miamian The Magazine of Miami University
Fall 2016
Cultivating Healthier Habits
Can an entire community change its diet? IN THIS ISSUE:
Zeroing in on Zika / A Rising Star in Stand-up / A Historic Pomp and Circumstance Afternoon
‘MEMORY OF SADNESS’ “The chair represents me after my mother passed away as well as her parents, my grandparents,” says Ara (Barbara) Mayer Leites ’64 MFA ’67 of her 22”x30” acrylic on paper. “I have become the matriarch of both sides of my family. It is an odd feeling.”
Staff Editor Donna Boen ’83 MTSC ’96 Miamian@MiamiOH.edu
Vol. 35, No. 1
miamian
Senior Designers Donna Barnet Belinda Rutherford
Fall 2016
The Magazine of Miami University
Photographers Jeff Sabo Scott Kissell
STORIES
Web Developer Suzanne Clark
18 Zika Hunters
Copy Editor Beth Weaver
Molecular biologist Amy Altman ’93 MS ’96 and Miami assistant professor Dhananjai Rao go after the viral epidemic with zeal.
Issue Design Consultant Lilly Pereira University Advancement 513-529-4029 Vice President for University Advancement Tom Herbert herbertw@MiamiOH.edu
22 Simply the Beth
Up-and-coming comedian Beth Stelling ’07 works hard at her funny business, and star makers are noticing. Researchers out to stop Zika’s bite (see page 18).
Alumni Relations 513-529-5957 Assistant Vice President for Alumni Relations Ray Mock ’82 MS ’83 mockrf@MiamiOH.edu
Send address changes to: Alumni Records Office Advancement Services Miami University 926 Chestnut Lane Oxford, Ohio 45056 alumnirecords@MiamiOH.edu 513-529-5127 Fax: 513-529-1466
ON THE COVER If your idea of healthy is a diet soda and you’ve not had much access to fruits and vegetables, how do you reframe your thinking about an apple? That is the question, starting on page 24. Photo by Holly Clark.
Can an entire community change its diet and adopt healthy eating habits? That’s the key question for researcher Darcy Freedman ’98, who is studying a Cleveland community.
IN EACH ISSUE
Office of Development 513-529-1230 Senior Associate Vice President for University Advancement Brad Bundy Hon ’13 brad.bundy@MiamiOH.edu MiamiOH.edu/alumni
24 Resetting the Table
2 From the Hub We are One Miami.
3 Back & Forth
To and from the editor. President’s historic inauguration (see page 10).
6 Along Slant Walk
Campus news highlights.
10 Such a Life 10%
A colorful inauguration.
12 Inquiry + Innovation
Architecture students bridge wide cultural divide.
Opus Web paper features FSC® certifications and is Lacey Act compliant; 100% of the electricity used to manufacture Opus Web is generated with Green-e® certified renewable energy.
14 Media Matters
16 My Story
Graduating senior says fond farewell to “Such a Place.”
30 Love & Honor
Meet Class of 2016 honorees for 18 of the Last 9 program.
32 Class Notes
Notes, news, and weddings.
46 Farewells 48 Days of Old
Miami’s Middletown campus celebrates its 50th.
New works by alumni.
Miamian is published three times a year by the University Advancement Division of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056. Copyright © 2016, Miami University. All rights are reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Miamian is produced by University Communications and Marketing, 108 Glos Center, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056, 513-529-7592; Fax: 513-529-1950; Miamian@MiamiOH.edu.
from the hub
What Do You See? By President Greg Crawford The one who touched the tusk thought it was a spear, the one who touched the trunk thought it was a snake, you’ll hear about love and Miami Mergers. Likewise, and so on. None were right, but if they had combined everybody knows the turtles at the sundial are meant their observations, they would have understood so to be rubbed for good luck, King Library is our reposmuch more. itory of human wisdom, and the Art Museum is our In the media today, you probably hear arguments storehouse of creativity. Those are fixed objects with that resemble the parable of the blind men and the fixed meanings. elephant — a lot of (sometimes loud) opinions, with But what about the Kreger Pendulum? Perspectives little attempt to understand the on it can be as broad as the instruwhole picture. ment’s sweeping arc. As a physiNot here, though. I’ve been at cist, I look at it and see ultimate Miami only a short time and already precision and an ingenious way to I’m impressed by the in-depth and prove the Earth’s rotation and tell civil discourse here, even in disagreethe time, date, and season. ment. Within two days recently, I An engineer might see its simattended a Unity in the Community plistic construction; a mathemaevent, a Freedom Summer Dialogue, tician could explain the complex and a mental health forum, each of formula that predicts its mesmerizing motion; an architect would which could have triggered strong notice the pendulum’s relationemotion. Yet amid all the voices, ship to the rest of the room; an participants were truly interested artist would appreciate how David in hearing other views and warmly Griggs created its beauty; a poet welcomed a broad diversity of guests might be inspired to write about and honorees. the mysteries of time and space. Miami has many plans for advancAlthough my first response to ing diversity and inclusivity, but the pendulum ties to my physics in our foundation I already see the background, I can appreciate the extraordinary strengths of this wonbeauty of the glowing, etched glass, derful institution. and I’d like to know more about it We are One Miami. We honor Kreger’s Foucault Pendulum from someone trained in art. I’d values of dignity and respect like to hear an engineer explain embedded in our Code of Love and the mechanism. I’d like to read a poem it inspires. My Honor. We simultaneously revere historic tradition own view would be enriched by these perspectives. (Don’t step on the seal!) and forward-looking insight Of course, a disagreement might arise if each as dynamic as the Kreger Pendulum. This community, observer thought their own perspective was the including our alumni, sees beauty in science, ingenuity only valid one. One might say, “It’s a work of art” and in art, simplicity in complexity, and unity in diversity. another, “No, it’s a tool of science.” Marcel Proust said, “The real voyage of discovery You may recall the parable about the blind men consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having and the elephant, where each thought his experience new eyes.” I’m viewing Miami with new eyes, and I alone revealed the complete reality of the creature? really like what I see.
Ask any Miamian about Upham Arch, and chances are
You are invited to write to President Greg Crawford at president@ MiamiOH.edu. Follow him on Twitter @ PresGreg. To see a few of the tweets he’s sent so far, please look on page 3.
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back & forth Future”), are magnificent. Thank you, Greg and Renate, for coming to us. And thank you, Donna Boen, for your wonderful interview and reporting on our new couple (“In High Gear”). —Ellie Maynard Erchinger ’52 and Ralph Erchinger ’53 Austin, Texas
Alumni welcome Crawfords Many, many thanks to the staff and faculty selection committee who identified, and convinced our new president, Greg Crawford, and spouse Renate to come to Miami! We were beyond elated to read about them and, more importantly, read their own words. They expressed the values that we hold most dear in education and in life itself. We know that our young students are in good hands and the future of our world looks bright again. We, too, take delight with all alumni and students in saying, “To think that in such a place, I led such a life.” Special thanks to Miamian Editor Donna Boen for such an informative publication. Outstanding! —John Klesch ’63 and Jeanne Falkenstein Klesch ’64 Williamsburg, Va. Wow! What a presidential pair! Greg and Renate Crawford are not only super mentors for the Miami student body, but for all of us Miami Alumni. Your writing and enthusiasm, President Crawford (“Wide Open
Presidential Tweets
The front cover on the Summer 2016 Miamian magazine is so pleasurable to look at and the pictures of Drs. Greg and Renate Crawford are of vitality and friendliness. May the Crawfords experience many happy, successful years at beautiful Miami University. —Rose Mary Rush Gross ’47 Allison Park, Pa. Farewell to Withrow I was saddened to read about the demolition of Withrow Court in the most recent Miamian. During my time at Miami (1959–1963), I believe that I attended every home game at Withrow Court. It was a wonderful place to watch a game. The seats were very close to the playing floor. One could, if so inclined, trip an opposing player from your front-row seat. Also, because of the proximity of the fans and the incredible amount of noise generated by the fans, Miami always enjoyed an enormous home court advantage. Their record at home was always better than their record on the road. One season, they reversed a 50-point loss at Bowling Green to beat them at home. Going to games at Withrow was certainly a part of my very enjoyable years at Miami. —Michael Blacker ’63 Scotch Plains, N.J.
It came as no surprise that Withrow Court was demolished during the summer (“The Final Buzzer,” Summer 2016 Miamian). In June 2014, when I was on campus for the 50th anniversary of my graduation, Mike Kumler ’97, one of the guides on a bus tour of the campus during Reunion Weekend, mentioned Withrow had “outlived its usefulness,” which of course meant its days were clearly numbered.
I have a special place in my heart for Withrow Court, as my father, who had been a basketball star at Lakewood (Ohio) High School during the early 1930s, also played basketball during two years at Miami. (He left Miami during the Great Depression for a job opportunity and his decision proved to be fortuitous.) Before my freshman year in 1960, I remembered Dad mentioning that one of his basketball teammates at Miami
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back & forth
Send letters to: Donna Boen Miamian editor 108 Glos Center Miami University Oxford, Ohio 45056-2480 Miamian@MiamiOH.edu; or fax to 513-529-1950. Include your name, class year, home address, and phone number. Letters are edited for space and clarity.
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was Walter “Smokey” Alston ’35, at the time manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers and later the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball teams. The first time I entered the lobby of Withrow Court as a freshman, I noticed the entire wall near the entrances to the gym was covered with framed team photos spanning several years, so I looked for a photo of basketball teams during the time my father was a student. Sure enough, I found one that identified all of the players including Lou Pumphrey and Walter Alston. During the early ’60s, when I attended Miami basketball games in Withrow Court after the Major League Baseball season was over, I would occasionally see “Smokey” Alston at the games, taking a seat near courtside. I guess you could call that going “full circle.” —Lou Pumphrey Jr. ’64 Shaker Heights, Ohio Sweet memories I appreciated greatly the article on Graeter’s ice cream in the Summer Miamian (“The Inside Scoop on Graeter’s”) because their ice cream has been a great part of my life. Over 70 years ago when I was attending Norwood High School, after every football and basketball game, Graeter’s was the place for a cone or frappé. Then working for a Cincinnati firm after graduation, we resided in Mariemont and the Western Hills area, where after every payday, my wife and I would go to Graeter’s for a hot fudge sundae. Our daughter Laura, Miami Class of 1974, moved to San Francisco and on our first trip to visit her, we took five pints of Graeter’s ice cream packed in dry ice. She remarked
that this was what she missed most of all. After retirement, we moved to Ryland Lakes Country Club in Northern Kentucky only to have Richard Graeter’s father and mother, Joyce and Richard, as our neighbors. Annually they would have an ice cream social for 85 families on their lawn overlooking the lake and that was the summer highlight. Joyce would bring delicious pastries to our church for a Sunday social every week. After Laura retired, she moved to Northern California and has five pints of ice cream shipped regularly. Now we have lived for 35 years in Naples, Fla., and have Graeter’s ice cream available at our local market. —Charles Cortright ’48 and Patricia Stekette Cortright ’48 Naples, Fla. Life in Vetville I was interested in the current Miamian featuring Vet Village and two couples who lived there in the 1950s (Summer 2016 Class Notes under Class of 1953). It was an amazing story! My husband, John Sommer ’53 (deceased 2013), and I lived in Vet Village in 1953 in Unit 7A. Our neighbors on the other side of our cubicle drove a nail in their side, and it came out in our bathroom. John hung his pajamas on that nail. Another time John asked me for a thought to brighten his day. I was reading the Bible and said, “Go out with joy.” John being over 6 feet burst out the door and cracked his head on the door jam. He fell back into our cubicle and we had a good laugh. He wasn’t hurt.
I love Miamian magazine. It makes me recall my 4+ years there with joy. The Crawfords are wonderful representatives for our great university. —Sue Ballantyne Sommer ’52 Denver, Colo. Strike one I found it a bit puzzling that an article highlighting baseball (“Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” Summer 2016 Miamian) failed to mention the 1978 team, which featured two future major leaguers in pitcher Charlie Leibrandt ’78 and infielder Bill Doran ’80. Both went on to storied MLB careers featuring postseason playoff appearances. Just saying … —Roger Palmer ’78 Topeka, Kan. Additional details Let me congratulate you on the work you do with Miamian; for me it serves two purposes: (1) to keep me up-to-date about my alma mater (e.g., Summer 2016 articles by and about the new president) and (2) to remind me of wonderful days past. I write about the Summer 2016 issue, which has three pieces reminding me of days past. Re class notes of 1953: Two corrections that only one who lived in Oxford at that time would note: Married student housing was never referred to as “Veterans Village.” It was always “Vetville,” as the piece used later. The facilities were not “Quonset Huts,” as you refer, but rather surplus married officers mobile quarters. (You might want to do some research regarding Quonset
back & forth
huts and compare the photos of the Weldays and Lyons.) Re “back & forth, A fairy tale time together”: This letter thoroughly resonated with my memories of work on The Student (I was editor from 1949-1950). Sue MacDonald ’77 and Terence Moore ’78 did a magnificent job of summarizing the rich experiences of work on the paper — late hours on Mondays and Thursdays for Tuesday and Friday editions, camaraderie, friendships, the exultation when the paper was delivered. MacDonald mentions a “journalism-track emphasis” in place in the 1970s. In the ’40s, Gilson Wright, public relations officer for the school, offered one course in journalism; thus, The Student truly was an extra-curricular activity. Re “The Final Buzzer”: The story noted the several uses to which the facility [Withrow Court] had been made, among them commencements. I was involved in three: in 1949 as a student marshal, in 1950 when I received my BA there, and in 1951 my MA. I think that it is worth noting that Withrow Court served for a short period in fall 1946 as a men’s residence hall when Miami experienced a tremendous increase in enrollment, from some 3,000 to 5,000. Surplus Army barracks, intended to house incoming male freshmen, were delayed in their construction. Some 400 men were housed in Withrow Court gymnasium from September until Thanksgiving. Imagine having 399 roommates! (Life magazine featured a layout on this unusual dormitory arrangement.) —John Spangler ’50 MA ’51 Denver, Colo.
A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
Food for Thought A gooey chocolate chip cookie so warm from the oven I have to juggle it
from one hand to the other until it cools down enough for me to take a bite. Yep. That’s my favorite food. Didn’t even have to think about it when dietitian Nancy Parkinson asked the question. I can still see my mom standing at our harvest gold stove, handing me one as I head out the door to school. It didn’t happen often, which is why, I suppose, it’s such a special memory. Nancy asked a group of students and staff about our food memories during Miami’s Mindfulness Week. A faculty member in kinesiology and health, she encouraged us to focus on our food. It wouldn’t hurt, she suggested, to occasionally put away our phones, turn off the TV, sit down to the table, and savor. And not only with our taste buds. Involve other senses as well. Listen to the sizzle in the skillet, breathe in the brewing coffee, see the vibrant colors in juicy strawberries and luscious blueberries. I take food for granted. Many of us probably do. Sure, I mumble about prices as I go through the grocery store, but I assume the wide selection I’m used to will be there every time I walk through the door. If I want it, it’s there, and it’s affordable. The reason I attended Nancy’s session, hosted by Miami’s Mindfulness and Contemplative Inquiry Center, was because of our cover story. It’s about a Cleveland community with its first farmers market. Reading it, I felt the need to stop and smell the rosemary and think. Would I spend money on a vegetable I’d never seen before and didn’t know how to cook, even though I’d been told it’s good for me? That is the culinary conundrum researcher Darcy Freedman ’98 is studying. If she can find the answer, it will be a major breakthrough for food hubs around the country. “I very much believe that a field-of-dreams change — if you build it, they will come — is not going to change the situation,” she says in our story, “Resetting the Table.” “Yes, we need to have more healthy-food retailers available, but that’s only the first step,” she explains. “Food has to be affordable. It has to be socially acceptable. And you have to have the skills to use the foods that are available and integrate them into your habits.” Diet is an extremely difficult behavior to change, she concedes. Don’t I know it. Speaking as one who will always choose chocolate over chickpeas, I wish Darcy great success in this dietary dilemma. —Donna Boen ’83 MTSC ’96
Chocolate chip cookies — my comfort food.
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Photo courtesy of the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
along slant walk
MacArthur Fellow Daryl Baldwin, first Miami professor to receive a ‘genius grant’ and the first in Ohio since 2004 Language reclamation is a critical tool in Daryl Baldwin’s efforts to empower a healthy and sustainable Myaamia community.
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Daryl Baldwin, director of the Myaamia Center at Miami University and a leader in Native American language and cultural revitalization, has been named a 2016 MacArthur Fellow. He was among 23 chosen from a variety of fields by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation for what is also known as the “genius grant.”
along slant walk
The linguist and scholar came to the Oxford campus in 2001 to run the Myaamia Center, then known as a project. (“Myaamia” is “Miami” in the Miami language.) It was a joint venture between the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and the university. “It was just me; I was the only staff,” he said. Fifteen years later, it’s going strong with a staff of seven. The center undertakes research for the preservation and rediscovery of Myaamia ways, including focusing on harvesting practices and seasonal activities and diets; mapping the landscape and land uses of the traditional homeland; reconstructing the traditional lunar calendar; documenting ethnobotany practices; and developing materials for teaching and learning the Miami language. “It’s a work of passion. It’s also a work of identity for me and for other tribal members. This is about discovery of self,” Baldwin said. “This is a wonderful recognition of what the community has been able to do, and it’s a direct outcome of the collaboration of the Miami Tribe and Miami University.” Selections for the fellowship are made primarily on “exceptional creativity, as demonstrated through a track record of significant achievement,” according to the foundation. The selection committee looks for individuals “on the precipice of great discovery or a game-changing idea.”
The fellowship comes with a $625,000, five-year stipend. “I feel very humbled others would think so much of our work and efforts to revitalize our language,” said Baldwin, a member of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. Born in northwest Ohio, Baldwin’s forefathers were active in the affairs of the Miami Nation dating back to the 18th century. He continues this dedication through his focus on language and cultural revitalization. The Myaamia Center has worked to revitalize endangered languages through the National Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous Languages workshops in Washington, D.C. In August, the center was awarded $182,406 by the National Science Foundation for the project, its second NSF grant in two years. Breath of Life trains researchers from indigenous communities in methods of archives-based linguistic and ethnographic research, critical to advancing knowledge about indigenous languages and cultures. Baldwin, an adjunct assistant professor in educational leadership, is co-author of a study showing that tribal students at Miami, where they learn the language and culture of their heritage, graduate at much higher rates than Native American students across the U.S.
“I feel very humbled others would think so much of our work and efforts to revitalize our language.” —Daryl Baldwin, director of the Myaamia Center and MacArthur Fellow
Amazing Treasure Troves Want to see some cool meteorites? How about an eight-sided, revolving table where William Holmes McGuffey is thought to have designed lessons for his Eclectic Readers? Perhaps you feel like strolling through a gallery admiring art or standing face-toface with a Kodiak bear. You can do all that, plus more, at Miami’s six museums. Five of them are traditional brick-andmortar buildings on the Oxford campus. The sixth is anthropology’s new virtual museum (tinyurl.com/MUAnthro) where visitors can browse downloadable 3-D models of artifacts, including ceramics from Chupícuaro, West Mexico, dating back to 300 B.C. “Where else can you go and have that number of museums within walking distance, free of charge?” said Steve Gordon ’75 MA ’81, administrator of the McGuffey Museum and House at 401 E. Spring St. Other museums: •Miami University Art Museum, 801 S. Patterson Ave. •Hefner Museum of Natural History, 100 Upham Hall. •Karl E. Limper Geology Museum on the first floor of newly renovated Shideler Hall. •Patterson Place Museum, 325 S. Patterson Ave. The seven-room, twostory brick house includes paintings, furniture, and other memorabilia from Western College for Women.
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NOTEWORTHY
U.S. News & World Report ranks Miami No. 2 nationally, following only Princeton, a private school, for its faculty members’ outstanding commitment to undergraduate teaching. Yale is No. 3 and Brown is No. 4 in U.S. News’ 2017 Best Colleges rankings. Miami is No. 1 in the nation among public universities in the same category. Miami ’s Scripps Gerontology Center has been awarded a $1 million grant from the Ohio Department of Medicaid to improve nursing home residents’ quality of life. The project is intended to guide nursing home providers on the best way to deliver person-centered care by honoring their residents’ preferences for everyday living.
Veiled Light by the Men’s Glee Club was released for distribution by Albany Records Aug. 1. It is the first professional recording on a record label in the group’s 109-year history. “Five works were specifically written for the Miami University Men’s Glee Club in its mission to promote and foster the creation and development of new choral works for male choir,” said Jeremy Jones, conductor, assistant professor of music, and Naus Family Faculty Scholar. It was recorded in Hall Auditorium.
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Kudos for Coach Legendary coach Ara Parseghian ’49 MEd ’54 received Miami’s prestigious President’s Medal during the Oct. 10 inauguration of President Greg Crawford. He was recognized for a lifetime of selfless devotion and dedication to improving the lives of others. “I have seen his commitment to social justice, I have seen him create change, and I have followed his virtuous leadership,” Crawford said. “He exemplifies what it means to be a Miamian.” As a College Football Hall of Fame coach, Parseghian built character, citizenship, and national champions and was a leader in inclusive excellence, being the first to integrate the University of Notre Dame coaching staff and the first to start an African-American as the Notre Dame quarterback. He also touched and improved countless lives through the Ara Parseghian Medical Research Foundation, and, while sadly losing three grandchildren to the rare disease, he continues to raise funds and hope for the cure of NiemannPick Type C (NP-C). Crawford and his family became close to Parseghian, his wife, Katie Davis Parseghian ’50, and their family when Crawford served as dean for the College of Science at Notre Dame. In collaboration with Parseghian, Crawford has raised about $2 million in research and clinical trial funds for the foundation to find a cure for NP-C. Parseghian is one of the coaches in Miami’s famed Cradle of Coaches. He served in the Navy during World War II. Afterward he enrolled at Miami and played and lettered in three sports: football, basketball, and baseball. He then played two years for the Cleveland Browns of the All-American Football
League, coached by his former Miami coach, Paul Brown ’30. He returned to Miami in 1950 to assist Woody Hayes. When Hayes went to Ohio State, Parseghian became Miami’s head football coach. In five years, he guided Miami to a record of 39–6–1 and won two MAC titles. After eight years at Northwestern, he moved in 1964 to Notre Dame, where he amassed a winning record of 170–58–6, including two national championships, one in 1966 and the other in 1973. Parseghian received an honorary doctorate from Miami in 1978 and served on Miami’s board of trustees for nine years from 1978–1987.
Coach Ara Parseghian ’49 MEd ’54 receives the first President’s Medal awarded by President Greg Crawford.
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Una fiesta para todos! (A celebration for all!): Miami’s Center for American and World Cultures hosted the 14th annual Latin American and Caribbean UniDiversity Festival in Oxford’s Uptown parks during a beautiful Friday evening in September as part of the National Hispanic/Latino Heritage Month celebrations. El Corazón de Mexico performed a variety of Mexican folkloric dances. The crowd also enjoyed unique food, diverse regional music, and traditional arts and crafts at the kickoff to Miami’s fall semester of Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino/a intercultural programs.
$40 Million Gift Sets Record At the end of his Oct. 10 inauguration speech, President Greg Crawford announced a $40 million gift to the Farmer School of Business from Richard ’56 and Joyce Barnes Farmer ’57 and the Farmer Family Foundation. “Dick and Joyce, and all the Farmer family, our heartfelt appreciation goes to you for the lasting impact this gift will have on the future of the university and our students,” Crawford said, bringing the Millett Hall crowd to its feet.
The largest commitment from any single foundation or individual in Miami’s 207-year history, the gift will support all elements of the school, including its faculty, students, emerging programs, and curricula enhancements. In 1992, the Farmers provided the cornerstone gift to the business school. In 2005, the Farmer Family Foundation was the lead donor for the construction of its building and faculty support.
Miami’s Farmer School of Business serves more than 4,000 students and nearly 40,000 alumni.
The school has consistently ranked in the top tier of public university undergraduate business school programs. Earlier this year, Money noted it as a top 10 producer of Fortune 500 CEOs.
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such a life
A HISTORIC POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE AFTERNOON
“I arrived confident that everything is possible, and everything about Miami confirms it. Let us never be guilty of not dreaming big enough.” — Gregory P. Crawford at his inauguration as 22nd president of Miami University, Oct. 10, 2016 For more on the inauguration, go to: MiamiOH.edu/ inauguration. Photo: Ricardo Trevino
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inquiry + innovation
Real Empathy, Real Designs Architecture students bridge 6,000-mile cultural divide By Margo Kissell
Life is hard at the Zaatari refugee camp, opened four years ago to Syrians fleeing their country’s devastating civil war. The 2 square miles of desert at a former military base in Jordan is home to more than 80,000 people, including children born there. Wanting to make life a little easier for the refugees, 16 Miami University students designed sun shelters, greenhouses, playgrounds, and other structures. Throughout the process, the architecture and interior design majors spent hours Skyping with artists and craftsmen who live at the camp. By mid-August, 14 shelters had been completed with six more scheduled to go up in coming months. Much out of little Diane Fellows, associate professor of architecture and interior design, led the MUHabitat studio. She submitted a 100-page packet of their designs in late May to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the non-governmental International Relief and Development (IRD) organization. After three weeks with no news, she wasn’t sure if anything would result. Then an email arrived. It was from Miamian Laurie Balbo ’80, an architect living in Jordan who came up with the idea for the collaborative project and helped facilitate it through UNHCR and IRD. Balbo told Fellows that the two agencies had approved financing to build the 20 shelters, plus
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three prototype beds for the disabled, and at least two transport tricycles that the students had designed for the many refugees who lost limbs in the war. The budget would permit them to hire 80 men in the camp to do the construction. “(This is) the biggest project IRD has going, and UNHCR is ecstatic,” Balbo wrote. Because of the camp’s limited resources, the students incorporated recycled materials or reimagined existing objects. For example, Josh Gabbard, a senior from Columbus, designed a small sun shelter that used corrugated metal as a roof and discarded doors as the table and benches. “Zaatari (pronounced ZAA-tar-ee) is in an incredibly difficult climate with very little resources, so this is a small step in making the living conditions just a little bit better for the inhabitants,” Gabbard said. “It’s great to see a collaboration like this turn out so well.”
inquiry + innovation
Photo by Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Hoping to provide some comfort in the world’s largest Syrian refugee camp, Miami architecture students (right) designed sun shelters and other structures. Associate professor Diane Fellows said, “Projects like this, when you’re working with people in different cultures, you’re connected emotionally.”
Significant dialogue The students worked with eight camp refugees who have formed the group United Artists of Zaatari. Most were professionals in engineering, art, and history and a few were university students in southern Syria before their homes and schools were destroyed. Their Skype sessions bridged the cultural divide and more than 6,000 miles between Oxford and the camp in northwest Jordan. The students also interacted through a private Facebook group page with built-in translation software after learning virtually everyone in the camp has a cellphone and is on social media. “We used technology to break down barriers that would otherwise prevent us from establishing a dialogue,” Gabbard said. “The most important thing for me, though, was just realizing how significant the dialogue was. We may have been talking architecture,
but the fact that we were talking at all was much more important.” Despite the 6,000-mile gulf, it took only three months and a half dozen Skypes to provide a shelter and respite from 100-degree heat. That’s what Balbo hoped for when she pitched the project idea in an email to Mary Rogero MArch ’89, interim chair and professor of architecture and interior design. Balbo, who has lived and worked in Amman, Jordan, the past five years, came up with the concept while traveling to Zaatari every few months to conduct workshops with the artist group. Refugees live in 10-by-12-foot metal cabins provided by UNHCR. Canvas tent structures provide additional living spaces because Jordan prohibits them from building permanent structures. Balbo wanted more for them. On one drive back from Zaatari, she remembered her Miami design studios and how the best projects centered on applying solutions to real-world problems. She asked Rogero if students would be interested in creating useful structures that the refugees could build themselves. Rogero forwarded the email to faculty. Fellows responded. Getting Real “There was a language barrier, so the big challenge was making the drawings as clear as possible so that they could build them without being able to ask questions,” said senior Chelsea Clark, of Syracuse, N.Y. Clark’s first step was to research the Syrian culture, history, and current crisis to better understand the people. As a result, her shelter included a dome that incorporated facets resembling the Syrian architecture she had seen online, including the Great Mosque of Damascus, to give a sense of home. Her concept was one of three chosen. However, Fellows noted, the first ones built have been “barebones versions” of the designs based on what the workers can do. “It’s what they’re able to handle,” said Fellows, who reminded her students that it’s not just about the designs, but engaging with other cultures. “This is as real as it gets.”
“We may have been talking architecture, but the fact that we were talking at all was much more important.” —Josh Gabbard ’17
Margo Kissell is news and feature writer in Miami’s university news and communications office.
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Photo by Gary Joseph Cohen
media matters
Tackling Hard Topics Brendan Kiely ’99 pens YA books that prepare teens for life’s challenges “I write so that I can help young folks and old folks learn to become better listeners, so that we can learn how to better love each other, and so that we have the courage and the conviction to stand up in the face of injustice,” says Brendan Kiely ’99. His debut novel, The Gospel of Winter, was selected as one of American Library Association’s Top 10 Best Fiction for Young Adults 2015 and was a Kirkus Reviews selection for best of 2014. All American Boys, which he co-authored with Jason Reynolds, earned the Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award. He lives with his wife in Greenwich Village.
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Brendan Kiely’s first novel, The Gospel of Winter, explored the scandal of abuse in the Catholic church. His second, All American Boys, followed two young men, one black and one white, whose lives were changed forever because of police brutality. His new release, The Last True Love Story, focuses on a grandfather with Alzheimer’s. “I tackle tough subjects because I want to give young people equipment to deal with the life to come.” The former high school teacher and book marketer now writes full time, primarily for young adults. He settled on the Alzheimer’s topic because of a visit he took with his own grandfather who had the disease. “It was a difficult trip through Ireland. There were moments when he didn’t know where he was. But at night, I would interview him and ask him for stories, and no matter where he wandered in his storytelling, he always had an anchor that would bring him back.”
That anchor was his enduring love for his wife. The Last True Love Story honors that spirit and also enables young folks to recognize that they can learn from older family members, says Kiely, who explains that the plot is a dual story about first loves and final loves. In the book, 17-year-olds Hendrix and Corrina risk everything when they steal a car, spring Gpa from his assisted living facility, and take off on a cross-country odyssey. They want to discover for themselves if what Gpa says is true — that only love stories last. Currently on a 70-day book tour, Kiely says he feels grateful and humble that he gets to travel and talk about love and battling injustice and do that all through art. He has several people to thank for that, including professor Carolyn Haynes, associate provost for undergraduate education, one of his many mentors at Miami. “Carolyn Haynes always taught me to never give up hope and to be true to what I cared about most.”
media matters
Alben Barkley James Libbey ’64 ’67 University Press of Kentucky Born to poor tenant farmers, Alben Barkley rose to witness or influence many key events of the 20th century, becoming vice president on the ticket with Harry Truman in 1949. This fulllength biography follows Barkley’s larger-than-life personality from his humble beginnings to his chilling final speech. Mood, Food and Gratitude Kim “Bo” Arnold ’84 Balboa Press Kim “Bo” Arnold ’84 believes the way we’ve been taught to think is out of alignment with who we are and is responsible for our unhappiness and preventable illnesses. In Mood, Food and Gratitude, she challenges us to awaken to our authentic consciousness. Choosing War Douglas Peifer ’85 Oxford University Press Choosing War compares the ways different presidential administrations responded when American lives were lost at sea. It examines the Maine incident (1898), which led to war; the Lusitania crisis (1915), which set the trajectory for intervention; and the Panay
incident (1937), which was settled diplomatically. The case studies illuminate how leadership, memory, and shifting domestic policy shape presidential decisions. Vegas Girls Heather Skyler ’91 Skyhorse Publishing Vegas Girls begins with three former high school friends, now in their mid-30s, reuniting in their hometown of Las Vegas — a city they vowed to escape as soon as they could — to celebrate their new lives and revisit old haunts. But what starts out as a weeklong, sun-kissed reunion takes a strange turn as mysterious gifts appear, familiar faces pop up in unexpected places, and each woman reveals a secret, private quest. The Girl Who Stole A Planet Steve Colegrove ’94 CreateSpace Amy Armstrong is having a perfectly normal life as a 14-yearold thief in California, until a talking cat interrupts her latest break-in and transports her a thousand years into the future. She explores the inside of an asteroid, makes friends with time-traveling cats and dogs, and meets a teenage boy from 1889. The search for a way home takes Amy through Victorian London and to the ultimate realization of who she really is.
The Guineveres: A Novel Sarah Domet ’99 Flatiron Books The four girls named Guinevere — Vere, Gwen, Ginny, and Win — have nothing but their friendship at The Sisters of the Supreme Adoration convent. However, together they form the all powerful and confident group The Guineveres. The nuns who raise them teach that faith is about waiting, but they tire of waiting. When four comatose soldiers from the war arrive at the convent, the girls realize these men may hold their ticket out. Remember For Me Diana Tarant Schmidt ’02 Open Books Clara Eros thought her life was ending with Alzheimer’s. She was mistaken. The balance of power in the war between good and evil is shifting, and mankind’s survival is at risk. When Clara awakens with no memory, her questions are fundamental: who is she and why is she here? The answer she receives is that she has been recruited to fight against the reign of darkness. But is Clara just a pawn in a much larger game? She must search for the common thread hidden within malevolence and turn the tide in a war where humanity is succumbing to chaos and brutality. Will she be strong enough to bring humanity back into the light?
NOTED Veiled Light This first ever professional record-label recording of the Miami University Men’s Glee Club features 13 works by living composers, advancing the male choral arts through superb repertoire written in the 21st century. Albany Records
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my story
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a blog Nicole Blachowicz ’16 wrote a few weeks before she graduated from Miami in May.
MY STORY is a place for you to share reminiscences and observations about everyday happenings. Submit your essay for consideration to: Donna Boen, Miamian editor, “My Story,” 108 Glos Center, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056 or Miamian@ MiamiOH.edu. Please limit yourself to 900 words and include your name, class year, address, and home phone number.
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Such a Place By Nicole Blachowicz ’16
Walking home after picking up my cap and gown, I passed a group of families with the iconic red “Make It Miami” bags. I watched as the young high school seniors took in Miami’s buildings and people walking by. I silently whispered, “Let’s trade bags,” and that got me thinking of when I was in their shoes.
my story
In high school, I refused to look at any in-state university. I wanted something more. What that “more” was, I couldn’t tell you. I did know I did NOT want to make that boring drive (cue yawn) whenever I went home. A two-hour drive through nothing but cornfields? Seriously? Fast forward four years later, and I’m finishing up my senior year, in the middle of cornfields, five hours away. Oxford, Ohio, is what my high school self would have called “in the middle of nowhere,” but it’s quite the opposite. It’s the center of everything. It has 16,000+ undergraduate minds — a portion of this country’s future, who are trying to succeed and prepare themselves for this “real world” they keep hearing about. They’re learning to balance the work-hard, play-hard mentality. Some days are more successful than others. I’ve been lucky enough to call this place home these past four years. It’s taught me who I want to be as a daughter, friend, student, and human, and it has given me my fair share of laughs, memories, lessons, and experiences. Why is this place so special? It’s a reminder of simplicity. It’s calming to run on country roads with no sidewalks where all you can see is more winding road. When you breathe deep, it feels fresh, simple. You have to take in the blue sky and stalks of corn because (gasp) you don’t have cellphone service. It’s a nice escape from information overload. It teaches about perspective. I still constantly daydream about the streets of Paris, and I get excited seeing a new place on my Google Extension, Momentum, but there are awe-inspiring views wherever you go — you just have to look at something with a certain perspective, with certain eyes. I was shocked the first time I looked around and realized how special this place is. There are days when the sunset and the sky burn red and fade into a purple, starry night. I find myself mouthing “wow” as the beauty catches me off guard. Everything you need is within walking distance. Walking time to class — 13 minutes; to Starbucks — 6 minutes; to Sidebar/Brick Street — 4 minutes; to my best friend’s house down the alley — 2 minutes; to my best friend’s room — 10 seconds.
Everything feels right at your fingertips. Need a yoga studio? Check. Need to borrow one of your friend’s dresses because you must be somewhere in 10 minutes? Oh, it’s possible. Everything you need is in about a mile radius. Crazy? Maybe. Awesome? You bet. I love being able to go grab a coffee, go to class, workout, and just walk into one of my best friends’ houses on my way home and see if they’re there. It feels like it may be the only time in my life that everything is this close and this unique. It will always be home. No matter where you go after graduation, Miami will always be there when you need it. Sure, there are new buildings and always some type of construction on campus, and you can’t seem to remember what was there before that new student center was built (Am I right?), but it’s still the same even with the change. The same feelings come back when the leaves start to turn color and everybody’s out and about enjoying the sun. The memories will start to flood your mind. You remember all your favorite house names: “Precinct,” “Pretty in Pink,” “At Church and Almost High.” You remember the sticky floor of your favorite bar and that one time you sprinted past the bouncer after semi-formal. The endless ’90s nights where you always ended up dancing and singing to Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody or Wannabe by Spice Girls, and, for some reason, it never got old. The walk down the same old alley to get back to your house and that one time you hugged your friend so tight you slipped on ice and ripped your jeans. Those late nights at the library, those lazy days lying on the floor of your house with all your best friends, those nights driving around the town blasting music, and, of course, Green Beer Day. “All roads don’t lead to Oxford. To get here, you have to want to be here.” You don’t just happen to come across it. It’s a destination in some way, and whenever you want to go back to college, you can’t just take the train into a city. You have to drive through a lot of “nothing” to get to this amazing something, and this something will always be home. It’s crazy to think that my four years here are almost up, but Miami, you have given me so much more than I could ever have asked for. So here’s to Love & Honor and my favorite college town.
I find myself mouthing “wow” as the beauty catches me off guard.
Nicole Blachowicz ’16 lives in Chicago where she’s an intern for Ogilvy Public Relations. She enjoys traveling, writing, and training for the Chicago Marathon.
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ZIKA
HUNTERS AN ALUMNA AND A PROFESSOR ATTACK THE VIRAL EPIDEMIC
((((((Buzz,)))))) bite, swat! ((((((Buzz,)))))) bite, swat!
That is the eternal waltz of many a backyard party. But the tiny mosquito has always been much more than a picnic pest, bringing tropical scourges to generations of human beings: yellow fever, malaria, dengue fever, West Nile, chikungunya. And now, Zika. This disease has its own distinctive profile, putting unborn babies at risk for birth defects and adults in jeopardy of Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a neurodegenerative disease. As with other mosquito-borne illnesses, Zika takes just one bite. The disease can be spread by infected Aedes species mosquitoes, as well as through sex between infected, unprotected partners. Their children can be affected with microcephaly, marked by an underdeveloped brain and cranium, as well as hearing, sight, and growth impairment.
BY B E TSA M AR S H
Fall 2016
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Researchers are focusing on a vaccine and cure, but clinicians also need accurate forecasting and testing. With more than 2 billion people at risk for Zika, according to The Lancet Infectious Diseases, the clock ticks more loudly every day. One Miamian and a Miami professor have synchronized their research to the Zika rhythm. Amy Altman ’93 MS ’96 and Dhananjai Rao, assistant professor of computer science and software engineering, are attacking the epidemic at two crucial junctures. As vice president of biodefense and protein diagnostics at Luminex Corp. in Austin, Texas, Altman and her research and development team were the first to create a test with six target indicators of Zika in samples of blood serum, plasma, and urine. The xMAP® MultiFLEX™ Zika RNA Assay, a multiplex nucleic acid test, has received Emergency Use Authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The authorization applies only to the Zika epidemic as part of the FDA’s quick response to a public health emergency. Rao focuses on forecasting, running models of both human and mosquito populations on a supercomputer to predict where the next outbreaks might erupt and how best to counter them with public safety programs and personal protection. ON THE HUNT As Zika spread throughout the Caribbean and entered the United States in 2016, first with travel-related cases and then local transmission, urgency grew. In August, Luminex’s assay became one of seven available Zika tests under the FDA emergency decree, and the only one testing six separate genetic targets. “As a company, Luminex saw no clear market,” Altman said. “But we knew our technology had the capability to do this test, and we knew it was the right thing to do. We didn’t know if we’d sell one kit. “Our mission is to help create technological solutions to improve health.”
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Dhananjai Rao, , assistant professor of computer science and software engineering
IN THE ZIKA ZONE As Zika flies around the world on the wings of mosquitoes and airplanes, Amy Altman and Dhananjai Rao battle the epidemic every day. At Luminex Corp., researchers know that Zika stays in the blood for an average of seven days, in the urine for 14. Eighty percent of people infected with Zika have no symptoms, so they don’t go to the doctor to be tested. The disease is seriously under-reported. “We’re working on a serology test for an antibody response in the convalescent stage of the disease,” Altman said. “This is very important for women doing family planning. Right now, it appears that it doesn’t matter at what point in the pregnancy a woman is infected, Zika has a detrimental effect. There’s still so much we don’t know about this disease.” For Rao, “the awareness of these diseases in developing countries is extremely low. With air travel, disease moves across continents very easily, and there’s nothing we can do about it.” To educate people in the Zika zone, Rao has proposed a campaign of materials and mobile apps in different languages. The proposal is still under review at the National Institutes of Health. “It would cost only $250,000, and that goes to pay student wages to develop the apps. This works out to 50 cents per million people in all the Americas.” Wouldn’t it be better just to eradicate all mosquitoes? “No!” Rao said with a jolt. “Mosquitoes are specific pollinators, and they also provide primary food sources for bats, birds, and frogs. It’s the design of nature. You cannot mint a coin with only heads and no tails.”
Altman’s company partnered with GenArraytion of Rockville, Md., which developed the basic Zika test and licensed its manufacture to Luminex. Altman’s team brought it in house to optimize the assay and clinically validate it, preparing for FDA submission. It has several advantages over tests that target one or two genetic markers. “Zika is an RNA virus, like the flu,” Altman said. “It’s error-prone when it makes copies of itself, so you can get genetic variability within the RNA. That’s why you need to get a flu shot every year. With Zika, you need to detect all the strains circulating.” The test also has the benefit of scale, allowing up to 96 samples to be run simultaneously. “When you have an outbreak, it’s important to run batches and sample quickly.” Altman, a microbiology major at Miami who completed a PhD and postdoctoral fellowship in molecular biology at Vanderbilt University, sent one of her team to the University of Sao Paulo for testing of the assay and would go into the Zika zone herself. “I find it fascinating. I always envisioned myself as a virus hunter in a moon suit, in some awful place, looking for a hemorrhagic fever virus. “I knew I wanted to be a scientist from very early on. I’m fascinated by how bacteria and viruses affect the human body. After Miami, I moved from microbiology to molecular to understand the genetics.” FINE-TUNED FORECASTS As Altman and her team drill down to each molecule of the Zika virus, Rao and his team pull back for a global view of the emerging epidemic. He has seen many of these patterns before, studying another mosquito-borne illness, chikungunya. It’s a perspective that gives him a head start on Zika.
“That’s why you need to get a flu shot every year. With Zika, you need to detect all the strains circulating.” —Amy Altman ’93 MS ’96, vice president of biodefense and protein diagnostics at Luminex Corp. in Austin, Texas
Using Miami’s RedHawk cluster computer, Rao began running models to forecast chikungunya outbreaks in 2014. Researchers with the Pan American Health Organization reported in from the world’s tropical regions every two weeks, which meant nearly nonstop work to process the data and update disease forecasts. That’s when Rao applied for a grant to the Ohio Supercomputer Center in Columbus to exponentially increase his computer firepower. Using such diverse data as weather patterns, mosquito population and life cycle, human population density, and air travel, he began to finetune his forecasts. His analysis required 3.5 million simulations, which would take about 90 days’ work on a single computer — far too slow to battle a fast-moving epidemic. The Ohio Supercomputer ran the simulations in 12 hours. Rao was one of 11 teams or individuals recognized recently in a competition organized by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The competition, known as the CHIKV Challenge, seeks to accelerate the development of new infectious disease forecasting
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF For the Zika virus, which was named after the Zika Forest in Uganda where it was discovered in 1947, there is no vaccine or medicine. About 20 percent of infected people have symptoms, which can include fever, rash, headache, conjunctivitis, and joint and muscle pain. Symptoms can last for several days to a week. Aedes mosquitoes spread Zika and chikungunya and are aggressive daytime biters, but they can also bite at night. People can be co-infected with Zika, chikungunya, and dengue virus. To protect against Zika, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends: • Wear LONG SLEEVES and PANTS and treat your clothing and gear with permethrin, or buy pre-treated items. • Use Environmental Protection Agency-registered INSECT REPELLENTS with either DEET, picaridin, IR3535, or oil of lemon eucalyptus or para-menthane-diol. • Stay in places with air conditioning and window and DOOR SCREENS to keep mosquitoes outside. MOSQUITO NETTING can be used to cover babies younger than 2 months old, for whom insect repellent is not safe. • Prevent sexual transmission of Zika by using CONDOMS or ABSTAINING.
methods. The challenge identified gaps in current disease forecasting and, with help from Rao’s groundbreaking model, DARPA and other government agencies can move forward to mitigate the spread and impact of infectious diseases. “You are often dealing with policymakers at the CDC, local, regional, national, and even multi-national governments,” said Rao, whose native India has experienced both chikungunya
and Zika. “If you tell them. ‘There’s going to be problem,’ it’s not helpful to them. They want to know, ‘What is the solution?’ ” THE SOLUTION? Battling both chikungunya and Zika, do officials fog affected areas and attack all standing water sources? Release fish into ponds and lakes to eat the mosquito larvae? Or, more invasively, do governments introduce genetically modified mosquitoes, some of which are sterilized with gamma radiation and others of which carry bacteria that kill growing larvae. Either way, officials would have to repeat the process every few weeks. Rao turns to weather forecasting for his analogy. “It’s always easier to give people the information and tell them to grab an umbrella rather than trying to stop the rain. With disease, let’s give people the information, and let them decide how to protect themselves, without having to do huge, possibly invasive measures to control nature.” Weather forecasting, of course, has taken more than a century to refine, but many of those years were precomputer. How much more quickly can disease forecasting develop? “With the right people and resources, I think that within a decade we can get good epidemiological systems operational, at least as good or better than the seasonal flu forecast, for all communicable diseases.” Armed with a forecast, people can then wear long sleeves and pants, use insect repellent, and avoid Zika hotspots. But a vaccine and anti-viral medicines would certainly improve the odds in the eternal human-vs.-mosquito war. “I don’t know if you’ve ever tried not to get bitten,” Altman said adamantly, “but the little buggers are gonna get you.” Cincinnati freelancer Betsa Marsh profiled actress Lindsay Hollister ’99 in the Summer 2016 Miamian.
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L.A. COMEDIAN BETH STELLING ’07, A 2014 HONOREE IN MIAMI’S 18 OF THE LAST 9 PROGRAM, RETURNS TO OXFORD TO KICK OFF THE PERFORMING ARTS SERIES SEASON
Simply the
* B ET H
At first blush, stand-up comedian Beth Stelling ’07 seems eager to tackle any topic. Her love of sweets …“One time I went to a place in Los Angeles called Froyo Life. I went there three times in one day. Chase Bank called and they’re like, ‘There’s been a breach in security on your debit card,’ and I said, ‘The only breach was in my self-control. The third trip was just toppings. I’ll be honest. It’s so hard to get the ratio right.’ ”
BY D O N N A B O E N ’8 3 MTS C ’ 96
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*
Simply the Beth is the name of Beth Stelling’s 2015 album, recorded in Chicago at Beat Kitchen Sept. 15, 2015. It’s available on iTunes.
Her caution on the road …“I drive a Prius. So responsible. I never text and drive. Although maybe one time I was texting and driving. I mean, I did almost hit a man. But he was texting and walking. You know what I mean? He had no clue.” Her close relationship with her mom …“My mom and I, we go way back.”
During her hourlong set the Saturday evening of Homecoming Weekend, she wasn’t shy on Armstrong’s Wilks Theater stage. Nearly everything and everyone was fair fodder, the local church organist her mom “accidently” married on Beth’s ninth birthday (“Not a gift.”); her dad who left the family to pursue an acting career in Orlando (“That’s not where you
Lindsay Byrnes
go.”); her love life. (“The longest relationship I’ve been in was with my IUD.”) At second blush, Stelling shares incredibly intimate details about her life. The Dayton, Ohio, native, who majored in theatre, is not one to rattle off one-liners. Instead she likes to share, connect, and push people’s perceptions. “I don’t do a ton of political humor by choice because I don’t feel connected to it, and therefore, it comes off as disingenuous to the crowd,” she told Miamian the week after her first visit to campus since she graduated. It’s been a busy nine years. An intern at The School at Steppenwolf in Chicago through Miami’s Urban Leadership Internship Program (ULIP coordinator Katie Egart has attended many of her shows), she graduated magna cum laude and debt-free because she “worked her butt off in college.” Stelling moved to Chicago to be an actress but found stand-up more to her liking. She was named Best Stand-up Comedian in Chicago by The Chicago Reader in 2010 and a New Face of Comedy in Montreal’s Just for Laughs Festival. Soon after, she relocated to Los Angeles. Within her first year in L.A., Stelling made her late night television debut on Conan and released her first album, Sweet Beth. More recently, she performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live and filmed a Comedy Central Half Hour in Boston that Vulture named one of the best stand-up specials of 2015.
EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE WAS FAIR FODDER … HER CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH HER MOM …“MY MOM AND I, WE GO WAY BACK.” Other accolades include Comic to Watch in 2016 (TimeOut Los Angeles) and Top 18 Women You Should Be Following On Twitter (Huffington Post). She’s also proud of her performance on the Showtime special Comedy of SXSW, but it wasn’t necessarily “The” big break. “It’s really just a series of breaks over time,” she says, “and sometimes there is one that pushes you into people’s line of vision more than normal.” One such event that put her name in national headlines was no joke. When she posted photos of her bruised legs on Instagram last Dec. 28, saying she was “verbally, physically abused and raped” by a now ex-boyfriend, her post went viral. Responses from the court of public opinion were immediate and mixed. Some applauded her courage, while others stated that social media was no place for such charges, and she should have taken them to the police.
WORK IN PROGRESS For now, Beth Stelling’s a stand-up comedian, writer, and actress, in that order. When not writing on a TV show, she’s on the road two weekends a month and doing shows one to six times a week in the city where she lives. Her next writing job is for season three of Another Period on Comedy Central. She was a staff writer on Judd Apatow’s upcoming HBO show, Crashing, which stars Pete Holmes and premieres in January. She also has a guest star appearance on Amazon’s Red Oaks mid-season.
“They weren’t charges. When I posted, I did it to free myself of something that was consuming me. I shared it to release myself from some of the burden and share with people who might not understand that abuse does not discriminate. I’m glad my post helped people feel less alone or ashamed because I heard from hundreds of people who experienced partner abuse.”
Stelling’s grateful for the support she’s received since. Her biggest supporter and fan, no surprise, is her mom, who still lives in Dayton and still teaches elementary school music. “She’s had to sit through tough material for a mother to hear her child discuss because sometimes I turn dark or hard experiences into my act, but she understands why I do what I do. She is a phenomenal woman.” Her mom couldn’t make it to the Homecoming performance because she was with Stelling’s older sister who was nine months pregnant. Stelling’s other older sister was in the audience laughing all the way. Beth says she’s envious of her sisters and their families. “I want kids. I do. I just don’t know if I’m gonna have time to come home and let ’em out.” Donna Boen ’83 MTSC ’96 is editor of Miamian.
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A Miamian’s findings may help remap the future of food in inner-city America, making healthier choices more fruitful 24
miamian magazine
Resetting
the Table
BY ANDREW FAUGHT
Fall 2016
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I
n a hard-bitten neighborhood east of downtown Cleveland, hope can be found every Saturday on East 55th Street. There, outside a factory-turned-socialexperiment named Hub 55, tabletops are ablaze with leafy greens, tomatoes, peaches, eggplants, and other seasonal bounty. It’s a cornucopia not easily found in a swath of inner city better known for fast food joints and a conspicuous dearth of grocery stores. That almost half of the St. Clair Superior neighborhood’s nearly 10,000 residents live below the federal poverty level points to an unpalatable reality: people here face an above-average risk of developing diabetes, high blood pressure, or other chronic illnesses associated with obesity.
For Darcy Freedman ’98, associate director of Case Western Reserve University’s Prevention Research Center for Healthy Neighborhoods, the specter is a call to action. Freedman is leading foodNEST (Future of Food in Your Neighborhood), a groundbreaking three-year study seeking to answer a singular question. Can an entire community change its diet and adopt healthy eating habits? “Diet is a very difficult behavior to change, and anybody who’s ever tried knows that,” Freedman concedes. “The goal is to create an environment where the healthy choice becomes just a little easier. How do we ultimately shift the norms in the culture to think about and engage in a food habit in a different way?” The challenges are formidable. “We did an assessment on the food availability in the neighborhood, and by far the most commonly available ‘healthy’ product was a diet soda,” Freedman says. “There’s not a lot of opportunity to buy any fruits and vegetables. Some of the work is building an excitement for eating different kinds of foods. When you haven’t had that opportunity, one response could be resistance. How do you start to reframe your thinking about an apple, for example?”
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‘Eat Locally’
Opener and left photo: Deirdre Malfatto
It might not be long before a food hub arrives in your town, if you don’t have one already. Of the nation’s 350 hubs, 62 percent have emerged in the last five years, and not just in areas beset by shortages of healthy food options, according to the 2015 National Food Hub Survey. Growth is spurred by widespread calls for food sustainability, whose mantra is “eat locally.” That is Miami’s mantra as well when possible, purchasing 26 percent of its products locally. The incorporation of local foods into its dining services menus supports the local community, reduces the environmental impact of long-distance deliveries, and provides the freshest ingredients available. With that in mind, Miami students, faculty, staff, and community members got involved in a new project this summer, harvesting lettuce, onions, and other crops at the new Miami University Institute for Food farm north of the Oxford campus. Students in an interdisciplinary food studies course worked with farm manager Lauren Wulker MA ’15 in the spring to lay out the one-acre pilot project. About half the produce was donated to the Oxford Community Choice Pantry and the Open Hands Food Pantry. Ann Fuehrer, associate professor in global and intercultural studies, and Nancy Parkinson, clinical faculty in kinesiology and health, are working with both organizations, according to Peggy Shaffer, professor of American studies and history, to build university-community partnerships to address issues of food scarcity and healthy food access.
Hub 55 is hoping to change the calculus. The farmers market, which features cooking demonstrations, opened this September. Last year the group that bought the space, the federally funded St. Clair Superior Development Corp., oversaw the opening of Café 55, a restaurant that serves up healthy breakfast and lunch options. There is talk of opening the neighborhood’s first full-service market at the hub, a converted 42,000-square-foot restoration and repair factory that also
houses the newly opened Goldhorn Brewery (the project is designed in part to create jobs in the community). Watching it all is Freedman, whose research is being funded by a $2.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. Her findings could help remap the future of food in inner-city America, whose dynamics and residents’ health are reflected in St. Clair Superior. ACCESS TO FRUITS AND VEGETABLES NOT ENOUGH
More than 23 million Americans, including 6.5 million children, live in lowincome and rural neighborhoods that are more than a mile away from a supermarket, according to federal data. Freedman has enlisted the help of 520 volunteers, ages 19 to 92, half in St. Clair Superior and half in a hub-free low-income neighborhood in south
Columbus. Through 2018, participants will track their eating habits and routinely report back to Freedman’s team, which includes researchers from Ohio State University and the University of South Carolina. Whether eating habits and health improve is anybody’s guess at this point, although Freedman insists change won’t happen simply by bringing fruits and vegetables to the community. “I very much believe that a field-ofdreams change — if you build it, they will come — is not going to change the situation,” she says. “That’s necessary, but it’s not sufficient. Yes, we need to have more healthy-food retailers available, but that’s only the first step. Food has to be affordable. It has to be socially acceptable. And you have to have the skills to use the foods that are available and integrate them into your habits.”
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“That’s the beginning of the relationship, and as that relationship develops so do questions and conversations about health and healthy food.”
The development corporation agrees. Officials are planning a full slate of programming, from cooking circles to gardening classes, with the intent of rallying community excitement around a common health cause. They’re hopeful that peer-to-peer model evolves, in which developing healthy habits become contagious. “Our hypothesis is that in the intervention community, we’ll see people saying that they have more support for healthy eating from their friends and family,” Freedman says. A PLAN TO CHANGE ENVIRONMENT
Planning by organizers and social scientists is critical to effect behavioral change, says Paul Flaspohler, a Miami associate professor of clinical psychology who is following Freedman’s work closely. A community psychologist, Flaspohler studies the movement of innovation into novel settings. The success of Hub 55 is incumbent upon “key stakeholders developing appropriate strategies for addressing needs,” says Flaspohler, who has seen many programs flop for lack of a cohesive plan. “There have been schools in highly toxic neighborhoods that would succeed with any program we bring to them, and then there are schools that can’t absorb anything. Is it the right program with
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the right school with the right people helping to bring it on board? You take away any one of those things, then your likelihood of success is reduced.” Freedman’s study challenges some popular notions of psychology. “Most folks tend to identify psychology as changing individuals, but there are a lot of us who are interested in how environments shape individuals,” Flaspohler says. “This is what you see in Darcy’s work. Instead of trying to change peoples’ choices, you’re changing choices that people have and, in doing so, it may lead to better health outcomes.” NEW CONVERSATIONS AROUND FOOD
While there are 350 hubs scattered around the country, their overall effectiveness is as yet unknown. Hubs can take on a variety of forms, including public-private partnerships in which food is provided by both distributors and community gardens. Hub 55 gets its produce from four Northeast Ohio farms. There is talk about adding offerings from smaller-scale local farmers. Hubs started appearing in earnest in 2008, after the real estate crisis sent the country into recession, says Morgan Taggart, director of agriculture for the development corporation. The corporation is mindful of Flaspohler’s cautions but too busy to dwell on the possibility of failure. Taggart has created cooking circles in which residents in the diverse community — there are 23 languages and dialects spoken in St. Clair Superior — come together to share meals. The effort
is modeled after Basque gastronomic societies called txokos, in which sharing a meal is considered a sacred celebration of community. There have been eight dinners so far, with fare ranging from soul food to Slovenian pippa strudel — matching the area’s diverse mix of African-Americans and eastern Europeans. Roughly 25 have attended each event. At least in the early going, Taggart says, the emphasis isn’t strictly on eating healthy. “We’re trying to use education and engagement as a way to start a conversation around food, and the cultures and traditions of the people who we’re working with,” she says. “As that relationship develops so do questions and conversations about health and healthy food.” The corporation’s work is funded by the Kresge Foundation and the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, a partnership among the U.S. Departments of Treasury, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services. The initiative provides financing for grocery stores, small retailers, corner stores, and farmers markets for selling healthy food. Whatever the outcome, Freedman says the results will help to further the conversation around food scarcity. “If we see a big effect, that will be a really exciting, major finding,” says Freedman, who is an associate professor for applied social sciences at Case Western. “If we don’t see effects, we also have some opportunities to say that we need to be thinking a little more critically about this policy. Our data will have tremendous relevance for policy implementation.”
LARGER CHALLENGES
Freedman has long been interested in creating movements around pressing public health challenges. A zoology major at Miami, she waffled on whether to attend medical school. She opted to strike out in a different direction, teaching middle school life sciences for Teach for America. Freedman spent two years in Baton Rouge, La., where her life took on a clear focus. Through that experience, she started to see her students’ difficulties as a larger public health concern. “Many of them would miss numerous school days — up to a month or more — because of asthma. They couldn’t get to the doctor to get an inhaler. About 10 percent of my students had babies when I was teaching. “I started to see population-level trends,” she adds. “It became clear to me that I would be frustrated if I were a doctor and saw one patient with one thing and the next patient with the same thing. I was more interested in looking at population-level change.” A self-described “transdisciplinarian,” Freedman went on to earn a master’s in public health from Emory University, and a doctorate in community psychology at Vanderbilt University. It was her time at Miami, however, where “I became a good thinker and was able to ask critical questions and know how to look for answers.” She also honed her leadership skills as a resident assistant in Emerson Hall, where Freedman challenged her “very naïve view of the world” by interacting with students from myriad backgrounds. Such experiences, she notes, put her in good stead to tackle pressing public health questions of the day. Besides serving as principal investigator for foodNEST, Freedman also leads Building Capacity for Obesity Prevention (BCOP), a partnership among Case Western, Ohio State, and the
Ohio Department of Health’s Creating Healthy Communities (CHC) Program. BCOP works to increase the number of farmers markets in the state — Northeast Ohio is home to 75 of them — broaden farm-to-school programs, and push for healthy eating policies in child care. Working alongside Freedman on the obesity front is Ashley Sweeny Davis ’08, the state’s CHC program manager. The program operates in 23 counties, including Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County, to provide obesity prevention programs and reduce chronic disease. It does so in part by promoting community gardens, farmers markets, and vending machines with healthy options. “We don’t see that one-on-one education affects large-scale health behavior changes. We’re really looking at impacting the environment, the community, and the policies that surround the community.” IT TAKES A COMMUNITY
It’s the same broad-based approach that Freedman was promoting when she and Davis met two years ago while working on the Ohio Chronic Disease Plan, conceived in 2014 as a five-year initiative to curtail preventable diseases. That project sharply aligns with Freedman’s foodNEST work. “Being persistent and optimistic, but at the same time really celebrating our small successes, is something that Darcy does well,” Davis says. “These are generational shifts that we’re trying to make. Obesity rates didn’t skyrocket overnight. We’re going to take 30 years to get out of the obesity crisis that took 30 years to get into.” Back at Hub 55, Freedman can occasionally be found perusing the produce during farmers markets. Enthusiasm has so far been tempered; on a recent Saturday there were just 25 paying
A Community of Health In Ohio, food hubs are just one part of the battle against obesity and associated chronic diseases. The various efforts appear to be working. In September the annual State of Obesity in America report showed that Ohio was one of just four states to see obesity drop from a year ago. The report is a project of the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Across the state, 29.8 percent of adults were obese in 2015. That’s down from 32.6 percent a year earlier. Ohio has the 26th highest adult obesity rate in the U.S. It’s been a years-long effort that has garnered the state acclaim, including the 2010 Preventive Health and Health Service Block Grant Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Overseen by Ashley Sweeny Davis ’08, Ohio’s Creating Healthy Communities program works to add walking and bike trails; promote community gardens; and encourage corner stores to sell more nutritious food. Efforts have reached more than 6 million people in 23 counties. Poor residents have particularly benefited. “It’s difficult to choose healthy options in a lot of low-income neighborhoods,” Davis says. “We need to provide that equity. It’s really about creating a community of health.”
shoppers, many of them passersby who happened upon the scene. But a door-knocking campaign is afoot to spread the word, and officials are planning market festivities that will include dancing demonstrations and music. Freedman is optimistic about the work ahead, come what may. “If we’re able to reduce caloric intake by even 100 calories a day, we would have a major impact on obesity in the country.” Freelance writer Andrew Faught, based in Fresno, Calif., wrote “No Whey!” for the Spring/Summer 2015 Miamian.
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love & honor 18 OF THE LAST 9 recognizes 18 outstanding alumni who graduated in the last 9 years, bringing them back to campus to honor them and have them share their experiences. The following stories introduce four of them. To meet all of the 2016
Leonard Buller ’07
Wilson Cardwell ’08
Kyle Cuthbert ’08
Mia DeNardi ’10
Matt Dopkiss ’07
Marni Goldberg ’07
Emily Siedlak Hennell ’08
Katie Henry ’10 MEd ’15
Alyssa Hopun ’13
Kara Isabella ’12
Nikki Martinkovic ’09
William Pendergast ’07
Sena Quist ’10
Thomas Ringenbach ’08
Taylor Robinson ’09
Kristen Lazaroff Stoehr ’10
Shelby Wegryn ’12
Thomas Whalen ’08
honorees, go to www. MiamiAlum.org/18of9.
18 Of the Last 9 Honorees Making their mark By Auriel Buchanan T H E H UMA N I TA RI A N In her senior year at Miami, Alyssa Hopun ’13 embarked on a life-changing study abroad trip to Peru. She has since dedicated her career to Latin American communities. “From the beginning, I knew Alyssa was an outstanding student,” said Shelly Jarrett Bromberg, chair and associate professor of Miami’s department of Spanish and Portuguese. “With time, I also learned she is an outstanding humanitarian.” Growing up in Dayton, Ohio, Hopun might as well have lived worlds away from Léon, Nicaragua, where she now serves as social innovation leader with CE Solutions (CES), founded by Miamian Greg Van
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Kirk ’91. CES’s mission is to empower business and educational entrepreneurs to make a difference in their communities. Hopun began with CES as a field leader for the student intern program in the Dominican Republic. Since joining the company full time, she has broadened CES’s network, piloted and expanded its financial literacy and community banking program, and co-led international project planning. She is eager to dive deeper. “I still remind myself that everything I do makes a statement,” Hopun said. “And remind myself to wonder, ‘What if?’ ”
love & honor
THE M A R I N E William Pendergast ’07 never wavered in his decision to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and become a Marine. In the summer between his junior and senior year at Miami, he completed Officer Candidates School and has spent the past nine years on active duty. The Marine captain has served as a combat adviser in Iraq with an Iraqi Army unit and deployed to Afghanistan with a Marine infantry battalion. But ask him of his achievements, and you’ll likely hear about his music career. At Miami, he was involved in several extracurricular activities, including Glee Club and the a cappella groups The Cheezies and The Remnants. He has sung for a number of government officials in D.C., including President Obama. “His Facebook page is a smattering of Washington elite,” said Ryan Holloway ’07, Bill’s college friend. “But he uses his connections and influence to make the world a better place for those who know him and those who don’t.” Assigned to D.C. in 2014, Pendergast supported ceremonial events in the D.C.-area and served as a military social aide to Obama. Now he is the operations officer in Combat Logistics Battalion 5, preparing to return to the Middle East to support a crisis response task force. THE CAR EGI VE R Imagine reintroducing yourself every morning to people who don’t remember you from one day to the next. That’s reality for Sena Quist ’10, associate executive director at The Cypress of Raleigh, a retirement community in North Carolina. Quist sees her career as a calling to serve seniors, particularly those facing Alzheimer’s. She discovered her life’s mission while at Miami when she volunteered as a technology coach at The Knolls of Oxford, a continuing care retirement community. “I want to ensure the aging experience does not mean the end of life,” she said, “but the beginning of what can be the most fun and memorable years.” Noting Quist’s dedication, The Knolls director introduced her to a graduate program and put her in touch with Ryan Toerner ’02, who works in the field.
He offered guidance while she pursued a master’s in health services administration at Xavier University. Now they’re both with Life Care Services. Though her work is often exhausting and always unpredictable, Quist approaches every day with an eagerness to make a difference. Her sister, Selorm, admires her energy. “Each evening, I am met with a new story — an initiative she wants to present to her boss, a soothing talk with a sobbing nurse, a heart-warming conversation with a dementia patient who, for a moment, became lucid enough to extend a hand or offer a smile,” Selorm said. “These retellings of her day are always uniquely cadenced, each word [underscored] by one thing — passion.” T H E S URGEON Leonard Buller ’07 likes to ask questions, constantly learning and turning that knowledge into action. An orthopedic surgeon, Buller has a love for research, public service, and teaching and has melded all into his dream job. Finding his dream job, however, was hard work. He graduated summa cum laude from Miami in microbiology and went on to the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, a program that accepts only 32 students a year. Inspired by volunteer experiences in Costa Rica and Honduras during college, he wanted to address health-care inequities domestically and abroad. During medical school, he helped found the Cleveland Clinic Community Health Initiative, which provides care to Cleveland’s poorest. After he and his wife, Katie Schuster ’08, graduated from medical school, they relocated to Miami, Fla., where both work for the largest charity health-care provider in Florida. He enjoys teaching and conducting medical research and is eager to travel to Bhutan to provide orthopedic care as a volunteer this fall. “He has already accomplished so much,” Schuster said. “Despite the fact that he has remained determined to do so much in such a relatively short amount of time, he continues to be the humble, funny, personable guy I fell in love with outside of Pearson Hall our freshman year of college.”
“I still remind myself that everything I do makes a statement. And remind myself to wonder, ‘What if?’ ” — Alyssa Hopun ’13
Auriel Buchanan is a copywriter in Miami’s division of university advancement.
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days of old
To Boldly Go By Rod Nimtz ’79 MA ’81, director, Miami’s Voice of America Learning Center The work of the community and Miami University led to the opening of Miami University Middletown 50 years ago. Beginning its daytime classes on Sept. 5, 1966, MUM was Ohio’s first regional campus.
By the time of the dedication, local support surpassed $1.5 million.
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Star Trek made its debut Sept. 8, 1966, boldly setting off
to explore new worlds. Three days earlier, on Sept. 5, Miami University dedicated its Middletown campus, the first regional campus in Ohio, boldly setting out to explore new possibilities of higher education. In the late 1940s, Miami and other state universities reached out to serve a growing number of nontraditional students, many attending college on the GI Bill. While local schools and communities offered space in the evenings and on weekends, daytime class space was not available. The citizens of Middletown began exploring the idea of establishing a college in their city in 1962, which led to discussions with Miami the following year. With a fully functional, all-day campus as the goal, a committee was formed through the Middletown Area Chamber of Commerce, headed by Miami trustee and Armco Steel President Logan Johnston. Armco led the way by donating land for the campus and was joined by other community businesses and foundations to raise
the initial support and funding required for a sustainable plan. Shortly after, state and federal funds were made available for building campuses, if matched by local support. The Middletown fund drive began in 1964 with a goal of $200,000. By the time of the dedication, local support surpassed $1.5 million. The Middletown campus was originally designed to provide two-year degrees as well as opportunities for students to begin their college studies and then transfer to Oxford to complete their degrees. Today, in what seems like many planets away, the Middletown campus is joined with its sister campus in Hamilton as a new academic division, the College of Liberal Arts and Applied Science, or Miami University Regionals. As the Middletown campus embarks upon its next 50 years of service and higher educational exploration, students now have access to 16 bachelor’s degrees, 13 associate degrees, and the first ever master’s degree, totaling 30 programs in all.
“Sky Link” by David E. Black, dedicated in 1973, was the first sculpture on the Miami Middletown campus.
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Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage
PAID
Burlington, VT 05401 Permit No. 396
THE ONLY BREACH WAS IN MY SELF-CONTROL. THE THIRD TRIP WAS JUST TOPPINGS. Comedian Beth Stelling ’07 jokes about everyone and everything, including her own sweet tooth, page 22.