled into their dorm rooms during move-in day.

15 Freshman Convocation

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12 AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

22 ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

12 2014 Diversity &

Inclusion Summit

Dr. Azziz joined faculty, staff, and students around campus in accepting the challenge. He also donated to the Georgia Regents Medical Center ALS Clinic.

10 IGRU Alumni Barbecue

and Celebration

Campaign results were announced during this fun annual event

J.R. Martinez, actor, author, motivational speaker, and U.S. Army veteran, was keynote speaker at this annual event.

OCTOBER

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CALENDAR

4-6

OF EVENTS

NOVEMBER

27 Dance Dash 5K

4-6

14th-Annual Cares for Kids Radiothon

Volunteer or give from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thurs/Fri and 7 a.m.-noon Sat. Visit caresforkidsradiothon.org or call 706-721-4004 for more info.

Meet at the Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hospital of Georgia for a 9 a.m. start. Dance your way through a 5K race while helping to raise money for CHOG. Info at 706-721-4004 and dancedash.org.

DECEMBER

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For more information: 706-737-1759 or alumni@gru.edu

16-21

g r u a l u m n i .co m

DECEMBER 4

Holiday Tree Lighting

FEBRUARY Fall Commencement

16-21 Homecoming 21 Men’s & Women’s Basketball

Week

Watch the CBS national broadcast of the men’s homecoming game. Or come to Christenberry Fieldhouse to cheer both teams as they host Lander University for homecoming and senior day. Visit jaguarsroar.com for times.

Summerville Campus History Walk at 6 p.m.

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LIVING THE

DREAM

GEORGIA REGENTS UNIVERSITY

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT

By Paula Hinely

“Sharks … aren’t you afraid of sharks?” It’s one of the first questions people ask Alan and Bridget Thomas upon discovering the couple’s love of scuba diving. But after at least 2,500 dives apiece, the “waterlogged” couple answers emphatically — no. “Sharks don’t mess with divers,” said Alan (MCG ’74), a Wilmington, North Carolina, physician. “We have a healthy respect for them. It’s what you don’t know that terrifies you.” For instance, while diving in Fiji, the Thomases and their dive team were casually swimming underwater in a strong, 5-knot current while flanked by several 4- to 5-foot-long sharks. As the current slowed and the divers emerged from the mouth of an inlet, they were greeted by an inquisitive goliath grouper with beady green eyes, an enormous mouth and a body as big as two scuba divers. “He came up to us and looked us over until the photographer with us snapped his picture, and he backed off,” Alan said. He and Bridget (CON ’74) weren’t intimidated by the massive fish. But when they surfaced, they learned their close encounter was with a Queensland grouper, which has been known to kill humans. The grouper was waiting at the inlet’s mouth to feast on a dinner of smaller fish.

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Discovering a Lifelong Passion Luckily, the Thomases weren’t on the menu, but had the worst-case scenario occurred, they would have been more prepared than most to handle a potentially life-threatening grouper bite. Alan and Bridget have been pivotal players in the realm of aquatic medicine for more than 30 years. Like the ocean itself, the parameters of aquatic medicine are seemingly limitless, from performing predive physicals and avoiding air embolism to preventing and treating marine animal bites, exposure, and decompression sickness. “We’re both medical, so as soon as we started diving, we became interested in the scientific aspects of it,” Bridget said. In 1984, soon after they were scuba certified, the couple was invited to a meeting of the International Society of Aquatic Medicine. Since then, their involvement has skyrocketed. A year after joining, Alan became the organization’s secretary and treasurer. Bridget soon took over organizing ISAM’s conferences and eventually left her nursing career to become the organization’s executive secretary and travel director. Under her direction, the organization has grown from offering only one annual conference to four at diving locales throughout the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea. Its membership has tripled, and the conferences (which always include diving in addition to continuing medical education) are continually full, Bridget said. Bridget’s contributions to the organization earned her an induction into the Women Divers Hall of Fame in 2001. The Thomases have diligently updated ISAM’s diving safety standards and rejuvenated its equipment. In their early days with the organization, its divers were still using outdated diving horse collars, which have since been replaced by modern buoyancy compensators. “We’ve had an extraordinarily safe diving experience since we joined,” Alan said. Even so, the couple has seen the benefits of the updates firsthand. “Bridget and I have saved each other’s lives a couple times.”

Danger and Deliverance During a dive in San Salvador, the mouthpiece of Bridget’s pressure regulator, which allows underwater breathing, detached. They were 30 feet deep and, with a boat directly overhead, an immediate return to the surface would be dangerous. “It was an emergency, but we didn’t panic,” Alan said. Instead, they “buddy breathed.” Bridget grabbed his regulator and Alan used his backup valve, called an

octopus, so the couple could share his air until they were able to surface safely. Apart from a few minor equipment emergencies, the Thomases have never suffered a diving-related malady or injury like those their organization teaches to prevent and treat. And while they aren’t called on to treat many aquatic injuries at home in Wilmington, they have used their expertise on trips to stitch up a boat captain’s eel bite, advise the locals when medical care was inaccessible, and aid a fellow ISAM member who was stricken with lung cancer and brain disease. The orthopedic surgeon wanted to continue diving, but he was at risk for seizures underwater, which would be catastrophic. He donned a full face mask, enabling him to dive as Alan and Bridget kept watch, serving as his dive buddies and tenders. “He never had a seizure and kept diving until just a few months before he died. It was inspirational to us and to those who are handicapped,” Alan said.

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He and Bridget have seen firsthand how diving can be the great equalizer for people with disabilities. On one trip with a paraplegic man, they wheeled him to the side to help him into the water. “He had fins on his hands, but once he was underwater, he was just like one of us,” Alan said. “He even took his regulator off just so we could see his smile.” These extraordinary divers have inspired the Thomases, who don’t see their diving adventures ending any time soon.

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After all, they’ve dived with octogenarians still in their prime. Alan even has a patient who wanted his pacemaker removed because it wasn’t certified below 30 feet. “He wanted it taken out and a 90-foot-certified pacemaker installed,” Alan said. “Who knew there were pacemakers with different diving certifications?” Even after giving more than 150 lectures on aquatic medicine, the couple is still learning.

Their Bucket List They’re grateful for all of the amazing experiences they’ve had while living their dream, but still have a number of sea creatures to check off their underwater bucket list. They’ve seen sailfish in Cozumel, but have hopes to see the giant mola mola, also called a sunfish. They’ve swum with a school of 20 nurse sharks in Belize and a mother humpback whale and her calf in Hawaii, but are still on the lookout for orcas, which they may find one day near Papua New Guinea, one of their favorite diving destinations. “Nowhere else in the world can you dive with such crystal clear water,” Bridget said. It was there that the couple spotted one of the smallest sea creatures, the pygmy sea horse, and one of the largest, the whale shark, in a single dive. There’s one more bucket list item in the making. “I have fantasies of being a diving family, and it’s not for lack of trying,” Bridget said. Neither of their daughters, Alison and Nancy, dive. Nancy never caught the diving bug, and Alison has a rare disease of the brain’s blood vessels, called Moyamoya, which doesn’t allow adequate circulation to the brain and can lead to recurrent strokes. “Alison desperately wants to dive, but her condition doesn’t allow it,” Bridget said. “She goes on trips with us and snorkels, but after two bypass surgeries, it’s just not possible.” But Bridget hopes to one day teach her 4-year-old granddaughter, MacRae, to be her diving buddy. “We read her books about diving and she’s already asking when she can dive. We tell her we’ll teach her when she’s 12,” Bridget said. Perhaps they’ll be training a future member of the International Society of Aquatic Medicine, as well. n

Go Deeper with Alan and Bridget • Alan and Bridget Thomas met on campus during a tea for freshmen nursing students. • They moved to Wilmington for Alan’s internal medicine residency and fell in love with the area. “They say once you get sand in your toes, you never go back,” Alan said. • Bridget and Alan learned to dive alongside college students in a semesterlong course at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington in 1982. They are both certified dive masters and are members of Divers Alert Network, which gives divers emergency medical assistance. • Wilmington is known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic because of the plentiful shipwreck dives off its coast, but Alan and Bridget no longer dive from their home turf. The tough currents and stringent diving led them to dub the diving quality as “white water scuba.” • Two of their favorite dive locations are the island of Dominica in the Caribbean and Papua New Guinea off the coast of northern Australia. “They’re very remote locations and still so pristine. Any time you don’t have as many people, the diving is better,” Bridget said.

To learn more about the International Society of Aquatic Medicine, visit divingdocs.org.

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GEORGIA REGENTS UNIVERSITY

By Tom Turner Recruiting a basketball player who is tall, fast, and black was a novel idea in 1969, when founding Jaguar Athletic Director Marvin Vanover went scouting at the city’s predominately black Paine College. But it was an idea whose time had come. Now in his eighties, his hair silver and his eyes still blue, Vanover has the profile of a Roman Caesar whose stare, should you meet it, has lost none of its power. He logged many successes and noteworthy firsts during his legendary 25-year Jaguar career, yet his most remarkable achievement is not even an asterisk in the record books. Marvin Vanover was the first coach in the state of Georgia to integrate a basketball team at a predominately white college. 1969 was a turbulent year in Augusta. Racial tensions, already simmering, would erupt in the violent May Riots of 1970. Yet, over that same remarkable 1969-70 season, excited crowds of blacks and whites came together to enjoy some of the best basketball in Augusta College history. The Jaguars won 18 of their first 19 games, advancing to play in the NAIA’s national championship tournament in Kansas City, Missouri, and three star G Ra v i t y FA L L 2 0 1 4

Jags became eligible for the NBA draft and went on to play professionally.

A Dream Deferred This “overnight” success story began five years earlier after Augusta College won approval to become a four-year institution. Vanover was lured by promises of funding for a brand new fieldhouse and the dream of building a college athletic program from scratch. Instead, what he got was plenty of nothing. Vanover had to make do with an old gym that was nobody’s notion of a fieldhouse; it looked more like a warehouse. The basketball goals at either end were mere suggestions. At 94 feet long, the court was in compliance, but the ceiling was problematic. It met the regulation minimum height of 24 feet only if you weren’t too picky about the 3-foot I-beam hanging down the middle. Finding himself with few tools to entice players to Augusta — no gym to speak of, no scholarships, no housing, no food allowance — Vanover’s dream became a dream deferred. When a doctrinaire administrator wrote an insulting rejection across the top of an athletic equipment request, Vanover decided he had enjoyed about as much as he could stand.

Back row, left to right: E. George, A. Smith, B. Timmerman, J. McBride, J. Carter, G. Schraepen, C. Johnson, S. Brown, M. Kirkay, B. Davis, F. Phillips. Front row, Team coaches.

“I went home and told my wife we were leaving,” he recalls. The very next morning, however, then-Augusta College President Gerald B. Robins asked the coach to attend a meeting with several college officials. “Gentlemen,” Robins began, “meet my Athletic Director.” By the meeting’s conclusion, no one was confused. The funding logjam had broken, and Marvin Vanover could finally do what he came to do.

Recruiting a Dream Team Although the college still had no student housing or dining privileges to offer, its Athletic Director finally had a handful of scholarships with which to recruit the best basketball players he could find — and Vanover knew where to look. He went calling at Augusta’s historically black Paine College on a night when the school was hosting a tournament. He remembers that evening for the warm welcome he received and because it was the first time he saw the towering “Jumping Joe” McBride come thundering up the court.

“I went after him right then,” he recalls. Soon McBride was on board. Next he recruited some help. During those fallow years, Vanover had located the old Oliver General complex and engaged area high school coaches and players in scrimmages there, both for the practice and to check out the local talent. Then used primarily by officers stationed at Fort Gordon, the complex provided an ideal practice gym and ultimately an assistant coach. Len Carlson, a former professional basketball player, left his position as the Fort’s sports officer to join Vanover and the Jaguars. “He was the first man I ever met who loved basketball as much as I do,” Vanover recalls. The two also shared a similar genius for recruiting excellent players. After McBride, the next player Vanover went after was a local white player, Barry Timmerman. A star at Butler High School,

Marvin Vanover and Len Carlson

Timmerman led his fellow Bulldogs to the state championship by scoring 44 points in a single game, a high school record that still stands nearly 50 years later. After several head-turning offers, Timmerman chose Auburn University in Alabama. Other college coaches might have called off their dogs at that point, but not Vanover. He continued to follow Timmerman’s progress and noted the unfathomable amount of time Timmerman sat on Auburn’s bench — so much so that the young freshman had begun to suspect he was being red-shirted. “I came back at Christmas,” Timmerman says, “and the next thing I knew, Mr. Vanover was sitting in my living room. He had left a bus full of players waiting outside headed for an out-of-town game! That did it for me,” Timmerman says, recalling how he suddenly became a Jaguar convert. Carlson demonstrated a more laid-back recruiting style. He was coming down with the flu when he got on the bus heading for a game in Asheville, North Carolina. “When we got there,” he recalls, “I went inside the gym and lay down with some pillows and a blanket. In a feverish haze, Carlson “kept seeing these two black hands keep going over the rim.” Soon enough, he discovered that the hands belonged to Chip Johnson who, in record time, became yet another star player for the Augusta College Jaguars. Johnson, now a youth worker in North Charleston, South Carolina, would go on to make the NBA draft and play professionally in the United States and, for five more years, in France and Belgium. Carlson also pioneered recruiting players from Europe. His first gift home was George Schraepen, a seven-foot center from Belgium. Together, Vanover and Carlson assembled a basketball team worthy of a Hollywood casting director.

Coach Vanover at dedication of Vanover Drive

Len Carlson and Marvin Vanover

Christenberry Fieldhouse today

Turbulent Times But there were hurdles to clear: Racial tensions in Augusta had reached the boiling point by 1969. There was a sit-in demonstration the first time the Jaguars played the Paine College Lions. Unlike lunch counter sit-ins happening elsewhere in the South, this basketball sit-in was conducted by white people who seated themselves on the court demanding to be heard. They were soon frog-walked to the exits amid cheers from a capacity mixed-race crowd who had come there for the basketball. On the road, the Jags sometimes witnessed hostile crowds, but clashes were avoided when opposing groups were seated far from one another across a glossy playing floor. Of course, the team visited towns where restaurants and motels refused them service, and black team

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members endured verbal taunts from bigots. Yet, in spite of the turbulent times, there was not one single incident of physical violence during the integrated team’s entire first season. “How do you account for that?” a sportswriter once asked Len Carlson. “Simple,” Carlson answered: “Because we won!”

An Enduring Legacy The more complicated answer, of course, is Marvin Vanover. Like most coaches, he was once a star player himself. Basketball was Vanover’s ticket out of Harlan, Kentucky, a scenic piece of Appalachia known for coal mines, unemployment, and poverty. He was recruited to play for Georgia Southern, but a promising career was cut short when he was injured in an automobile accident. Basketball was also the Jaguars’ ticket out of obscurity. The 1969-

70 team was ranked number five in the nation and Marvin Vanover was named Georgia Collegiate Coach of the Year. That winning season jumpstarted a winning streak that would not be broken for another dozen years. Vanover retired as Athletic Director in 1988 but came out of retirement to become the Peach Belt Conference’s first Commissioner, where he served until 2007. Vanover shies away from talking about the positive role he played in race relations. In 1969, he focused on team spirit, sportsmanship, and winning basketball games, a formula that returned many dividends both on and off the basketball court. Oh, and that resplendent fieldhouse? That finally happened too — in 1991 — five seasons after he retired from coaching. Fittingly, to get there today requires a ride up “Vanover Drive.” n

dor nne Tu A a h t r fsky By Ma Barsha b e D and

ARK M R E EFT H L O H NW A M O AW

Kath Girdler Engler (BSN, ’80; BFA, ’81) treasured things most people would throw out. Rusty trucks and stove irons line a flowerbed outside her backdoor. She nailed 50 of her son’s childhood shoes to the roof of his tree house. Her art studio in Augusta, Georgia — part creative laboratory, part magical wonderland — is filled with broken doll parts, antique valve handles, bird nests and shark teeth, shells, longabandoned plastic toys, things Engler called “the ephemera of life.” “We’d take walks on the beach, and she’d come back to the house with a bag of things she’d picked up, some of them so tiny, I would never notice something like that,” said her husband of 26 years, Dr. Harold “Chub” Engler (MD, ’50). Most people show up for a dinner party with a bottle of wine. Engler brought close friends a treasure

instead; an unusual bottle cap, a tiny velvet monkey sitting atop a two-inch metal ladder, an antique self-help book for a particularly gregarious friend on how to overcome shyness. In Engler’s world, everything had possibilities. Little things mattered. Engler lost her second battle with cancer in June at age 63. Hours before her passing, a tremendous storm raged through Augusta, as if the universe was saying, “Rise from your slumber. One of the best among you is making her exit.” For Engler was a woman who left her mark — on the city she called home for 30 years, on the campuses of her alma mater, and on the lives of the many people she touched.

“So Much More of Me in My Sculpture …” Born to an American and a New Zealander who met in World War II, Engler grew up in Indiana and

traveled to Europe before moving to Augusta to pursue medical illustration. She instead earned degrees in nursing and art from then-Medical College of Georgia and Augusta College. In many ways, Engler was the human embodiment of the consolidation that created Georgia Regents University — the blending of art and science, the idea that good things become great things when we bring the best of two worlds together. Eleven years ago, Engler merged the education and training she received at her alma mater in both health and art to create the popular “Run with Art” program. Hundreds of children participated in her day camps, held in her backyard, where art projects were interspersed with relay races and outdoor games. “She had the most positive impact on kids. They all just loved her. She definitely had tremendous impact on me,” said Bailey Avrett, a college freshman who attended her first GEORGIA REGENTS UNIVERSITY

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT Run with Art program when she was 8. “Kath was the most inspirational person in the world.” Engler worked as a registered nurse after graduating from MCG in 1980, but she used her art degree most to chart her course through life. Her art, particularly her paper pulp sculptures and assemblage pieces, is prominently featured in many private collections. Her public art— large bronze sculptures — changed the landscape of her city and, in particular, her alma mater. On GRU’s Health Sciences Campus, a classical sculpture titled “The Graduate” stands tall in a courtyard next to the Greenblatt Library. “The Nature of Healing,” an abstract, whimsical piece representing family, welcomes visitors to the Children’s Hospital of Georgia. Engler was inspired by paperwhites blooming on her kitchen table, leaning into the sun. And on the Summerville Campus, a bronze fountain, “Cultural Triad,” holds court in front of the Maxwell Theatre. The three abstract figures represent music, drama, and the visual arts and bear the names of

famous practitioners of those arts. Engler loved to tell the story of how she misspelled the last name of Dutch painter Piet Mondrian on the sculpture but noticed it too late to

Her art is an expression of herself. She wanted people to feel something when they saw it. And even though she’s no longer here, her impact continues every time someone sees her work. — Eben Engler, 23, son

correct the error. She loved laughter, even at her own expense Beyond GRU, Engler’s large sculptures crown numerous corporate and institutional collections. Engler created the full-figure sculpture of Augusta’s legendary obstetrician, Dr. W.G. “Curly” Watson (MD, ’43), which stands in the lobby of University Hospital. In the sculpture, he’s holding one of the approximately 15,000

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babies he delivered for Augusta families. And what Augusta driver hasn’t enjoyed Engler’s “Boatmen,” a trio of figures poling a Petersburg boat at the intersection of 13th Street and Walton Way? Engler worked in various artistic mediums, but it was the creation of these large bronze pieces she enjoyed most. “I love doing the big sculptures. They’re the things I’m leaving behind when I’m gone. There’s so much more of me in my sculpture than there ever will be of me in my grave,” she said in a 2011 interview.

A Sense of Wonder in the World “Her sense of design, of ancient ruin qualities, are all very evident here in the CSRA … some of her work is very abstracted, very lyrical and whimsical,” said Brian Rust, a longtime friend and fellow sculptor, and Professor of Art and Assistant Chair of GRU’s Department of Art.

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Engler

beautiful day,” said her son, Eben, 23. “She was trying to get the most out of every minute.” “She was such a positive person, Eben said that finding the and that comes across in her work — her humor, her sense of wonder in unexpected was a theme of his childhood with Engler. Whether the world,” Rust said. “If something hunting iguanas in Costa Rica, had been used and had a life … she hiking a treacherous stretch in New thought giving it a second or third Zealand, or catching turtles in the life was kind of magical.” front yard, Engler taught her son “Kathy Engler was a marvelous to embrace adventure and have an sculptor,” said Phillip Morsberger, open mind. They explored, kayaked, another longtime friend and fellow and hiked. They traveled to Italy, artist, and the William S. Morris England, France, Guatemala, and Eminent Scholar of Art Emeritus Panama. They made friends with a at GRU. “Her public pieces have a coffee farmer and overnighted in an modernist look about them, verging old airplane. on the abstract. Her pieces are “She’s given me the ability to put inventive and aware of contemporary myself out of the box,” Eben said, “to developments around the world,” see that people all over the world are he said. “Her papier-mâché with its good and kind.” added bits of nature — sticks and But for all the adventure, Eben jewels — have surrealistic fascinations.” found something in his mother’s Engler’s sense of wonder in the belongings after she died that world was strong to the very end. “She was still trying to go outside. She was still trying to have a

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touched him for its simplicity. He found a journal in which she described her perfect day: “Wake up. Cook Eben breakfast. Teach an aerobics class. Work in the studio. Relax in the afternoon. Read a book. Get food for Chub and Eben. Then snuggle up and watch a movie with Eben.” “It was a typical day that was her favorite day,” he said. Kath Engler valued the small things in life. A leaf. The color yellow. A perfectly timed joke. The crunch of a fresh vegetable. So when you’re admiring the beauty and scope of one of her paper pulp sculptures or assemblages, lean in. Pay attention. There … see that tiny bit of sea glass, that pearl, that snip of barbed wire? And look here … is that a bird’s beak? A porcelain arm? Then you’ll understand as Engler did: It’s the little things that make the big things possible. n

“It was a typical day that was her favorite day.”

Hollyw

Joanne Woodward, Three Faces of Eve

wood

Broad

AUGUSTA’S RED CARPET MOMENT By Jordan Watwood

One of the most celebrated cases of “multiple personality disorder,” and the best-selling book and Hollywood classic that told the story, happened right here in Augusta, Georgia.

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The story was irresistible. Eve White, a seemingly ordinary young wife and mother, seeks psychiatric help for debilitating headaches. Over months of treatment, she transforms before her physicians’ astonished eyes into three distinct and separate individuals. As her doctors described it, “A thousand minute alterations of manner, gesture, expression, posture, of nuances in reflex or instinctive reaction, of glance, of eyebrow tilting and eye movement, all argued that this could only be another woman.” A rare and fascinating case of what was then called “multiple personality disorder.” Her physicians wrote a best-selling book about the case, Hollywood took notice, the movie was released at a glamorous world premiere, and the young actress who played the main character won both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award. And it all happened right here in Augusta, Georgia.

The Three Eves The patient — whose real name was Chris Costner Sizemore — was born in 1927 in Edgefield, South Carolina. Her psychiatrists, Corbett H. Thigpen (MCG ’45) and Hervey M. Cleckley (MCG ’29), were at the time the entirety of the Medical College of Georgia’s Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology. The movie was “The Three Faces of Eve,” and a young Joanne Woodward, also from Georgia, starred in the role that launched her career. Sizemore was referred to Dr. Thigpen’s care in 1954 and remained in treatment for 14 months, coming to Thigpen and Cleckley’s shared office located across the street from where the Children’s Hospital of Georgia now stands. In their book (also “The Three Faces of Eve”), the doctors report that “Eve White” initially complained of ongoing and severe headaches. However, it was soon apparent to Thigpen that his patient was suffering from much more than headaches. Further conversations exposed a crumbling marriage, mysterious blackouts, and periods of amnesia. Several months into treatment, the two physicians encountered “Eve Black,” one of Sizemore’s alternate personalities and a stark departure from the demure Eve White. “Instead of that retiring and gently conventional figure,” they reported, “there was in the newcomer a childishly daredevil air, an erotically mischievous glance, a face marvelously free from the lines of habitual care, seriousness, and underlying stress, so long familiar in her predecessor.” Months later, a third personality emerged, Jane, who was level headed and confident, different from either of the previous personalities. Less than a year and a half after Sizemore first walked into Thigpen’s office, she was discharged and given a clean bill of health. The final pages of “The Three Faces of Eve” are hopeful. Eve has regained control of her life – her three personalities having coalesced into one – she has a new, loving husband, and the future is full of promise. The reality was later revealed to be quite different. But first came a magical premiere in downtown Augusta.

Glitz and Glamour at the Miller 708 Broad Street. The address is unlikely to ring a bell for most Augustans. But view an image of the property, even in its current state of disrepair, and recognition is instantaneous. The Miller Theater’s Arte Moderne style is in stark contrast to adjacent brownstones and abandoned storefronts. The arced marquee, no longer glowing neon, is still impressive to behold.

Chris Sizemore

Like an artifact from a different age, the theater is a glimpse into a golden era for Augusta. Entombed within the auditorium are decades of memories, dusty reminders of a time when downtown was full of possibility and promise. Today, when the sun sets, the Miller Theater disappears into the darkness. Motorists and pedestrians pass by without a second glance. It is unlikely many consider the events that took place at this very same location on September 18, 1957: the world premiere of a major motion picture from 20th Century Fox. A typical Wednesday evening for most Augustans, many families were likely heading to mid-week services at their local church. Television news was covering Eisenhower’s most recent acts of diplomacy. Elvis Presley was crooning through the speakers of every teen’s radio set. Augustans eager to catch a glimpse of Woodward at the film’s premiere were sadly disappointed. Busy filming re-takes for another picture, Woodward thanked the audience in a pre-recorded segment that aired just before the film. Several other Hollywood notables were in attendance: writer/director Nunnally Johnson, narrator and notable television journalist Alistair Cooke, as well as several representatives from 20th Century Fox. “The Augusta Chronicle” deemed the premiere “a smash.” Thigpen and Cleckley were honored during a special “Patron’s Dinner” preceding the premiere, which was held at the Bon Air Hotel (today the Bon Air Apartments on Walton Way). They were also presented with matching plaques, courtesy of Spyros P. Skouras, then-president of 20th Century Fox, to thank the doctors for their “outstanding contribution to the motion picture industry and the world at large.” GEORGIA REGENTS UNIVERSITY

Jim Davis, a local radio and television news anchor, served as master of ceremonies for the Patron’s Dinner and premiere. During an interview recorded in September 2007, Davis recounted the events from that celebrated evening. “It was very exciting; through Ft. Gordon, they acquired two huge search lights and placed them in the center median in front of the Miller. It was very Hollywood!” Davis said. “It was beautifully staged, and it was a fun thing to be a part of.” The guests of honor arrived at the Miller Theater not by limousine, but by Edsel sedan, which had arrived on the market only a few months earlier. Tickets to the full event sold for as little as $10. General admission for the film, which did not include the Patron’s Dinner, was just $2.50. Wayne Thigpen, eldest son of Dr. Thigpen, was only 10 years old when the film premiered.

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“It was very exciting,” he recounts. “We were seated in the middle of the theater with my grandparents. I specifically recall my little brother, Mark, saying in a loud whisper that everyone could hear, ‘Where’s my daddy? Where’s my daddy in this movie?’ My grandmother pointed out the actor Lee J. Cobb, who played Dr. Luther. But Mark said, ‘That’s not my daddy — he doesn’t smoke a cigar!’” Wayne remembers his father flying out to Hollywood at least a handful of times to meet with Johnson, the director. Dr. Thigpen was adamant that Hollywood’s portrayal be as close to the truth as possible. “The movie tracks the book almost 100 percent,” Wayne says. “Daddy was very pleased with it.” The dinner and premiere also made a big impression upon young Connor Dyess Smith, the 21-year-old niece of Dr. Cleckley, who was invited to attend at the request of her uncle “Bubber,” her affectionate name for him.

“He was like a father to me,” she says, recalling the passing of her own father when she was a young girl. Smith says Cleckley showed her actual footage of “Eve” swapping between her various personalities. And while psychiatry did not fascinate Smith, attending the world premiere most certainly did. “Everybody in Augusta was there!” she says. “The Miller was beautiful in those days, and afterwards they had a party in the Richmond Hotel.” The movie went on to perform only modestly at the box office, but today is considered a classic.

The Reality “The Three Faces of Eve” bathed Thigpen and Cleckley in attention, and

not all of it was positive. There was skepticism about the disorder, and followers of Freudian theory challenged their findings and their competence as physicians. Thigpen and Cleckley also encountered criticism due to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding Sizemore. Sizemore unknowingly signed away all rights to her story to 20th Century Fox in 1956, while still a patient of Thigpen’s. She sued the studio and won; the contract listed “Eve White,” “Eve Black,” and “Jane” under her signature, making it difficult for them to make the case she was “of sound mind” at the time. The win enabled Sizemore to break her silence, which she did in 1977

with her book “I’m Eve.” According to Sizemore, at the height of her illness, well after completing treatment with Thigpen and Cleckley, she suffered from more than 20 different personalities, each battling for control of her psyche. It was nearly two decades after the premiere of the movie before she was truly rid of the disease.

Golden Anniversary Sizemore was absent from the movie’s world premiere in Augusta. Happily, 50 years later, she was given the opportunity to walk the red carpet during the golden anniversary of the film’s premiere. On September 18, 2007 – a Tuesday evening – crowds flooded Broad Street once again. The Miller was undergoing

Dr. Thigpen and Dr .

Cleckley

renovations, so the film was screened at the Imperial Theatre, just a football field away. As at the world premiere, the guests of honor arrived via Edsel sedan. Michael Deas, former member of the Imperial Theatre’s Board of Directors and mastermind behind the 50th-anniversary screening, says the idea of hosting such an event came to mind one day as he was snooping around the Miller Theater and discovered artifacts related to the original world premiere. Deas met with fellow boardmember Jim Davis – the very same Davis who served as master of ceremonies for the film’s premiere – and the two discussed details and logistics. The biggest challenge, Deas says, was locating Sizemore. “She was disappointed that [years

theatres, the passage of time is quickly erasing the people and places so closely entwined with this groundbreaking story: Thigpen and Cleckley passed away before the turn of the century; Jim Davis passed away just this past year. The Miller is no longer the shrine to cinema it once was. But the legacy of Thigpen and Cleckley remains, the story of “Eve” still fascinates, and Augusta’s Hollywood heyday can still be invoked in photographs and memories. n

ago] this glamorous evening had taken place, but she couldn’t attend,” he says. “I wanted to celebrate the anniversary with her, the way it should have been 50 years ago.” Deas did connect with Sizemore, who was living in Florida at the time, and she was eager to attend. “She said her life was complete after coming to the 50th-anniversary screening,” Deas says. Deas invited several original attendees in addition to Davis: Emily Remington, the organist who provided music during the Patron’s Dinner and premiere; and Robert Symms, former photographer for The Augusta Chronicle, who photographed them. Nearly 60 years after “The Three Faces of Eve” swept bookstores and Sizemo

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Photo

Special thanks to Dr. Lee Ann Caldwell, Director of the Center for the Study of Georgia History, and Librarian Renee Sharrock for their help with resources and research for this story.

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COLLEGE CATCH-UP College of Allied Health Sciences The college continues to extend its clinical reach with the implementation of a clinician educator track model, allowing expansion of much-needed patient services in the Low Vision Rehabilitation Clinic. The college also recently launched the Clinic for Prosthetic Restoration under the direction of Amanda Behr, one of only two people in the country certified in both medical illustration and clinical anaplastology, a branch of medicine dealing with the prosthetic rehabilitation of absent or disfigured parts of the face or body. n

GEORGIA REGENTS UNIVERSITY

g r u .e d u /co l l e g e s

College of Dental Medicine

College of Education

After serving as AVP of Student Affairs, Dr. Kevin Frazier has returned to the College of Dental Medicine as Vice Dean. Frazier joined the college’s faculty in 1995 and has since focused on developing opportunities for others in service and leadership. Frazier helped found the CDM’s White Coat Ceremony and the now-consolidated GRU chapter of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. He is also founder and advisor of the student service honor society, Alpha Upsilon Phi.

The College of Education is working with the Richmond County School System to help better prepare future teachers. With the support of a grant from the Georgia Network for Transforming Educator Preparation, the college is launching a two-year pilot program that involves faculty working with P-12 school officials to provide professional development and directly supervise teacher candidates. College officials hope to expand the initiative to other schools and districts in the future. n

The Graduate School

Just four years after its founding, the Hispanic Student Dental Association at Georgia Regents University has been named 2014 National Outstanding Student Chapter of the Year by the national Hispanic Dental Association for exemplary leadership in organizing activities to provide service, education, and advocacy in Hispanic oral health. The chapter was recognized at the Hispanic Dental Association’s 24th annual conference in Las Vegas Aug. 23. n

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The Graduate School welcomed more than 300 new and 700 returning students this fall semester as they entered challenging and diverse programs leading to master’s, Specialist in Education, and doctoral degrees. At The Graduate School Welcome Back Reception, Dean Watsky presented the first annual Dean’s Doctoral Fellowship awards to three outstanding new PhD students, Brittany Crowe, Rachel Roberts, and Lia Taylor. n

COLLEGE CATCH-UP Hull College of Business Dr. Michael Dugan, the Director for the Master of Public Administration program at the University of Southern Mississippi, was named the Peter S. Knox III Distinguished Chair in Accounting for the Hull College of Business, effective Aug. 18. Dugan is an award-winning author whose work on predictive ability and market-based research in financial accounting has been featured in numerous publications. Dugan received his bachelor’s degree from the University of New Orleans, and he earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. n

The Medical College of Georgia The Medical College of Georgia, the state’s public medical school, started its new year with 230 new students – the nation’s eighth largest freshman medical school class – representing nine states and 47 Georgia counties. “This is a bright, already accomplished, and well-rounded group of medical students, and we are so pleased to have them here,” said Dr. Peter F. Buckley, MCG Dean. n

The 230 students in the 2014 entering class have diverse educational backgrounds, including: 70 biology 17 biochemistry 15 biomedical engineering 2 cell biology 18 chemistry 2 economics 2 engineering 2 English 7 genetics 2 history 8 microbiology 13 neuroscience 2 premedical 16 psychology 1 sociology Other majors include biomedical science, Spanish, finance, humanities, animal science, anthropology, chemical engineering, health promotion, Latin, mathematics, music, nursing, nutrition, philosophy, and physics.

Applications Received: Total applications received 2,684 Entering students enrolled 230 Ratio of applicants to enrollees 11.7 to 1 Class Average: Overall GPA 3.73 Science GPA 3.68 Mean MCAT score 31.3 Class Details: 98 Women 132 Men 219 Georgia Residents 11 Nonresidents 190 Students-Augusta campus 40 Students-GRU/UGA Medical Partnership-Athens 5 Students-M.D./Ph.D. program.

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College of Nursing Dr. Beth NeSmith, Associate Professor and former Director of the GRU College of Nursing PhD Program, was named Chair of the Department of Physiological and Technical Nursing. The PTN Department houses the Nursing Anesthesia, Clinical Nurse Leader, and PhD in Nursing programs, and the CON Simulation Center. As Chair, NeSmith will partner with program directors, department faculty, and staff associates to manage faculty development, practice, education, and scholarship. n

College of Science and Mathematics The College of Science and Mathematics welcomed 29 freshmen into the Medical Scholars Program and four into the Dental Scholars Program. These programs attract outstanding students and afford them the opportunity to achieve their BS and MD or BS and DMD degrees in only seven years. In each instance, students will spend their first three years in pursuit of the Bachelor of Science in Cell and Molecular Biology through the Department of Biological Sciences. n

Pamplin College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Dr. Wesley Kisting, Associate Professor of English, was named Assistant Dean of the Pamplin College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. In 2013, he helped launch Knowledge Integrated (KNIT), a university initiative that aims to give our students a more cohesive and engaging core curriculum. KNIT enables participating faculty to collaborate between disciplines and relate coursework to assignments in other participating core classes. Directed by Kisting, the program is supported by 26 faculty members from eight fields, and impacted more than 200 students during the 2013-14 academic year. n

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NOMINATE

A Young Alum for the 2015

Jag20 recognizes 20 outstanding alumni under the age of 40 who are emerging leaders, making an impact in their field and in their community.

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December 1, 2014

NOMINATION C RITERIA + FORM grualumni.com/jag20 For questions or additional information, contact the Alumni Office at 706.737.1759 or alumni@gru.edu

ALUMNI ADVOCACY GRU Summer Interns Four GRU political science students served as Congressional interns on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., this summer, earning course credit and invaluable experience. They served in the offices of Georgia Representatives Tom Graves, John Barrow, Doug Collins, and Jack Kingston and Senator Saxby Chambliss.

Interns Andrew Sprankle, Victoria Resnick, Sana Tafro, and Joshua Ibarra.

The eight-week scholarship program provided the interns the opportunity to experience the workings of the federal government firsthand and learn the art and practice of politics, while expanding their contacts. The ultimate goal of the GRU Congressional internship program is to help students identify career options and find employment upon graduation. The program is open to all students. To learn more, visit gru.edu/gov/internships.php.

Washington, D.C.-Area Alumni Network

GRU President Dr. Ricardo Azziz meets with U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss.

The GRU Alumni Advocacy staff is working to facilitate meetings and foster connections among alumni who live in the Washington, D.C., area. In early June, about 40 alumni had the opportunity to meet each other and with Georgia federal legislative delegation staff members. The event coincided with a visit to our nationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capital from GRU President Ricardo Azziz. The first annual event is intended to help build support in Washington for GRU and for issues related to higher education. Visit the GRU Washington, D.C.-area alumni groupâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Facebook page to connect with fellow alums at facebook.com/ groups/174131899444072/.

Dr. Azziz addresses Washington D.C.-area alumni.

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AT A GLANCE 2014

U.S. Alumni Distribution WA 270 MT 55

OR 165

ID 51 WY 18 NV 87

UT 87

CA 737

MN 99

SD 19

VT WI 88 IA 70

NE 53

CO 304

AZ 227

ME 58

ND 9

KS 88

NM 83

MI 164 IL 221

MO 166 OK 100

LA 229

AK 47

OH 296

IN 155 KY 240

MS 179

GA 32,825

AL 852

87%

MA CT RI

162 89 29

142

MD DE WV 64

9 28

VA 893

DC 46

381

NC 1,888 SC 4,522

FL 2,153

HI 62

SOUTHEAST

PA 299

TN 1,129

AR 94

TX 991

NY 320

NORTHEAST

Total: 1,558

Total: 45,114

NORTHWEST

Total: 687

SOUTHWEST

Total: 2,766

MIDWEST

Total: 1,269

INTERNATIONAL

Total: 378

U.S. TERRITORIES

.1%

Total: 69

GEORGIA REGENTS UNIVERSITY

Alumni by College

Alumni by Decade

2000-09 2010-19

5,883 12,264

1990-99

11,673

1970-79 1980-89

9,600

1,636

1920-29 1930-39 1940-49 1950-59 1960-69

8,290

516

155

* Data as of June 2014 for alumni living and located. Some data points are not available. G Ra v i t y FA L L 2 0 1 4

Class Yea

GROWING GRU I’m Giving. Are You? The answer? Yes!

In an inspiring show of enthusiasm and support, donors — which included alumni, community members, and GRU faculty, staff, and students — opened their hearts and wallets to make the 2014 annual fall giving campaign a resounding success. On October 10, the final tally was announced to an enthusiastic crowd at the Alumni BBQ on our Summerville Campus: The campaign, led by Augusta businessman Rick Toole, raised a grand total of $879,596, surpassing its ambitious goal by 10 percent. Thanks to everyone who gave so generously! From day one, when faculty and staff pledged half again as much as last year, the IGRU campaign exceeded expectations. Final faculty/staff donations totaled $300,941 — a rousing vote of confidence and support for the vision we all share for the future of Georgia Regents University and GRHealth. Enjoy these photos from some of the many fun events that marked the multiweek campaign. To make a gift, please visit giving.gru.edu/igru.

GROWING GRU

Over the course of a Dr. Emile T. Fisher lifetime, through countless Roots: Born in 1923, Dr. Fisher grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, choices, big and small, the oldest of four children whose parents emigrated from Lebanon. in his teens, he worked 80-hour weeks at Wilmington’s we select our priorities, Beginning shipyard earning $2 an hour. He saved every dime for six years, when he we determine our values, finally had enough money to attend college. we create a life. Meet a Education: He earned his bachelor’s man who, throughout degree from Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, North Carolina, his life, has consistently, ingraduating in 1948. From there he generously, and most earned his DMD at the now-defunct Emory University School of Dentistry in admirably, created a life of Atlanta. He completed post-doctoral work service to others. in periodontics at Northwestern University’s School of Dentistry, also since closed.

GEORGIA REGENTS UNIVERSITY

Community service: For nearly 60 years, Dr. Fisher has volunteered at the Ben Massell Clinic in Atlanta, providing dental services to the indigent. When he started in 1956, he was the first specialist to volunteer at the clinic.

new building was required to educate them. Dr. Fisher joined the fundraising steering committee to attract private financial support, and he personally contributed $1 million to the building fund. The beautiful 3-story atrium of the resulting new College of Dental Medicine bears his name. Visionary: He persuaded the Georgia Dental Association to establish a foundation to fund scholarships for students pursuing dental medicine careers in Georgia. Largely through his tireless efforts, the foundation, which bears his name, has a current endowment of well over $1 million and provides more than $50,000 in scholarships each year to our future dentists and dental hygienists.

Dr. Fisher and GRU: He met Dr. Jud Hickey, the founding Dean of what is now the GRU College of Dental Medicine in the mid-‘60s, and began a lifelong connection as a donor, a clinical faculty member, and a friend. An ardent advocate in the face of strong opposition to creating a state-supported dental school, Dr. Fisher was instrumental in establishing Georgia’s only dental school right here on our campus.

Awards: • In 2007, MCG presented him its highest award, the Vessel of Life Award. • In January 2013, the Ben Massell Dental Clinic honored Dr. Fisher for his decades of service to the clinic at its 100-year gala celebration. • At GRU’s 2014 commencement, President Ricardo Azziz conferred upon Dr. Emile T. Fisher the Doctor of Human Letters degree.

Dr. Fisher’s Impact on GRU Years of service: Nearly 50 Scholarships personally funded: More than 200 Scholarship total: Approximately $250,000 CDM scholarships through the Emile T. Fisher Foundation: More than $1 million Total lifetime giving: More than $1.5 million For more information on supporting CDM scholarships, please contact Michael S. Kessler, AVP for Campaign and Major Gifts at (706) 721-3302.

45 years of scholarship support: In 1969, he wrote an $825 check to fund the first scholarship for a dental student, which provided the grateful student a full ride. In the 45 years since, Dr. Fisher has funded scholarships every year, transforming the lives of more than 200 students. For each of the past 20 years, seven young men and women have benefited from his generosity through his personal gifts of scholarships. Generous investor: When the state decided more dentists were needed, a G Ra v i t y FA L L 2 0 1 4

Dr. Fisher and Dr. Carole Hanes greet students at the 2011 grand opening of the new College of Dental Medicine building.

CLASS NOTES

Have exciting news or photos to share?

1960s

DR. GREGORY GOGGANS (DMD ’84) was named to the Georgia Board of Dentistry by Gov. Nathan Deal. Goggans is an orthodontist and part owner of Fender-Goggans Orthodontics in Douglas, Georgia.

DR. LAWRENCE L. ALLEN (MD ’60) was honored with a proclamation designating July 11, 2014, as “Dr. L.L. Allen Day” in the City of Thomaston, Georgia, upon his retirement from practicing medicine there over the last 50 years.

DR. MICHAEL HOLLIFIELD (MD ’88) serves as a sergeant in the Hall County Sheriff’s Office reserve unit and an emergency medicine doctor in the Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, Georgia. Hollifield, who served in the Rabun County Sheriff’s Office for 20 years before attending MCG, offers his law enforcement expertise free of charge as a way to give back to his community.

DR. MAHFOUZ EL SHAHAWY (MFRI ’69; MFRI ’73), Medical Director of the Cardiovascular Health Assessment Center in Sarasota, Florida, and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Universities of Florida and South Florida, was honored by the University of Vienna, Austria, with the Golden Doctor Diploma for his achievements in early cardiovascular disease prevention, including more than 100 discoveries, publications, and lectures.

1970s BARBARA MOSKOWITZ (BS, Medical Technology ’72) was honored with the naming of the Barbara Moskowitz Gallery in the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. Moskowitz is Chairwoman of the 18-member Turchin Center Advisory Board. DR. MARION BROOME (BSN ’73) was named Dean of Duke University’s School of Nursing. Broome is Editor of Nursing Outlook, the official journal of the American Academy of Nursing and the Council for the Advancement of Nursing Science, and a 1988 Distinguished Alumna for GRU’s College of Nursing. SANFORD M. TOOLE (MA, Psychology ’77; BSN ’86) is Clinical Director of Anesthesia for FirstHealth of the Carolinas in Pinehurst, North Carolina.

DAVID W. RETTERBUSH (MD ’77) was elected Chairman of the Georgia Composite Medical Board effective July 2014. Retterbush practices general surgery at South Georgia Medical Center in Valdosta, Georgia, where he has served as Chief of Staff and Chairman of the Department of Surgery. He is board certified by the American Board of Surgery. DR. SUNNY LAUBER (MD ’79) has affiliated with Melissa Memorial Hospital in Holyoke, Colorado, specializing in family medicine. DR. JAMES ROSS (MD ’79) was named Facility Medical Director of First Choice Emergency Room’s new Spring-Gleannloch facility in Spring, Texas. Ross is board certified in Emergency Medicine with more than 30 years of experience.

1980s

DR. MAX C. POOLE (PhD, Endocrinology ’78) was named Dean of the Cratis D. Williams Graduate School at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina.

DR. MICHAEL MITCHELL (MD ’82) opened a solo practice, Turkey Creek Internal Medicine, in Knoxville, Tennessee, as a division of Summit Medical Group.

1990s DR. SCOTT MILLER (MD ’90) was named to Atlanta magazine’s 2014 list of Top Doctors, the sixth year he has been named to this annual list. Miller is a urologic laparoscopist specializing exclusively in laparoscopic and robotic urologic surgery. DR. M. MICHELLE BERREY (MD ’93) was named to the Board of Directors of biopharmaceutical company Chimerix Inc. Berrey is also President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Medical Officer of Chimerix. DR. SUSAN C. LEE (MD ’94) joined the Floyd Primary Care Network in Rockmart, Georgia. DR. SANJEEV SAXENA (MD ’96) was named to BBVA Compass’ advisory board in Fort Payne, Alabama, to help support the bank’s business and development efforts.

ELEANOR HOWELL (BSN ’79) was named Dean of the Ida V. Moffett School of Nursing at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Howell was previously Dean of Nursing for Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. LYNN JACKSON (BSN ’78), Administrator of Northside Hospital-Forsyth in Cumming, Georgia, was the speaker at the University of North Georgia’s summer commencement on August 2 at the university’s Dahlonega Campus.

DR. KURT MARKGRAF (MD ’87) received the Florida Society of Anesthesiologists’ top honor, the Distinguished Service Award, at the organization’s annual conference in June. Markgraf is Chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at Lee Memorial Hospital and a partner at Medical Anesthesia and Pain Management Associates in Fort Myers, Florida.

DR. STEVEN E. KITCHEN (MD ’85) was recently appointed Chief Medical Officer at Phoebe Putney Health Systems in Albany, Georgia, after 25 years of private practice in obstetrics and gynecology.

WENDY S. JACOBS (MEd ’96) is the new Principal at North Augusta Elementary School in North Augusta, South Carolina. Jacobs was previously Principal at North Augusta Middle School.

GEORGIA REGENTS UNIVERSITY

We would love to add your class note. Email us: alumni@gru.edu

2000s

Congratulations to the five finalists for the 2014 Columbia County Teacher of the Year Award – all GRU College of Education graduates:

DR. AMY MCCLURE (BSEd ’03; MEd ’05; EdS ’07) was appointed Principal of Belvedere Elementary School in Belvedere, South Carolina. McClure was formerly Assistant Principal at Mossy Creek Elementary in North Augusta, South Carolina.. DR. JOSHUA L. GARRETT (MD ’04) was recently named Chief of Staff at Habersham Medical Center in Demorest, Georgia. Garrett owns Garrett Family Medicine and also practices emergency medicine in Demorest. CARA PEOPLES MILLER (BSEd, Health and Physical Education and Health & PE Teacher Education ’05) earned a spot on the Atlanta Falcons cheerleading squad. Miller is one of 12 newcomers on the 36-member squad. DR. SOL GUERRERO (MFRI ’06) joined Tenet Florida Physician Services and opened an office in Boca Raton, Florida. Guerrero completed her internal medicine internship and residency, as well as fellowship training in endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism, at MCG. She was awarded “Resident of the Year” in 2009. CAROLYN CLEVENGER (DNP ’07) is Director of the Fuld Palliative Care Fellowship Program at Emory University’s School of Nursing. Clevenger will oversee efforts to develop nurse leaders who provide comprehensive care to those with life-threatening and chronic illnesses. LAUREN DANIEL (BSDH ’08) married Dr. George William Rauton IV of Johnston, South Carolina, in October. DR. JEREMY CARDINAL (MD ’08) joined TRA Medical Imaging in Tacoma, Washington, as a radiologist specializing in neuroimaging including the brain, spine, head, and neck.

KIM BUCHANAN (MEd ’07), AP language arts teacher at Grovetown High School MICHAEL KONOMOS (Medical Illustration ’06) and ANDY MATLOCK (Medical Illustration ’98) are part of a team at Emory University that created the app “Surgical Anatomy of the Liver,” which won an Award of Excellence at this year’s annual Association of Medical Illustrators conference. The app enables surgical residents and medical students to more easily construct a three-dimensional mental map of the liver than with traditional textbook illustrations. Konomos, who previously worked in MCG Cardiology, leads Emory’s Visual Medical Education team, which creates visual tools to improve educational and health outcomes. Matlock created the app’s animations. Visit medapps.emory.edu/surgical-anatomy-of-theliver for more information. for LLS. He currently works for Feather Touch Dental in Atlanta, Georgia, and is the official team dentist for the Georgia State Panthers. DR. TROY HEIDESCH (DNP ’09) was appointed Richards Endowed Chair of Graduate Nursing at Brenau University’s School of Nursing in Gainesville, Georgia. EVAN MOON (BSN, Community Health ’09) married Emily Rebecca Lambert on July 20 at Point Dillon Park and Lawn in Dillon, Colorado.

DR. BRET JOINER (DPT ’08) is the Clinic Director and partner in ownership of the newly opened TherapySouth physical therapy clinic in Athens, Georgia.

DR. HANS CARLSON (MD ’09) joined Carolina Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) and will have offices in Greenville and Simpsonville in South Carolina.

DR. COREY HARKINS (MD ’08) joined Plastic Surgery Center of the South in Marietta, Georgia, as a plastic surgeon.

2010s

DR. PAUL D. LANE JR. (MD ’08) joined Valdosta Orthopedic Associates as an orthopedic surgeon and affiliated with South Georgia Medical Center in Valdosta, Georgia. DR. NEAL SHAH (DMD ’09) was awarded the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Georgia Chapter’s Man of the Year award. Shah raised over $87,000 G Ra v i t y FA L L 2 0 1 4

PHYLLIS GAMBLE (MEd , Educational Leadership ’10) was named principal of North Augusta Middle School. Gamble was previously assistant principal at the school for one year and prior to that was a special education teacher. JAKE AMOS (BA, Sociology ’10) joined Purdue University’s golf program as assistant coach. Amos was a member of the Augusta State programs that won NCAA Championships in 2010 and 2011.

KAREN COLLINS (BA ’87; MEd ’90; EdS ’99), math teacher at Harlem Middle School IZABELLA KEAN (EdS ’13), art teacher at Greenbrier Elementary School ANNE TUCKER (BSEd ’95; MEd ’07; EdS ’09), physical education teacher at Lewiston Elementary School REBECCA WALLS (BSEd ’03; EdS ’09), third grade teacher at Euchee Creek Elementary School

HENRIK NORLANDER (BBA, Marketing ’11) recently earned medalist honors and a spot in the U.S. Open Championship at a 36-hole qualifier. Norlander is a former Augusta State University All-American. DR. ERIN H. MEEKS (MD ’11) joined the medical staff at the Emory Clark-Holder Clinic in LaGrange, Georgia. DR. MATTHEW FARMER (MD ’11; MFRI ’14) is an internal medicine specialist at Athens Internal Medicine Associates in Athens, Georgia. DR. CLAY MCCOLLUM (DPT ’11), a physical therapist with Floyd Physical Therapy & Rehab in Rome, Georgia, earned a Sports Certified Specialist designation. McCollum is one of 28 such specialists in Georgia. DR. TRISH HALL (MD ’11) is a family medicine physician at Upson Family Physicians in Thomaston, Georgia. A.L. PATTERSON (BA, Social Work ’13) selfpublished “Ascension,” a young adult novel about teenagers who are given telekinetic powers. Published through Amazon Digital Services, “Ascension” is available as an e-book.

IN MEMORIAM Benjamin Barrow (MD ’58)

Louise Shivers

Ronald Bell (DFRI, Orthodontic Dentistry ’87)

Writer in Residence, Friend in Heart

Anne Berlin (BA, History ’83)

By Tom Turner

Sharon Bickert (MEd ’82; EDS, Administration and Supervision ’86) Joseph Blissit (MD ’56) Jack Buchanan Jr. (DMD ’76) Mary Anna Buckley (Augusta College ’42) Robert L. DeWitt (BS, Physics ’85) Hugh Dyke (AACC, Education ’77) Kathleen Engler (BSN, ’79; BA, Art ’81) Evelyn Etheredge (BSN, ’79) Shirley Fleeman (BA, Sociology ’97) Laurie Gowen (BSN ’87) F. Gary Harned (MBA ’79) Ralph Herndon Sr. (BS, Health Information Management ’65) Mary Horder (MD ’72) Ben Hunley (MD ’84) Nancy Jessee (ASN, Nursing ’96; AAS, Criminal Justice ’96) Mary Alice King (BS, Special Education ’74; EdS, Administration and Guidance ’91) Louis Leopold (MD ’55; MFRI ’59) Billy Luke (MD ’59) Virginia Lybrand (BSN ’75) Louise McMahon (BA, Sociology ’71) William Minter III (MD ’66; MFRI, Anesthesiology ’72) Thomas Pirkle (MD ’56) Carol Pryor (MD ’47) David Smith (BBA ’69) Linda Stewart (ASCC, Nursing ’89) Kathie Stone (BS ’97) Mary Taylor (BS, Radiological Tech ’75) Beverly Ward (BSN ’75; MSN ’79) Linda Williams (ASCC, Nursing ’79)

When Louise Shivers died on July 26, 2014, she had been GRU’s writer-in-residence for more than 30 years. Of her many honors, this was the one she cherished most — that the world would know an accomplished writer resided on the university’s campus in Augusta, Georgia. Though friendly and generous by nature, Louise always thought of herself as “a private person in a crowded place.” She began in a downstairs corner of Summerville’s Reese Library where her friend Lillian Wan served as her assistant and the guardian of her professional calendar. Whether writing student or New York editor, the way to Louise was through Lillian. Only occasional nutcases attempted to bypass this simple protocol, always at their peril. From the beginning, I was privileged to be her first reader, honored that she called me her writing partner, and touched and proud that she dedicated her first novel to me. That is the honor I cherish most. Part of a writer-in-residence’s function is to share professional insight, and Louise was masterful at this. She assumed that anyone serious about writing was a lover of literature and life already, so her principal theme was: “Tell the story only you can tell.” When Louise’s “Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail” leaped above the nation’s other 76 first novels that debuted in the spring of 1983, she was quoted in Library Journal: “As I wrote, my own voice became stronger. I started to clear hypocrisy from my life. The worst hypocrisy is a lie in the name of poetry. Before I could get my story right, I had to clear out the hanging bats of deceit.” Along with John Keats, Louise Shivers believed truth is beauty and beauty truth. Her life was a tender yet strong example. Contributions honoring the memory of Louise Shivers may be made to The Will Shingleton Creative Writing Scholarship Fund, GRU English Department, 2500 Walton Way, Augusta Georgia, 30904.

GEORGIA REGENTS UNIVERSITY

The GRU Department of Music is pleased to announce the appointment of

Dr. Connie Drisko A Dear Friend

By Dr. Carol A. Lefebvre, Dean, College of Dental Medicine

So many labels applied to the late Dr. Connie L. Drisko – tireless advocate for Georgia Regents University, fierce champion of oral health, outstanding leader, exceptional dentist — but somehow, “dear friend” is the one that resonates most. Connie, who died June 22 at Georgia Regents Medical Center after a battle with acute myelogenous leukemia, added a personal touch to every endeavor. Whether she was overseeing construction of our dental school’s state-of-the-art clinical facility, recruiting faculty, cultivating our students’ success, growing our research mission, or performing any of the myriad roles she fulfilled so admirably, Connie was above all a people person. Every endeavor, every goal, every mission was characterized by connections and relationships. Her warm smile, hearty laugh, and huge heart were always front and center. Those with whom she interacted knew she cared not only about the issues she was championing, but about them as individuals. She inquired about their children, empathized with their struggles, and celebrated their achievements. Relationships didn’t advance her goals; they defined them. How fortunate we are to count ourselves among the many people whose lives she touched. If you would like to help perpetuate her remarkable legacy, please consider making a donation in her name to “Dick and Connie’s Kids,” the Drisko Children’s Dental Services Fund at the Georgia Health Sciences Foundation, 1120 15th St., FI-1000, Augusta, Georgia, 30912. Your donation will support the College of Dental Medicine’s pediatric dentistry outreach programs and other efforts related to the oral health needs of children. Nothing would have pleased her more.

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Office of Advancement 1120 15th Street, FI-1000 Augusta, Georgia 30912

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Parents: If this issue is addressed to a son or daughter who no longer lives at home, please send the correct address to alumni@gru.edu. facebook.com/GeorgiaRegentsU & facebook.com/GRUJaguarNation

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GEORGIA REGENTS UNIVERSITY