The GēDUNK Summer 2015

GROVE CITY COLLEGE ALUMNI MAGAZINE

Summer 2015

LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP Grove City College builds on a legacy for the challenges of the 21st century

THE INAUGURATION OF PAUL J. MCNULTY ’80

GROVE CITY MATTERS CAMPAIGN SURPASSES GOAL

BEANIE BABIES - DID YOU WEAR A DINK?

EXCELLENCE

Emily Rabenold ’16 bounds over a hurdle while running the steeplechase on the Robert Thorn Field track in May. Emily, of Allison Park, Pa., was named Sportswoman of the Year in the spring and is an NCAA All American and an Academic All American Athlete.

M ESSAG E

G

FR O M

rowing up in Western Pennsylvania, I viewed rancorous labor-management disputes as another unpleasant part of life. In my senior year of high school in 1975, a five-week-long teachers’ strike left us starting school on Oct. 6, and this was followed by a school bus driver and cafeteria worker strike later in the year. A little research on these events unearthed a disturbing quote from one union leader who bragged that the ensuing chaos for parents and students trying to get to school was a sign of success for their cause. Really?

That must have been part of the reason why I became interested in the story of Wayne Alderson and the “Miracle of Pittron” when I was student at Grove City College. Mr. Alderson, the late father of my friend Nancy (Alderson ’78) McDonnell (profiled in this issue), is the subject of the book Man of Steel written by R.C. Sproul. It documents Mr. Alderson’s courageous success in demonstrating the redemptive power of the gospel and a transformed management style in the turbulent world of a Pittsburgh-area steel factory during a time of heightened labor-management strife. Through his Value of the Person program, Mr. Alderson employed the virtues of love, dignity and respect to change the way management treated plant workers. As he stood at the factory gate at the end of a shift and thanked tired, lunch-box toting laborers for their day’s work, he communicated an invaluable truth: You matter.

I attended a Value of the Person prayer breakfast in downtown Pittsburgh. I read Sproul’s book. I formed a conviction about this simple, common sense truth: Christian leadership requires valuing everyone in an organization. A leader is called to love those with whom he or she works, to treat others with unfailing respect.

When people know they are valued, they are far more likely to serve with dedication and excellence and promote the best interests of the organization.

In this issue you will read a lot about leadership. This past year has been a unique opportunity for the College community to focus on our extraordinary legacy of leadership from our founding to the present. We were also blessed by the wisdom and experience of special guests, including John Ashcroft, Ken Starr and Frank Wolf. They challenged us to be faithful to our core convictions and be ready to face courageously our future challenges. These and other lessons in leadership are presented in the pages that follow. Allow me, therefore, to offer this first thought as you make your way forward.

4 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

TH E

P R ES ID EN T

When I became the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, I was entrusted at an extremely challenging time with the management of a large group of public servants on the front lines of our criminal justice system. Remembering the leadership lesson I received three decades earlier, I established a new motto for the office: “People Matter.”

Our mission in the months ahead would require remarkable dedication and self-sacrifice (little did I know how true that would be.) Every person on our team, from star prosecutors to clerical personnel, needed to know they were appreciated. And while words are important, this sentiment needed to be backed up with tangible actions of support and encouragement. I learned that an effective leader must be tirelessly devoted to the work of affirmation, especially of those who faithfully serve behind the scenes so that others may succeed in more visible positions.

I guess it’s pretty basic. Christ calls us to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves. Yet how often are we tempted to let our zeal for success override our regard for the well-being of others engaged in the pursuit of this success. When Wayne Alderson convinced labor and management that they needed each other to be successful, Pittron reached new heights of profitability. At the core of Christian leadership is the call to trust God for the outcome of our efforts and focus instead on the means employed for achieving positive results. Let this be the Grove City way of doing business.

Paul J. McNulty ’80 President

Summer 2015

’mid the pages

The installation of Grove City College President Paul J. McNulty ’80 celebrated and examined past and present leadership of the College.

LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP

Grove City College is an educational and spiritual leader in the world of higher education and our alumni carry that leadership potential with them throughout their lives in their workplaces, homes, communities and churches. In this issue we look at how the College is fostering future leaders, our own legacy of leadership and the leadership roles alumni play. Stories begin on page 28.

DEPARTMENTS 8 | Grove City Matters Capital campaign surpasses goal 10 | Upfront News about the College, Alumni, Faculty and Students 34 | From the Archives Freshmen of yesteryear had to don a dink 36 | Class Notes Find out what fellow alumni are doing 44 | In Memory Friends we’ve lost and remember 48 | Alumni Babies Introducing our newest Grovers 50 | Faith & Learning A faculty perspective

Connect with us:

Our cover features a close up of the statue of J. Howard Pew, class of 1900, in the Harbison Chapel Garden and illustrates our theme of “Lessons in Leadership.”

Pew dedicated much of his adult life – and a significant part of his fortune – to guiding Grove City College. During his nearly 60 years on the College’s Board of Trustees he provided a living bridge between the generation of the College’s founders and the reformers of the modern era. We’ve looked to Pew as touchstone in this issue, highlighting his thoughts and words throughout the magazine.

The statue was a gift from former College President Richard G. Jewell ’67 and his wife Dayl.

The GēDUNK, a magazine published three times a year for alumni and friends of Grove City College, highlights campus news, student features and alumni achievements. Named after the on-campus gathering place / snack bar for students since the early 1950s, the word Gedunk made its way into the Grove City College vernacular when Korean War Navy veterans returned to campus, bringing the term with them. The name stuck. For decades, the Grove City College Gedunk has been the place to come together to share news and ideas, live and learn, and this magazine strives to connect our family in similar style.

t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 5

ME S S A G E

FR OM

THE

DI RECTOR

OF

A LU MN I

R ELATIO N S EDITORIAL BOARD Jeffrey Prokovich ’89 Vice President for Advancement Melissa (Trifaro ’96) MacLeod Senior Director of Alumni and College Relations Jacki Muller Senior Director of Marketing and Communications

Dear Alumni and Friends,

C

ongratulations and welcome to our newest Alumni Association members! 2015 graduates, you join a group of more than 27,000 living alumni who have walked the paths and halls you have and are now making their marks in the world. We can’t wait to see you do the same! It is my hope that as you take these first steps into life after graduation, that you will remember fondly your time at Grove City College, what you’ve learned and been given, both in knowledge and in relationships.

How will you show your pride in your alma mater? Will you tell your Grove City College story? Will you stay connected? Will you support Grove City College?

There are four simple things you can do to help us and in turn, I hope, build a lifelong relationship with your alma mater that will allow us to help you and support you throughout your life: Engage and Serve – Come to Homecoming, visit campus, speak in a class, recruit on campus, or join us in an event in your town. There are so many ways to be involved.

Connect – Make sure we have your current address, email and phone. Stay connected so that we can keep you updated through GēMail and The GēDUNK. We promise to work hard to make sure you have the latest news!

Brag – Show others your school spirit! Wear a shirt, talk to a prospective student, get a Grove City license plate, a bumper sticker, and talk about your alma mater.

Give – Do you know that every gift honestly does matter? Making a financial gift to the College every year, no matter what the size, really makes a difference.

On behalf of our incoming freshmen, I thank you for helping to make Grove City College stronger!

Speaking of bragging, don’t forget to get the 2015 edition of The Shirt. Designed by Anna Mittelman ’15, it’s available online and in the bookstore. This is a great way to show your Grove City College spirit.

I look forward to seeing you at Homecoming 2015 – Sept. 25-27!

Go grab that cup of coffee and enjoy this issue of The GēDUNK.

Melissa (Trifaro ’96) MacLeod Senior Director of Alumni and College Relations

EDITORIAL STAFF Nick Hildebrand Managing Editor Janice (Zinsner ’87) Inman Associate Editor, Class Notes, In Memory, Babies Brad Isles Associate Editor ALUMNI & COLLEGE RELATIONS OFFICE Charlene (Griffin ’83) Shaw Megan Krimmel ’08 Tricia Corey Jami Darlington COLLEGE ARCHIVES Hilary (Lewis ’09) Walczak SPORTS INFORMATION Ryan Briggs ’01 Robert Audia DESIGN Justin Harbaugh Art Director/Graphic Designer ALUMNI ASSOCIATION John Mackie ’00, President Steve Solman ’96, Vice President Cover photograph by Matthew Lester Additional Photography by Nathan Bergey ’16, Katie Knight ’17, Brad Isles and Tiffany Wolfe WRITE US, PLEASE Intense use of email has made letter-writing a lost art. Formal letters to the editor that used to be a regular feature of our magazine are rare, now, as most readers are content to send a brief email and we respond directly to that reader and share the comments internally. We’d like to revive our letters section, but we need your help. Your feedback is very important to our editorial staff and we encourage you to register your comments, questions, concerns and even compliments. Our mailing address is The GeDUNK, 100 Campus Drive, Grove City PA, 16127-2104, but there’s no need to put pen to paper or stamp to envelope, we’ll be happy to hear what you think via email at alumni@gcc.edu. Please indicate that your letter is intended for publication and include a phone number so we can confirm.

Grove City College 100 Campus Drive Grove City, PA 16127 724.458.2300 888.GCC.GRAD

Order online at www.bookstore.gcc.edu

alumni.gcc.edu alumni@gcc.edu

6 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

mailbox

We received a number of letters about the Spring 2015 issue, which served as a tribute to the College’s World War II veteran alumni.

Fr o m Alumni

In March, Grove City’s Collection of World War II posters, which had been lost since the end of the war, were put on display at the gallery of the Pew Fine Arts Center. The show drew hundreds to campus and was held over for a week due to popular demand.

T

hank you for the wonderful issue of The GēDUNK and the stories of World War II guys it carried. I was one of that gang, although not one of the guys in the picture. I had no contact with Grove City College in my military years. That came after my service. My story is very different from the ones in The GēDUNK, not of military service but as a student at GCC. I graduated from high school in June of 1941. The Pearl Harbor bombing came on Dec. 7, 1941, and one month later a brother of mine and l were in the Army. By the fortunes of war, or misfortunes, I was out a year later – in much worse shape than when I went in.

The G.I. Bill was passed, giving a free college education to all veterans. My girlfriend, Margery Jean (Taylor ’47) McCauley, urged me to enroll at GCC, where she was a student. I listened to her wise council and did so. I was one of the first cadre of ex-G.I.s to hit our college campus.

It was world-shaking, a very difficult transition both for the older students and Grove City College. I became fast friends with two other G.I.s I met on campus. We tried to cooperate with the College program. We wore our silly little green beanies. A small group of upperclassmen met the three of us one day on one of the walkways between buildings and one of them dropped his books right in front of us and said, real bossy, “Pick those up!” One of our guys, an older married man with a couple kids who was working an eight-hour night shift at Greenville Steel Car Co. as well as carrying a full academic load, looked at the guy and said, “I’ve killed men for less than that” and kicked the books out of the way.

The three of us went to the dean of men … We told him we had no interest in the “icebreaker” dances nor most of the other activities, that we were not interested in the social life and that we were there for an education. And I think we made him realize that life on campus was changing.

Rev. Paul H. McCauley ’47

I

just wanted to say how much I loved the spring issue of The GēDUNK. Usually, I just pick it up and look at the pictures, browsing to see if there is anyone I know.

But this issue was captivating from the start! As I sat on the couch reading about the vets, I was constantly stopping to tell my husband (who is also a Grover!) about what I was reading. These stories were remarkable to read, and they truly made me proud to be a Grover! So keep up the good work—these are the important stories that we need to hear!

Danielle (Falvo ’06) Omasits

T

hank you so much for delivering the well-earned tribute to Grove City College World War II veterans.

I am so glad that you were able to interview surviving veterans. If they are like most members of the WW II era, they probably had not talked a lot about their experience. Great job of preserving that history.

Alan Mesches ’71

T

hanks for making this spring issue of The GēDUNK the best ever for “oldsters” like me. Reading the veterans’ stories moved me deeply and brought tears even. Knowing Lee Robertson ’47 as a long-time family friend was especially interesting, so thanks again for your superb effort to bring to light the terrific sacrifices and dedication of all these courageous Grovers!

James H. Currier ’58 t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 7

Largest campaign in College history finishes big, surpassing $90 million goal Thanks to the overwhelming generosity of our Alumni & Friends, Grove City Matters: A Campaign to Advance

Grove City College has met and surpassed its $90 million goal.

T

he largest and most successful campaign in the College’s history officially closed on June 30 with nearly $95 million raised to advance the College’s mission to provide a rich academic tradition at an amazing value in a Christ-centered community. More than 16,500 individuals and organizations contributed to the effort, including the largest-ever single gift to the College.

“For nearly 140 years, Grove City College has been committed to the mission of preparing young men and women to be exemplary citizens through an extraordinary education impacting heads, hearts and hands. The success of this capital campaign makes it clear that this mission is valuable and important to thousands of individual donors who believe that what we do here at Grove City College matters. Each gift is a validation of the great work the College is engaged in,” College President Paul McNulty ’80 said.

“These gifts promise to position us well to advance our historic mission and have a lasting, profound and transformative impact on our students, our community and the world for many years to come,” he added.

Kicked off in May 2011 with the help of former First Lady Laura Bush, Grove City Matters focused on funding objectives that are vitally important to the College.

Money raised under Grove City Matters is having a real impact on campus. Rathburn Hall is now a touchstone for developing moral and ethical leadership on campus and students and faculty have a state of the art lab and classroom facility in STEM Hall. The beautiful and award-winning buildings represent the College’s commitment to advancing faith and learning while

STEM HALL $24,918,696

meeting the needs of students to learn and grow in the best possible environment.

Other campaign priorities are also producing exciting outcomes. More than 130 new scholarship endowments have been established through the campaign and will benefit students for decades to come and The Center for Vision & Values and The Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation are advancing the College’s founding principles and inspiring a new generation of engaged citizens and innovators.

Notable gifts to the campaign include: $4.5 million from the Richard King Mellon Foundation for STEM Hall; $3 million for the Christian activities building from Jayne and David R. Rathburn ’79, chairman of the College’s Board of Trustees; $1 million from Richard G. Staley ’62 for STEM Hall and the Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation; and $7 million from an anonymous friend of the College.

“We are enormously grateful to everyone who contributed to the enormous success of Grove City Matters. Our alumni and friends clearly value the mission of the College and the campaign demonstrates how important the future of the institution and our students is to them,” Jeffrey Prokovich ’89, vice president for Institutional Advancement, said.

McNulty credits his predecessor, former College President Dr. Richard G. Jewell ’67, for playing an instrumental role in the campaign. “Dick Jewell deserves great credit for the success of Grove City Matters. His expertise in development proved invaluable to reaching and surpassing our goal,” McNulty said.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP & INNOVATION $1,561,994

SCHOLARSHIPS $36,684,286

8 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

Jorden Alfery (fourth from left,) recipient of the Willard J. Tillotson Jr. Scholarship, joins Hefren-Tillotson employees and members of Tillotson’s family at a scholarship luncheon. Also pictured, from left, are John Mackie ’00, Craig Tillotson, Kim Tillotson Fleming, and Andrew Patterson ’95.

From generation to generation

H

UNRESTRICTED $21,651,348

RATHBURN HALL $6,864,618

efren-Tillotson has always been about family and it all began with founder, Willard J. “Bill” Tillotson, in 1948.

Today the company is still family owned. One of the oldest and largest wealth management firms in Western Pennsylvania and consistently named one of the Top Places to Work by The Pittsburgh PostGazette, Hefren-Tillotson employs many Grove City College alumni and philanthropy is in the company’s DNA. John Mackie ’00 – a financial adviser who was also recently elected president of the College’s Alumni Council (see story, page 13) – saw an opportunity to connect his passions for the College and HefrenTillotson to impact students through the Grove City Matters campaign. He worked with Andrew Patterson ’95 and others to communicate with the family and fellow alumni across the company.

Tillotson “We saw a way to make our individual gifts very personal and meaningful as alumni working at Hefren-Tillotson,” Mackie said.

And so a scholarship endowment was born in memory of company founder Willard J. Tillotson Jr. Through June 30, 2015, the scholarship fund has well over $100,000 in cash and commitments.

“It has been a rewarding way to unite alumni across the company while directly impacting future generations of students all while honoring our company’s founder,” Mackie said.

“Grove City College has been an outstanding resource for HefrenTillotson’s internship program for over a decade, with many interns becoming full-time employees in key positions,” Kim Tillotson Fleming, Hefren-Tillotson CEO, said. “As financial planners, we understand the importance of scholarships, and it is an honor to support Grove City’s excellent students through the Willard J. Tillotson, Jr. Scholarship.”

By all accounts, the Grove City Matters campaign has been a tremendous success. The campaign’s initiatives have led to 130 new scholarships, like the one the Tillotson family and College alumni established together.

A meaningful capital campaign, says Brian Powell ’03, senior director of development, not only successfully raises a set amount of money to advance the strategic initiatives but also builds an infrastructure of alumni and donors who have a rewarding relationship with the College.

VISION & VALUES

$21,651,348 t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 9

Grove City College

upfront

News about the College, alumni, students, campus, faculty and sports

Commencement marked the end of one season in the lives of graduates and the beginning of a new one as alumni of Grove City College.

Commencement – ‘A day for great celebration’

G

rove City College sent 544 new graduates into the world on May 16 as the College celebrated its 135th Commencement.

“It is indeed a day for great celebration,” President Paul J. McNulty ’80 told the huge crowd assembled on the Quad for the occasion. The Class of 2015, he said, had been “blessed to live and learn together in peace” during their time at the College.

Student speaker Chesterton Cobb ’15 talked about college as a “series of mistakes,” from sleeping through class to risking Gedunk chicken tenders two days in a row.

Those missteps, he said, will be remembered nostalgically, while greater failures will

10 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

prompt feelings of regret. There’s a purpose to those mistakes, Cobb asserted. “Our failures are used by God as a refining fire that shapes us today,” he said.

“Our degrees do not make us invincible or guarantee success, but we are fully equipped for what God has called us to do,” Cobb told classmates.

As well as awarding bachelor’s degrees in the arts, sciences, music, electrical and mechanical engineering, the College bestowed honorary degrees to Commencement speaker Frank Wolf, a former Congressman and staunch defender of human rights, and The Rev. Alistair Begg, a nationally-known pastor who spoke at the

College’s Baccalaureate service.

Wolf, who retired last year after 34 years in the U.S. House of Representatives to devote himself full-time to humanitarian work, spoke about the need for Christians to stand up for their right to both worship freely and live their faith without compromise in a world that he said is increasingly hostile to it.

Wolf invoked the spirit of religious leaders who drove major societal changes in the old and new worlds as inspiration to graduates to do the right things, even when they aren’t popular – or even safe.

English abolitionist William Wilberforce, who pushed to end slavery in the British Empire decades before the Civil War settled the question in America, “pricked and awakened” the British people to the evils of slavery by raising uncomfortable questions, Wolf said. His unwavering effort led the English to turn against a trade that was in many ways the backbone of the English economy, Wolf said.

He quoted Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” in which King said he was disappointed by Christians who should have supported the civil rights movement, but were “more cautious than courageous.” Wolf turned that phrase into a question for the graduates: “Are we, in 2015, more cautious than courageous?”

Wolf cited the plight of Christians in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East who are being killed, abused and forced from their homes by agents of intolerance and oppression, and asked the expectant graduates to reject “tame Christianity” that avoids anything personally or professionally risky about scriptural truth.

Sending the Class of 2015 on its way, McNulty took up Wolf’s call and urged the new graduates not be tame Christians, but to exercise their faith freely and confidently as they move beyond the College and take their place as leaders in their vocations, careers, families, communities and churches.

Summer 2015

Good news for graduates, alums; Grove City College pays you back

P

rinceton Review identified Grove City in its publication Colleges That Pay You Back: The 200 Best Value Colleges and What It Takes to Get In - 2015 Edition.

Just 200 schools with a national reputation were included in the volume based on their ROE – return on education.

Princeton Review gauges ROE on 40 weighted data points – everything from academics, cost, financial aid and student debt to statistics on graduation rates, alumni salaries and job satisfaction – culled from data collected in 2013 and 2014.

Key numbers for the ranking came from PayScale.com, which reports an average starting salary of $44,300 and average midcareer pay at $82,800 per year for Grove City alums. Graduates’ mid-career success is a key reason that this spring Business Insider included the College on its list of the 50 most underrated colleges in the nation.

“Plenty of schools aren’t worth the hype, while others don’t get the recognition they deserve,” according to Business Insider. “This liberal arts college runs on a philosophy of freedom – that is, it doesn’t take any federal aid or funding. However, Grove City College still retains relatively low tuition rates and encourages students to pursue independence in all aspects of their own lives.”

Capping off that good news on the employment front is a report from the College’s Career Services Office that indicates 95 percent of 2014 graduates are employed or in a graduate or professional school six months after graduation. Of the 95 percent, 16 percent are seeking advanced degrees or further training.

The statistics are based on survey results with a 96 percent response rate. “Seeing our students succeed in utilizing their God-given talents, gifts and abilities is rewarding,” Dr. Jim Thrasher ’80, director of the Career Services Office, said. “Our Career Services team is working to help them meet their goals and network with hundreds of employers and alumni who hire our graduates.”

Senior Class President Ethan Witmer ’15 shakes hands with College President Paul J. McNulty ’80 after announcing the Class of 2015’s gift to the College: $32,485 to establish a scholarship.

2015 Graduates give back

B

efore they left campus in May, graduates left behind a gift for future Grovers.

The Class of 2015 Scholarship Endowment will fund in perpetuity a financial award for an incoming freshman who shows both financial need and demonstrates academic excellence with a high school grade point average of 3.7 or higher. The gift was determined by a class vote.

Senior class officers – Class President Ethan Witmer, Senior Senator of Social Affairs Wesley Suplit, Senior Senator of Marketing and Communications Kelley Neumann, Senior Senator of Student Affairs Danielle Mendheim and Senior Senator of Academic Affairs Jenny Spangler – working with the College’s Office of Development, provided fundraising leadership for the gift throughout the spring semester at campus events and through personal solicitations. Their efforts during the course of the academic year netted $32,485 for the scholarship endowment with nearly 54 percent of the class contributing, a number that exceeded expectations and is pretty amazing for a group of students that are just getting started in their lives and careers, according to Holly Pipher, director of the College’s Annual Fund.

“The senior class gift tradition promotes a philanthropic spirit among graduating students by providing them a great opportunity to start their legacy of giving to the College. Through a collective effort to give back to their alma mater, Grove City College seniors leave behind a bit of their own personality and take their first steps toward becoming proud alumni,” Pipher said.

PEW POINT | “This College has grown to one of stature and standing in the world of commerce, education and religion. It has gained this success because it has been built on the firm foundation that stresses the value of religious, political and economic liberty.”

t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 11

Grove City College

Students fill out “thank-you” cards for alumni support.

Alumni Appreciation Day is a winner

G

rove City College’s Office of Alumni and College Relations was recognized with a Bronze 2015 Circle of Excellence Award for its One Day of Thanks effort promoting the College’s Third Alumni Appreciation Day. The award, which recognizes innovative efforts to promote single day special events, was presented by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

CASE is a professional association serving educational institutions and the advancement professionals who work on their behalf in alumni relations, communications, development, marketing and allied areas.

Each year, Grove City College sets aside a day in February to thank alumni donors.

Staff and students adorn campus buildings and equipment with red bows to showcase gifts made possible by donors. Students are encouraged to stop by Breen Student Union to sign a postcard for a donor and to post their appreciation via social media by using the hashtag #onedayofthanks. This year’s event exceeded its participation goal of 1,300 – half of the student body – by almost 300 students.

“It’s important for students who are busy with their day-to-day lives to pause and see that they’re part of something greater,” explained project coordinator Megan Krimmel ’08, associate director of alumni and college relations. “Through this annual event, they are starting to realize that tuition dollars cover only part of the full Grove City College experience. The generosity of alumni and friends make up the difference. When I sat down and read the notes of sincere and specific appreciation written to our donors, I knew that our efforts to raise awareness had been successful.”

12 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

T

he Jack Kennedy Memorial Alumni Achievement Award honors outstanding alumni who have made significant contributions in their fields and to society in general. This year’s awards, presented during Homecoming Weekend, are going to alums who have made an impact in business and our nation’s security: Donald C. Templin ’84 is executive vice president, supply, transportation and marketing for Marathon Petroleum Corp. The Nu Lambda Phi fraternity brother played soccer at Grove City College. He served on the Alumni Council from 1988 to 2003.

Faith (Whiteley ’64) McCoy retired after a 33-year career as a Clandestine Service staff officer Templin McCoy with the Central Intelligence Agency, where she continues to work as an independent contractor. Much of the work she’s done with the agency remains classified. McCoy was a member of the Gamma Chi sorority.

The Distinguished Service Award recognizes those who make a significant contribution to the College through consistent MacKenzie Lascell and exceptional service. This year’s honorees played key roles in the College’s landmark 1984 Supreme Court case, which was the first time an educational institution fought for the right not to accept federal or state funds.

They are: Dr. Charles S. MacKenzie was the fifth President of Grove City College and led the College from 1971 to 1991. Under his watch the College defended its independence from the federal government, enrollment increased, a redefining curriculum change was accomplished and major campus projects were completed.

David M. Lascell, Esq., was chief counsel for Grove City College in the landmark 1984 Supreme Court case. He is now a Trustee Emeritus at Grove City College, after serving on the Board from 1996 to 2009.

To nominate someone for either award or for more information go to: alumni.gcc. edu/awards

Summer 2015

alumni

Alumni Council members gather for a group photo on the Smith Terrace at Carnegie Alumni Center. The Council represents and leads the 27,000-strong Alumni Association.

Mackie tapped to lead Alumni Council

J

ohn Mackie ’00 was elected president of the Grove City College Alumni Council in May, taking the reins from outgoing President Gerald Bullock ’92. As Council president, Mackie represents and serves as the voice for the 27,000-member Grove City College Alumni Association.

Mackie was a business management major who later Mackie earned a master’s degree in organizational leadership from Geneva College. He works as a financial advisor with Hefren-Tillotson in Pittsburgh.

He lives in Wexford, Pa., with his wife, Shana, and three children: Noah, 8, Madison,6, and Logan, 3. A fan of Pittsburgh sports, Mackie’s free time is spent coaching his kids and doing volunteer and community service work, including serving as the director of Pittsburgh Kids Foundation and co-chairing his company’s United Way effort.

We asked – and he answered – a few questions about his relationship to Grove City College.

What brought you to Grove City College as a student?

The great reputation of the school for providing quality education with strong faith.

What is your best memory from College?

Too many to list. The amazing times with friends and various Alpha Omega events stick out.

What keeps you coming back as an alum?

A desire to stay connected and a deep belief in the College’s mission and vision.

Why become president of council?

I want to serve current students and help continue to better connect and reconnect with alumni from all areas.

What do you see as the central role of the Alumni Council?

To represent all alumni and offer a connection point between alumni and the school to continue a mutually beneficial relationship for all parties.

What do you wish more people knew about Grove City College?

The people are amazing. I get to meet alumni from every era. They are an incredible group of people.

Want to nominate someone for Alumni Council?

Visit: alumni.gcc.edu/alumnicouncil

New and returning Alumni Council members

T

he Alumni Council is the governing body of the Grove City College Alumni Association, which has been advancing the interest of College alumni for more than a century.

New members – 3 year term Jessica Bishop ’97 Nicole Cifra ’11 Hayden Hammett ’06 Nathaniel Jackson ’08 Rick Sems ’93 Carole (Williams ’62) Wolfe Returning Members – 3 year term Yvonne (Sacripant ’83) Bland Nancy (Elsner ’81) Buckman John Calhoun ’90 Jean (Vance ’66) Eckert Andy Sems ’95 Lindsay (Crawford ’11) Sera Emeritus Members Doug Knable ’79 Raleigh Peters ’95 President: John Mackie ’00 Vice President: Steve Solman ’96

t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 13

Grove City College

Come back to campus

G

ng T h e on ly thing m issi

i s you

September 25-27, 2015 alumni.gcc.edu/homecoming

rove City College has welcomed alumni back to campus for Homecoming for more than a century. This year’s celebration is set for Sept. 25 to 27 and we’re planning for it to be the biggest and best ever.

The weekend begins Friday with a Class of 1955 reunion lunch, the annual Jack Kennedy Memorial Alumni Achievement and Distinguished Service awards dinner and evening mixers for the Classes of 1960 and 1965, the latter of which is this year’s golden anniversary class.

Saturday starts with breakfast reunions across campus, including an all-alumni continental breakfast in the Breen Student Union. President Paul J. McNulty ’80 and Willie the Wolverine will be there to officially welcome guests to campus. The annual Homecoming parade follows, featuring musically-themed floats created by the College’s Greek and housing groups. Also marching will be campus organizations, bands, dignitaries and reunion groups.

After the parade, guests can head to Greek Village on lower campus or to the Quad for lunch and visits with fellow alums. The Quad will offer a future Grover play area as well.

Float winners will be announced prior to the football game between the Wolverines and PAC rival Saint Vincent College. Grove City College’s new Homecoming queen and king will be crowned at halftime, following a show by the College’s Wolverine marching band.

Saturday evening events include reunions for a number of class years ending in 5 and 0, plus several milestone reunions. (See below.)

The official events wrap up Sunday with a worship service at Harbison Chapel with The Rev. James Leuenberger ’78 preaching.

Don’t miss out on the fun and excitement ‘mid the pines. Check out the complete schedule and register online at: www.alumni.gcc. edu/homecoming.

REGISTER NOW Registration closes on Friday, September 18, at midnight.

SPREAD THE WORD Call, message and email your friends.

Milestone Greek Reunions Sigma Delta Phi – 95th Anniversary Sigma Delta Phi, established in 1920, will celebrate nearly 100 years of sisterhood with a dinner Sept. 26 at the Double Tree by Hilton, Cranberry Township, Pa. They will also march in the Homecoming parade and enjoy lunch and reliving old times in a Greek Village tent. Organizers of the reunion are looking for photos for a slide show. Submit yours via email to CollegeArchives@gcc.edu.

For more, visit: www.alumni.gcc.edu/sigmadeltaphi

Sigma Theta Chi – 75th anniversary SI

PHI LTA DE GMA

Sigma Theta Chi sisters will recognize the 75th anniversary of their 1940 founding. The ladies will march in the parade, enjoy lunch and fellowship at a Greek Village tent, and celebrate with a reunion dinner at Oakview Golf Club, Slippery Rock, Pa. Organizers are looking for photos for a slide show during the reunion. Submit slide show photos via email to CollegeArchives@gcc.edu.

For more, visit: www.alumni.gcc.edu/sigmathetachi

14 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

Summer 2015

ALUMNI

TRAVEL

Alumni and friends experience the American West on tour

S

eventeen Grove City College alumni and friends spent 10 days in June visiting the National Parks and Lodges of South Dakota and Wyoming.

The adventure included visits to Crazy Horse Memorial and Mount Rushmore, spanned three national parks – Badlands, Yellowstone and Grand Teton – and included overnight stays in Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel and Old Faithful Inn, both built in Yellowstone National Park in the early 1900s.

Along with breathtaking views of majestic mountains, vast prairies and explosive geysers, the trip provided ample wildlife encounters. The travelers were treated to glimpses of elk, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, prairie dogs, and countless bison sightings. The trip was more than entertaining; it was educational. Host tour guides from Orbridge Travel shared their extensive knowledge of the area’s flora and fauna along with its fascinating history.

“It was incredible to learn the rich history of this land and its people,” commented Alumni Staff Representative, Megan Krimmel ’08.

“But beyond that, it was intriguing to learn about the places where we stayed. I didn’t realize that the Old Faithful Inn is considered the largest log structure in the world and that they still distribute turnkeys to lock hotel room doors.”

The expedition was a memorable experience for all in attendance.

“We loved the trip,” said alumna traveler Liz (Benton ‘71) Hoffman.

“We appreciated every aspect: the first class accommodations, breathtaking scenery, activities, experienced and interesting tour guides, and compatible people to share the adventure!”

To view more photos from this adventure, visit: www.gcc.edu/ AmericanWest

Greg Gnesios

ALUMNI TRIPS FOR 2016 WILL TAKE TRAVELERS TO EUROPE AND AMERICA’S LAST FRONTIER.

IRELAND

MAY 24 - JUNE 1

ALASKA

JULY 15 - 22

GRAND DANUBE PASSAGE

SICILY

OCT. 20 - 28

AUG. 3 - 18

VISIT ALUMNI.GCC.EDU/TRAVEL FOR MORE INFORMATION t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 15

Grove City College

Alumni travelers show their Wolverine pride on a river cruise through Holland and Belgium arranged by the alumni travel program.

A group of alumni and friends sport the 2015 Grove City College Shirt at the annual Kennywood Day in August.

Alumnae of Charlotte, N.C., were pleased to welcome President Paul J. McNulty ’80 to the Tar Heel State on April 6.

Incoming freshmen, families and alumni gather at the home of Pam ’89 and Evan ’89 Homan in the Baltimore, Md.-area for a Freshman Welcome picnic.

16 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

Alums enjoyed an evening in May at a Charlottesville, Va., reception hosted by Trustee Chair David Rathburn ’79 and his wife, Jayne.

Tri Zeta sorority actives and alumnae showed their tiger paws at their annual brunch in April at Carnegie Alumni Center.

Summer 2015

alumni & friends events Upcoming Alumni & Friends Events Sept. 12 Night Game and Tailgate Grove City College Sept. 26 Homecoming Grove City College

Oct. 9/10 Volleyball Alumni Reunion Grove City College

Nov. 7 Incoming freshmen women gather at the home of Allyson (Baird ’88) Sveda for the annual Women’s Ice Cream Social.

Cathy Fithian ’86 channeled her inner puppeteer and brought Lisa Quoresimo ‘87 to life at the April 18 alumni tribute dinner to Dr. James Dixon.

GCC Serves Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Cleveland

Nov. 18 Showcase Series Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Grove City College

Nov. 22 PNC Broadway Series Gentleman’s Guide to Murder Pittsburgh, Pa.

Nov. 27 – Dec. 8 Alumni Travel Paris Holiday Markets France and Germany Student performers and artists share letters with the Scholarship Luncheon guests April 11 on campus.

Nov. 30 – Dec. 4 Carnegie Christmas Concerts Grove City College

Dec. 5 Alumni and Friends Santa Breakfast Grove City College

Dec. 5 Showcase Series The Nutcracker Benedum Center Pittsburgh, Pa.

Philadelphia-area education alumni gathered for dinner with Department Chair Dr. Constance (Nelson ’93) Nichols and Professor Dr. Samantha Fecich during the International Society for Technology and Education Conference.

Remember to bookmark alumni.gcc.edu/events for more dates and info on registering.

t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 17

Grove City College

Dr. Erik Anderson processes data with students in his lab at Hoyt Hall of Engineering. Below, a diver at Sea World gathers data on the remora fish for processing in Anderson’s lab.

Biomechanics lab lights research fire

A

s a child, did you ever watch a fish swim? Did you ever find an anthill and see hundreds of tiny insects move in perfect harmony?

Those simple observations are the seeds of the scientific method that Dr. Erik Anderson and his students employ in a Grove City College lab. They investigate how the way a fish moves its tail can aid oceanographers and how the collective action of ants can advance both biology and business logistics.

Anderson, a professor of mechanical engineering, is guiding students in the study of biomechanical engineering, which looks at living systems – the ways they move and communicate, what they’re made of – to answer questions of science and inspire new technologies.

At Grove City, Anderson and a dozen students are working on experimental biofluid dynamics and organismal tracking by following fish, ants, oyster larvae and even squid. Students take video of the animals moving and write computer code that allows them to track movement and fluid flow, and investigate propulsive systems. In the summers, Anderson’s students take data on live animals, biologically inspired robots, and instrumented tags for tracking swimming animals in flow tank facilities at Harvard University and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. They also collaborate with scientists at the University of Michigan, the

18 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

New Jersey Institute of Technology, SeaWorld, and Grove City College—Drs. Steve Jenkins, biology, and Tim Mohr, electrical engineering.

Biology and mechanical engineering are directly related, according to Anderson.

“Mechanical engineering can be used to help us advance our knowledge of biology.

Biological organisms are mechanical systems that live in a physical world and many of their properties and behaviors can be understood in engineering terms. For example, a fish tail is a hydrofoil, which creates thrust in the same way that an airplane wing produces lift,” Anderson noted. On the other side, “… biology can inspire our engineering.

My students are looking at how organisms move as a way of instructing and advancing engineering, such as determining the best shapes and material properties for fish-inspired propellers for oceanographic vehicles,” Anderson said.

Currently, students are analyzing the flow around swimming squid and investigating potential drag-reducing mechanisms in this organism—something that previous investigators haven’t been able to nail down.

Anderson is planning to publish the work and, as one of the top authorities on squid

hydrodynamics in the world, he has been invited to speak at a pivotal conference this year in Japan focused on squid fisheries management.

The College’s students are also at the forefront in the study of fish-like propulsion and the school is becoming known as a source of new progress and leadership in the field.

Anderson was contacted during the 2014-15 school year to recommend two students for summer internships on the topic at Harvard.

Ellen Turner ’17, a mechanical engineering major from Lock Haven, Pa., continued her research with Anderson this summer at Woods Hole.

“Dr. Anderson’s lab has been an amazing opportunity for me and has opened my eyes to other paths I can take with a mechanical engineering degree beyond manufacturing,” Turner said.

Turner’s internship is supported by the Swezey Fund, which is aided with donations from alumni and friends of Grove City College. Alex Voris ’16, Punxsutawney, Pa., also a mechanical engineering major, went from Anderson’s lab to an undergraduate summer research program at The University of Alabama. “Working in the lab has been great because it has introduced me to the world of research,” Voris said. College funding also contributed to Voris landing his summer research position. Thanks to support to the Anderson Lab for equipment from the MacKenzie, Moore and Jewell Fund, Voris already had experience using the same state of the art flow visualization technology used by the University of Alabama lab. The fund, which was established through a donation from Chair of the Board of Trustees David Rathburn ’79 and his wife, Jayne, disburses $50,000 a year for research projects.

Five other veterans of Anderson’s lab, all mechanical engineering majors, secured great summer and other long-term research positions: Spencer Garborg ’15 and Abby Noll ’18, Harvard; Francesca Mertan ’15, National Institutes of Health; Philip Graybill ’16, Penn State; and Samantha Parry ’16, Florida Atlantic. Anderson lab alumni have also gone on to graduate work at prestigious universities and research institutions: Chuck Witt ’11, Princeton; Andrew Brinkerhoff ’08, CERN; Anna Wargula ’11, MIT and Woods Hole; and Peter Staats ’10, Boston.

Summer 2015

campus Family weekend

Senior women study Bible with Mrs. Brenda McNulty ’80

By Brianna Buczkowski ’16

W

The new Family Weekend tradition kicked off in May, featuring the Student Dance Show and the annual celebration of the Spring Court.

ith every new administration, there are a lot of firsts. That’s the case with President Paul J. McNulty ’80, who started his tenure in August 2014 and was inaugurated in March.

Many of the firsts concern the novelty of campus traditions and big ceremonies overseen for the first time by the new President.

But this spring, a quieter and truly novel first was taking place at the President’s House, thanks to the inspiration of First Lady Brenda (Millican ’80) McNulty.

Once a week, dozens of students showed up at the McNultys’ campus home for an all senior women’s Bible study organized by Mrs. McNulty and Elizabeth Messer of the Coalition for Christian Outreach. It was the first time this President’s House, built in 2005, had been used to host a student Bible study.

Mrs. McNulty conceived the idea last fall as she was getting reacquainted with campus. She enlisted Messer at the urging of her daughters Katy ’07 and Corrie ’14, who knew her from their days on campus. After some prayer and planning, invitations went out and the first meeting in February drew 45 women.

During the course of seven weeks, the once mysterious President’s House became a familiar place of comfort and fellowship for the women.

The study focused on the book of Hebrews, but became a supportive and safe place for students to express prayer requests and share their lives and thoughts as they looked ahead to life after graduation.

“This study is a perfect way to unite girls who are involved in many different aspects of campus in a really unique and fun way,” Ellie Stoffer ’15, a math and science education major, said. “It’s a great example of how to truly be sisters in Christ to one another.”

For Mrs. McNulty, the study was an important way to minister to senior women on a campus where many activities and groups are centered on freshmen and underclassmen orientation.

“It’s so neat to know the Lord has His plans and He plants those plans in your heart and brings them to fruition,” she said.

Becky (Kobassa ’88) Weaver pins her son Benjamin Weaver ’16 at the Legacy Lunch during Family Weekend. t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 19

Grove City College

PEW POINT | “We must all realize that the very freedom in which we aspire can exist only in a country where the people generally accept honesty, truth, fairness, generosity, justice, and charity as a rule for their conduct.”

Student scores place in Fulbright summer program

A

Grove City College grads rank high in CPA scores

G

rove City College Department of Accounting graduates do better than 90 percent of their peers when it comes to taking their CPA exams.

The College’s accounting graduates ranked 24th in the nation on the 2014 CPA examination among small-sized programs, a category that included a total of 257 institutions. Grove City College graduates’ pass rate was 17 points higher than the national average for all programs. Less than half of those who take the CPA test nationwide pass the exam.

“These results demonstrate both the ability of our program’s graduates and their dedication to achieving the professional goal of CPA licensure,” Dr. Michelle (Adams ’88, ’02) McFeaters, associate professor of accounting and assistant dean for the Calderwood School of Arts and Letters, said. “It also speaks to a real strength of Grove City College, which is to prepare students to not just meet, but to exceed the standards of the professional world.”

20 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

fter she wrapped up her finals, Marley Kropp ’17 headed overseas to study history, culture and communications in Wales as part of a Fulbright Summer Institute program.

Marley, of Limerick, Pa, left in June for the program, which is funded by the same foundations that sponsor prestigious Fulbright Scholarships for postgraduate students and professionals. Her focus was on how the history, language, politics, traditions, geography and economy of Wales impact the country’s contemporary culture. While Wales is part of the United Kingdom, some Welsh maintain a separate cultural identity and language.

“As a communications major, I am interested in the role that bilingual and monolingual media play in how the people of Wales think about themselves,” Marley said.

It is be a return trip to Wales for Kropp, but it promises to be much more memorable than her last sojourn to the country. She was only 4 years old when she briefly toured Wales and England with her parents and remembers very little of it.

But pictures of the stunning countryside, a giant poster of the famed Great Orme Tramway in Llandudno that hangs in her family’s kitchen and even hometown streets with Welsh names like Penwyllt and Llandovery kept Wales on Marley’s radar. “I feel like I have a connection to Wales that I am waiting to fully uncover,” Kropp said.

Marley was selected through a rigorous application and interview process that looked at academic excellence and a range of extracurricular and community activities,

demonstrated skills, a desire to further the Fulbright Program and a plan to “give back” upon returning. The Fulbright Summer Institutes are designed to expose students to foreign cultures and promote cross-cultural understanding and scholarship.

Dr. Daniel Brown, professor of communications studies, recommended Kropp for the Fulbright Summer Institute.

As well as doing academic work of the highest quality, Brown said Marley is an effective and ethical communicator who exemplifies the goal of communications studies at Grove City College, which is to teach students how to build arguments that can influence people.

“Marley is addressing this goal personally through her service on and off campus,” Brown said.

As well as a communications degree, Marley is pursuing a minor in music and is very active on campus. She’s a member of the Crimson and White Society and works in the Career Services and Admissions offices. Kropp is also a singer-songwriter who recorded two CDs while still a teenager. She performs at coffee houses and special events on campus and is involved with Grove City Singers, an all-women’s vocal ensemble.

She was featured recently in videos about academics and faith at Grove City. They can be seen at www.gcc.edu.

Summer 2015

students Top Seniors College President Paul J. McNulty ’80 is flanked by the Senior Man and Woman of the year, Chesterton Cobb ’15, of Woodland Park, N.J., and Chloe Smiley ’15, of Clarkston, Mich., after the two were presented their awards from the leadership honoraries Mortar Board and Omicron Delta Kappa. The selections are made on the basis of scholarship, leadership and service. Cobb earned a degree in economics and political science. He was very active in the Student Government Association, Law Society, ODK and other honoraries, and earned Dean’s List honors multiple times.

Smiley earned a degree in entrepreneurship and minored in economics and biblical and religious studies. She served as president of ODK, was active in student government, Orientation Board, The Center for Vision & Values, and earned Dean’s List honors.

That’s what I’m talking about; debaters win two national championships

T

Members of the College Debate Team assembled with their trophies after a tournament win.

he Grove City College Debate Team had another stellar season, winning two national championships and securing its place as the most successful debate team in the College’s history.

Head Coach Dr. Jason Edwards, professor of history and humanities, credited student leaders for the team’s successful season. “They represent the Grove City College mission extremely well,” he said.

The team captured top honors at the National Christian College Forensic Invitational in Denver after facing off against teams from the nation’s elite Christian schools. They also took off with the invitational’s Quality Award, reflecting overall points won per entry. Presenting the award, an official noted that the team’s results were “ridiculous” and joked that since their point average was so high they might consider “banning Grove City College from the competition.”

That win followed a national championship in the Pi Kappa Delta National Tournament in Athens, Ohio. In that tournament, College debaters defended the title they won last year, securing a back-to-back championship in the prestigious event.

“This team becoming the most successful Grove City College Debate Team in school history is a direct result of the work invested by captains Scott Alford ’15 and Mark Mariani ’15. They put in countless hours and sacrificed personally for the team,” Edwards said. “They were handed the reins of a healthy team, but made it even stronger and built up a strong foundation of underclassmen to carry on the tradition.”

Dr. Andrew Harvey, associate professor of English, and Dr. Michael Coulter ’91, professor of political science and humanities, served as assistant coaches throughout the year, traveling with and coaching the team.

t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 21

Grove City College

Dixon takes a final bow “Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseles fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.”

– William Shakespeare, The Tempest

Vest wishes Retired chairman of the Department of English Dr. James Dixon played an onstage role as Prospero in the “The Tempest,” his final College play.

T

he words of Shakespeare are familiar to generations of Grove City College students who trod the footlights under the direction of Dr. James Dixon III. The now-retired English professor and department chair invoked them often at end-of-run cast parties over the course of his nearly 40 years at the College.

In April, Dixon delivered those lines from the stage in Ketler Auditorium of the Pew Fine Arts Center as he took on the role of Prospero in The Tempest, his final College production.

Dixon said teaching literature and theater and directing dozens of student productions had been a privilege. The Tempest was Shakespeare’s last play and he used the character of Prospero, the magician, to announce his retirement. Dixon, at the behest of codirector Betsy (Boak ’77) Craig, professor of English and director of the theater program, took on the role as a way to do the same.

“It is a daunting but exciting challenge, and it will be bittersweet to say, with Prospero, one last time: ‘Our revels now are ended …,’” Dixon said before the show.

A crowd of alumni and current students joined Dixon at a postperformance reception in Pew Memorial Room.

22 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

Dr. William Hinton talks with College President Paul J. McNulty ’80 at the faculty retirement dinner in May. Hinton, a longtime professor of business, retired in the spring after 24 years of service. His vest was custom-made by his colleagues. It reads “Business profs never retire, they just ‘vest’.” Other longtime faculty retirements included: Harvey Cole (modern languages); Dr. Donald Lyle (physical education and athletics); Dr. James Dixon (English); Dr. Janice Brown (English); Dr. Dorian Yeager (computer science and mathematics); Carol Yeager (biology); and Dr. Diane Dixon (English and communication studies.)

Summer 2015

faculty Messer named Professor of the Year

D

Clemm toured to Germany and Poland for summer seminar

D

r. Robert Clemm, assistant professor of history, spent part of his summer in Poland and Germany attending the “Ruin & Revival: History, Modern Memory & Identity Seminar.”

A specialist in European history, Clemm is exploring the dilemma of history and memory in post-war Europe. He attended lectures, visited historical sites and Clemm participated in a series of workshops and lectures and attended a Jewish culture festival.

In Warsaw, Clemm studied the central institutions of memory and identity, such as the Institute of National Remembrance and the Museum of the History of the Polish Jews. Berlin site visits included The Berlin Wall Memorial and The Topography of Terror, former headquarters of the SS and Gestapo. Clemm’s goals for the trip were to enrich his teaching of humanities courses and design a course on the Holocaust to benefit Grove City College students.

The trip was funded by an Individual Faculty Development Seminar grant and funding from the Council on International Education Exchange.

r. H. Collin Messer, professor of English, is the 2015 Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK) Professor of the Year.

Messer, who has taught such courses as the American Literature Survey, 20thCentury American Novel, Literature of the American South, African American Literature and Existentialism and Modern Fiction, is chair of the Department of English.

“He embodies as well as anyone I know the mission of our College. He challenges his students and his colleagues to develop the life of the mind in ways that challenge their faith and their intellect as they come to terms with the deep and enduring questions explored in great literature,” Dr. James Dixon, recently retired department chair, said.

The honor was announced during a ceremony April 30 and Messer, who was on sabbatical and out of the classroom this spring, took advantage of the setting in Harbison Chapel to deliver his only lecture of the semester. “I’ll try to make it worth our while,” he said.

Messer lectured on “Practicing Resurrection,” and said Christ’s sacrifice and return from the dead not only secures believers’ eternal futures, but has important consequences for teachers and students because it “affirms every square inch of our enterprise.”

“A proper understanding of the resurrection thus invites us into a scholarly calling to discover and know and understand and describe the creation in a manner that is commensurate with our God-given capacity for wonder,” Messer said.

“Any of us who have done serious research, or who have given deep consideration to pedagogy and classroom practices, know that it is often a humble business that doesn’t always or even often

yield immediate results. Our vocation is often about planting sequoias that we will not live to harvest,” he said.

The Professor of the Year was initiated in 2000 by the Omicron Delta Kappa campus leadership honorary and is sponsored by the Grove City College Alumni Association. Recent winners include Dr. Constance (Nelson ’93) Nichols, Dr. Paul Kemeny, Dr. Erik Anderson, Dr. Mark Graham and Betsy (Boak ’77) Craig.

Messer has helped organize faculty retreats; serves as adviser to The Quad, a compendium of literary and other work by students, faculty and alumni; and specializes in Southern literature. His writings on William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Raymond Carver and Walker Percy have been published in journals and books.

He joined the College in 2006. He and his wife, Elizabeth, have three children.

t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 2 3

Grove City College

Don Lyle leaves legacy as coach and leader

A

fter 43 years as a coach, teacher and administrator at Grove City College, Dr. Don Lyle retired this spring.

A native of Calcutta, Ohio, Lyle joined the College’s athletic department in 1972 as head men’s soccer coach and assistant men’s basketball coach. He was promoted to chairman of the Department of Physical Education (now Exercise Science) in 1996 and served as athletic director since 2003. In those roles he oversaw the College’s Lyle intricate fitness and wellness program, its rapidly-growing exercise science major and Grove City’s 19-sport varsity athletics program.

Under his leadership, the College saw many winning seasons, along with improved sports and fitness facilities and programs and a greater appreciation of the College’s rich athletic history. His legacy, though, is profoundly shaping the culture and lineage of the men’s soccer program, which he led as head coach for 34 years.

Lyle guided the team from 1972 to 2005 and finished his coaching career as the program’s all-time leader in wins. In 34 years as head coach, he compiled a 277-206-37 record. The College inducted him into its Men’s Soccer Hall of Fame.

He led the Wolverines to six post-season berths, including a pair of trips to the NCAA Championship Tournament. Seventeen of his players earned NSCAA All-Region honors. In 1996 he directed the team to its first Eastern College Athletic Conference title. Nine years later in 2005, he guided the team to its first-ever outright PAC title and a trip to the finals of the ECAC Southern Championship Tournament. He earned the PAC’s Coach of the Year award that year.

24 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

DON LYLE Head Coach, Men’s Soccer

1972-2005

Assist. Coach, Men’s Basketball

1972-79

Head Coach, Softball

1980-88

Head Coach, Baseball

1989-97

Chairman, Department of Physical 1996-2015 Education/Exercise Science Athletic Director

Lyle established the annual men’s soccer alumni match during Homecoming weekend early in his career and spearheaded the creation of the College’s Men’s Soccer Hall of Fame in 2001. In 2013, Lyle also co-authored Tales from the Pitch, a history of the Grove City College soccer program.

He helped establish local youth and varsity soccer programs and received the Florence MacKenzie Campus-Community Award in 1988.

Lyle also coached basketball, baseball and softball during his tenure at the College.

Lyle oversaw a growth in promotion of the College’s rich athletic heritage, which ranks among his proudest accomplishments.

He directed the establishment of the Grove

2003-15

City College Athletic Hall of Fame in 2006 and served as chairman of the selection committee.

Under his watch, the College renovated the Physical Learning Center’s Arena and upgraded Robert E. Thorn Field, the Walters-Zbell Tennis Courts, the James E. Longnecker Pool, the R. Jack Behringer Baseball Field, the soccer complex and the softball facility. The PLC also was modernized and augmented with numerous displays that reflect the College’s proud athletic tradition, including a unique exhibit that presents the century-old history of women’s athletics at Grove City College. He was responsible for the design, expansion and continual development of the College’s two fitness centers.

He also reintroduced the College’s classic varsity “G” monogram as the athletic department’s official logo.

Lyle earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Muskingum College in 1971. He earned his master’s degree in education from Miami of Ohio in 1972. Lyle received his doctorate from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

He and his wife Barbara ’84 live in Pine Township. They have three adult children and nine grandchildren.

Summer 2015

sports

Hall of famers Grove City College inducted the ninth class of honorees into its Athletic Hall of Fame.

President McNulty presented Peter Riley ’15, left, and Emily Rabenold ’16 with the Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year Awards.

Riley and Rabenold take athletic awards

S

enior men’s tennis player Peter Riley ’15 and junior cross country/ track and field standout Emily Rabenold ’16 were named as Grove City College’s Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year for the 2014-15 academic year.

Riley, of Woodbury, Pa., earned Presidents’ Athletic Conference Player of the Year honors for the third time in his career, winning singles and doubles titles while helping Grove City earn its 25th consecutive conference title and fifth straight berth to the NCAA Division III Championships.

As a senior, Riley posted a 13-6 record at first singles and a 12-6 mark in the No. 1 doubles slot. For his career, he is 47-13 in singles play and 50-19 in doubles action.

An English/French double major, Riley earned Dean’s List honors in each of his eight semesters and is a three-year member of the conference’s Academic Honor Roll. He has also received the College’s “Scholar Athlete” award.

Rabenold, Allison Park, Pa., is a three-year letterwinner in track and field and a two-year cross country letterwinner. She is only the second junior to win Sportswoman of the Year honors, following 2012 honoree Angela Palumbo ’13. In November, she became the third NCAA Division III All-American in program history by placing 28th at the NCAA Championships in Mason, Ohio.

A biology major, Rabenold was recently named Grove City’s 43rd all-time Academic All-American, earning Third Team At-Large honors.

She has also been named to the Dean’s List and the conference’s Academic Honor Roll.

She is a two-time conference Most Valuable Performer in cross country, earned All-Mideast Region recognition in both 2013 and 2014 and recently repeated as the conference’s MVP in women’s outdoor track and field at the Presidents’ Athletic Conference Championships.

The College inducted Bob Bishop ’66 (soccer), Sarah Hamsher ’97 (volleyball), Brian Herrick ’87 (football/track), Jeff Ickes ’74 (cross country/track), Larry Sawyer ’70 (football/baseball), Sue (Shadle ’87) Nelson (volleyball), Margaret “Peggy” (Whitbeck ’04) Mahan (swimming) and Marty Wurl ’78 (diving).

The College also presented the seventh group of Athletic Heritage Awards to three recipients this year: Howard Acher ’13 (football/basketball/tennis/coach), Charlie Guiler ’61 (professor/coach) and Danny McEuen (professor/coach).

In addition, the College presented the inaugural McMillanJewell Charitable Heart Ambassadors Award, named for Dr. Richard “Dick” Jewell ’67 and Dr. Donald “Doc” McMillan ’32, to William “Skip” Johnson ’76.

Pop Quiz!

Under which College president did the most students graduate?

Those who respond with the correct answer will have a chance to win a prize! Contact the Office of Marketing and Communications at news@gcc.edu or on Twitter @GroveCtyCollege #PopQuiz.

Spring issue Pop Quiz winners!

C

ongratulations to the winners of last issue’s Pop Quiz: Janet Thompson ’66, Evelyn Fields, Julie Boyd ’80 and Dan Johnson ’14. They correctly answered the question “After Modern Languages professor Harvey Cole retires in May with 52 years of teaching at the College, which current faculty member has the most years of service?” The answer is Dr. Fred Brenner (biology), who now has 46 years.

t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 25

Grove City College

Eric Phillips ’04 is the College’s Director of Student Leadership Development. His job is to help students develop the wisdom and skills to guide others in a faithful way.

Lessons in Leadership

R

ob Kane ’79 is a professional leader.

After 33 years in the U.S. Air Force he retired as a major general and now heads the National Defense University, which specializes in leadership training.

During the course of his military career, Kane was in charge of thousands of men and women and billions of dollars’ worth of equipment in a number of top jobs, including being in charge of the largest American community outside of the U.S. as the commander of the Kaiserslautern Military Community and 867th Airlift Wing in Germany.

He faced his biggest leadership challenge there with a mandate to transform Ramstein Air Base, headquarters of the Air Forces European and African operations and a NATO base, into a modern air mobility center. He juggled nearly a dozen major construction projects while the base remained operational

during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, supporting 90 aircraft operations per day.

Kane said the key to pulling off such a big job was to build a common understanding among his team of the scope of the work and getting every member of the team to assume and “aggressively” pursue their own responsibilities.

That plan fit his “flexible and participatory” style of leadership, which he said is based on integrity, humility and trust.

Kane “You do what you say you are going to do in a selfless, transparent and collegial way with the best intellectually honest information available,” Kane said.

Grove City College, Kane said, encouraged him to grow in his faith and strengthen his core values and principles. He was part of

the ROTC program and a member of Epsilon Pi. The fraternity and its motto, “Brothers Working for the Good of All,” had a big influence on Kane.

“Living that motto and taking it with me as I moved from my EP brotherhood experience at Grove City served me well as I later accepted leadership roles and faced challenges as part of the greatest brotherhood in the world, the U.S. Armed Forces,” Kane noted.

Kane’s story is unique, but it’s not atypical of Grove City alumni. In fact, he’s not the only alum to reach his rank. His fraternity brother and fellow ROTC product Kenneth D. Merchant ’80, a 2013 Jack Kennedy Memorial Alumni Achievement Award winner, is also an Air Force major general. Kane says many officers and airmen he encountered over the years noted their shared Grove City College connection.

From founding to reform, a legacy of leadership

T

hrough the historical lens, Grove City College’s legacy of leadership is clear.

From its ambitious and evangelical roots, the College has been a leader, advancing a Christian worldview that encompasses faith, learning and action, and ideals of citizenship and freedom upon which the nation relies.

The list of men and women who have guided the institution is long. The names of some of those leaders surround us on campus: Ketler, Pew, Harbison, Harker, Sticht, Hopeman, Calderwood, Hoyt and Rathburn.

26 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

There are others who made their mark, if not on buildings on campus then on the minds that were shaped here. They are the founders, scholars and supporters who have pursued the vision of Grove City College as a Christian college that serves the common good for nearly 140 years. The work they have done in that time has transformed thousands of students and had a real impact on the world.

Here we look at three key figures who personify the leadership of Grove City College at critical times in the College’s history.

Summer 2015

“Faithful leadership is rooted in and dependent upon the cultivation of wisdom” “It can’t just be coincidence that a small school like Grove City would produce both of you general officers at the same time with the same set of values and leadership style,” they would tell him.

Over its history, generations of leaders have matriculated at Grove City College. These men and women have attained top positions in business, industry, education, the church, government and medicine. Like Kane, many of them point to their experiences at Grove City College as formational to their character and their leadership style.

The general culture and specific curriculum here is directed at producing graduates who are faithful and responsible and prepared to make an impact on the world. It’s an appropriate approach for a school like Grove City College.

“Christian colleges have the primary responsibility of equipping Christians to advance God’s kingdom through the professions, the business world, the church and voluntary organizations,” Dr. Gary Scott Smith ’72, chair of the history department, observed in a paper he presented at the inauguration of College President Paul J. McNulty ’80. Such colleges, Smith said, are obligated to prepare students to lead “a life of constructive, Christinspired service.”

In recent years the world has become less and less amenable to people of faith and reason, which makes the stakes even higher to produce the kind of leaders that are most needed.

But how do you teach leadership?

At Grove City College, that duty falls to Eric Phillips ’04, director of student leadership development. Phillips approach to the challenge is, fittingly for a Grover and

an ordained minister who planted urban churches before taking a job at his alma mater, thoughtful and firmly faith-based.

He begins the discussion of leadership with a series of questions such as: “How do you lead?;” “What does a good leader do?;” and “How do you lead in a faithful way that serves the common good?”

“Faithful leadership,” he says, is “rooted in and dependent upon the cultivation of wisdom,” which St. Augustine defines as “knowledge of God and of the self and a lifestyle suitable to that knowledge.”

“Leadership entails having the knowledge of what ought to be done, the reason it ought to be done, the practical knowledge of how best to do it, and the skills necessary to bring it about,” according to Phillips.

It’s an old school approach, literally. Phillips embraces the Socratic method and draws on the work of ancient philosophers, classical theologians and the Westminster Confession.

The deep dive is necessary to leaven the modern concept of achievement and the type-A tendencies of many Grovers.

“We stress character and wisdom formation over resume formation,” Phillips said. “It’s very hard to wrestle with defining key elements of leadership formation – the common good, the greatest good and ends and means. So, we look to means and motivations and that’s where the beauty of a liberal arts education comes. It’s not just what skills do you have, but what does it mean to be human?”

That’s where Phillips’ work dovetails with the rich academic tradition at Grove City College. The institution’s embrace of a Western Christian worldview and focus on what it

DR. ISAAC C. KETLER he essential leader of the College’s early period was Isaac C. Ketler, a western Pennsylvania schoolteacher who turned a community-backed college preparatory academy with 13 students into a respected four-year college with nearly 800 students in less than 40 years. He was a visionary, described by contemporaries and historians as peripatetic, driven, passionate, pious and ambitious.

“He was an idealist and a practical man

combined; and this combination was the source of his strength,” wrote Sir W.M. Ramsey in his essay An Estimate of the Educational Work of Dr. Isaac Conrad Ketler.* When Ketler took over Pine Grove Academy in 1876, he had a clear vision.

He recognized that the growing population of western Pennsylvania was desperately in need of education beyond the one-room schoolhouses that he attended as a student and served as a teacher. Higher education could prepare the sons and daughters of

T

means to live out one’s faith primes students to examine those “means and motivations” and develop a perspective that looks at faithfulness over outcomes.

“Being authentic and faithful to who God made you and what he’s called you to do might make you president or might get you burned at the stake. They’re both successes,” Phillips said.

Phillips is bringing a number of leadershiporiented programs now organized under the iLead banner together to create a “leadership institute” of sorts run out of the Student Life and Learning office.

Students interested in leadership development either apply to become part of the program as freshmen or are selected because they’re already serving as the leaders of campus groups and organizations, including fraternities and sororities. The program capitalizes on the skills and knowledge students bring with them from their classwork and experiences with Inner City Outreach, mission work, service projects and other activities. That’s augmented by guest speakers who talk about leadership philosophy and tactics and workshops where students talk about what they’ve gleaned from their own reflections on their efforts.

The goal is to shape a conversation and culture on campus that enables students to develop the wisdom and character that is necessary to lead others faithfully and effectively.

“We want to create a culture on campus that enables Grove City College to be known for producing wise and thoughtful Christian leaders in every sector of society who leverage their strengths and skills in manner that encourages the flourishing of the people they lead and the institutions they serve,” Phillips said. 

farmers, workingmen and shopkeepers and others of “modest means” to meet the practical and spiritual challenges arising in the late 19th century. Ketler’s vision – or at least the realization of it – dovetailed with trends of higher education at time, including a general consensus that the common good and Christian mission were one and the same.

His College reflected the times, moving from a focus on the classics to degrees in engineering and other technical disciplines. But it was contrarian, too, admitting women and (Continuted through page 31) t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 27

Grove City College

McNulty Inaugurated O

minorities at a time when few schools were coed and taking a firm stance against elitism.

Ketler’s entrepreneurial spirit was well established when the College faced a looming financial crisis in the 1890s. He reached out to his former teacher Joseph N. Pew, who had left the schoolhouse for the oil business 20 years before, urging Ketler then to join him. Pew had made a fortune and Ketler, noting that long ago offer, asked Pew to go into business with him now. Ketler secured the support of Pew and other wealthy industrialists and Pew was appointed chairman.

28 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

n March 23, 2015, before a crowd of students, faculty, staff and friends of the College packed into Harbison Chapel, members of the College’s Board of Trustees laid hands on Paul J. McNulty ’80, and prayed for the man who was being formally installed as the ninth president of Grove City College.

The moment came just after Chair of the Board David R. Rathburn ’79 presented McNulty with a tangible symbol of the office – a medallion created for the occasion by Wendell August.

“The medallion conveys the privileges, rights and responsibilities of the office of President of Grove City College,” Rathburn said.

“It’s a great day in the kingdom,” Trustee Emeritus The Rev. Dr. Richard A. Morledge ’54 exclaimed. The former Dean of Chapel was one of many current and former campus leaders to return for the ceremony. Three of the four living former Presidents of the College – Richard G. Jewell ’67, Dr. John H. Moore and Dr. Charles S. MacKenzie –

looked on as McNulty officially joined their exclusive ranks.

McNulty joked about his “shiny new medallion” as he accepted the “great privilege of leading Grove City College.” “There are no words at all to express adequately the appreciation I have for all that has transpired.

I am so unworthy,” he said.

McNulty, who has been on the job since August 2014, said he was uncomfortable as the center of all the inaugural attention but explained the institutional need for meaningful ceremony, which the College’s founder Isaac Ketler championed, along with a unique approach to higher education.

“Dr. Ketler was strongly opposed to academic elitism. His mission, for which he was passionate, was to build a democratic community of education within which the rich and the poor, side-by-side, would become highly educated in the treasures of wisdom and knowledge for the good of the country. … We gather this morning to celebrate the reality of an overwhelming blessing and rededicate ourselves to Dr. Ketler’s vital mission,” McNulty said.

The relationship was fruitful and the College grew into one of the best in the state, offering degrees in the arts, sciences and technical training on a growing campus by the time Ketler died in 1913.

His faith was his confirmation that he had done well. “My philosophy and theology united in teaching me the sovereign goodness of God, and I do not worry after I have done my best,” Ketler said hours before his death.

J. HOWARD PEW etween 1912 and 1916, Isaac Ketler, Joseph N. Pew and Ketler’s successor as president were all dead. Ketler’s son Weir C. Ketler, Class of 1908 and just 27 years old, was named president in 1916.

He wasn’t alone in picking up his father’s work at Grove City College. A few years earlier, Pew’s son J. Howard Pew, Class of 1900, had taken a seat on the College’s Board of Trustees. When the elder Pew died in 1912, his son took on a leading role with

B

Summer 2015

“Grove City College has been greatly blessed and we’re in a strong position to meet the challenges of the future” The installation service, which culminated a weekend of activities and events celebrating McNulty’s inauguration, followed the inaugural theme: “For Faith. For Freedom. For the Future.”

Kenneth Starr, president and chancellor of Baylor University, and John Ashcroft, a former U.S. attorney general, senator and governor of Missouri, two of McNulty’s friends from his years in Washington – where he was a top congressional attorney and prosecutor and served as deputy U.S. attorney general under President George W. Bush – spoke on the first and second elements of that theme.

Starr discussed the relationship between faith and higher education in America. In the early years of the nation, faith was the driving force behind the creation of colleges and universities and their mostly Christian character was widely accepted. Most of the nation’s elite colleges started Starr out as proud advocates of the linkage, only to see their priorities shift over the decades and centuries, Starr said.

He noted that the words used to define the institutions reflect that change. Harvard’s

“Veritas,” or “Truth,” used to be “Truth for Christ and the Church.”

Grove City College never compromised its foundation in faith, Starr said, and today “stands as a very well known, nationally and internationally recognized beacon for America’s first freedom: Freedom of religion.”

“The light here continues to shine very brightly and by God’s grace and Paul’s inspired leadership of humility, the light will shine even brighter,” he concluded.

Ashcroft said the College was in for a “wonderful experience of leadership” with McNulty.

“Leadership isn’t taking polls. It isn’t finding where people are already going and somehow using the poll to vault ahead of the people and then declaring when they arrive ‘I was here first.

I’m the leader.’ Leadership is the selection of noble objectives and the pursuit of Ashcroft those objectives with such intensity and, if you will, sacrifice, that others are drawn into the operation. Sacrifice is the currency of leadership. You have a sacrificial leader of vision.”

When it comes to freedom, Ashcroft said there were two views: “In the Garden of Eden there were two voices. One voice says, ‘Just do it. You’re free. It won’t make a difference.’ The other voice says, ‘Be very careful. You’re free.

You make a really big difference.’”

True freedom, Ashcroft said, requires consequences. Without them, he said, it is meaningless. It is all about making a difference, he said. Students, faculty and supporters look to Grove City College to “change the world.”

He contrasted this conception of freedom to a popular advertising campaign.

“This College is a marvelous celebrant of liberty. … I’m here to tell you happily that

the slogan here might be: ‘What happens in Grove City, doesn’t stay in Grove City.’ That the beauty of what happens here is that it can have global impact. An impact that relates to faith. An impact that relates to freedom. An impact that will shape the future.”

McNulty addressed the future of Grove City College. He noted that “a certain care” needs to be exercised when looking forward.

“Scripture warns us not presume on God’s providence” and any predictions or plans should be qualified with “if the Lord wills.”

“We live in uncertain times and the world is full of risks. This is especially true in the world of higher education, particularly Christian higher education. Grove City College has been greatly blessed and we’re in a strong position to meet the challenges of the future, but we don’t know all the challenges we face,” he said.

“We do know with certainty that God’s plans will prevail and they will be good. The future of Grove City College is in very good hands. Not my hands. His hands. We wouldn’t want it any other way. Look how far he has brought us and how richly he has blessed us in nearly 140 years.”

McNulty came to the post after nearly a decade at the global law firm Baker & MacKenzie, where he built up its industryleading compliance division and earned kudos for his pioneering work and ethical approach to the law.

He was tapped for the president’s office in May 2014 after an extensive search process that drew dozens of qualified candidates. His close connection to his alma mater – he served on the Board of Trustees from 2004 until his appointment – deep faith and extensive management and leadership experience were key factors in his selection as president. 

the family business, a natural gas and oil company that became the Sun Oil Company and eventually Sunoco.

The younger Pew provided both financial and philosophical leadership for the College, becoming Chairman of the Board of Trustees in 1931. A devout Christian, he believed in religious, political and economic liberty and saw Grove City College, which he referred to proprietarily as “my college,” as one vehicle to advance those views and defend and strengthen the nation’s spiritual, moral and intellectual foundation. Pew was more than

just a rich man’s son. He was an engineer who revolutionized oil refining and an executive who guided and built up the family business, leaving more than he inherited and using his wealth to help others through charity and philanthropy.

“To J. Howard Pew, his alma mater was an ideal concept of mental and moral improvement, a concept that reveals man’s deficiencies and spurs him on to higher and better things. It was an ideal that was derived from the unchanging law of God and the principles of eternal morality and justice,

which are the very foundation of a moral and civilized society,” his biographer Mary Sennholz wrote in Faith and Freedom.

He made regular visits to the College and shared his viewpoint and philosophy in addresses to students. He poured money into the school that prided itself on living within its means and refusing federal assistance, even it meant he had to write a check at the end of the fiscal year to balance the books and ensure that the College maintained its “debt-free” status.

He exercised strong control over the Board of Trustees and the College’s administration t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 29

Grove City College

PEW POINT | “I have found that service and hard work are the first requisites of a happy life.”

Nancy (Alderson ’78) McDonnell helped her father develop an effective leadership theory that puts people first. Here, she poses near a Grove City College pennant in Atria’s Restaurant in Mount Lebanon, one of several restaurants she and her husband own and operate using Value of the Person – Theory R.

L

Be a leader who loves

By Nick Hildebrand

but was a modest man of simple tastes. The family name went on dormitories named for his mother and sister, but it wasn’t until after his death in 1971 that his own name graced a campus structure, the J. Howard Pew Fine Arts Center. Years later a life-size statue of Pew sitting on a bench in his distinctive boater was erected in the garden of Harbison Chapel Just a few months before his passing, Pew made his final contribution to leadership at Grove City College. Troubled by the drift of the country and appalled at the social and 30 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

moral upheaval on college campuses in the 1960s, a strain of which was even apparent at Grove City College, Pew took it upon himself to recruit a new College president to “return the school to its evangelical principles in the classroom and clean up student social life.”

DR. CHARLES S. MACKENZIE ew’s choice was Charles S. MacKenzie, a pastor and academic who shared Pew’s theological viewpoint and had the energy to take on the job of reestablishing the Biblical perspective in the

P

eadership. Is it an innate quality, something inborn that makes itself apparent when the need arises? Or is it a skill set that can be taught like reading and writing? Or is it something different, something more universal than individual talent and more comprehensive than a rule book? Something that looks beyond the goal at hand to the people that are supposed to be achieving it.

Nancy (Alderson ’78) McDonnell has been answering that question for 35 years with Value of the Person – Theory R seminars that have helped businesses and other organizations see beyond their short-term needs and address the constant need for transformation at its true source: People.

The theory holds that to lead effectively, one must value those who are being led on a very human level and give them love, dignity and respect. In short, “be a leader who loves,” McDonnell says. The “R” in theory stands for doing what is right.

McDonnell didn’t intend to go into the management consultant business when she went to Grove City College in the 1970s. She

College’s intellectual life and Christian principles in student life.

Fifteen years earlier, the College had lost its accreditation after reviewers visited and found the academic program woefully lacking.

An all-out effort by then-president J. Stanley Harker ’25 to reorganize the school and hire better-qualified faculty had succeeded in shoring up the educational offerings and securing re-accreditation. But by the end of the 1960s, the traditional Christian foundation of the school was weakened.

Summer 2015

“If you let people experience your heart, love allows people to want to follow you”

was an education major and expected she would end up in a classroom full of children, not conference rooms full of adults. She had a teaching job lined up after graduation, but the chance to work with her father, Wayne Alderson, was too appealing.

Alderson developed Value of the Person from the lessons he learned turning around a struggling, dysfunctional steel mill in the early 70s into a management theory that could be universally applied.

“We started in his basement together. He was awesome,” McDonnell says of her father, who died in 2013. “He was the best of the best. Best dad. Best mentor. Best boss.”

Alderson was the manager of Pittron, a steel mill facing closure and roiled by a bitter, lengthy strike. He reviewed the culture at the plant, in which workers resented their jobs and management saw workers’ value only on expense sheets, and knew that the usual confrontational approach would not work. Instead of seeing the striking workers as adversaries, he approached them as people worthy of the love, dignity and respect that his Christian faith taught him that everyone deserves.

He built relationships that grew into friendships with the labor leaders and union members, due to his willingness to meet them on their own turf, the shop floor and plant gates, and recognize their contributions.

With a commitment to understanding and empathizing with workers in place, the strike was settled and the company turned around amazingly as production, profits and jobs grew exponentially. In time, though, the better-functioning mill attracted a buyer who didn’t share Alderson’s approach and he left Pittron.

He came out of the experience with a mission to take Value of the Person to the

world and improve the on-job relationships.

His daughter, who had an insider’s view of what’s known as “The Miracle of Pittron” during her high school days, took on that that calling as well. Over the years, Value of the Person seminars have helped hundreds of businesses and organizations to improve their operations.

McDonnell and her father even brought Value of the Person to Grove City College for a series of Chapel programs in the late 1970s.

While the message was well-received by most, some in the campus community objected to the participation of organized labor leaders in the sessions, McDonnell said. But leadership potential isn’t limited to a job title and throwing out preconceptions is part of the idea behind the theory.

The key to successfully implementing Value of the Person – Theory R is a commitment to people before anything else.

“People are the key,” McDonnell says. And the commitment has to be real. She cites a union leader who once told her: “If you pretend to care about people, they’ll pretend to work.”

“If you let people experience your heart,

MacKenzie put the charge to reform the College’s curriculum to a few critical early hires – Dr. Andrew Hoffecker, Dr. John Van Til and Dr. Ross Foster – and began a long process of getting student life, specifically the worst excesses of fraternity and off-campus culture, in line with the Christian worldview that was being conceived.

The curriculum created under MacKenzie’s watch became the core of every Grove City College student’s academic life, the goal of which was to present a cohesive picture of the liberal arts and sciences

from the Greeks to the modern era from a Christian perspective. Strategic recruiting of faculty and students, the presence of active Christian groups on campus and a concerted effort to bring all students back to oncampus housing were crucial to reforming campus life.

If that wasn’t enough, MacKenzie’s tenure also included the College’s historic legal battle with the federal government. With the backing of the Board of Trustees, he spearheaded the challenge to regulations that would undermine the College’s historical

love allows people to want to follow you,” McDonnell says.

And the lessons aren’t just for those who hold leadership titles, she says. Theory R isn’t a top down approach. It recognizes the reality that everyone in the workplace can demonstrate leadership and, when fully embraced, can transform an organization.

McDonnell attended Grove City College during a transformational era on campus. The seventies were a period in which the College was reviving its Christian character and crafting a new approach to teaching liberal arts and sciences. It was an exciting time, she says.

“What I learned at Grove City College formed me. It challenged me,” she said. The big question put to students then was the same one facing students today: “What does it mean to live out your faith?”

McDonnell acknowledges that while the training and services she offered aren’t overtly Christian, the foundation is clearly biblical and it has been an avenue for some to find or rediscover their faith.

Value of the Person Consultants is a small company and the theory is one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, which businesses and organizations may embrace. “We’re not the flavor of the month,” McDonnell says. But a stable of clients who have found success with Value of the Person keep McDonnell busy and on the road.

When she’s home in Pittsburgh, she also tends to another family business. She and her restaurateur husband, Pat McDonnell, own Restaurant Holdings LLC, the parent company of Atria’s Restaurant and Tavern, Juniper Grill and the managing partner operating Mike Ditka’s restaurants in Chicago and Pittsburgh.

The McDonnells have one son, Patrick. 

independence, taking the fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. MacKenzie’s forceful and direct defense of the College’s right to be left alone won many over to the College’s side, even if the Justices didn’t agree.

The changes enacted by MacKenzie set the stage for the Grove City College that exists today, linked through generations of leaders to the founder’s vision and the keeper of a rich academic tradition. 

t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 31

Grove City College

There and Back Again

Lorenc Gjoni ’98, pictured here on his first day on campus in 1995, came to Grove City College from his native Albania through a series of fortunate events.

By Nick Hildebrand

A

fter spending much of his youth under communist rule in Albania, Lorenc Gjoni ’98 worked hard to get an education and a good job in America.

Twenty years later, he’s back in his homeland, leading the American Chamber of Commerce in Albania’s efforts to bring business to the Balkan country.

Gjoni was named executive director of the Chamber earlier this year, becoming just the second person to head the organization that promotes American business and opportunities for regional. The Chamber provides networking opportunities and lobbies for more businessfriendly policy in Albania and the region.

The job isn’t what Gjoni (pronounced gah-zhonny) imagined he’d be doing when

32 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

he decided to go back to Albania in 2009 after studying and working in the U.S. for two decades, but it fulfills the mission he set for himself.

“I wanted to create new business that would create opportunities for others,” he said. His initial business plan didn’t pan out for a variety of reasons and he was working as a consultant and translator when the “tailor-made” Chamber job opened up. “I was working to make connections. Now I am making connections between America and Albania,” he said.

It’s a role that fulfills his desire to take what he’s learned and make a difference in a place where his knowledge of American business and technology has the potential to do just that.

The son of a truck driver and accountant, Gjoni was an unlikely pick for the leadership role he now plays, but a series of fortunate events created the opportunities that made it.

He believes providence played a big part in those events, but he didn’t recognize it at first.

“You are never done learning. You are perpetually learning and adjusting” Once a self-identified atheist, Gjoni had a thirst for knowledge and dreamed of bigger. He studied English and mastered the language, in part by consuming any written material, from science textbooks to the New Testament, eventually discovering he could learn something from the “fairy tales with good messages” he read in evangelical publications. His curiosity and desire to be a better person, along with study and deliberation, led him to the belief that God did indeed exist and he accepted Christ.

“I know now that God was reaching out to me in many ways, finding me wherever my needs were in order to bring me to him,” Gjoni said.

His command of English landed him a job as an interpreter for foreigners visiting Albania but it was an encounter at Bible study while he attended college in the Albanian capital of Tirana that led him to Grove City College. He came to the aid of a visiting missionary who didn’t speak Albanian and ended up with a job as an interpreter and self-appointed tour guide for visiting mission groups.

In October 1994, he worked with a group that included many people from Pittsburgh, including Carol Burnett, who got to know Gjoni and took note of his desire to study in America. That month he was tapped by the Billy Graham Association to come to America to do voiceover translation work in Minneapolis and then to interpret at a mission conference in Puerto Rico. While in the states, he visited Burnett, and on Maundy Thursday 1995, Gjoni found himself in church, sitting next to Sally Cheney, who was a volunteer at the conference in Puerto Rico. Cheney mentioned Gjoni to her friend Irene Bailey, who is a huge supporter of the College and

married to a former professor, John Bailey.

Cheney arranged for Bailey and Gjoni to meet at church on Easter Sunday and she insisted he visit Grove City College.

“I can still visualize that visit,” Gjoni said.

“We parked in front of Crawford Hall facing the creek. As I got out of the car and my right foot hit the pavement, I knew God was calling me to come here.”

Deciding to attend the College was one thing. Figuring out how to pay for it was another matter. Bailey was the key. She introduced Gjoni to Louise (Slavcoff ’56) Baird, a member of the Board of Trustees.

Baird though he would be a good fit for a scholarship for overseas students named in honor of her father, Alexander Slavcoff ’27.

The scholarship was expanded to cover the full tuition cost – something that hadn’t been done before.

While Gjoni was grateful, he still couldn’t afford room and board. One year’s bill was equivalent to the net worth of his parents.

Bailey contacted then-Trustee Bill Pendleton who enlisted Bill Mehaffey ’64, now a Trustee, and a handful of other alumni to cover the Gjoni’s room and board.

Summer 2015

Gjoni studied math and computers and graduated in just three years, despite the fact that the college he attended in Albania wasn’t accredited. He wasn’t sure if he would stay in the U.S. or return to Albania after graduation.

He had missed the deadline for entering the “visa lottery” and resigned himself to waiting another year when he received a large envelope full of paperwork indicating he had won a visa. He didn’t know it, but his parents had submitted the form for him from Albania.

If he had done it himself, he would have been disqualified because of the double entry.

“That oversight was yet another way God was directing my course,” he said.

With the help of the College’s Career Services Offices, he secured a job with PPG Industries in Pittsburgh. During his 11 years with the company, he became a U.S. citizen and earned a master’s degree in business administration from Carnegie Mellon University.

When it comes to leadership, Gjoni aspires to be servant leader in the tradition of so many who find their inspiration in Christ. “It’s what we are called to do,” he said, noting that it’s

a challenge sometimes to take that approach, but it’s the right thing to do.

Grove City College, he said, prepared him well for the professional challenges he faces.

“It’s not a specific lesson, but the overall idea that GCC prepares you for life. You learn how to learn, not just a few things,” he said. “You are never done learning. You are perpetually learning and adjusting.”

Gjoni has accomplished as much as he has in large part because of the generosity and charity that the Grove City College community showed him. He’s doing his part now to pay it forward by lining up support to cover the education of Xhesiana “Jessie” Zohoaliaj, another student from Albania.

She’ll start as a freshman in the fall. 

PEW POINT | “America can be saved by only by training our youth in these eternal truths and fundamental principles.”

APPLICATION FEE WAIVED FOR ALUMNI REFERRALS

Do you know of a student who would be a good fit for Grove City College? Give them the code ALUMNI16, and their application fee will be waived. They will need to provide your full name and class year in addition to this code. They will thank you and we thank you too.

t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 33

Grove City College

Beanie babies – Freshmen of yesteryear had to don a dink

By Hilary (Lewis ’09) Walczak, College Archivist

A

tradition that thousands of Grovers across many decades have in common is wearing the famous – or infamous – dink.

For nearly 60 years, it was an inescapable part of becoming of a Grover and it remains one of the unique traditions that binds generations of alumni.

The dink was a beanie all freshmen wore during the first six weeks of school. The tradition was widespread in American colleges in the early 20th century and dates back to at least 1912 at Grove City College.

Each generation of dinks was slightly different from the last.

While most alums remember the dink as a small red beanie with white piping, a small bill and a large G on the front, the original was blue and gold. In 1923 they were green. In the 1930s, women wore bellhop-style dinks.

Though the style and material changed over the years, the rules surrounding them remained pretty much the same. Freshmen were given a rulebook by upperclassmen outlining what was expected of them. The dink was required headgear for all first-year students on campus and in town, except on Sundays, for the first six weeks of the fall term. If the football team won the Homecoming game, freshmen could stop wearing the dinks, but a loss and the hats stayed on for an additional week.

Dinks were accompanied by an 8-by-11 inch red sign students wore tied around their necks. The signs stated their name, hometown, dorm room and resident assistant. If a freshman acted up or violated the rules, this information would allow upperclassmen to know who to contact to report the misbehavior.

Along with the dink, freshmen were also expected to dress a certain way, participate in campus rituals and learn their history. Men wore black socks and had to tie their ties – black as well – in fourin-hand knots. Women had to wear white stockings. Freshmen had to attend every football game and sit together as a group. At halftime they were expected to perform a “snake dance.” They had to be able to recite all the school songs and cheers, including the alma mater. They

3 4 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

were also required to go to meetings and orientations to teach them about the history of the College. Freshmen were always expected to move aside for all upperclassmen walking on the sidewalk, as well as greet them. They were also expected to be off the streets by 9 p.m.

After World War II, the rules for freshmen were eased as many veterans in their mid-20s were not willing to participate in such activities. Eventually the rules were dictated to freshmen by word of mouth rather than in handbooks. By 1972, as class sizes grew and student attitudes changed, the era of the dink and arcane rules for freshmen was over. The rituals that were meant to welcome new students and help them bond were replaced through the years with the many activities of the Orientation Board today.

But the stories of alumni who endured, and enjoyed, those rituals live on when reunion classes come back for Homecoming – and you’re sure to see at least a few Grovers sporting their dinks. 

Summer 2015

It’s About tIme.

Archive photo of MAp South, circA 1980.

We tho ught this day wo uld never com e.

B ut, when it was fin ally tim e to go, it was hard to leave the place th at had changed o ur lives forever.

WHeReVeR We Go, WHAteVeR We Do— GRoVe CItY CoLLeGe Is PARt oF WHo We ARe. As we celebrate this year’s graduates, we are all reminded that when we give we gain so much more in return. thanks to the generous friends and family who support full circle, the Annual fund for Grove city college, we remain focused and responsive to the daily needs of our students.

All gifts, no matter the amount, enable our students—past and present—to do more than just dream about reaching their aspirations.

Because it’s about time and what we do with it that counts, make your gift today. visit alumni.gcc.edu/givenow. t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 35

Grove City College

class notes 1958

KEEP IN TOUCH! We want to keep in touch with you electronically! If you have an email address, or have recently changed your address or work information, make changes through

alumni.gcc.edu/update.

Have exciting news? Submit a class note for the magazine and for viewing online at

alumni.gcc.edu/classnote.

Remember to let the alumni office know that you are having a “Grover Gathering!” We’d love to send you some fun “stuff” for your event.

36 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

Gene Jordan released three books in 2014: An Old Man and a Girl, Gene Jordan’s Short Stories and 1763: A Boy. The books are published through Amazon and he will have more available soon. Jordan is a former high school language teacher and a local businessman. He lives in Hadley, Pa.

1959 Reginald Hermans is retired from his career as a commercial banker.

1965 Frank Soos has been re-elected a board director and secretary for Three Palms Pointe Condominium Association, St. Pete Beach, Fla. He retired from Ford Motor Company and from Visteon Corporation as regional customer engineering manager. He also worked for seven years for General Electric Company in quality

engineering disciplines. He is also past chairman of the American Society for Quality, Cleveland Section, and past commodore of the Vermillion (Ohio) Boat Club.

1966 Bob Heck was the subject of a feature story in the May 24, 2015, Butler (Pa.) Eagle. He is retiring after 46 years as a biology teacher at Moniteau High School.

1970 Rob Lubitz published Beyond Top Secret, an espionage thriller, in March. It is the sequel to his earlier novel, Breaking Free. In the new book, a woman’s murder trial puts other people in danger. The book is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

1974 Dr. Donald Howard accepted a position as adjunct professor at American Public University System, where he teaches undergraduate courses for the on-line university’s department of religion. In addition, he was

elected president of the board of directors of Chautauqua County Rural Ministry in Dunkirk, N.Y. CCRM is an interfaith, nondenominational human service agency.

Pamela (Cook) Ondeck received the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Alumni Association’s Outstanding Faculty Award. The award recognizes excellence in classroom instruction and devotion to the development of students.

She is an assistant professor of management at the school.

1976 Darrell Smith received recognition as a leading lawyer in his field the 2015 edition of Chambers USA Guide to America’s Leading Business Lawyers. He specializes in corporate mergers and acquisitions and private equity with Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, LLP, in Florida.

Thomas Umbel joined Bioventus as its vice president of business development. The company, which provides orthobiologic solutions, is based in Durham, N.C.

EP GOLF |

Alums gathered for an Epsilon Pi golf outing Jan. 23, 2015, in Orlando, Fla. Row 1, from left: Bob Jackson ’60, Harry Guarnieri ’60, Bruce Johnson ’60 and Ron Lamanna ’62. Row 2: Ron Gentile ’59, Al Lelekacs ’59, Tom Robinson ’62, Jim Passilla ’60 and Bud Runyan ’62.

Summer 2015

PAN GOLF | The “Old Guard” of Pan Sophic Fraternity had a threeday golf roundup in Stuart, Fla., in April 2015. Hosts were Dave and Olene Stuart. The brothers attending were: Bill Hemphill ’63, Fritz Keck ’63, Jack Barton ’63, Bill Anthony ’64, Dave Stuart ’64, Dennis Larry ’65, Kirk Heilman ’64, Jim Harrison ’65, John Vierthaler ’63, Bill Curry ’64, Dave Campbell ’62, John McFarland ’62, John Baker ’65, Bob Koehn ’65, Dan Walko ’64, Mike Cassidy ’62, Bob Callahan ’65, Scott Brown ’63, John Campbell ’65, Chuck Bestwick ’61, Bob Stilley ’63, and in absentia, Bert Peterson ’63.

KAP PICNIC AND PIRATES | Dick Hay ’68 and his wife, Judy, opened their Pittsburgh home for a Kappa Alpha Phi fraternity picnic.

The group went to a Pirates game the next day. Row 1, from left: Bob Mehaffey ’67, Joe Francis ’71, Paul Tescione ’67, Dick Hay ’68, Tom Brown ’68 and Dave Nixon ’68. Row 2: Mike Mawhinney ’66, John Hadden ’70, Joe Bunda ’68, Gregg Johnston ’70, Skip Friday ’68, Gary Koch ’71, Fred Bloom ’68, Keith McClain ’68 and Curt Newill ’67.

Absent from photo: Bruce Cooley ’69.

1977

Reinert citizen of the year Rev. Nancy (Joiner ’71) Reinert retired on May 31 after serving for 18 years as pastor of the Caledonia (N.Y.) First Presbyterian Church. Her work with the church and community was recognized in April with the 2015 Citizen of the Year award from the CaledoniaMumford Lions Club.

Reinert joined First Presbyterian in 1996, soon after she graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary, where she earned a master of divinity degree. Through the next two decades, she led her church and community through life’s celebrations and sadnesses, according to a May 29, 2015, story in the Livingston County (N.Y.) News about Reinert’s award and her retirement from the ministry.

Caledonia Mayor Mary C. Hamilton told the paper that the Citizen of the Year award is given to people who “work very hard, who make a difference in their hometown and those who care about helping others.” Reinert was hailed for offering assistance to any and all who were in need, including helping Focus on the Children, supporting the food pantry and backpack food program, serving the Source of Success afterschool program and starting Wednesday night suppers. She also had a passion for the Walking Boys of South Sudan.

Reinert and her husband, Wayne, have two sons and two grandchildren.

Howard Imhof received the John & Suanne Roueche Excellence Award from The League for Innovation in the Community College. He is director of information and technology services for Central Ohio Technical College.

1978 Ed Breen was appointed as an independent director to the board of DuPont, headquartered in Wilmington, Del. He is chairman of the board of directors of Tyco International and a Grove City College trustee.

1979 Kathleen (Angell) Gallagher was appointed to the Government Outreach Committee of the World Meeting of Families. The meeting, to be held in Philadelphia in September, is the largest gathering of Catholic families in the world and will include a visit

by Pope Francis. She was profiled in March by The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

1980 Gene Colleran is the new chief executive officer of Polyconcept,

a global supplier of corporate and promotional merchandise. Based at the headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pa., he has responsibility for the company’s three primary operating divisions. Most recently, he was CEO of Griffon Home and Building Products.

Paul McNulty was inducted into the Baldwin High School Distinguished Highlander Alumni Hall of Fame in May. He was one of 11 graduates of the Pittsburgh school recognized for personal and professional achievement in the inaugural class of inductees to the hall.

1983 Kenneth Goncz received the Principal of the Year Award in January from the Maryland School Counselor Association. He is principal at Westminster High School in Carroll County. He leads a team of five full-time school counselors and a crisis counselor.

1985 Amy Dinning is now the global learning and development manager for ARRIS in Horsham, Pa. She oversees programs for 6,500 employees world-wide including developing the strategic learning plan, conducting learning

t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 37

Grove City College 1991

WEDDING GUESTS | It’s a small world! While attending a family wedding in Montgomery, Ala., Bostonians Dale Fox ’68 and Beth (Fox ’96) Lepore, right, met fellow Grover Michelle (Glenn ’82) Irwin, left, of Saegertown,Pa., who was also a guest at the wedding. needs assessments and facilitating solutions. She resides in King of Prussia, Pa.

1986 Stephen French is now a board member of the Clarion Forest Visiting Nurse Association, based in Clarion, Pa. He is an attorney with Pope, Drayer, French & Heeter LLP in Clarion.

Rob Jorgenson has been named executive vice president, marketing division manager, for S&T Bank, Indiana, Pa. Amy Smith-Yoder is now general manager of the Mon Valley Works of the United States Steel Corporation, based in Pittsburgh.

She is responsible for operations at the Clairton, Edgar Thomson, Irvin and Fairless facilities.

1988 Scott Bullock has been named the new president of the Institute for Justice, effective January 2016.

He currently is a senior attorney with the national law firm based in Arlington, Va.

1990 John Boehm has been elected chair of the Bio-Process Systems Alliance board of directors for a two-year term. He is the bioprocessing business unit manager at Colder Products Company in St. Paul, Minn.

38 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

Darrin Grove, president of TrueFit in Pittsburgh, received a Diamond Award from the Pittsburgh Business Times as one of the city’s Top Business Leaders. True Fit helps companies develop new software products. Grove founded TrueFit in 1997.

Beth (Durniok) Williams was promoted to principal of North Hills High School in Pittsburgh.

She has worked in the district for the last 12 years and served as principal at North Hills Middle School since 2010. Last year, under her leadership, North Hills Middle School received its first Pennsylvania Don Eichhorn Schools: Schools to Watch designation, which recognizes the school as one of the best middlegrades buildings in the nation.

IN SYNC FOR 60 YEARS | George Elliott ’70, Becky Elliott, Tom Evens ’70, Lucia Bashline and Doug Bashline ’70 (left to right) stand above the embattled cliffs of Pointe du Hoc, France, during a Normandy Coast visit in fall 2014. George, Tom and Doug attended kindergarten together in 1954, all later joining the Pan Sophic fraternity at Grove City College. All three became U.S. Air Force pilots following graduation and eventually retired as captains for major commercial airlines.

1992 Jonathan Edward Adams was named national partner at the law firm Baker & McKenzie, S.C., in Mexico City. He focuses his practice on anti-corruption and compliance matters for multinational clients, including internal investigations, ethics and compliance counsel and advice on design of anti-corruption structures and strategies. Adams has lived in Mexico City for the last 11 years with his wife, Elisa, and their three daughters.

SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY | Five alumnae from the Class of 1970 met recently at the home of Phil ’70 and Robyn (Caldwell ’70) Kiser’s in Bluffton, S.C. From left: Mary Grace (Krebs) Schaap, Anne (Forrest) Hamilton, Judy (Borland) Augustin, Robyn Kiser and Jane (Giorgio) Brugger.

1993 Ray and Mary (Ihnat ’92) Selden have been heavily involved in youth ministry.

Ray has been a full-time pastor since graduation, and Mary specializes in organization and hospitality. They are making plans for future ministry work in Haiti.

1995 Michael Hoffer and his wife, Connie, adopted two children – daughter Addyson Renee, 3, and son Wesley Michael, 4, on Nov. 21, 2014. They join the Hoffers’ son, 9, and daughter 7.

NORTHERN TRIP | Class of 1971 Phi Sigma Chi sisters enjoyed a trip to Quebec City in August 2014. From left: Ashley (Mainard) Weston, Emmy (Starrett) Bocek, Vicki (Gott) Liggitt, Suzanne Travis, Suzy (Camp) Bull and Carol (Doctor) Bowman.

Summer 2015 Dr. Bryan Stewart was ordained a priest in the Anglican Church in North America on May 9, 2015. In addition to full-time responsibilities as associate professor of religion at McMurry University in Abilene, Texas, he will serve as assisting priest at St. Andrews Church in Breckenridge, Texas, as well as do supply work where needed in the Anglican Diocese of Fort Worth. He recently published his first book, Priests of My People: Levitical Paradigms for Early Christian Ministers (Peter Lang, 2015).

ABT RETREAT | Betsy (Dayton ’92) Slater (far right) and her daughter Abby ’18, both Alpha Beta Tau sisters, opened their Youngstown, Ohio, home in April for the ABT spring retreat. The majority of the current sisters attended the weekend gathering featuring food, faith, fellowship, and a sleepover.

THEATER MEMORIES | Tau Alpha Pi theater honorary members from across the country gathered at the Saxonburg, Pa., home of Sandra (Kressley ’88) Jerich the day before Dr. Jim Dixon’s retirement party on campus. From left: Dr. Janet White ’88, Jennifer (Balloon ’90) Gunnels, Betsy (Deedrick ’88) Suzio, Catherine Fithian ’86, Wendy (Annett ’89) Johnson and Jerich.

GIRLS WEEKEND |

These ladies enjoyed a girls’ weekend in May in Hilton Head, S.C. From left: Alison (Kent ’95) Rippole, Shawna (Martin ’95) Haynes, Halley (Batz ’95) Bannon, Laura (Peelor ’96) Peters, Brittany (Stephens ’95) Hurst, Julie (Moore ’97) Shefchunas and Tara (Bradley ’97) Bova.

1997 Sarah (Brown) Beneigh, a Butler (Pa.) High School guidance counselor, received a Red Apple Award in May from the Education Impact Council of the United Way of Butler County and XTO Energy.

Michael Elder was named Administrator of the Year by the North Carolina Association for Gifted and Talented. Elder is the director of academic innovation and gifted serves for Onslow County Schools.

The award recognizes increasing collaboration between districts and advocating in the areas of teaching, curriculum development and adaptation for all children.

Jason Newlon, Ph.D., was elected chair of The Society of Sensory Professionals. SSP advances the science of sensory evaluation as well as sensory education across both industry and academia.

Newlon is the principal sensory scientist for the Global Health Care Business of The Procter & Gamble Company. Jason, his wife Amy (Cheeseman ’96) Newlon, and their sons live near Cincinnati, Ohio.

Jennifer (Wolfe) Rhinehart and her husband, Tim, welcomed son Tobias Wesley on March 11, 2015. He joins sisters Juliana, Katrina, Genevieve and Eloise at home in Montoursville, Pa.

1998 Matthew Best is a student at Lutheran Theological Seminary

WALL OF FAME | Jeannie Stevens Jones ’75, left, and classmate Pamela (Fishback ’75) Christie, right, met unexpectedly at the Kenmore East High School (Tonawanda, N.Y.) Performing Arts Wall of Fame Induction in April. Jeannie’s husband, Bill, was being inducted that evening.

Pam was overjoyed because two years ago, at the same event, Bill presented her son with a college scholarship. Pam says she and Jeannie had a re-connection that will last a lifetime! in Gettysburg, Pa. Through the school, he was an exchange student with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland; his family (Abigail (Noss) and four children) traveled with him. He is researching the decline of the membership of the Lutheran Church in Finland. He returned to the U.S. in June 2015 for an internship stateside. He continues distance running and started a blog at www.laceduplutheran.com.

Justin Grubbs is the new head football coach at Cambridge Springs (Pa.) Junior/Senior High School. He has been an assistant coach for 11 years at the school.

Missy (Guetschow) and Mike ’99 Murchie announce the adoption of daughter Grace Dakota, born March 17, 2014. She joins siblings Camille, Natalie and Josiah at home in Richmond, Va.

1999 Adam Held and Dr. Heather Pinkett were married Jan. 9, 2015, in Chicago.

The couple lives in Chicago, where Adam is a high school science teacher and Heather is a cancer researcher at Northwestern University.

t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 39

Grove City College

Darr ’77 to lead Pennsylvania courts

Thomas Darr ’77 is the new chief administrative officer for the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

As court administrator of Pennsylvania, Darr will be leading the administrative arm of the state’s Supreme Court system. His office is responsible for oversight and leadership of all Pennsylvania courts. He is based in Harrisburg.

Darr joined the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Courts in 1988 and has been deputy court administrator since 1996. Earlier in his career, from 1979 to 1985, Darr worked in the office of Gov. Dick Thornburgh. He also worked briefly as a reporter for Governing magazine and as a producer at C-SPAN, both in Washington, D.C. He was president of the national Conference of Court Public Information Officers, and was a participant in the American Bar Association’s Central and Eastern European Law Initiative.

In addition to his degree in political science from Grove City, he earned a graduate degree in journalism from Northwestern University and in public administration from the University of Pittsburgh. While on campus, he wrote for The Collegian and worked with WSAJ radio.

Karin Hendrickson conducted the Feb. 13, 2015, performance of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at Heinz Hall. It featured 14-year-old soloist Jackie Evancho of “America’s Got Talent” fame. It was Hendrickson’s conducting debut with the PSO. She recently was one of three finalists for the Taki Concordia Foundation Fellowship, which supports the world’s top female conductors transitioning to professional appointments.

Hendrickson is conducting groups around the world and promotes music education in the schools. She recently founded Kid Maestro!, a program that provides creative music and art interactions for school-aged children.

Jodi (Gilbert) Young and her husband, Trevor, have two new family members. Daughter Delphinia “Delia” Mary, who was born July 20, 2006, joined the family through adoption from Bulgaria on Dec. 9, 2013.

Daughter Annis Octavia was born to the Youngs on March 12, 2014. They were welcomed by six siblings.

2000 Brian Booth is now a co-owner of Oram’s Donut Shop in Beaver Falls, Pa. He and his business partner purchased the well-known local business in November 2014.

Julie (Covert ’00) Kumpar and

SLEDDING TIME | Making good use of the winter snow, these ladies had a sledding excursion during their 15th annual Roommate Reunion in Clearfield, Pa. Row 1: Shannon (Hanna ’99) Milinovich, Karen (Whaley ’99) Grube and Kerri (Linto ’99) Smith. Row 2: Megan (Koerber ’99) DeMontaigne, Heidi (Brown ’99) Lee, Erin (Bachman ’00) Waclawski and Cindy (Graeser ’99) Spears.

4 0 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

her husband, Matt, announce the birth of daughter Grace “Gracie” Evelynn on Oct. 18, 2014. She joins sister Elliana “Ellie” Joy, 3.

Dave Robinson is a software engineer specializing in mobile applications and mobile games.

He married Elizabeth Jimenez on Nov. 23, 2012, and they welcomed daughter Carmen Lucinda on April 28, 2015.

2001 Kristen (Dalmolin) Mackey and her husband, Rob, announce the birth of daughter Nina Claire on Jan. 16, 2015. She joins sister Elaine Rose, 2.

Brian Schkeeper was awarded the degree Doctor of Music in Choral Conducting from Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in December 2014.

2002 Laura (Roxberry) Euler and her husband, Peter, welcomed daughter Kelsey Jane on April 8, 2014. Kelsey Jane joins brothers Stafford, 4, and Reed, 2, at home in Belleville, Ill. LeAnn (Neuman) and Matt ’00 Gausman welcomed daughter Elle Josephine on Feb. 2, 2015.

She joins sister Emeri, 6, and brother Evan, 3.

Eric Golz has been named head coach of the women’s soccer program at Illinois State University.

TRIP FLIP | Timothy Gross ’98 and his family were featured in an hour-long special on the Travel Channel hit show, Trip Flip, on February 8, 2015. The show surprises a family with an ultimate adventure, this time to Florida. The trip took place in April 2014 and originally aired in June 2014 as 30 minute show. Due to the popularity of the episode, it was expanded into a one hour special for the February date.

Rebecca (Smith) Johnson and her husband, Russ, are the parents of son Mitchell James, born Jan. 23, 2015.

Cheralyn (Boruvka) and Jagan ’00 Ranjan announce the birth of twins, Judah Jagan and Justus Eleos on Dec. 29, 2014. Their big sister is Kyrie.

William Steiner and his wife, Kathryn, announce the birth of son William John IV on Dec. 10, 2014.

2003 Jon and Jess (Coburn) Allen recently accepted new positions.

Jon took a pastoral position as director of curriculum with The Cove Church in Mooresville, N.C. Jess is now assistant principal of CC Erwin Middle School. They live in Salisbury, N.C., with their three children.

Kirsten (Pedersen) and Jonathan ’04 Meyers are the parents of son Brett William, born March 9, 2014. He joins brother Brody Carson, born Jan. 13, 2012.

Amber (Jones) and Ryan Mitchell welcomed daughter Victoria Ann “Tori” on March 3, 2015.

Derek Stauff completed a Ph.D. in musicology at Indiana University, Bloomington. He accepted a position as assistant professor of music at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Mich., where he will teach music history.

Matthew Waddell and his wife, Nicole, welcomed son Jonah Matthew on March 24, 2015.

2004 Steven Flanders received his doctor of education degree (Ed.D) in mathematics education from the University of Pittsburgh in December 2014. He is a calculus teacher at Woodland Hills High School in Pittsburgh, Pa.

2005 Elaine (Rodemoyer) Aretz and her husband, Patrick, announce the birth of son Nolan Xander on Feb. 10, 2015. He joins sister Avery, 2.

Talia (Barnes) Bunting and her husband, Joe, welcomed a second child, Remington Seth Eugene, on April 11, 2015.

Summer 2015 Kelcie (Rodina) Conroy and her husband, Kevin, welcomed son Henry Kevin on Jan. 20, 2015.

Big brother is Joey.

Lindsey (Jacobs) Crummy and her husband, Tyler, are the parents of daughter Shae Lynn, born May 8, 2015.

Max Majireck and his wife, Kelly, welcomed daughter Reese Ryleigh on Jan. 28, 2015.

Abigail (Russell) Rember and her husband, Andrew, are the parents of daughter Victoria Marie, born Sept. 2, 2014.

Sarah Schroeder and Joseph Parker were married Oct. 11, 2014. Sarah is the controller for a property management company and Joe is the director of marketing for an educational nonprofit. They live in Fishers, Ind. Erin Smith graduated with her Master of Education in Administration and Supervision from the University of Virginia on May 17, 2015. She has taken the position of upper school principal at Immanuel Christian School in Springfield, Va. Ryan Stewart joined the Pittsburgh-based law firm of Rothman Gordon.

He concentrates his practice on business and commercial litigation matters, with experience in other areas as well.

2006 Adam Bush has been promoted to director of U.S. Wholesaler Mergers and Acquisitions at Anheuser-Busch InBev. He also completed his master’s degree in business administration at Washington University in St. Louis in May 2013. He continues to live in St. Louis with his wife, Laura (Mark ’09) Bush.

Heather (Wilson) and Steve ’04 Deterding welcomed daughter Evelyn Rose on Aug. 1, 2014.

She joins big sisters Grace, 8, Leah, 6, Avery, 4, and Jane, 2.

Roberta (Long) Locher and her

husband, David, welcomed daughter Cassie Jane on Oct. 16, 2014.

2007 Stephen Caprio and Annie Hu were married May 3, 2014, in West Milford, N.J. They currently reside in Weehawken, N.J. Steve is a market strategist at UBS Investment Bank in New York City and Annie is a preschool teacher in Hoboken, N.J. Christina Demarest married Chad Bamberger on Feb. 22, 2014, in Bridgeport, Ohio.

Christina became a stepmother to Chad’s four daughters: Alexis, 12, Malorie, 7, Kylie, 5, and Allison, 3.

Katy McNulty and her husband, Jonathan Hittinger, welcomed son Henry “Hank” Tilghman Hittinger on March 20, 2015. Proud grandparents are President and Mrs. Paul McNulty ’80 (Brenda Millican ’80.)

parents of son Micah James, born March 22, 2014.

2009 Kristin Andrews and Edward Bailey were married June 28, 2014, in London, England. The couple resides in London. Kristin works in sales and marketing at Hachette Publishing House and Edward works in risk management at BNY Mellon.

Melissa Borza currently works as a speech language pathologist at a pediatric hospital in Baltimore, Md. She will be traveling to the New Day Foster Home in Beijing, China, in October. During her twoweek trip, she will be volunteering as a speech pathologist and working with language development and feeding of special needs children. Her story: gofundme.com/melissa-china.

Kate (Bain) and Mark ’07 Gray are the parents of daughter Talia Grace, born Oct. 14, 2013.

Katherine (Beyer) and Caleb Kramer welcomed son Isaac

2008 Katherine (Peters) and David Britton are the parents of son Jonathan “Jack” Lee, born Sept.

3, 2014.

Abigail Greiner joined the Cleveland law firm of Gallagher Sharp as an associate. She is a member of the Ohio State and Cleveland Metropolitan bar associations, the William K. Thomas American Inns of Court, and is a volunteer attorney for Legal Aid. Jana Kucharik and Brian Burruss were married July 19, 2014. They live in Edinboro, Pa., where Jana works with Cru and Brian is a science teacher.

Rachel (Learned) McClelland and her husband, Kelby, are the

NOT FIDDLING AROUND | Two Grovers, Amy Hickman ’92, right, and Emily Trifaro ’03 participated in Washington Community Theatre’s (Pa.) production of Fiddler on the Roof, starring Adam Brock from American Idol. Amy was the Music Director and Emily was the concert mistress.

t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 41

Grove City College

NAPLES REUNION |

In November 2014, a group of Pan Sophic fraternity alumni from the 1990s gathered in Naples, Fla., for a reunion/golf trip. From left: Rob Aho ’96, Paul Arnold ’99, Mike Brediger ’97, Brian Wood ’96, Dave MacGregor ’96, Artie Slear ’95, Jon Kuhn ’95 and Brandon Haynes ’96.

Matthew on Nov. 14, 2014.

Joseph McCoy joined the law firm Reminger Co., L.P.A., in Youngstown, Ohio, as an associate.

Katie Rummel and Ryan Gibson were married Nov. 15, 2014, in Harbison Chapel.

They reside in Pittsburgh, Pa., where Ryan works for Ryan Homes and Katie teaches in the Upper St. Clair School District.

2010 Cerise (Fereshetian) and Tyler ’11 Baker announce the birth of daughter Madeline Zabelle on Jan. 30, 2015.

Blake Eilers is a new member of the Lebanon County (Pa.) Bar Association. He is a law clerk for Lebanon County Court of Common Pleas Judge Bradford Charles.

Emily (Vaccaro) Locke and her husband, Joshua, welcomed son William Isaac on Jan. 7, 2015.

Rachel (Stelzer) and Shaun Mills announce the birth of their son Levi Nathaniel on July 14, 2014.

He has a brother, Benjamin.

Beth (Bieber) and Lee Nicholas welcomed son Grady James on Oct. 15, 2014.

Stephen Wong lives and works in Shanghai, China, on an

42 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

CENTRE EVENT | A Grover group from Centre County, Pa., met in February at the Tavern Restaurant in State College. From left: Lloyd Scarborough ’07, Clinton Scarborough ’09, Clinton P. Scarborough Jr., Douglas Molhoek ’01, Theresa (Clarahan ’11) Scarborough, Robert Scarborough, Dean McHenry ’83 and Ellen McHenry.

International Teaching Fellowship with Princeton in Asia (PiA).

There, he also enjoys studying Mandarin and traveling. His twoyear term finishes in June 2016.

2011 Michael Roman married Eva Wang on May 24, 2015. The couple will soon be moving from Madison, Wisc., to Chicago.

2012 Natalia Danielson and Ross Harris were married Dec. 21, 2013. They currently live in Grove City and both work in the department of Student Life and Learning at Grove City College.

Lauren (Thomas) and Derek ’10 Kruse announce the birth of son Winfield Thomas on May 25, 2015.

Jayni (Juedes) and Jesse Reed announce the birth of their son, Adrian Christopher, on July 27, 2014.

2013 Andrew Baur was promoted to product manager of the grating and stamping division of A. Stucki Company in Pittsburgh. He will work closely with the company’s sales and marketing teams.

SCHWAB HONORED | U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab ’68, second from right, and his family gathered in the Hall of Arts and Letters for a ceremony marking the naming of the Schwab Family Caseroom. Schwab is a member of the College’s Board of Trustees.

Zoe Perrin and Scott Endicott were married July 12, 2014. They are now living near Philadelphia, where Zoe is completing a graduate degree at Villanova University in clinical

Mary Seward and Gabriel Felty were married Dec. 27, 2014, in Banner Elk, N.C. They currently reside in Fort Bragg, N.C., where Gabriel is a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army.

mental health counseling.

2014

Bethany Russell was the

Anna Kitchin and Troy Beaudry were married July 19, 2014, in Saxonburg, Pa. They now make their home in Charlottesville, Va.

Baccalaureate speaker for her high school alma mater, Bradford Area High School in Bradford, Pa. She is currently a third-grade teacher in the district’s School Street Elementary School.

Summer 2015

Cyclists (from left): Brian Hoffman ’05, Craig Hoffman ’01, Greg Wilson ’92 and Libby (Paxton ’74) Jenkins celebrate their completed Memorial Day ride.

Grads ride 50 miles for veterans

Grovers from the ’70s, ’90s and ’00s biked 50 miles in honor of veterans on Memorial Day 2015 and celebrated completing the ride with a toast.

A group of 15 cyclists took to the byways of Venango County, Pa., on Sat., May 23, 2015, starting and finishing in Oil City and traveling through Pleasantville, Titusville and Franklin. Four who completed the ride are alums: Libby (Paxton ’74) Jenkins, Greg Wilson ’92, Craig Hoffman ’01, and Brian Hoffman ’05.

“Because it was Memorial Day, we decided to dedicate our efforts to the sacrifices of our veterans,” Jenkins said.

Their trip was informal and not designed as a fundraiser.

The cycling group came together through a series of introductions and acquaintances of an existing cycling group that has been active since 1995. While many people have joined and left the club through the years, the three young men in the group are thought of as the new generation of riders.

“Prior to the ride, none of us was aware that four of us were Grovers,” Jenkins said. “What a fun time we had sharing stories from three different decades.”

As an aside, Jenkins added that her aunt is retired Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Nancy (Lee ’54) Paxton and her mother (now deceased) is Dorothy (Dean ’40) Paxton.

PEW POINT | “It is heritage, for which the surest protection will be afforded by the development, the betterment and the perpetuation of just such institutions as Grove City College.”

t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 4 3

Grove City College

in memory The Grove City College Alumni Association places a book in Henry Buhl Library in memory of each alumnus for whom the Office of Alumni and College Relations receives written notification of death, including a copy of the obituary. This pays tribute to the lives of deceased alumni while benefitting current and future students.

To notify the Office of Alumni and College Relations of the passing of a loved one, please send an obituary to alumni@gcc.edu.

Jean (Thomas) St. James ’37 died Jan. 20, 2015. A resident of Bradley Beach, N.J., she helped operate her family’s machine tool distributorship and was an officer of the Burgess Thomas Company and Michigan Clamp Agency.

She was an avid reader, sports enthusiast, philanthropist and world traveler. Surviving are two daughters, son John St. James ’68, and four grandchildren.

Betty (Weston) Lewis ’39 died May 24, 2015. After initial success selling cosmetics, she became the first female real estate broker in Western Pennsylvania.

Since 1979, she and her sons owned several Burger Huts in the Butler, Pa., area. She was involved with the Butler Little Theatre and Chamber of Commerce and was an avid golfer. Survivors include three sons.

Janet (Hartland) Dennison ’41 died May 18, 2015. She handled data processing and payroll at Brookville (Pa.) High School after teaching business skills there. She was active in her church, loved to travel and spend winter in Florida.

Surviving are four children, including Carole Dennison ’72, 13 grandchildren and five greatgrandchildren.

James B. Frost ’41 died April 20, 2015. A CPA, he held leadership positions with several corporations. He lived in Pittsburgh and loved to play guitar, piano and organ. He served in the Army during World War II and was featured in the Spring 2015 GeDUNK. Survivors include three siblings, two children, grandchildren and a greatgranddaughter.

Herbert L. Minich ’41 died May 3, 2013. He lived in Ogden, Utah.

4 4 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

George O. Griffith ’42 died March 4, 2015. An Army veteran of World War II, he lived in Corinth, Miss. He rose to head of corporate finance with the Tennessee River Pulp and Paper Co. He was a church deacon and choir member.

Survivors include four children, a sister, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren.

Nancy (McCurdy) Keyser ’42 died May 22, 2015. She worked as a teacher’s aide and later as an office manager for a real estate firm.

Most recently, she lived in Johns Creek, Ga. She enjoyed animals and children. A daughter survives.

Corinne (Bartell) Reif ’42 died Feb. 12, 2014. She was a resident of Brunswick, Maine.

Dr. Arthur C. Sucsy ’42 died April 24, 2015. A specialist in organic chemistry, he worked for the U.S. Corps of Engineers in Italy and Rohm & Haas Company.

After moving to Lubbock, Texas, he volunteered with local schools and served as environmental compliance officer for Lubbock Christian University. Surviving are his wife, Jean, three children, nine grandchildren, 14 greatgrandchildren and a brother.

Robert L. George ’43 died March 18, 2015. For 50 years, he operated George and Cunningham Hardware in Mt. Pleasant, Pa. He was very community- and churchminded, and was the town’s Citizen of the Year for 2003. He served in the Navy during World War II. Survivors include his wife, Marjorie (Moon ’42) George, two children, two grandchildren and a sister.

Ruth (Orr) Mays ’43 died Dec. 5, 2013. She lived in Tulsa, Okla., and is survived by four children, three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Florence (Crestani) Horning ’44 died April 9, 2015. She lived in Cabot, Pa., enjoyed reading and being with family. Surviving are three children, six grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and a brother.

Glenn B. Jones ’44 died June 2, 2015. He worked in the steel industry for 45 years with Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. and Sharon Steel. He was an Army veteran of World War II. He retired to Surfside Beach, S.C., and was a tennis enthusiast. Survivors include his wife, Shirlee, children and stepchildren, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Theodore H. Husted ’47 died March 18, 2015. The Ashville, N.Y., resident was an Army veteran of World War II. He worked as credit manager of Marlin Rockwell-TRWSKF Bearings for 38 years. He volunteered with church, yard work and the Audubon Society. Surviving are three daughters, nine grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

Doris (Graber) Mathieu ’48 died May 12, 2015. During her 50 years in Annapolis, Md., she was a hospital volunteer and supporter of the U.S. Naval Academy and its midshipmen. She was a Gold Tour Guide and president of its Women’s Club. Survivors include three children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Dr. H. Benne Kendall ’48 died April 18, 2015. A chemical engineer, he taught at Ohio University. He was a member and officer of many civic and church organizations, including Rotary and the O.U. Green and White Club, and officiated school football games. Kendall was a World War II Army Air Force veteran. He loved to sing.

Surviving are his wife, Patricia

(Emmons ’48) Kendall, three children, five grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and a brother.

Richard E. Peden Sr. ’48 died April 8, 2015. The World War II Army Air Corps veteran lived in Kingston, Tenn. He worked in the Plant and Equipment Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory for 30 years and owned the Oak Ridge Heating and Air Conditioning Company for 40 years. He was a Rotarian, a jeweler and active church member. Surviving are six children, 19 grandchildren, 22 great-grandchildren, one great-great-grandchild and two sisters, including Lois (Peden ’42) Mossman and Ada Rose (Peden ’76) Mueller.

Frances (Alexander) Shoemaker ’48 died Jan. 29, 2015. She had been a business teacher and yearbook adviser at Waynesboro (Pa.) High School before becoming a homemaker. She later lived in Littlestown, Pa., and taught Sunday school there.

Survivors include two children and three grandchildren.

Donald W. Butler ’49 died Nov. 10, 2014. He lived in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. A World War II veteran, he was a community volunteer, supported the arts, loved architecture and animals.

Survivors include three daughters and six grandchildren.

Gladys (Soergel) Kleiss ’49 died Feb. 28, 2015. A former resident of Lewes and Wilmington, Del., she taught in the Pennsville School District and at Delaware Technical Community College.

She was a secretary for the Lewes Association of Churches.

Surviving are three children, five grandchildren and three greatgrandchildren.

Marian (Strausser) Orr ’49 died March 28, 2015. She lived in Greenville, Pa., and taught with the Greenville School District for 34 years. She enjoyed traveling and the horses on her farm.

Survivors include brother John Strausser ’46 and a sister-in-law.

Memorial contributions may be made to Grove City College.

Lawrence B. Stoner ’49 died March 20, 2015. He lived in Allison Park, Pa., and worked at

Summer 2015 J&L Steel until 1984. He was a Navy veteran of World War II. Surviving are his wife, Lois, four children, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Warren H. Mansfield ’50 died March 16, 2014. He was a resident of Brackenridge, Pa. Robert G. Moore ’50 died March 11, 2015. He started his career at Eat’n Park Restaurants in 1951 and retired in 1990 as president. He was a Navy World War II veteran. Surviving are his wife, Claire (Hatch ’53) Moore, four sons, including Scott Moore ’78, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren.

Mary (Wertz) Milnes ’51 died April 16, 2015. She lived in Pittsburgh and had also graduated from Carnegie Institute of Technology’s Graduate Library School. She is survived by three children and seven grandchildren.

Alice Stang ’51 passed away Dec. 11, 2013.

Ann (Prasse) Goodnough ’52 died Dec. 8, 2013. She retired after 25 years with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

More recently, she lived in New Bern, N.C., where she was a church secretary. Surviving are two sons and a sister.

Eugene L. O’Donnell ’52 died March 11, 2015. A resident of Springdale, Pa., he worked for 30 years as an engineer for Gulf Lab Research Co., earning many honors and merits. After retirement, he consulted for Senate Engineering. He enjoyed hunting and sports. He was an Army/Air Force veteran of World War II. Surviving are three daughters, grandchildren, greatgrandchildren and two siblings, including Charles O’Donnell ’61.

David F. Remensnyder ’52 died Feb. 12, 2015. An electrical engineer, he worked with U.S. Steel, Standard Steel and Penelec, from which he retired.

He lived in Belleville, Pa., where he was on his church property committee and helped the Lion’s Club with Christmas lights.

Surviving are his wife, Doris, four children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren.

Kristine (Rich ’94) Rush, Orchard Park, N.Y., died March 17, 2015, after a courageous battle with breast cancer that she chronicled online at kristierush.blogspot.com and which inspired the Bible study she published, View Beyond the Hill. Kristie was very involved in campus life, serving in leadership roles with Orientation Board, the Bridge, ODK and ZZZ sorority. She was an outstanding student, an athlete and was elected Homecoming Queen in 1993. After College, she married Chad Rush ’94 and worked for Ryan Homes and Eastman Kodak. She earned an MBA from the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business and worked as a consultant for the Hartman Group.

Kristie’s impact on her fellow Grovers was evident on what would be her last vacation with her family in February to Disney World. Her classmates and friends surprised her and filled her room with flowers, balloons, gifts, snacks and more in what she called “an explosion of love.” Kristie, in turn, shared many of these gifts with others at the park who, like her, needed to use a scooter, wheelchair or adaptive stroller to get around the park. It was, she wrote in a Facebook post, a way to share God’s love. As she entered hospice care, Kristie acknowledged her emotional turmoil and the comfort that her faith in a “big God” provided: But there’s STILL a joy that exists at the same time. A richness.

A fullness. A peace.

It’s hard to articulate, but I guess you’re just going to have to trust me … that this joy is true. It’s true and it matters and it seeps into all aspects of this part of my journey.

At the same time this journey is incredibly disconcerting, it is - as plainly as I can state - also filled with a richness that is deep and real and important. That’s God. Only God. Because it certainly isn’t me. And to even remotely pretend it’s me is just foolishness.

Or insanity. Or a downright lie.

You can’t possibly have a positive enough attitude or a strength of personality to experience this depth of joy when your body is failing fast. Oh no; it’s not because of me. It’s all because of God. Because He is present and He promises to make a difference. He promises to infuse His hope into the darkest of situations, in the bleakest of circumstances. He makes promises and, much to my delight, He continues to deliver on them. I haven’t tapped Him out.

Even now. When we’re at this new place. When the turn in the race has been quick and sharp and the finish line is almost visible.

Kristie is survived by her husband; two children, Emilie Grace and Daniel Carter; her parents Robert ’67 and Janice (Carter ’67) Rich; a sister Deborah and brother-in-law Jeffrey Higgs ’95; and her grandmother.

(For more about Kristie, see our story online at alumni.gcc.edu/ kristierushstory)

t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 45

Grove City College Robert A. Geer ’53 died March 3, 2015. He was a World War II Army veteran living in St. Petersburg, Fla. Surviving are his wife, Ruth, a stepson, four grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and nine great-great-grandchildren.

Robert J. Patrick ’53 died Nov. 28, 2013. He taught at Gowanda, N.Y.,’s Central School, then became their guidance counselor until retirement. He was an Army veteran. Surviving are five children, nine grandchildren, six greatgrandchildren and three siblings.

Marilyn (Maddox) Salem ’53 died July 25, 2014. A nurse, she and her husband opened Enviro Paint and later Salem Realty in Whitehouse, N.J. They moved to Naples, Fla., and were founding members of their church. She was an avid knitter. Surviving are four children, nine grandchildren, one great-grandchild and a brother.

Dr. Kenneth J. Samara ’53 died Feb. 27, 2015. He had been the director of guidance and curriculum coordinator at Ephrata (Pa.) Area School District. He also taught at local colleges. He was a Mason and NEA member who enjoyed golfing and the beach.

He served in the Army during the Korean War. Surviving are his wife, Carol, two sons and four grandchildren.

range and par-three golf course.

The Navy veteran liked all things nautical and enjoyed music.

Survivors include his wife, Marie, a brother-in-law and sister-in-law, nephews and nieces.

Jane (Dick) Mead ’54 died April 14, 2015. She worked for many years in U.S. Intelligence in Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Jacksonville, Fla. She was active in her church and traveled the U.S. and Europe with her husband, James. He survives, along with three children and seven grandchildren.

R. Colleen Adams ’55 died Jan. 19, 2015. She taught Spanish and English for 30 years at Gateway High School in Monroeville, Pa. She traveled extensively and was an accomplished artist working in ceramics and porcelain. Most recently, she lived in North Port, Fla. Surviving are two siblings, nieces and nephews.

F. Robert Coe Jr. ’55 died June 4, 2014. He had a lifelong career in data processing. He also was an accomplished photographer and a 50-year Mason. He lived in Delaware, Ohio. Survivors include his wife, Pat, and two sons.

Veterans Last Salute March.”

He wrote music until the day he passed away. Survivors include a son.

John R. Stowe Jr. ’57 died May 31, 2013. He lived in Altamonte Springs, Fla. William W. Baker ’58 died March 6, 2015. He lived in Fredonia, N.Y., where taught high school social studies from 1958 until retirement. He then worked in financial services. He held many positions at his church, including treasurer, and was an Army veteran of the Korean War. Surviving are a son, daughter Julie (Baker ’89) Alley and three grandchildren.

Arthur A. Zarzeczny ’53 died Sept. 29, 2013. He was a World War II Air Force veteran and a retired employee of Carborundum Abrasive Co., Niagara Falls, N.Y. He lived in North Tonawanda.

Survivors include his wife, Vickie, two children, five grandchildren and a brother.

G. Fredrick Beal ’56 died May 22, 2015. After an early career in engineering, he switched to teaching and taught science in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. e coached sports and chess throughout his career. He retired to Palm Bay, Fla., most recently living in Satellite Beach. Surviving are his wife, Alva, two sons, four grandchildren and two siblings.

Dr. Richard B. Bennett ’54 died March 5, 2015. He lived in Greenville, Pa., and was a professor of chemistry at Thiel College from 1964 until retirement. He was Thiel’s 1995 Professor of the Year. He was a church elder and an Air Force veteran. Surviving are two sons and three grandchildren.

The Rev. Richard B. Mowry ’56 died Feb. 1, 2015. He was a retired pastor who served Pittsburgh-area churches for 40 years. He also performed magic shows, played tennis and wrote poetry. Most recently, he lived in Chardon, Ohio. Survivors include two children, grandchildren and two brothers.

Harold “Bud” Wise Jr. ’55 and his wife Marjorie (Ritchey ’54) Wise died within days of each other in April. Harold died April 13, 2015, and Marjorie passed away April 30, 2015. The couple made their home in Cochranton, Pa. After Air Force service, Harold worked with General Electric, Atlantic Refining, H.L. Moore Co., GTI and Drafto. He enjoyed all types of sports as participant, coach and spectator. Marjorie worked at Cochranton First National Bank, becoming a vice president and manager.

She was involved with her church and the Professional Women’s Club. Surviving are three children, including Bradley Wise ’89; eight grandchildren, including Amanda (McCurdy ’04) McCreadie; and seven greatgrandchildren. Harold leaves six siblings, and Marjorie is survived by a brother, Thomas Ritchey ’59.

Harry J. Johnston ’54 died Feb. 26, 2015. A resident of Beaver Falls, Pa., he worked at the National Bank of Beaver County, retiring in 1985 as president and CEO. He also owned a driving

Robert R. Rice ’56 died Jan. 14, 2015. A World War II Army veteran, he was a retired band, orchestra and choral director who lived in Lakewood, Ohio. He and his son composed “The American

James S. Blair ’59 died April 11, 2015. He worked for 23 years at PPG Industries, retiring from Amaya Glaze Company in Shelby, N.C. An Air Force veteran of the

4 6 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

Korean War, he lived in Shelby, was active in his church and its soup kitchen. Surviving are his wife, Mary Lou, three children, two siblings and grandchildren.

Edward L. Buxton ’59 died April 1, 2015. A Marine Corps veteran of the Korean War, he was a manager at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. He lived in Hopkinton, N.H., and was active in veteran service groups.

Surviving are five children and four grandchildren.

Cheri A. Crawford ’59 died March 1, 2015. She was a retired teacher, who also was an administrator for several nursing homes in Ohio. She was active in her church, where she was a choir member, youth adviser and elder. She lived in Falls Creek, Pa. Surviving are cousins.

Karl F. Heurich ’59 died May 5, 2015. He lived in Frederick, Md. He was a Coast Guard veteran, a 50-year Mason and a 30-year Shriner. He also was active with the Boy Scouts. Surviving are his wife, Wanda (Umble ’60) Heurich, two children and six grandchildren.

Francis J. Kreps ’59 died Dec. 24, 2013. He taught business education before working in the life insurance industry. He lived in the Warren, Ohio, area. Surviving are three stepsons and many grandchildren.

Beth (Porter) Bates ’60 died Sept. 5, 2014. She worked as a teacher for Chaffee High School in Paget Parrish, Bermuda, receiving two Outstanding Teaching Awards. She later moved to Aiken, S.C. Survivors include her husband, George, a sister, nieces and a nephew.

Mary Kaye (Steltzer) Jordan ’60 died May 18, 2015. She lived in Athens, Ohio, and was a longtime faculty member in Ohio University’s Program in Intensive English. She mentored hundreds of students, and enjoyed her literary club and church activities.

Survivors include her husband, Don, three sons and seven grandchildren.

James P. Kielczewski ’61 died March 29, 2015. A Marine veteran, he retired from the

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 1995 after a 30-plus year career. He made his home in Romeoville, Ill., was a church and American Legion member and was Kentucky Colonel. Surviving are three children, including Kelly (Kielczewski ’87) Hillman and Tracy (Kielczewski ’89) Kacpura, and seven grandchildren.

Robert H. Miller ’61 died March 6, 2015. A Greensburg, Pa., resident, he was an economist by trade. He worked with Chase Manhattan Bank, Kennametal and Composidie Inc. He served two terms as a Westmoreland County commissioner. He taught at Grove City College in the mid-1960s.

Survivors include his wife, Marie, three children, including Robert Miller ’84 and Susan (Miller ’85) Miller, two grandsons and a brother. Memorial contributions may be made to Grove City College.

John K. Black ’62 died March 16, 2015. A resident of Camp Hill, Pa., he retired from the Pennsylvania Department of Banking after 31 years of service, then worked as a banking specialist. He officiated high school and college athletics for 40 years. Surviving are his wife, Nancy (Rinehart ’64) Black, two children and five grandchildren.

Memorial contributions may be made to Grove City College.

Emory E. Edmiston ’62 died March 2, 2015. He was a design engineer for 37 years at PittsburghDeMoines Steel. He lived in Tiona, Pa., and enjoyed hunting, fishing and playing guitar. Survivors include his wife, Marion, four children and three siblings.

Curtis W. Carson ’64 died May 15, 2015. He had a career in banking and community service, initially with Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh, then in California with Mellon, First Interstate Bank and Union Bank. He was a Rotarian, Kiwanian and coached Little League, soccer and basketball.

Survivors include his wife, Carol (McCoy ’64) Carson, two children, two granddaughters and a sister.

Stephanie “Stevie” (Brodrick) Davis ’64 died May 4, 2015. She was an elementary teacher, later working as a therapist/advocate/ counselor for special needs clients

Summer 2015 and victims of domestic violence.

She lived in Sandestin, Fla., was a church choir member and soloist, and assisted the less fortunate.

Survivors include four children, three grandchildren and a sister.

Peter I. Roehm ’65 died March 26, 2015. He worked for W.R. Grace Company in Boston before working at Smith Hardware and Lumber in Rockport, Mass. He was a railroad enthusiast, wrote a book on North American railroads and loved animals. A brother survives.

William R. Barron ’66 died April 4, 2015. He made his home in McKean, Pa., and was retired from AMSCO. He was an avid hunter, golfer and woodworker who made toys for underprivileged children.

Survivors include his wife, Judith (Webster ’64) Barron, two sons, three grandsons and a brother.

James H. Tharpe ’66 died July 20, 2014. After retiring in 2008, he continued working with Reynolds Metals Corp. He lived near Phoenix, Ariz., and loved traveling.

Surviving are his wife, Julia, two daughters and two grandsons.

Lt. Col. William A. Kidd ’67 died March 29, 2015. He served for 22 years in the U.S. Air Force before completing a second career with Texas Instruments. He enjoyed family and friends. His survivors include wife Katherine, four sons, six grandchildren, his father and three siblings.

Cathy (Reichert) Bishop ’68 died June 8, 2015. She resided for many years in Rochester, N.Y., and recently relocated back to Pittsburgh.

Roger F. Johnson ’70 died Feb. 2, 2015. He lived in Basking Ridge, N.J., and enjoyed traveling the world and skiing. He worked in computer technology for AT&T for 28 years. Surviving are his wife, Ellen, two daughters, two grandchildren and a sister.

Jay E. Ludwig ’70 died May 28, 2015. The lifelong resident of Glen Rock, N.J., served in the Army during the Vietnam War. He worked in the printing business and prior to retirement was print production manager with DG3 in Jersey City. Survivors include his wife, Janet, a daughter, a grandchild and two siblings.

Fred P. Gabel ’71 died May 6, 2014. He lived in Sweden.

Survivors include his wife, Mariana.

Phyllis (Pithers ’71) Smith died Feb. 1, 2015. She was an educator and reading specialist, most recently working with the Crawford Central School District in Meadville, Pa. As a volunteer, she was active in the American Cancer Society and Relay for Life.

Surviving are her husband, James, three children and a brother.

R. Bruce Carey ’72 died Sept.

27, 2014. He made his home in Columbus, Ohio.

James G. Myers ’74 died April 7, 2015. He lived in New Castle, Pa., and worked for Pennsylvania Power Company for 23 years in accounting and human resources. With his family, he owned and operated Farmers Dell. He was a board member of Jameson Health System and Catholic Charities of Pittsburgh.

Surviving are cousins and friends.

David C. Martin Jr. ’76 died May 21, 2015. He worked as an attorney for 33 years with his practice, Martin and Lerda, in North Apollo and Pittsburgh, Pa. He enjoyed painting and drawing, and was a well-known storyteller at his church. Surviving are his wife, Barbara, three children, a grandchild and two sisters.

Carolyn F. Miller ’80 died March 28, 2015.

Richard R. Vensel ’82 died April 4, 2015. He lived in Carlisle, Pa., where he was the business and operations manager for South Middleton School District.

He had 33 years as a school business administrator, and taught at both Shippensburg and Widener universities. He owned and operated Punkin Point Farm. Survivors include his wife, Kimberly (Bower ’85) Vensel, three children, his mother and a sister.

William D. Goehring ’86 died June 21, 2015. He worked for Revco/CVS for 20 years in Somerset, Pa., Ennis, Texas, and Chemung, N.Y. Most recently, he made his home in Elmira, N.Y. He is survived by his wife, Barbara (Seebold ’87) Goehring; two sons, including Matthew Goehring ’15; and two brothers.

Elaine (King) Ankrom ’87 died Sept. 22, 2014. She made her home in the New Kensington, Pa., area. Survivors include her husband, Kevin, a daughter, her mother and three sisters, including Amy (King ’84) Konop.

Brian S. Rodgers ’92 died Jan. 29, 2014. He made his home in Murrysville, Pa. Surviving are his wife, Marcey, two children, his mother and four siblings.

Dr. Erica D. Geary ’10 died April 3, 2015, from a car accident. She earned her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree in 2014 and worked as a doctor at the Ridge Animal Hospital in Farmville, Va. She participated in many mission trips and planned to return to Mongolia as a full time veterinary missionary. She enjoyed painting and time in the mountains.

Survivors include her parents, brother Matthew Geary ’15 and grandparents.

Friends

Retired professor of chemistry Dr. Edward Naegele passed away March 2, 2015.

He joined the College in 1958, serving as department chair from 1961 until retirement in 1990. He advised the Kemikos honorary and the Sigma Alpha Sigma fraternity.

His wife Sara, also a retired professor of chemistry, survives at home in Grove City. Memorial contributions may be made to the James A. and Martha G. Kennedy Chemistry Scholarship Endowment (Sara’s parents) or to the Grove City College Chemistry Department c/o the Office of Development, 100 Campus Drive, Grove City, PA 16127.

Dr. William Donnelly, retired professor of English and Communication, died July 8, 2015, in Mount Dora, Fla. He taught at the College from 1970 to 2001. He participated in several study trips abroad, including a Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship. Survivors include his wife, Dolly, and daughter Kellie Colstock Donnelly ’04. t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 47

Grove City College

alumni babies CONGRATULATIONS NEW PARENTS! Grove City College welcomes your new bundle of joy. We want to send your newborn a Grove City College T-shirt.

So between the feedings and late-night lullabies, be sure to send the Office of Alumni and College Relations your child’s name and date of birth. Shirts are available only in infant size.

Due to the popularity of the Alumni Babies feature, photos will be limited to babies under the age of 3 in Grove City College shirts only.

Digital photos must be high resolution, 300 dpi. Please do not embed photos in the body of an email message, but rather attach a high-resolution image. Submit photos at alumni.gcc.edu/babyshirt or email to alumni@gcc.edu.

You can also mail pictures to: Office of Alumni and College Relations, Alumni Babies, 100 Campus Drive, Grove City, Pa., 16127.

Evangeline Grace Barton

Tyler James Bolumen

Jonathan “Jack” Lee Britton

Born 5-28-14

Born 5-22-14

Born 9-3-14

Rebecca (Crema ’09) and Nathan ’09

Karen (Dutka ’96) and Mark ’96

Katherine (Peters ’08) and David ’08

Barton

Bolumen

Britton

Evelyn Rose Deterding

Abilene Joan Detweiler

Evelyn Irene Dixon

Born 8-1-14

Born 10-29-13

Born 11-3-14

Heather (Wilson ’06) and Steve ’04

Jessalee (Wantz ’11) and Matthew

Abigail (Johnson ’08) and Caleb Dixon

Deterding

Detweiler

Asher Christian and Annie Louise Elwell

Thomas Anderson Gregg

Born 2-28-13 and 8-14-14

Born 7-9-14

Kristin (Aljets ’06) and Abram ’07 Elwell

Kelly (Anderson ’09) and Tucker ’10 Gregg

4 8 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

Summer 2015

Henry “Hank” Tilghman Hittinger Born 3-20-15 Katy (McNulty ’07) and Jonathan Hittinger (Grandparents are President Paul J. and Brenda McNulty ‘80)

Grace Evelynn Kumpar

Levi Nathaniel Mills

Grace Dakota Murchie

Born 10-18-14

Born 7-14-14

Born 3-17-14

Julie (Covert ’00) and Matt Kumpar

Rachel (Stelzer ’10) and Shaun ’10

Missy (Guetschow ’98) and Mike ’99

Mills

Murchie

Lydia Charis Peterson

Isaac Nathaniel Pinkerton

Kurt Joseph Reimann

Emma Beth Sandell

Born 2-6-12

Born 12-6-13

Born 7-13-14

Born 11-20-14

Drew ’00 and Cherith Peterson

Jennifer and Rob ’02 Pinkerton

Nicole and Christian ’92 Reimann

Laura (Frei ’09) and Kevin ’09 Sandell

Aleck Ronald Scobbie

Lillian Sue Shaffer

Natalie Jane Soja

Ryan Charles Thiele

Born 9-16-13

Born 6-27-13

Born 12-7-13

Born 8-8-12

Becky (Young ’02) and Ron Scobbie

Marcie (Barrett ’00) and Solomon ’00

Megan (Betteridge ’08) and Steve Soja

Kim and Chuck ’87 Thiele

Shaffer

Gavin Richard Trulick

Mya Violet Vernon

Elizabeth Minghua Wang

Annis Octavia and

Born 6-23-13

Born 9-21-13

Born 4-23-14

Delphinia (Delia) Mary Young

Stephanie (Harbison ’07) and Ryan

Amy (Bacher ’02) and Cory ’03 Vernon

Rachel (Holzaepfel ’06) and Nick

Annis born 3-12-14; Delia born

Wang

7-20-06 and adopted 12-9-13

’03 Trulick

Jodi (Gilbert ’99) and Trevor Young t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 49

Grove City College

faith & learning

A faculty perspective into the mission of Grove City College, the role of Christian scholarship in higher education and the connection between faith and learning.

Not by freedom alone

By Dr. Paul Kengor

F

Dr. Paul Kengor is a professor of political science and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values and an internationally recognized authority on Ronald Reagan, the Cold War and communism. He is also a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and best-selling author. Kengor received his doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and his master’s degree from American University’s School of International Service.

This excerpt from Kengor’s book, 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative, as published on www.townhall.com in 2014, won a 2015 Amy Foundation Writing Award of Outstanding Merit.

The awards program is designed to recognize creative, skillful writing that applies in a sensitive, thought-provoking manner the biblical principles to issues affecting the world today.

5 0 | w w w. g c c.e d u t h e G eD ¯ UNK

reedom. Freedom. Freedom. Go to any gathering of conservatives, and you will hear a freedom mantra. They speak of “freedom” almost as if it were a one-word synonym for conservatism, a slogan for the movement. At times, they do so in an almost trite way.

Ronald Reagan likewise spoke constantly of freedom. Mankind, from “the swamps to the stars,” as he said in his seminal October 1964 “Time for Choosing” speech, longed to be free. The global Cold War struggle of Reagan’s life represented the arc of that longing, of that crisis. Obviously, the communist world hungered for freedom. But even the free world didn’t always appreciate it.

Free people needed always to be reminded of their freedom and the need to understand and reassert it. That included Americans. Reagan said that freedom is always under assault; every generation must fight to preserve it.

Yet, in truth, as Reagan understood, to invoke freedom alone is a mistake. Freedom by itself, isolated, is libertarianism, not conservatism. For the conservative, freedom requires faith; it should never be decoupled from faith. Freedom not rooted in faith can lead to moral anarchy, which, in turn, creates social and cultural chaos. Freedom without faith is the Las Vegas Strip, not the City of God. Freedom without faith begets license, and invites vice rather than virtue. Faith infuses the soul with a sanctifying grace that allows humans in a free society to love and serve their neighbors, to think about more than themselves. We aspire to our better angels when our faith nurtures and elevates our free will.

Genuine freedom—and certainly the Christian conception of freedom—is not license. To a practicing Christian, freedom cannot be practiced without faith. As noted

by Pope John Paul II, with whom Reagan had an excellent relationship of strong mutual respect and collaboration, without the rock and rudder of faith, freedom can become confused, perverse, and can even lead to the destruction of freedom for others. John Paul II’s successor, Pope Benedict XVI, said that the West suffers from a “confused ideology of

freedom,” one that has unleashed a modern “dictatorship of relativism.”

In the New Testament, Galatians 5:1314 states: “For you were called for freedom, brothers. But do not use your freedom as opportunities for the flesh; rather, serve one another through love. For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

The great conservative thinker Russell Kirk, in his 1974 classic, The Roots of American Order, spoke of “ordered liberty.”

Kirk talked of the need for “inner order”

by American citizens before they and their countrymen and country could successfully govern through “outer order.” Ordering ourselves internally was critical to the nation’s external order. The nation’s first president, George Washington, argued the same, stressing the need for citizens to self-govern themselves before they could self-govern their nation.

Without faith to steer our freedom, we can become reckless. We can become lost amid the waves of the culture and tumult of the times. We can become what G.K. Chesterton called mere “children of our age,” succumbing to whatever new dictates or fancies the cultural zeitgeist serves up for the day. We are a people who need God. Ronald Reagan believed this wholeheartedly. He felt that God provided the route to goodness and wisdom; only through reliance in Divine Providence could America’s leaders achieve goodness and wisdom. One of Reagan’s favorite images was that of George Washington kneeling in the snow in prayer at Valley Forge, which Reagan called the “most sublime image in American history.” Washington kneeling in prayer, said Reagan in a radio address in December 1983, “personified a people who knew it was not enough to depend on their own courage and goodness; they must also seek help from God, their Father and their Preserver.”

It was God, Reagan maintained, “from whom all knowledge springs.” “When we open ourselves to Him,” Reagan told a group of public-school students, “we gain not only moral courage but also intellectual strength.”

Summer 2015

PEW POINT | “Our priceless freedom is recognized as the cornerstone of American civilization. To teach this appreciation of our freedom and the recognition of the forces that threaten it, will always be the foremost mission of the College.”

Only through reliance in Divine Providence could America’s leaders achieve goodness and wisdom.

The Prayer at Valley Forge by Arnold Friberg

The light of faith enlightens the intellect and our reason. Reagan had expressed this sentiment for years, long before the presidency.

Such a divine source, Reagan reckoned, ought to be tapped.

Quite the contrary, Reagan was earnestly afraid of what happens to free, democratic societies when they scrap religious faith.

To that end, one of Reagan’s best speeches, and arguably one of the most forgotten, was an October 1988 address marking the bicentennial of Georgetown University. “At its full flowering, freedom is the first principle of society; this society, Western society,” Reagan told students at Georgetown. “And yet freedom cannot exist alone. And that’s why the theme for your bicentennial is so very apt: learning, faith, and freedom. Each reinforces the others, each makes the others possible. For what are they without each other?”

He asked his audience to pray that America be guided by learning, faith, and freedom. “Tocqueville said it in 1835, and it’s as true today as it was then: ‘Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot.

Religion is more needed in democratic

societies than in any other.’”

With a nod to his academic audience, Reagan warned, “Learning is a good thing, but unless it’s tempered by faith and a love of freedom, it can be very dangerous indeed. The names of many intellectuals are recorded on the rolls of infamy, from Robespierre to Lenin to Ho Chi Minh to Pol Pot.” Reagan contended that one thing that “must never change” for America is that men and women must “seek Divine guidance in the policies of their government and the promulgation of their laws.” They must, he urged, “make our laws and government not only a model to mankind, but a testament to the wisdom and mercy of God.” Conservatives today quote a particular Reagan remark on freedom: “Freedom is never more than a generation from extinction. …

It must be fought for, protected, and handed on.” Yes, Reagan said those words, and agreed with them, but Reagan did not want those generations fighting that fight without the shepherd of faith. Despots might attempt to govern without faith, but Americans should not. Faith and freedom reinforce one another, each making the other possible.

Reagan felt that learning was about learning this crucial relationship. It is telling that many of his remarks on the bond between faith and freedom were shared with students; that is, with those engaged in the process of learning. So, too, learning about and understanding conservatism—especially Reagan conservatism—is about knowing this reinforcing relationship.

More, learning about and understanding America, too, was about knowing this relationship. It is the “twin beacons of faith and freedom,” proclaimed Reagan, that have “brightened the American sky.”

And finally, to learn about and understand conservatism is to understand that both faith and freedom—not one of the two, but both— form its bedrock. They were the rudder that navigated Ronald Reagan through the tumult of his times and should likewise continue to guide conservatives today.

t h e G eD ¯ UNK w w w. g c c.e d u | 51

Grove City College Alumni Magazine

Grove City College

100 Campus Drive

Grove City, PA 16127 www.gcc.edu

Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 869 Erie, PA

Students play a bubble soccer match that helped determine the winner of the 2015 Freshman Hall Cup. The competition, conceived by Sarah Klein ’17 and Chesterton Cobb ’15 in 2013, is a year-long battle that builds community. A sing-off in the fall, a hall’s average GPA and intramural sports records were also deciding factors. Last year’s winners were Second Floor Memorial Pew Side and Second Floor North MEP Side.