Miamian - Fall/Winter 2021

miamian The Magazine of Miami University

Fall/Winter 2021

myaamiaki eemamwiciki MIAM I AWAKENING

The warm relationship between the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and Miami University continues to be carefully tended.

IN T H IS I SSUE:

Innovation Among the Red Bricks Autumn Colors Delight NBC Exec Returned Every Fall

A PASTEL PERSPECTI V E While a student, Marcia Neuman Wegman ’57 was told pastel was not appropriate for serious artists, so she waited more than 40 years to pick up an old set and create an English Lake District landscape. She soon realized this was the perfect medium for her and is now known for her soft-hued vistas of Iowa farmland, such as this 40-by-36-inch piece titled “Evening Corn.” Midwest countryside is a subject she knows well, growing up in Ohio and living in Iowa her entire adult life. Currently, 10 of her landscapes are being exhibited in the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art through Jan. 16, 2022, and two of her acrylics have been named winners in Artists Magazine’s The Best of Acrylic.

She’s passionate about both. “With the landscapes, I am working from my reference photographs, but with the abstract approach, I am coming from an inner place of imagination, play, and experimentation.”

Staff Editor Donna Boen ’83 MTSC ’96 Miamian@MiamiOH.edu 513-529-5957

Vol. 40, No. 1

miamian

Photographers Jeff Sabo Scott Kissell

The Magazine of Miami University

Fall/Winter 2021

Copy Editor Lucy Baker

STORIES

Design Consultant Lilly Pereira www.aldeia.design

18 T he Two Miamis (niišwi myaamiikaana)

A sovereign tribal nation in Oklahoma and a public university in Ohio build a 50-year relationship that leads to revitalizing a nearly-lost language and culture.

University Advancement 513-529-4029 Senior Vice President for University Advancement Tom Herbert herbertw@MiamiOH.edu Alumni Relations 513-529-5957 Executive Director of the Alumni Association Kim Tavares MBA ’12 kim.tavares@MiamiOH.edu

24 Leafy Sidewalks, Crisp Morning Air Colorful and captivating, autumn photos of campus delight our souls and senses.

Buildings on the Rise (see page 26)

Office of Development 513-529-1230 Senior Associate Vice President for University Advancement Brad Bundy Hon ’13 brad.bundy@MiamiOH.edu

12 F rom the Hub

14 M edia Matters

13 B ack & Forth

16 M y Story

16 A long Slant Walk

32 Love & Honor

10 Such a Life

34 Class Notes

‘Let’s Sit By the Fire’

To and From the Editor

The Green Facts (see page 6)

ON THE COVER

In “Cecaahkwa Neemici (Crane Dance),” an acrylic on canvas created by Julie Olds, Miami Tribe cultural resource officer, the cecaahkwa (sandhill crane), representing the Myaamiaki (Miami People), dances in the sunlight as Myaamiihkwiaki (Myaamia women) circle around it in celebration of eemamwiciki, their awakening and return to vitality.

Miami is growing with the construction of two new academic buildings, an indoor riding arena, and renovation of College@Elm in partnership with the city of Oxford.

IN EACH ISSUE

MiamiOH.edu/alumni 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

26 Future-Shaping Innovation Among the Red Bricks

Campus News Highlights

I am His Human, He is My Horse

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.

12 I nquiry + Innovation Weight! You Don’t Say

New Works by Alumni

We All Need ‘Emotional’ First Responders

From Studio 14 to NBC and Back

Notes, News, Weddings

45 F arewells 48 D ays of Old

Art Bridges Cultures

Miamian is published two times a year by the University Advancement Division of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056. Copyright © 2021, Miami University. All rights are reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Contact Miamian at Glos Center, 820 S. Patterson Ave., Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056; 513-529-5957 or toll free 866-MU-ALUMS (866-682-5867); Miamian@MiamiOH.edu.

from the hub

koteenki ciinkweepitaawi: ‘Let’s sit by the fire’

By President Greg Crawford

We tend the fire of our relationship through a resolute determination to carve out shared experiences.

You are invited to write to President Greg Crawford at president@MiamiOH.edu.

Follow him on Twitter @MiamiOHPres.

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Over the past five decades, Miami University and the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma have forged a partnership that rests on a foundation of personal openness and trust.

This partnership grew from mutual respect and empathy of individuals who made the effort to know and understand each other — beginning with Chief Forest Olds and Miami University President Phillip Shriver in 1972.

We have been able to create a relationship that is not only mutually beneficial, but one in which we each feel that we are able to accomplish more together than we could on our own.

In 2001, the university and the Tribe collaborated to launch the Myaamia Project to advance the Miami Tribe’s language and cultural revitalization effort, deepening our partnership in learning.

We started this new initiative together in direct response to decades of national policy and historical events that significantly impeded the ability of the Miami Tribe to preserve its most precious resources — language and culture.

The project began with one employee and has since evolved into the Myaamia Center, which today employs 16 dedicated staff, including its executive director, Daryl Baldwin, who received a MacArthur Fellow “Genius” grant for his research and leadership in revitalizing the Myaamia language.

We tend the fire of our relationship through a resolute determination to carve out shared experiences.

For example, some 500 students, faculty, alumni, and staff, including Renate and me, have attended the Miami Tribe’s Winter Stomp Dance and Story Telling events in Oklahoma over the years.

At the same time, Chief Doug Lankford and other tribal leaders visit campus frequently to see the work of the Myaamia Center, connect with Myaamia students, and engage the Miami University community.

Both entities have invested significant resources in the partnership, signaling a commitment to justice, solidarity, and common good. The relationship is truly distinctive. The Tribe directs the work of the center and maintains proprietary control over the language and cultural products it produces.

In return, the Tribe has shared the abundance of its cultural knowledge and values to ensure that together we provide an authentic education and experience on campus and beyond.

The Myaamia term neepwaantiinki — “learning from each other” — defines our ever-expanding relationship. It is the foundation of our frank dialogue, our energetic research and scholarship, and our creative initiatives to elevate unity in diversity and diversity in unity.

The learning happens in curriculum that covers the Tribe’s history, culture, and language; in special events and activities that highlight our partnership; and in countless personal encounters among students on campus.

We are equal partners in a project where both sides benefit, never one at the expense of the other. It is, among other things, an arena where we habituate ourselves for successful encounters with others who are different, wherever we may find them.

The university and the Tribe now stand together as evidence that we can flourish when a relationship is shifted toward a platform of mutual respect and inclusion. In January, we will begin an exciting, yearlong celebration to recognize our 50 years of growing together.

Yet we know that the quest for equity and equality is an organic evolution, not a race with a finish line.

Together, we look forward to future collaborations and the benefits of this partnership for ourselves, our institutions, and our society.

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Think more broadly I am writing to express extreme disappointment regarding the latest cover of Miamian (Spring/ Summer 2021 issue). I feel that the cover story captioned with the chosen phrase “Against All Odds” is insensitive.

While I am not intending to minimize anyone’s suffering — certainly Malachi experienced a tragic childhood and hardships beyond my awareness or comprehension — the choice in language is upsetting.

There are in fact a number of odds that favor a white, straight, able-bodied, cisgender male.

I hope that future issues of Miamian will exemplify a broadened perspective and highlight underrepresented stories so we can grow in empathy together.

—Kelsey Skvoretz ’14 Cambridge, Massachusetts Salute to NROTC I totally enjoyed the article on the Miami NROTC program (“75 Years of Service,” Spring/Summer 2021 Miamian). Upon my graduation in 1968, I was fortunate to accept a

civilian position with the U.S. Navy at an activity in Philadelphia that managed spare parts for Navy and Marine Corps aircraft.

To celebrate my 39-year civilian career (which included time working for Vice Adm. Keith Lippert, a fellow graduate mentioned in the article), I was presented with an American flag that was flown over 13 aircraft carriers.

As the starting point for my long career was Miami University, I donated the flag to the Miami ROTC program in hopes that many others could enjoy this truly unique commemorative item.

I had a wonderful civilian career with the U.S. Navy and am ever thankful for my Miami education that made it all possible.

—Donna Gruber ’68 Langhorne, Pennsylvania I was relieved and ever so pleased to read that Harley Chapman ’56 survived his seven-year imprisonment in Vietnam.

I remember many happy moments with Harley Uptown and on campus in 1955. God bless Harley and his loved ones.

—Sheila Stenger Collins ’58 Solon, Ohio Toss out ‘truth detector’ I was disturbed by the quote on page 7 by Bob Woodward (Spring/ Summer 2021 Miamian). He is saying someone or some agency needs to filter ideas, debate, and opinions. He is saying we need a truth detector.

We do not need a truth detector.

We need debate and conversation, and we need people to listen to various ideas and make their own decisions. I for one do not want

ANYONE or a GOVERNMENT agency to think for me.

We do not have to have the same ideas to live together as community.

I can respect differences in opinions, but I cannot tolerate being told how to think, feel, or act. This is AMERICA. Our future leaders need to be versed in all ideas and opinions not just Bob Woodward’s or the government’s.

—Valerie Bischoff Arn ’81 Fairfield, Ohio Forever cherished Thank you for your remembrance of the four Miamians who were lost on 9/11 (“In Memory of 9/11,” Spring/Summer 2021 Miamian). Of particular significance to me was the inclusion of Todd Christopher Weaver (“Weave”) from the Class of 1993, who I am proud to say was my friend.

Todd, Matt Klinger (also ’93), and I all hailed from North Canton, Ohio, and made our way to Miami in the fall of 1989. How fortunate we were to have ended up together in Morris Hall, which back then was the only coed, air-conditioned dorm on the campus. And we had large corner rooms to boot.

We made great friendships right away (Kurt, Pete, Lowell, Lippert — looking at you), whether it was eating at Harry’s dining hall, watching Browns games, or participating in late-night study sessions.

Weave’s was a truly magnetic personality that made you want to be around him. He had a wry smile and a razor-sharp wit. Among the countless tragedies from 9/11, high among them is not seeing all that he would have surely accomplished.

Side note: In a similarly awful twist of fate, our “1 South” corridor

Send letters to: Donna Boen Miamian editor Glos Center 820 S. Patterson Ave. Miami University Oxford, Ohio 45056 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.

Opinions expressed are those of the letter writers and not Miami University or Miamian magazine.

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suffered a second tragedy in December 2004 when our friend Ben Abels was lost in the tsunami.

May he also Rest in Peace.

Thanks again for essentially lighting a candle to remember this terrible loss. For those of us who were fortunate enough to know Todd, we will forever cherish and be inspired by his memory.

—Steve Lazarides ’93 Hudson, Ohio

“ Milton [White] brought the world to us through creative writing.

He made life feel large.”

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Thanks, SANDSTROM When I came upon Eric Sandstrom’s article “The Prof Who Never Gave Up on Me” (Spring/Summer 2021 Miamian) and the lovely photo of Milton White, I was immediately transported to my Milton White creative writing classes in the 1970s.

My first reaction was to say out loud, “Hello, Milton,” and give his photo a wink and a smile. How I loved his classes. I was a mediocre writer at best, but he made me feel special regardless. His were the classes you couldn’t disassociate from or daydream in for fear of missing out (FOMO). Milton brought the world to us through creative writing. He made life feel large and way beyond the small Midwest town I grew up in.

He called me JANDEL, and for years after I would affix “Jandel” as the key identifier to all my written presentations and files. It made my name feel like an important, unique, and potent moniker.

Even now as I write this, so many memories are flooding in from those classes. They could fill a book! Wouldn’t that be great ... to start the “Milton White Book Project” to capture all the amazing life experiences garnered from his classes. The same would go for his

life partner, John Weigel, another professor I cherished and whose 20th Century Modern Lit courses were legendary.

So thanks, SANDSTROM, for sharing your memories and for bringing to life my memories of MILTON WHITE. —Juliette Jandel ’77 Atlanta, Georgia Funny how the longer I spend away from Miami, the more I yearn for the simplicity/happiness/wonderment of my years spent in Oxford.

Reminds me of the quote from the U.S. version of the TV show The Office: “I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.”

My motivation to write is mostly driven by the amazing “My Story”

by Eric Sandstrom ’73 MA ’80 about Professor Milton White.

The reference to loving/cherishing someone and not letting them know (hence long-term regret) must be a similar theme among all of us who have spent more years away from Miami than we’d care to count.

I also really enjoyed the “75 Years of Service” article. My dad was awarded the Sidney Souers award back in ’91. The article was exceptionally well done, canvassing such a long and storied history about the NROTC presence on campus and the amazing men/women who have served their country. The associated tribute for the 9/11 victims was a particularly nice touch.

—John Chernesky ’92 Stevenson Ranch, California Many thanks to Eric Sandstrom for his fine tribute to Professor Milton White. I had Mr. White for my freshman English class in 1960.

I remember him for many things, especially his wry sense of humor.

It seemed to me he never took anything too seriously, which is why I probably took his class similarly.

He liked to make fun of people and places. Professor White referred to me as “Admiral Byrd” because I was in NROTC, and on Mondays we wore our uniforms to class.

Of course I wanted to get the best grade possible so I bought his book Listen the Red-Eyed Vireo and had him sign it. He wrote: “For Peter Berg and the happy days in Freshman English. Remember: Keep it Simple. MW.” —Peter Berg ’64 Southport, North Carolina Digging the memories Thank you for including Stuart Pearl’s wonderful photo of the 1971 excavation crew in your current issue. Unfortunately, I didn’t start at MU until the fall of 1977 and do not recognize any of the students.

I had the honor of participating in MU excavations at Old Stone Pier (1978), Shriver Site (1981), and Milford Works I (1982 and 1983).

Perhaps sometime the Department of Anthropology can arrange a reunion of students and faculty who participated in MU archaeological excavations through the years.

—Conrad Froehlich ’81 MA ’83 Chanute, Kansas The photo of the Anthropology Class of 1971 takes me right back to the ’70s and Miami in the most joyful way. I love this photo, and although I don’t know anyone, seems I know everyone. We all looked like this, dressed like this, felt like this (the easy-breezy

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happiness is evident) when I began my Miami years in 1972. Four of the best years of my life and some of the best friends of my life.

Thanks for this memory.

—Sarah Black ’76 Marion, Ohio

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Mrs. Pearson, a treasure As a student leader in the late ’80s, I got to spend time with Winifred in settings ranging from football games to alumni events to informal student gatherings. She was an amazing and energetic ambassador for Miami and took great interest in the lives of everyone she met.

Always struck me as deeply authentic and grounded. Condolences to the Pearson family.

—Scott Glaser ’90 Columbus, Ohio

Every couple of years I receive a photo from David Hellard ’71 showing him and his college buddy David Drescher ’71 posing in their motorcycle gear in front of a drop-dead gorgeous view. One time they featured the mountains outside of Taos. On another off-road ride, they stood on a high-elevation trail in Breckenridge, Colorado.

Last week I heard from David H. again.

Greatly disappointed that their 50th reunion at Miami was canceled because of COVID, they decided to fulfill a bucket-list adventure to Utah’s Mighty 5 National Parks — Arches, Bryce, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, and Zion.

In August the two met up at David H.’s home in Columbus — David D. coming from his place in Pittsburgh. They hefted their Yamaha and Kawasaki onto a trailer, attached it to Hellard’s motorhome, and headed out on a three-day trek to Moab.

When it comes to motorcycles, I can’t tell you the difference between a carburetor and a cylinder. But this story isn’t so much about two men and their bikes as it is about two men and an unbreakable bond that began in 1967 when they roomed across from each other in Stanton Hall.

That’s a lot of life in 54 years. David H. married his college sweetheart, Brenda ’72, and they stayed in Ohio, raising a family, David working as a professional services recruiter. Whereas David D. lived in several states because of his involvement in the oil and gas industry. Now he splits his time between Pittsburgh and Charlotte.

Through it all, they’ve maintained their friendship, even going on non-motorcycle vacations together with their families because their wives never enjoyed the wind in their hair and bugs in their teeth.

The men aren’t so worried about their own hair, but they did make a major concession this outing, trading in their lighter-weight dirt bikes for ones that could better handle paved roads. Both over 70, their bodies can’t take the jarring and pounding like they used to.

Still, it’s more about attitude than age.

“We wanted it to be one of those super great memories we shared,” said David D. “We both love the mountains, love the bikes, love the rock formations. The scenery is intoxicating.” Less intoxicating were their 19 days and 4,300 miles in the motorhome.

They’re over that now. David D. is about to start planning their next trip. Make that their next motorcycle trip. They’re already planning to return to Oxford in June to celebrate their 50th make-up reunion.

They’ll be coming by car. —Donna Boen ’83 MTSC ’96

Got to know her very well via MUSF. Wonderful woman. So many fun stories with her. But what I always found remarkable was when I’d see her on campus or an event 20-plus years later, she would always remember me, including so many details about my time on campus and my career. She remembered so many. So personable and caring. A true asset and treasure to Miami.

—Cathy Scruggs ’88 Cincinnati, Ohio Editor’s note: Winifred Clowe Pearson, Miami’s first lady from 1981-1992, passed away in Centerville, Ohio, on Aug. 27, 2021, at age 94. Her husband, Paul, was Miami’s 18th president. She was beloved by all who knew her, which was nearly everyone in the Miami and Oxford communities and well beyond, because Mrs. Pearson genuinely cared.

Easy Riders

Close buddies since they met in Stanton Hall in 1967, David Hellard ’71 (right) and David Drescher ’71 visited Utah’s Mighty 5 in August, logging 750 miles on their street motorcycles.

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Path Toward Carbon Neutrality Just 11 years ago, nearly all the buildings on Miami University’s Oxford campus were heated and cooled by a coal-fed steam plant behind Western’s Peabody Hall.

Today, that number is under half at 49%. By 2026, nearly all buildings will be off steam and instead be heated and cooled either by geothermal energy, simultaneous heating and cooling (SHC), or heating hot water (HHW).

In addition, between 2019 and 2026, the Oxford campus will save 18 million gallons of water a year due to its change in energy systems.

To underline the university’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and achieving carbon neutrality as soon as possible, Miami President Greg Crawford last year signed Second Nature’s Presidents’ Climate Leadership Commitments.

By 2019, Miami had already achieved a reduction in carbon emissions from purchased electricity, natural gas, and coal of 52% per gross square foot since 2008, thanks to the Utility Master Plan, approved in 2012 and updated in 2017.

A major component of Miami’s commitment to sustainability has been underfoot for some time, beginning in 2011 when the newly renovated Elliott and Stoddard residence halls were switched from coal-fired steam heat to geothermal.

Within a few years, the two oldest buildings on campus showed a 61% decrease in energy consumption, even after air conditioning was

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added. This performance was 20% better than projected.

Pumping water through buried wells, geothermal energy systems tap into the Earth’s temperatures underground, which stay nearly constant around 55 degrees Fahrenheit, extracting heat in cooler weather and dissipating heat during warmer times.

When Miami was building the three residence halls and accompanying dining hall on Western, all of which opened in 2014, more than 300 geothermal wells were installed to heat and cool those buildings.

Higher initial costs — the well field, heating/cooling plant, and hot-water distribution system — were quickly recovered through low operation and maintenance costs.

Because it is a closed-loop system, it drastically reduces Miami’s water consumption and chemical use associated with cooling.

Within the next four years, 735 wells are expected to provide heating and cooling to all of Western campus.

Miami’s geothermal heating and cooling project is the largest among Ohio colleges and universities.

Converting campus energy systems away from fossil-fuelpowered steam to systems that are powered by electricity increases the opportunities to purchase renewable electricity off the grid, such as wind or solar power.

“This work is necessary in order to achieve a carbon neutral campus,” said Adam Sizemore, director of Sustainability.

The Physical Facilities Department (PFD) initiated two studies to inform decision making to achieve carbon neutrality: A solar-energy study with HEAPY Engineering and a net zero study with MEP Associates/ Salas O’Brien (results expected later this fall).

GREEN FACTS

Miami’s Institute for Food Farm helps support the Food Systems and Food Studies co-major and a communitysupported agriculture program, while Dining Services is exploring ways to help reduce post-consumer food waste using the new GET Mobile foodordering app implemented during the beginning of the pandemic.

The Student Sustainability Council was formed in 2019 as an umbrella for leadership of all student sustainability-oriented organizations.

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Miami’s six rain gardens reduce and purify rain runoff while adding beauty and natural habitat.

AWARDS AND SUPPORT • Miami University received the Hannon Armstrong Foundation’s inaugural Climate Solutions Scholarship, a needs-based scholarship to support underrepresented communities at Miami and Morgan State University. Hannon Armstrong CEO Jeff Eckel is a Miami alumnus, Class of 1980. The first five recipients were recently selected.

• Miami earned Gold in its most recent STARS assessment. Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System™ (STARS®) is a transparent, self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance.

There are 32 Gold or Silver LEED-certified buildings on the Oxford campus as of 2021. Completed in summer 2020, the renovation of Pearson Hall, home to the life sciences departments, is Miami’s first academic building to earn LEED Gold status.

• In March 2021 Second Nature awarded Miami University pro bono advisory services (up to $10,000) from Customer First Renewables to assist with a shift toward renewable power.

SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

Night classes are being consolidated into fewer buildings to save electricity and natural gas.

Miami’s Climate Action Task Force was created in 2020 to develop a comprehensive Climate Action Plan and set a target for achieving carbon neutrality.

300 There are more than

geothermal wells buried under Western Upper Pond — a firstof-its-kind use.

At Goggin Ice Arena, the new heat recovery system saves

$300,000

annually in utility costs; the system captures and reuses

75%

of the heat used to cool the ice.

2020-2022: Central Quad heating and cooling conversion.

2024: Expand Western Geothermal to all Western campus buildings.

2025: North Chiller conversion to geothermal (new well field under Millett parking lot).

2026: Steam Plant conversion.

2020-2026: Planned $60 million investment in further energy system transformation.

• Introduce a sustainability literacy module for incoming students.

• Build a transportation hub with Oxford and the Butler County Regional Transit Authority.

View the new Sustainability Dashboard, which tracks energy-based carbon emissions reductions and PCLC Climate Commitment data, at www.miamioh.edu/about-miami/sustainability/ dashboard/index.html.

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NOTEWORTHY

“Industrial Strength Bluegrass: Southwestern Ohio’s Musical Legacy,” an initiative of Miami Regionals Appalachian Studies program, has been named 2021 Album of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association. The landmark recording on the Smithsonian Folkways label tells the story of Southwestern Ohio bluegrass through historically iconic songs, recorded by internationally celebrated artists including Rhonda Vincent, Bobby Osborne, Vince Gill, Lee Ann Womack, and Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers.

Major motion film producer/director Reginald Hudlin is this year’s recipient of Miami’s Freedom Summer of ’64 Award for his contributions in bringing the Black image to screen. He has written and directed several films, including Marshall, which starred Chadwick Boseman as Thurgood Marshall, the first Black Supreme Court justice.

Miami is considering an $8 million plan to renovate the GatesAbegglen Theatre, the main, 385-seat proscenium theatre in the Oxford campus Center for the Performing Arts, its first major renovation since the CPA opened in 1969. The renovation may include reconstructing the audience seating, installing new lighting, curtain systems, and a control booth, and maybe even adding a balcony.

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RISING RANKS

among National Public Universities, putting Miami in the Top 50 of 2022 U.S. New & World Report’s rankings

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Miami’s Undergraduate Engineering is in the 2022 Top 20 for National Public Universities, U.S. News & World Report

‘Moon Shot’ Members Cincinnati State, Gateway, Northern

Kentucky, and Miami have joined “Moon Shot for Equity,” a national initiative aiming to close equity gaps within regional cohorts of two- and four-year colleges and universities by 2030.

Following a program designed and run by education firm EAB, the schools will take significant and measurable steps to work together to help more students from historically underserved

populations graduate from college.

Through this innovative partnership, each school has committed to implementing more than a dozen researchbased best practices proven to remove systemic barriers to student success.

These commitments range from updating academic policies to working together to establish common academic pathways and providing equity-minded training to university leaders.

The new Miami University Laptop Ensemble (MULE), open to all students, joins the Department of Music’s 18 vocal and instrumental music groups. Its members perform electro-acoustic and digital music using laptops, tablets, sensors, controllers, synths, and other electronic instruments. The ensemble was partially created for the new BA in music, music technology.

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Screamin’ Good Time: After the traditional Saturday afternoon football game in Yager Stadium, in which Miami beat Central Michigan 28–17, families and friends headed Uptown to continue celebrating Family Weekend 2021. At the first-ever Miami Family Weekend Uptown Family Festival, they enjoyed Mwenso and The Shakes, a troupe of global artists who channel jazz, funk, blues, and African music into “intense, prowling, ebullient” live performances, in their show “Love Will Be the Only Weapon.” Parents and siblings also joined their undergrads in riding a massive carnival slide and a Ferris wheel that lit up the evening sky and grabbing a bite to eat from popular local food trucks.

Miami Takes HEED Miami has been awarded a 2021 Higher

Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) award from INSIGHT Into Diversity, the oldest and largest diversity-focused magazine in higher education.

The only award of its kind, the national honor recognizes U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion. Miami and other recipients are featured in the November issue.

“It is especially significant for Miami to receive this award this year, and for

the second time, because it recognizes that with all the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic has brought, we did not lose sight of our core diversity, equity, and inclusion institutional commitments,” said Cristina Alcalde, vice president for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion.

The magazine recognized Miami for its commitment in envisioning a clear DEI model, being more accountable and transparent about DEI, creating sustaining DEI resources, and creating a pathway to implementing the model.

NEW MAC RECORD For an unprecedented third straight year, Miami University Athletics has captured the prestigious Mid-American Conference Dr. Carol A. Cartwright Award for excellence in academics, athletics, and citizenship.

Athletically, Miami captured its second straight overall Reese Trophy for men’s sports and finished third in the Jacoby Trophy standings for women’s, only 0.54 points out of first.

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I AM HIS HUMAN, HE IS MY HORSE Equestrian team President Catherine Wasylyshyn ’22 from Bowling Green, Ohio, and Coriano, a 13-year-old Belgian Warmblood, enjoy Miami’s new indoor riding arena. At the ribbon-cutting Aug. 22, Catherine, a senior psychology major co-majoring in neuroscience and premedical studies, represented the 120 members who ride for the Miami equestrian team each year. With the indoor facility, the team can now train year-round, while the arena can also be used for academics, team-building experiences, summer camps, events, and lessons. Donor gifts drove the renovations, and fundraising is ongoing.

Over the summer, Coriano and Catherine competed at the World Equestrian Center in Wilmington, Ohio, in the hunters and equitation events.

During the school year, Coriano is part of the team lesson program and is used for shows that the team hosts. For more about the indoor arena and other buildings going up on the Oxford campus, see page 26.

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inquiry + innovation

Weight! You Don’t Say

By Donna Boen ’83 MTSC ’96

Psychologist Jeffrey Hunger dispels five myths about a weight-centered approach to good health.

What you weigh is not a great indicator of how healthy you are. That’s according to Jeffrey Hunger, an assistant professor in Miami University’s Psychology Department who, as a social and health psychologist, has spent the past decade researching the mental and physical health consequences of weight stigma.

Underlying the weight-focused approach to health and health policy, he said, are five myths and assumptions: 1. High weight equals poor health.

2. Long-term weight loss is widely achievable.

3. Weight loss will result in improvements in physical health.

4. Weight stigma is an effective way to promote weight loss.

5. Seeing or recognizing oneself as overweight is the key to spurring health-promoting behaviors and, ultimately, weight loss.

“Especially during lockdown, we saw a surprising uptick in substance and drug use. Making sure we integrate that into how we’re thinking about health promotion is critical. Folks get a little bit too narrowly focused on what we’re doing in terms of eating and exercise and ignore these other aspects of our health.”

—Assistant Psychology Professor Jeffrey Hunger

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In his webinar hosted by the Miami University Alumni Association in June, Hunger shared research and data to dispel the myths and offered recommendations in their place. And, yes, Hunger is his real name.

For those who might wonder why he is such a strong advocate for change, he points to the prominent role weight loss continues to play in determining governmental policies, pointing to a 2016 decision by the federal government that allows private companies to charge employees up to 30% more for health coverage when they don’t meet their corporation’s weight-related criteria.

“Not surprisingly, then, we live in a world in which there is a focus on monitoring people based on their weight, an insistence on and obsession with weightrelated surveillance,” he said. “These approaches are ineffective at best and more likely than not, harmful.”

Large portion of population misclassified One striking example of a dangerous policy that he cited is the U.K. National Health Service’s soup-andshakes plan introduced in 2020. Designed for weight loss to cure diabetes, this plan consists of an almost entirely liquid diet of only 800 calories a day for an entire year.

“For a point of comparison, the Minnesota Starvation Study, which was conducted in the 1950s, provided subjects with 1,600 calories for 24 weeks, and that was considered starvation,” Hunger said. “So the weight-centered lens that a lot of folks view weight through can really obscure the fact that behaviors, like an 800-calorie liquid diet that we would prescribe to heavier individuals, could lead to in-patient treatment for disordered eating among thinner individuals.”

What’s even more troubling, he said, is that extensive research, including his own work, has found that

Photo: Getty Images / Tim Robberts

inquiry + innovation

weight-related metrics, such as Body Mass Index (BMI), are poor indicators of actual underlying health.

Working with a national sample of more than 40,000 U.S. adults, he and his colleagues examined numbers for BMI as well as blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar, inflammation, and insulin resistance, the last two being critical precursors to cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes, he said. Individuals had to meet wellestablished clinical values on five of these six markers to be considered healthy.

“With this fantastic data set in hand — I’m a big data nerd so I love having as much data as possible — we were able to actually quantify just how many people were healthy even if their BMI category suggested otherwise. Some 54 million higher body weight adults were misclassified as unhealthy by their BMI even though their underlying health was just fine. This is a large portion of the population that is being misclassified by using an inaccurate proxy for health.”

Weight composed of at least 10 factors The second myth or assumption that Hunger tackled during the webinar was the idea that long-term weight loss is widely achievable, and that it’s as simple as calories in and calories out.

“It’s this idea that all you need is a bit of grit, a bit of perseverance, and you, too, can lose weight and keep it off.

Right? On the flip side is, well, if weight loss doesn’t occur, it’s simply because you’re lazy, you’re gluttonous, or you just lack self-control.”

Existing data challenges those assumptions, he said.

“Sure, when folks embark on a weight loss goal, some initial weight loss is possible and honestly common. But this should come as no surprise as it’s often spurred by really unhealthy forms of restriction, excessive exercise, and undernutrition,” he said. “But when folks do intentionally seek out weight loss either through dieting, exercise, or some combination, most initial weight loss is regained … after 12 or 24 months.”

What’s worse, he added, in most cases with dieting, a substantial portion of individuals will actually gain back more weight than they initially lost by the end of a fiveyear period.

Contrary to the popular calories in/out mantra, Hunger said, weight is the result of a highly complex system of at least 10 different factors that he lumps broadly into physiology, food consumption, individual and social psychology, and individual activity and the activity environment.

Encouraging his audience to work at fostering a sense of body appreciation, Hunger emphasized, “Our bodies do far more amazing things than we appreciate or than we ever, ever give them credit for, and working toward this appreciation can support health at the same time as supporting positive mental well-being and positive body image.”

Through the Love. Honor. Learn. website, you can join MUAA for online events and webinars, presented by both global thought leaders and award-winning Miami University faculty. To learn about upcoming events or view past recordings, such as Professor Hunger’s, titled “The Weight of Weight Stigma,” go to: alumlc.org/miamioh.

You also can read more about his work at JeffreyHunger. com or find him on Twitter @DrHunger.

Extensive research has found that weight-related metrics, such as Body Mass Index (BMI), are poor indicators of underlying health.

Donna Boen ’83 MTSC ’96 is editor of Miamian.

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media matters

His Side Gig is One of Suspense A.J. Ullman ’80 always wanted to be a novelist. At age 43, he started.

A.J. Ullman ’80 almost became an English major at

Reflecting on the flawed characters he creates, A.J. Ullman ’80, author of six novels to date, says, “I think many of us find ourselves in morally blurry-line kinds of situations, and how you deal with that is a mark of your character.”

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Miami — he likes reading and writing that much.

Instead, he went to law school and practiced for 20 years until a brain tumor threw his life into disarray.

At age 43, he started rethinking his priorities.

Suddenly extremely interested in medicine, he returned to school to train as a nurse practitioner, which is now his career. His side gig is writing.

“Only in retrospect did I realize that that nasty tumor’s silver lining was that it spurred me on to make life changes, including writing and transitioning into a new career.”

He’s produced six novels so far. His latest, Stand Your Ground, about race and guns, came out in August and soon after was nominated for the 2021 Readers Choice Awards by TCK Publishing.

Its protagonist, Cady Fox, is one of his favorites.

“I like her because she is smart but also vulnerable.

She is going through a really tough time and pretty much standing out there all by herself with a life-ordeath decision that she has to make.”

As for other awards, he was a finalist in both the 2021 National Indie Excellence Awards competition and the 2020 NIEA Best Book Awards for his fourth, And The River Runs Deep, The Cold Case Murder Mystery of Leah Marcus.

He calls it a novel masquerading as a true crime narrative. Ironically, he’s not a true crime nonfiction buff, but he’s captivated by people who are. All of his novels are dark.

“I love psych stuff,” said Ullman, who lives in Cincinnati with his wife, Margie, and their dog, Ruger.

“It’s fascinating. Looking at what goes wrong in other people’s lives and thinking, man, but for the grace of God. People like that stuff.”

Now over 60, he doesn’t envision working too many more years. Once he retires, he’ll have more time to write. Until then, he ekes out spare moments.

“The bottom line is you have to squeeze it in,” he said. “My wife says, ‘You do it to get out of cutting the grass.’ I’m not sure that’s completely accurate, but it’s not a bad incentive either.”

media matters

Spencer’s Law Michael Gmoser ’68 Winged Hussar Publishing In this legal thriller, local county prosecutor Spencer Tallbridge interferes with a federal investigation while bringing together evidence and science to solve a horrific crime in which a baby is taken and a mother left to die. Time is of the essence to save a life without destroying himself.

Nutshells: Diversions in a Time of Pandemic Doug Wilhide ’68 Trolley Car Press This collection of 210 one-page essays began as an exercise in maintaining community at the start of the pandemic, one of its many topics. Others include politics, police and protests, clipper ships, sea stories, and more.

Rook Makes a Move Cynthia McKenzie Hilliard ’70 Spindlewood Press Smart and snarky Rook McFadden upends her life by moving across the country to be near her new grandson, only to become involved in a horrific accident that challenges her self-control and every relationship she has. Guided by her faith, family, and therapist, Rook

must confront the trauma of her past — and make the biggest move of her life: forgiving herself.

I Don’t Want To Turn 3 Marc Joseph ’74 AuthorHouse When does a toddler start to learn right from wrong?

What happens in a family that influences a decision going through a young mind? Written under his pen name “Gramps Jeffrey,” Marc Joseph explores the family interaction happening in nearly every household.

Performance Anxiety: Life After Sexual Abuse Jackie McCown ’90 Jacquelynn McCown As a nationally ranked collegiate athlete, Jackie McCown knew about performance anxiety.

Add in childhood and adult sexual abuse, and learning to perform for acceptance and affection goes to a whole new level. Her perspective on overcoming the anxiety will bring you great freedom.

Neuromatic: Or, A Particular History of Religion and the Brain John Lardas Modern MA ’96 University of Chicago Press In Neuromatic, religious studies scholar John Lardas Modern

offers a sprawling examination of the history of the cognitive revolution and current attempts to locate all that is human in the brain, including spirituality itself.

The Stalking Seagulls Michelle Ciampa Vattula ’99 MacLaren-Cochrane Publishing

Armed with beach balls and bucket blockade, Alec strives to safeguard his sandwich from a hungry flock of seagulls. This children’s book is printed in dyslexie (dyslexic font), a typeface that makes reading easier for individuals with dyslexia.

The Ethos of Black Motherhood in America: Only White Women Get Pregnant Kimberly Harper MTSC ’03 Lexington Books Kimberly Harper argues that the current Black maternal health crisis is not new, but an existing one rooted in the disregard for Black wombs dating back to America’s history with chattel slavery. Examining the laws that controlled the reproductive experiences of Black women, she provides a fresh insight into the “bad black mother” trope theorized by Black feminist scholars.

Playlist for the Apocalypse Rita Dove ’73 W.W. Norton & Co. In her first volume of new poems in 12 years, Rita Dove investigates the vacillating moral compass guiding America’s, and the world’s, experiments in democracy.

Meticulously orchestrated and musical in its forms, Playlist for the Apocalypse collects a dazzling array of voices. Calamity turns personal in the final section as Rita learns to cope with debilitating chronic illness.

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my story

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,” Glos Center, 820 S. Patterson Ave., Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056 or Miamian@ MiamiOH.edu. Please limit your essay to 900 words and include your name, class year, address, and phone number.

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We All Need ‘Emotional’ First Responders

By Tyler Bradshaw ’09 MS ’14 and Bob Rusbosin

Ty: There were voices asking me questions. “Who should we call? Who do you need here right now?” I had just been told that my dad had passed away, a victim of suicide at age 50. My mind was cloudy, foggy, overwhelmed. There seemed to be a haze hanging over me. I knew that time was ticking on, but I felt like I was standing still, unable to progress forward. But to that particular question, my mind cleared in an instant.

“I need my pastor, Harville. And I need Dr. Bob.”

my story

Harville Duncan had been there through so many ups and downs of my spiritual journey. He knew the ins and outs of my struggles and my triumphs. He had ministered to my mom and dad since they were young. It made sense that a Christian would call for their pastor in the aftermath of a family death as tragic as ours.

But it probably made less sense for an alum four years out of college to call for their dean of students. But to me, it made all the sense in the world.

I came to know Dr. Bob Rusbosin while a nervous college freshman at Miami University’s Regional Campus in Hamilton. After leaving my geology class in Mosler Hall, I spotted a sign with a flyer below it that read, “Interested in joining the Student Government Association?”

I had never participated in student government. My general shyness in high school had bested me in that chapter, but I refused to let it beat me in this new one.

I spotted a contact number: Dr. Bob Rusbosin, dean of students, Miami University Hamilton.

I called and told Bob I was interested in joining and hoped he might answer a few questions. What I thought would be a 10-minute phone conversation turned into 30 with the promise of a meeting on campus the next day.

I liked Bob from the moment I met him. He was in a position of authority, but he was humble and generous. He was a teacher full of knowledge to impart, but he asked more questions than he answered. He was responsible for attending to the needs of thousands of students, but he made me feel like I was the only person who mattered.

At his urging, I joined the SGA. And I ended up hanging around Bob’s office as long as I could — for the next four years. Bob was more than a student government advisor. He was a teacher, an encouraging coach, my advocate. Being entirely there to support someone is a trait we should all strive to develop. Bob embodies this trait better than anyone I know.

Bob: When Ty called me that fateful morning, he was devastated. In my office at Miami Hamilton, I told him I would come over immediately.

Tyler is the only high school student who ever called me to set up a meeting to discuss SGA. I was impressed with this aspiring leader’s enthusiasm in being a young activist on campus. Little did I know Tyler was someday going to be a model SGA president who would lead the organization with honesty, integrity, compassion, and skills that were truly remarkable and noteworthy.

Through the years, Ty told me a lot about his dad, Scott. I knew he was still playing basketball as was I, and I kept thinking we would meet up on the courts, but it never happened. Ty told me about Scott’s tremendous work ethic and his ability to work with his hands on just about anything. Ty told me about the love he had for his dad that sounded so much like mine for my dad.

I see Scott in Tyler — funny, loving, devoted, accomplished, and compassionate. I was honored to be a mentor to Tyler during his undergraduate years, and I am even more honored to have Tyler as a friend for life.

Ty: When Bob walked in that day, I broke down and fell into the arms of a man who had been a father to me at Miami. That hug lasted for a long time, but although our embrace eventually ended, the support, love, and care he exuded in that moment never has.

It’s impossible to grieve and cope successfully in complete and utter isolation. We need great people in our lives — “emotional first responders” — to help us. Bob Rusbosin was, and still is, that person for me.

In the aftermath of my dad’s death, I was (predictably) a mess. I was having trouble breathing. My vision was blurred. I would collect my emotions and then sob uncontrollably when someone else came into the house.

I am thankful that I felt the freedom to be my grieving self with Bob. And it was only because he had spent so much time and honest energy getting to know me as a student that I felt free to be this unpolished version of myself in front of him.

Bob didn’t try to take control of the situation. He sat in a chair across from me, and as he had done so many times, he listened. Although Bob wanted to be my protector, he didn’t pretend to have answers either. Bob, always patient and always kind, let the grieving process slowly unfold in front of him without trying to put a Band-Aid over a fatal wound.

I thank God for a lot of reasons every day, but near the top of that list I thank God for leading me to the stairwell on the campus of Miami University Hamilton where I picked up a student government flyer.

We all need someone like Bob in our lives. When you hear the words that tell you your father (or any loved one) is dead, you need people to surround you who can help you walk when you fall and who can help you stand when you feel as if you might never stand again.

When I need my dad and realize that he can’t be here for me, I’m grateful that I have Bob Rusbosin.

When you hear that your father (or any loved one) is dead, you need people to surround you who can help you walk when you fall.

Tyler Bradshaw ’09 MS ’14 is executive director of the Nuxhall Foundation, which directs legacy projects for the late Cincinnati Reds pitching and broadcasting legend, Joe Nuxhall. A sports broadcaster himself, Tyler is an on-air host for Chatterbox Sports. He and his wife, Paige, live in Mason, Ohio, with their baby boy, Jackson. Bob Rusbosin and his wife, Sharon, a longtime Miami Hamilton instructor, moved to Venice, Florida, after Bob retired in 2016 as the Regional senior associate dean of students after 26 years at Miami.

This essay is an excerpt from Tyler’s mental health blog, Seeya Bub.

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˘ niiswi

myaamiikaana The Two Miamis

A sovereign tribal nation in Oklahoma.

A public university in Ohio. And a relationship that has led to the first generation in nearly 100 years learning to speak the Myaamia language.

STORY BY

MARGO KISSELL PHOTOS BY

SCOTT KISSELL

Thirty years ago, Daryl Baldwin’s father gave him several old documents that once belonged to Daryl’s grandfather. Tucked inside the accordion-style manila folder among other papers were 18 pages that captured an unfamiliar language, neatly typed on onionskin.

The words intrigued Baldwin, then a carpenter in his late 20s. He recognized them as Myaamia, his tribal ancestors’ language, which had all but vanished after the Miami Tribe was forced from its homelands — including what is now Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

Studying the vocabulary list with its pronunciation guide and English translation, Baldwin was puzzled. His grandfather hadn’t spoken the language and neither did anyone else he knew.

He, like others of his generation, was missing a link to his heritage and culture.

“These language papers sparked something Myaamia, something I could actually tie to,” he said.

He asked his father if there were any native speakers left.

“I don’t know,” his father replied. “Why don’t you go see what you can find out.”

And so began a remarkable journey that culminated in teaching the first generation of Miami Tribe citizens in nearly 100 years to speak their own language.

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kiiloona myaamiaki

‘We are Miami’ Leading groundbreaking work in language and cultural revitalization is the Myaamia Center, the research arm of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. Baldwin is executive director of the center, located in Bonham House on Miami University’s Oxford campus.

He credits the unique relationship between the two Miamis — the sovereign tribal nation and the public educational institution — with playing a key role in the cultural awakening.

Being able to carve out space for the Tribe to reposition itself and heal from the past was a critical step, he said.

“We just knew that we needed help trying to re-establish ourselves because we saw a whole generation of youth disconnected from their cultural heritage. And we knew if we didn’t do something, that disconnection was going to further erode the community.”

neepwaantiinki

50 years of ‘learning from each other’ As with most significant journeys, the route was rarely easy or obvious. This is true for Baldwin, the Tribe, and the university. To recognize their mutual accomplishments and relationship, the university and the Tribe will celebrate a golden anniversary of sorts next year.

It will be 50 years next summer since Forest Olds, then chief of the Miami Tribe and a director of the Northeast Oklahoma Rural Electric Cooperative, traveled 657 miles from his home and the Tribe’s headquarters in Miami, Oklahoma, to Cincinnati to attend a conference on rural electrification.

After the conference in late August 1972, Olds toured southwest Ohio for a few days with his host, Raymond Standafer ’34 MA ’49. The two had become acquainted when Standafer, a Middletown, Ohio, elementary school principal, went to Oklahoma after he was “struck by the [early 1970s] controversy over the use of ‘Redskins’ and resolved to become better acquainted with Miami Indians,” according to Miami University 1809-2009: Bicentennial Perspectives.

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Standafer and Olds drove to several locations, including Piqua, the “seat of his ancestors.” They also came to Oxford and stopped by the university president’s office so Olds could introduce himself.

“Several Miami Indians of Olds’ generation knew of a university ‘back East’ that was named for their people, but no official or member of the Tribe had ever visited Miami University before this occasion.” (Miami University 1809-2009: Bicentennial Perspectives) With then-President Phillip Shriver away from the office, university officials were uncertain what to do with their unexpected guests. They decided on a campus tour. Olds seemed especially pleased to

be on ancestral homelands becoming acquainted with a university that carried the name of his people.

Two years later, during a return trip when Chief Olds met President Shriver in person, the university made the chief an honorary member of the alumni association.

myaamiaki eemamwiciki ‘the Miami Awakening’ Another noteworthy step in bringing the Tribe and the university closer together occurred in 2001 with the start of the Myaamia Project, the Myaamia Center’s predecessor.

Baldwin was still on his journey to discover — with hopes to recover — lost

Three generations of Baldwins study the Myaamia language: Daryl, his son, Jarrid ’13, and granddaughter, Riley, test each other on their vocabulary skills.

Jarrid is the Myaamia language coordinator in Miami University's College of Education, Health and Society and an affiliate of the Myaamia Center.

cultural touchstones such as ribbonwork, the Tribe’s art form that uses ribbons to create distinctive geometric patterns, which past generations had incorporated into clothing, moccasins, and other belongings.

Those touchstones declined, along with the language, following the forced relocation in 1846 from Ohio to Kansas and finally Oklahoma and mandated boarding schools, established to coerce Native Americans to

learn European culture and language and abandon their own.

By the early 1960s, the last Tribe member to speak Myaamia conversationally had died.

After earning a master’s in arts with an emphasis on Native American linguistics in 1999, Baldwin, married to Karen and with three young children by then, couldn’t find a job in his field.

Even today, he tears up when he talks about how close he came to returning to construction work with his brother.

“I can’t do this anymore. I’m done,” Baldwin told Julie Olds in a phone conversation at the time. Olds, one of the elected tribal leaders in Oklahoma, had supported Baldwin’s language efforts. Related to Chief Olds by marriage, she also knew that for the previous decade, Tribe students had been attending the university in Oxford through the Myaamia Heritage Award Program.

Created in 1991, the program provides a tuition waiver and a four-year undergraduate college experience for Miami Tribe students.

Julie Olds had an idea: “Let me call Miami University.”

Baldwin remembers thinking, “There’s no way a university is going to take on something like this. There’s no field for what we’re interested in.”

Reed Anderson, then associate dean for Miami’s College of Arts and Science, asked them to submit a proposal. It was a long shot, but they shared their deep desire to help revive the Miami Nation’s culture and language.

Julie Olds and then-Chief Floyd Leonard worked with Anderson and Myrtis Powell, vice president for Student Affairs at the time, to create the Myaamia Project. Miami officials agreed to fund the project for three years, after which they would evaluate whether to continue.

When he came to Oxford as founding director of the project, Baldwin wasn’t sure where it would lead. University officials didn’t know either, but they gave him a small room on the third floor of King Library.

He now calls those three years a valuable incubation period in which the university granted him the space to think and determine how to move forward.

H OW YO U C A N H E LP The invaluable partnership between the Miami Tribe and Miami University has provided the first generation of Myaamia youth in nearly 100 years the opportunity to learn about their heritage, practice their culture, and speak their native language.

By partnering with the Myaamia Center Endowment at Miami University, you can directly support that work and help to ensure that the tribal nation will continue to grow and prosper for future generations.

If you would like to provide a gift to the Myaamia Center Endowment, the National Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous Languages, or Myaamia Student Support, please use the envelope inside this issue of Miamian and write in how you want your gift to be used, or go online to the Myaamia Center’s support page at Miamialum.org/twomiamis. You may also use the QR code provided here.

aahpitesinki

‘going forward’ Today, there is much to celebrate: • This fall, the university has its largest incoming class of Tribe students: 13.

• There are now more Tribe students on campus at one time than ever before: 39.

• That robust start to the 2021-2022 academic year follows another major milestone reached last May: 100 Tribe students have earned degrees from the university.

In the midst of next year’s celebration of the Tribe-university accomplishments, Baldwin will continue to look ahead. He has set his sights on changing how Indigenous people are portrayed in public education.

Currently, at least in Ohio, the study of Indigenous people is limited to a few weeks in the fourth grade and focuses on the past. That frustrates Baldwin, whose mantra has become: “We’re a living people with a past, not a people from the past.”

He believes a deeper education will make more people realize this. The Myaamia Center is providing the content.

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Left: Stomp dance during the week of Eewansaapita, the summer youth program for ages 10-16, in Miami, Oklahoma, behind the Myaamia Activity Center.

(Photo by Andrew Strack) Above: Young members of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma raise their lacrosse sticks before a game in Miami, Oklahoma.

(Photo by Doug Peconge)

We know our graduation rate started going up when they started having access to their heritage, language, and culture. We went from a 40 to a 90% graduation rate, so these are things that are going to help the Miami Tribe survive into the future.

—DARYL BALDWIN

“We never had the bandwidth to deal with it because our own youth weren’t getting it, and in the start of this effort, we had to invest in our youth. Our future hinged on that,” Baldwin said. “But what’s happening now is we’ve come out from under the radar. We’re no longer in the incubation period, and we

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have enough legs under us where we can begin to look at regional impact.”

In the past few years, the Myaamia Center, Miami University art education students, and the local Talawanda School District have collaborated on curriculum to broaden fourth-graders’ understanding of the Tribe.

Barbara Hamilton ’86 MEn ’94, who teaches at Kramer Elementary in Oxford, believes the collaboration with the center staff and Stephanie Danker's ART 395 class are a gift to her young students.

“It was a special moment to be with my students when they realized that Myaamia people are a living people and that the culture is so much more than an excerpt in a history book,” Hamilton said.

Last fall, two Myaamia culture and imagery lessons became part of the Ohio History Connection’s fourth-grade Ohio as America curriculum. It is used by more than 20,000 students in 91 school districts across the state, in public and private schools, and homeschool environments, said Carla Mello, department manager of school and teacher support for the Ohio History Connection, which supplies the curriculum.

“Our partnership with the Myaamia Center and Miami University has been a vital

For more on the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, read Aacimotaatiiyankwi, a blog created by and for the Myaamia community: aacimotaatiiyankwi.org

step into creating educational content that provides the perspectives of communities and cultures that have been historically marginalized by traditional textbooks and resources,” Mello said.

aantaamhkihsinki

‘a changing world’ Douglas Lankford, the current chief of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, believes the university has become part of the Tribe’s landscape. In another 20 years, he said, no one will remember when the university wasn’t connected to the Tribe.

“For our kids right now who are in college, the university has always been part of the journey and what we do,” the chief said.

Miami Provost Jason Osborne calls the world-renowned Myaamia Center, the relationship with the Tribe, and all that goes with it a valuable “hidden gem.”

“This relationship is unique in higher education and presents us with exciting opportunities for our students, faculty, staff, alumni, and broader Miami family,” he said.

Chief Lankford said of the partnership, “Each party seems to think they’re getting the better part of the deal.”

The provost added, “I believe we have only begun to see the potential we can realize from working together.”

niiyaawi meeloniteelotamaani

‘self-discovery’ Breathing new life into the Myaamia culture and language has been a work of passion for Baldwin, who was awarded a prestigious “genius grant” when named a MacArthur Fellow in 2016. Last April, President Joe Biden nominated the linguist and cultural preservationist to a six-year term on the National Council on the Humanities. The U.S. Senate confirmed him Sept. 30.

The hard-earned and well-deserved accolades, although much appreciated, are not what drive Baldwin, a humble, softspoken man who wants to share the credit and the praise.

He is quick to point out that the program wouldn’t be what it is today without Bobbe Isler Burke ’70 and David Costa.

Burke, now Miami Tribe Relations coordinator emerita, spent more than 30 years at Miami tending to the relationship and the Tribe students, including the decade before Baldwin arrived in 2001. That commitment served as an important step “in keeping the relationship active,” Baldwin said.

“David Costa’s groundbreaking work on the Miami-Illinois language beginning in the late 1980s served as the basis for the revitalization,” Baldwin explained. Today, Costa is director of the Myaamia Center’s language research office.

They, along with others, helped build a program that has supported Tribe students in discovering their heritage and identity.

“This is about discovery of self,” Baldwin said after receiving the MacArthur Fellowship. “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.”

Miami President Greg Crawford said Baldwin’s work is having a tremendous impact that will be felt for generations to come.

“This cultural reawakening is significant for the Tribe and has also brought a wealth of knowledge to the university community,” Crawford said. “I’ve seen firsthand how students share stories fluently in the Myaamia language. It’s incredibly moving.”

Crawford has joined the hundreds of Miami students, faculty, and staff who have traveled to Oklahoma over the years for the Tribe’s winter gathering to learn about its culture.

“We understand that by sharing, we create understanding, and that is what we want to achieve in a cross-cultural experience,” said Baldwin, who is also known in the Myaamia community by his Myaamia name, Kinwalaniihsia. He believes that the Tribe is now “more a part of the fabric and identity of Miami University because of our engagement with each other.”

Margo Kissell is a writer for university news and marketing at Miami University.

AWAKENING OTHER LANGUAGES $510,000 Mellon Foundation grant supports indigenous languages digital archive The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $510,000 grant to the Myaamia Center to support the National Breath of Life Archival Institute for Indigenous Languages (National BoL).

The institute — based in the Myaamia Center on Miami University’s Oxford campus — works with endangered language communities. The funding, announced in late September, will help finance further development of the Indigenous Languages Digital Archive (ILDA) through distribution and training.

While a graduate student in Miami’s College of Engineering and Computing, Chris Anderson MS ’19 worked with the center and National BoL to design ILDA. Currently the only available web-based software of its kind, ILDA assembles primary source materials of endangered languages into a digital archiving space to facilitate linguistic analysis and development of language learning materials.

“There is exponential growth in the number of communities utilizing archival materials to support community-directed revitalization activities,” said Daryl Baldwin, an adjunct assistant professor in educational leadership at Miami who co-directs National BoL with Gabriela Pérez-Báez, an associate professor of linguistics at the University of Oregon.

National BoL supports Native communities representing more than 63 Indigenous languages in North America in locating, obtaining, and working with their archival language materials. For communities with few to no first language speakers, archival-based work becomes especially vital.

Baldwin, a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, is executive director of the Myaamia Center, a research-focused collaboration between the Miami Tribe and university. The center has been leading a language and cultural revitalization that has resulted in the first generation in nearly 100 years learning to speak the Myaamia language.

“When Europeans set foot on what is now the U.S. and Canada, estimates indicate that the Native peoples of North America used more than 300 documented languages. Today, living speakers exist for fewer than half those languages,” states the grant application written by Vince Frieden MBA ’19, director of grant writing for University Advancement’s corporate and foundation relations team.

“Scores of other languages are awakening languages — languages that lost their native speakers and are being revitalized using archival language documentation.”

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Always beautiful, Miami’s Oxford campus is breathtakingly stunning in the autumn when the sweet gums’ lustrous green leaves turn vibrant shades of yellow and purple. The maples, determined not to be overshadowed, respond by dazzling all with their own colorful coats of blazing orange and red. Watching over all of this drama are the cupolas high atop the red bricks. Did you know that Harrison Hall is the only Miami building with matching cupolas? They are a tribute to Old Main, the university’s first academic building, known for its twin towers. Although a smaller footprint, Harrison is in the same location at Old Main.

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When Western College for Women was still Western Female Seminary, founded in 1853, a dam was built on a creek at the bottom of “Peabody Hill” to create Duck Pond. It was used to supply ice in the years before refrigeration. The original icehouse was converted to a boathouse in the early 1900s.

The pond has been enlarged and dredged over the years and is the final stormwater management feature on campus before water continues downhill to Collins Creek and beyond, ultimately moving to the Gulf of Mexico.

Like the seasons, Miami has transitioned through many changes in its 212 years.

The one constant is its beauty.

Photos by Rick Costello, engineering designer; Jeff Sabo, director of University Photographic Services; and Scott Kissell, senior university photographer.

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ILLUSTR ATIO NS BY J E SSICA M CG UIR L

Construction on campus can be both exciting and unsettling. As with our illustrated map on the previous two pages, which you’ve likely noticed isn’t to scale, nothing is quite what you are used to.

Change your daily route, and you may turn the corner and come to a screeching halt in surprise.

“When did that safety fence go up?” “Think the place will be more than three stories?” “Will it have a façade of red brick?” A healthy university is always looking toward the future, which is a good thing because Old Main, our original academic building, never would have held 20,000 students.

Here are details about Miami’s newest buildings and anticipated benefits.

ON THE RISE

87,000

Richard M. McVey Data Science Building

Allison Riley thrives on facts and statistics.

“I love to tell stories using data,” said Riley, an intern in Miami’s Center for Analytics and Data Science (CADS).

The senior, who is majoring in data science and statistics and co-majoring in analytics, is excited that Miami is breaking ground this fall on the 87,000-square-foot Richard M. McVey Data Science Building. It will be going up on the former site of Swing Hall on Tallawanda Road, between Withrow and Benton halls.

“It is awesome that they are building and dedicating a whole building just for data-type majors and studies,” Riley said.

Opening in 2024 A $20 million gift from Richard McVey ’81 is funding the three-story building, expected to be completed in January 2024. His is one of the topfive largest single gifts in Miami’s history.

Founder, chairman, and CEO of New Yorkbased MarketAxess, a leading international financial technology company and part of the S&P 500

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RICHARD M. MCVEY DATA SCIENCE

Stock Index, McVey is passionate about ensuring that Miami continues to advance the field.

“Data science and artificial intelligence are having a profound impact on all sectors of the economy, and especially here at MarketAxess,” McVey said. “The demand for data science skills is growing rapidly in every industry. It is gratifying to help Miami build a distinctive program with this gift, which will increase access to data science programs for Miami students for many decades to come.”

Miami President Greg Crawford underscored that this gift is central to making Miami an academic epicenter for data science.

“An interdisciplinary faculty and staff team has been working on a design for this building that will transform our academic programs related to data science and digital technology,” Crawford said.

“This gift makes that vision a reality.”

BUILDING

Sparking new synergies The building will house the department of Emerging Technology in Business + Design, as well as the departments of Statistics and Computer Science and Software Engineering, the Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies, and CADS. “The design … will create a lot of collaboration spaces, where it provides possible collisions between faculty and students from all kinds of areas in these common spaces and a chance to look at things from different perspectives,” said Michael Bailey-Van Kuren, interim chair and associate professor in Emerging Technology in Business + Design.

The building also is expected to facilitate partnerships with related fields from the

TAKING SHAPE

CLINICAL HEALTH SCIENCES AND WELLNESS FACILITY

With its proximity to Phillips Hall, the Recreational Sports Center, and Goggin Ice Center, the new Clinical Health Sciences and Wellness (CHSW) facility will be a major part of Miami’s first wellness corridor.

Located on Campus Avenue south of Spring Street on the former site of the previous health center, it will promote cross-divisional partnerships to advance holistic wellness for the Oxford campus and local communities, said Steve Large, assistant vice president for health and wellness and a member of the building’s planning committee.

Construction on the 165,000-gross-square-foot building is well underway. Substantial completion is expected by March 2023, with plans for all of its programs to be started by August 2023. The $96 million price includes the cost of renovating Harris Hall to accommodate the employee and student health centers during construction.

Planning together from square one The south wing will house those TriHealth employee and student health centers, the Student Counseling Service, and the Speech and Hearing Clinic. The middle wing will provide faculty and staff offices, inter-professional lounges, and research labs for Speech Pathology and Audiology faculty. The north wing will be Speech Pathology and Audiology, the Oxford cohort for the BSN Nursing Program, and the new Master of Medical Science (MMSc)/Physician Associate Studies Program.

Christopher Howell, associate teaching professor and director of the Physician Associate Studies Program, said its entire pre-clinical, academic experience can be facilitated within the building.

More than 16,000 square feet of education space in the academic wing exceeds the program demands “in a way that fosters not only innovation in teaching but is able to address a variety of student learning styles,” he said.

The first cohort of MMSc/Physician Associate students will begin in May 2023. Current undergraduate students may apply starting in fall 2022.

Farmer School of Business and the College of Engineering and Computing.

In addition to project and consulting spaces, classrooms, and computer labs, there will be the Cyber Security Lab, the Robotics/Maker Lab, the XR Stage, the UX Focus Group Room, and the VR Track Space.

Eric Hodgson, chief departmental advisor of Emerging Technology in Business + Design and director of the Smale Interactive Visualization Center, said everyone is excited to have so many related disciplines together in one space.

Hodgson explained, “We wanted to be together to spark new synergies.”

MORE THAN

1,700

VISITORS, FROM INFANTS TO THE ELDERLY, VISIT THE CLINIC ANNUALLY. WELLNESS FACILITY

Allowing nursing program expansion Jennifer Rode, associate professor of nursing and director of the new nursing graduate programs, is excited about how the new facility will contribute to the expansion of nursing programs, giving them a presence on both the Hamilton and Oxford campuses.

The new Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) and Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) programs will be mainly online, but certain required on-campus workshop components will be held in the CHSW facility’s simulation labs and collaborative classroom spaces. All nursing graduate students will have access to the lab space.

As for the Speech Pathology and Audiology Department and the Speech and Hearing Clinic, both currently in Bachelor Hall, Annika Shaffer ’19, a second-year master’s student in speech pathology, hopes the move will encourage more students and community members to seek out services they may not have known existed.

The clinic serves as “an important training ground” for future speech-language-hearing professionals, said Susan Baker Brehm, chair and professor of Speech Pathology and Audiology. In addition, more than 1,700 visitors, from infants to the elderly, visit the clinic annually.

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GREAT IDEA! College@Elm

Miami University and the city of Oxford are receiving $1.5 million in assistance from a JobsOhio Vibrant Community grant for a startup initiative that will create more than 50 Ohio jobs, bolster a distressed rural economy, and attract new businesses to Oxford.

The College@Elm Innovation and Workforce Development Center at 20 S. Elm St. will advance ideas, inventions, and innovations with real economic value in the marketplace and serve as a catalyst for economic growth.

The 39,000-square-foot facility on the west side of the Oxford Community Arts Center (formerly Oxford College), which housed Miami’s food service operation for decades, will soon house office space, an entrepreneurship center, startups, a workforce and small business development resource center, a design and testing area, and space for manufacturing operations.

It will have three anchor tenants: •M iami, operating an entrepreneurship center and providing entrepreneurial support functions.

•T he Fischer Group, a Butler County manufacturing company, operating a business “innovation extension.”

•T he city of Oxford, operating a workforce development and small business resource center.

The initiative also received a $1 million jumpstart in funding earlier this year from Ohio’s 2021-2022 state capital budget. The university has raised an additional $2 million. Total cost for the renovation project is $10.7 million.

“The JobsOhio Vibrant Community Grant Program invests in important, transformative projects to ensure under-represented population groups and distressed communities fully participate in the economic recovery,” JobsOhio President and CEO J.P. Nauseef said. “Oxford will realize this goal, serving as an example of how developing public-private partnerships can spur job creation and revitalization of our beloved downtowns.”

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UPTOWN OXFORD

Bringing together public and private partners REDI Cincinnati, a private nonprofit economic development corporation, assisted Miami and Oxford with their successful application.

“We are thrilled that JobsOhio Vibrant Community program and REDI Cincinnati recognize the tremendous value of College@Elm,” Miami President Greg Crawford said. “College@ Elm will demonstrate the value of infusing young people into the local entrepreneurial ecosystems while also providing a template for how rural communities like Oxford can replicate this to advance their local economies.”

The funding supports the transformation of the vacant Miami-owned building into a hub of art and science, creativity and innovation, imagination, and design.

39,000

Transforming Uptown Oxford College@Elm will lever- COLLEGE@ELM age existing entrepreneurial activities housed in the nearby arts center to revitalize an undeveloped threeblock area of Uptown Oxford into a high-tech Innovation Corridor.

Jessica Greene, assistant Oxford city manager, said, “We know that by working together we can lead workforce development in the region and attract new businesses and create jobs in Ohio.”

The catalytic impact from the JobsOhio investment in the project is a local payroll of nearly $4 million and 79 jobs. Over a five-year period, The Fischer Group will create 51 of those new jobs with a payroll of $2 million. With more than a decade of experience in product development, machine building, unique printing, and manufacturing, The Fischer Group’s College@Elm innovation extension will be its third Butler County location.

Once established, College@Elm is expected to launch three startups a year.

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GALLOPING INTO THE FUTURE

STUDENTS EACH SEMESTER RIDE IN A CLASS OFFERED BY SPORT LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT. THE NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED EQUESTRIAN TEAM HAS MORE THAN

100

MEMBERS.

New indoor equestrian arena

“ THE ABILITY TO OFFER CONSISTENT TRAINING IS IMPORTANT, BUT WE ARE ALSO LOOKING FORWARD TO BEING ABLE TO BETTER OPEN OUR PROGRAMMING UP TO THE COMMUNITY.”

When her trainer passed away six years ago, Miami senior Maggie Niesen hung up her saddle.

“I fell out of love with the sport,” Niesen said. “I wasn’t myself.”

That changed when she started looking at colleges and learned more about Miami’s equestrian center. The brochure and online images stirred her passion for riding and memories of her beloved trainer and mentor, Mindy McMinn Darst ’82, who had competed on Miami’s equestrian team.

Niesen knew she missed the sport, but she wasn’t sure how to get back into it and back to being herself. She asked Heather Pinnick, Miami’s director of riding, how she

could get involved. Pinnick suggested “Miami Bound: Equestrian,” an orientation program for first-year students fond of horses.

That program reignited her interest. And by the start of Miami’s fall semester, Niesen was back in the saddle.

“Like most people, I am happier when I’m around animals — it’s a serotonin thing,” Niesen said. “And for me specifically, my mental health is way better when I’m riding. It never feels like a bad day — even when I do not ride my best — when I’m around horses or having quiet time in the barn.”

Taking bad weather in stride Now that the new indoor arena at the equestrian center is open as of August, Niesen and other students can ride even during the worst weather.

The 125-by-250-square-foot riding surface within the arena allows for year-round educational and outreach programming for the university community and year-round training for the club equestrian team and academic classes.

More than 400 students each semester ride in a class offered by Sport Leadership and Management.

The nationally recognized club equestrian team has more than 100 members.

The arena, which broke ground in November 2020, was funded by donor gifts. It is located on State Route 73 at the east campus entrance.

Though the equestrian center had two outdoor rings, it often had to cancel events and instruction during inclement weather. Each winter, the equestrian team had to rent a facility 20 minutes away to continue training.

Interacting with horses up close “The ability to offer consistent training is important,” Pinnick said. “But we are also looking forward to being able to better open our programming up to the community.”

Each year, pre-pandemic, the equestrian center offered summer camps for kids. Unfortunately, the staff always had to worry about what they would do if it rained. The expansion to an indoor space allows these community programs to grow and serve more children.

The center also hosts several Cincinnati and Dayton school groups each year, often giving children their first “up-close” visit with a horse.

“Watching the children interact with the horses, whether they have ridden in the past or it is their first up-close introduction to horses, is really rewarding,” Pinnick said. “The entire staff is passionate about sharing their love of horses with future equestrians.”

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love & honor

BY JOS H C H AP I N ’ 02

FROM STUDIO 14 TO NBC AND BACK No matter how busy he became as executive vice president at NBC Entertainment, Rick Ludwin ’70 found time to return to Miami every fall.

Top right: Rick Ludwin ’70 was one of the NBC executives who oversaw the controversial transition from Johnny Carson to Jay Leno as The Tonight Show host in the 1990s.

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One minute, Rick Ludwin ’70 and David Beller ’70 were

enjoying a quiet Sunday evening on campus. Fifteen minutes later, they were in WMUB’s studio, hastily conducting an interview with noted psychologist and psychedelic drug advocate Timothy Leary.

That was just part of what made the Miami experience so special for Ludwin and Beller. The university gave them opportunities unavailable elsewhere. Like the opportunity to work on their own TV variety show, Studio 14. Or the opportunity to form a friendship that lasted long after both left Oxford.

When Beller thinks of those times together, he smiles.

Even with a yellow legal pad full of memories he’s jotted down, Beller needs no prompting — the stories and genuine happiness that come with remembering his friend flow freely.

The incident with Leary is one. Ludwin was the host of Studio 14 and Beller the director, working alongside dozens of other students to make the show a success. Each week, they’d do an interview, a musical number, and a comedy sketch. On the night of the Leary interview, the crew quickly gathered — along with an audience — for the interview.

“Fifteen minutes before we were taping it, we had no idea,” Beller said. “Rick did a terrific job, because everything Rick did, he did very well.”

His career is a testament to that. Ludwin, who died in November 2019, began at NBC in 1980, eventually becoming executive vice president for late night and prime time series at NBC Entertainment.

He is credited with getting Seinfeld on NBC and making it a staple, and he oversaw several of the network’s most popular late-night properties, including The Tonight Show and Saturday Night Live. When Ludwin passed, several

television personalities paid tribute to him, including TV hosts and comedians Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon.

Beller and a group of friends gathered at Ludwin’s childhood home in Cleveland to memorialize their friend — a home Ludwin still owned despite moving to the West Coast — and everyone shared the same thing about Ludwin: He was never one to talk about himself.

Conversations with him felt like being on his talk show.

He had the uncanny ability to steer the conversation back to his “guest.”

“I think Rick’s entire life was preparing him to be a television host,” Beller said.

He spent that life preparing others, too. Ludwin returned each year to Oxford to meet with students and was instrumental in establishing Miami’s Inside Hollywood program, a popular workshop in Los Angeles that gives Miami students who are passionate about media an intimate look at Hollywood careers.

In March 2019, the TV studio in Williams Hall was renamed Rick Ludwin Studio. Upon his death, he left $10 million to the university in support of the Richard A. Ludwin Media and Culture Scholarship.

“He was very committed to the students here, very loyal to the university, and always willing to meet with students,” said Bruce Drushel, chair of the Department of Media, Journalism and Film. “There were a few times he was talking with them for so long, he was getting hoarse.”

Hundreds of students have benefited from his kindness.

He also was generous with his contacts. Drushel noted that Miami had extraordinary success with students getting involved in the page program at NBC. While Ludwin never

CONVERSATIONS WITH RICK FELT LIKE BEING ON HIS TALK SHOW. HE HAD THE UNCANNY ABILITY TO STEER THE CONVERSATION BACK TO HIS “GUEST.”

admitted it, Drushel long suspected Ludwin put in a good word for some of them, helping develop and nurture that same passion for the medium that others had fostered in him.

Both Ludwin and Beller were delighted when Studio 14 found its way into the Jan. 25, 1968, TV Guide. Ludwin remained proud of the show, despite his more high-profile successes. He kept the tapes and had them digitized, eventually donating them to Miami’s Walter Havighurst Special Collections and University Archives as part of the Rick Ludwin Collection. The collection contains original Seinfeld scripts, too.

Ludwin and Beller both returned to Oxford for the dedication of the Ludwin Collection and to pay tribute to Bill Utter, the Miami faculty member who advised them on Studio 14.

Whenever they had an idea for the show, they’d run it past Utter.

“He’d never tell us no,” Beller said. Instead, if there was an issue, he only asked that they think it through and come back to him with a possible solution.

“We had this wonderful opportunity to do things no one had done before us,” Beller said.

Ludwin never took his friends and colleagues for granted. He introduced Beller to Bob Hope following one

of the legendary comedian’s network specials. And, Beller said, Ludwin was especially proud of his input on Saturday Night Live. There are stories of SNL performers receiving handwritten complimentary notes from him after a show.

“On Monday morning, if you were in Rockefeller Center and the mail would come around and they’d hand you an interoffice envelope, you knew it was from Rick, and you knew he was proud of what you had done,” said Beller, a TV veteran himself in advertising.

There was something special about Miami for them, and Ludwin and Beller both realized it. They talked about it often. Beller still has the email Ludwin sent to him two months before his death where he brought up that very thing.

“On a sunny day in Oxford, with a crispness in the air and the leaves changing colors, why would you ever want to leave?” Beller said. “That’s why he always went back.”

Always in the fall, that’s when Ludwin would time his visits to speak with Miami students.

“Every fall, there is a hole. That’s the best way I can put it,” Drushel said. “There’s just a hole here. We lost him way too young.

“It’s difficult to imagine meeting and knowing someone like Rick ever again in one’s lifetime. He was that singular of an individual.”

Large photo: During Studio 14 post-rehearsal, Rick checks upstairs to exchange comments with the director, David Beller ’70. Inset right: The Studio 14 crew (Rick, top left) that put on the show in 19691970 in Studio A of the Miami University RadioTV Building (Williams Hall). The studio was named after Rick in March 2019. Inset top: Rick (right) interviews Professor Robert Sherwin of the Psychology Department for Miami’s Studio 14 TV variety show.

Josh Chapin ’02 is the associate director of content in Miami’s university advancement division.

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class notes

Shhhh! Quiet!

Students appear to be studying intently in the Alumni Library reading room in 1919.

Once King became the main library in the 1960s, Alumni was renamed, and the reading room was no more. Does anyone know where the reading room was located or perhaps even remember studying there?

Do tell.

Miami University Libraries, Frank Snyder Collection

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class notes

THIS ALUMNI LIFE

Together Again … Finally My grandmother lived with us for the first eight years of my life. I recall standing (on a stool) with her at the kitchen sink, arms crossed as we leaned on the counter, looking out the window. She would tell me stories about her childhood and my mom’s. My favorites were the ones about their dog Lucy and the time my mom fell into the river (don’t ask — she’s fine). These memories are so vivid because they were moments I shared especially with my grandmother. No parents.

No other siblings or cousins. Just the two of us. I felt very grown-up.

Now I have two children of my own, and while they have been fortunate to know their grandparents, I wish each had more opportunities for those one-on-one experiences. Sure, we have family dinners, holidays, travel, soccer games, you name it. But it’s not the same as the individual connection. That’s been hard to come by in these busy and socially distant times.

That’s one of the reasons we started Grandparents College.

This three-day, Oxford-based program brings Miami alumni back to campus with their grandchildren ages 8 to 12 years old. They spend the days together exploring campus and experiencing hands-on learning in science labs, art studios, and more with Miami faculty. Each night they share a residence hall room and more than likely stories from their day.

These grandparents get more than the opportunity to relive their Miami years — they experience Miami through the eyes of their grandchildren. It’s a time to slow down and spend quality moments together. To make new Miami memories that will last a lifetime — for both of you — register for Grandparents College beginning March 1. The program is for Miami alumni and their grandchildren who will be ages 8 to 12 in July 2022. Space is limited.

Don’t have grandkids yet? Why not join us for Alumni Weekend, June 10-11, 2022? You don’t have to be celebrating a reunion to come back to Oxford. The weekend is a fun (and inexpensive!) escape for singles, couples, friends, and families to enjoy both Uptown and the beauty of Miami’s campus. I have enjoyed our virtual programming as much as anyone, but nothing can match the thrill you feel when you step back onto campus with familiar places and faces that you have not seen in real life in a long time.

Both my mom and grandmother told me that they didn’t have a lot when they were growing up. My mom said they were poor, but they didn’t know it because they were rich in what counted: good friends, good family, and good memories. All good because they were together.

— Love & Honor, Kim Tavares MBA ’12, executive director of the Miami University Alumni Association

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Rebecca Harris Dartt of Sarasota, Fla., notes that her poetry collection, Crackers and Mayo, has been published. This is her seventh published work.

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Roy “Bud” Anderson of

Mansfield, Ohio, writes, “After serving in the Army during the Korean War, I enrolled at Miami on the GI Bill. Always proud of my connection with Miami, I have had a Miami license plate for many years. Printed on the plate is ALUM, of which I have received many compliments.”

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Mary Ann Pound Arnold,

who double majored in mathematics and physics, has been honored for her career and contributions to Idaho. The Idaho State Museum in Boise currently has an exhibit titled “Trailblazing Women of Idaho,” featuring 100 women from the past (early 1800s) to the present. She is recognized in this exhibit under the title “Engineering Her Dreams” as a Barrier Breaker for her work in fields that typically were occupied by men.

Her career started at NASA and closed with 25 years at Morrison-Knudsen Co. as a project controls engineer for this Boise-based, worldwide engineering and construction company. She ultimately rose to the level of global executive director of project controls.

She also is honored for community service and for developing, building, and funding an award-winning interpretive center near Boise that honors Arthur DeWint Foote, a civil engineer who in the 1890s designed southern Idaho’s irrigation canal system.

SUBMIT A CLASS NOTE Please send news to: Donna Boen, Miamian, Glos Center, 820 S. Patterson Ave., Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056 or Miamian@ MiamiOH.edu. Include your name, class year, address, and your phone number.

For more class news, go online to MiamiAlum.org/ Classnotes. For online Miamian, go to MiamiAlum.org/ Miamian.

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Dagnija Miske Scheer invites readers to follow her on the journey she describes in When Echoes Speak, published in August of 2021. A

See photo in online class notes, MiamiAlum.org/Classnotes. Online Miamian at MiamiAlum.org/Miamian.

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class notes

discovers intricate and rich patterns in her life and weaves together the connecting threads. To see photos and excerpts from When Echoes Speak, visit her website at www.dagscheer.com.

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James Batchelder ’78 shared this photo of his son, Paul Batchelder ’07; his nephew, James Foos ’25; and himself, all three business majors, at James’ high school graduation party. James writes, “I just completed 30 years as president of The M.K. Morse Co., and Paul is director commercial accounting at American Electric Power Co. Paul has a daughter, Evie, and son, Cole, whom we are encouraging to attend Miami. I met at least 15 parents at James’ party who were Miami alumni.”

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blend of memoir and cultural exploration, her book examines the way lives are shaped by memory, collective history, and the challenges of adapting to diverse cultures. In 1944, when Dag was 5, she and her family fled Latvia to escape Soviet occupation. After five harsh years in a displaced persons camp in Germany, her family settled in Cleveland. After graduating from Miami University in 1961, she left home to teach, first in England, then in Libya, where she met a young charismatic doctor. They traveled across Libya’s scorching desert terrain together, and their intense relationship deepened.

After they married, her husband’s work in the Foreign Service took them to eight different countries around the world. In recounting the frustrations and delights of each new location and its unique culture, Dag probes her inner transformations. Ultimately, the shifting perspective of being perpetually out of place helped her find a sense of self. Through atmospheric descriptions and vivid portraits, When Echoes Speak offers glimpses into exotic worlds, taking the reader from a drab DP camp, to the throbbing rhythms of Rio’s frenzied Carnival, to heartrending encounters in Ethiopia. In looking back, Dag Scheer

Reunion ¶ Mark Humphrey, who lives in White Marsh, Maryland, with his wife, Cindy, celebrated his 80th birthday July 16, 2021.

He retired in 1996 after a long career with GE. “After a lot of USA and international travel and taking cruises, we enjoy charity work, reading, and leisure time with family and friends! We feel blessed to have our adult children and their families in Maryland as well.”

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Black Jack Burden? — Night Thoughts on the Genetics of Race in Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men (Dawn Valley Press) is the 20th book written by James Perkins MA ’65, English professor emeritus at Westminster College. The academic work centers around the parentage of Jack Burden — the book’s narrator and, arguably, its main character — bringing into question Burden’s racial identity and, in doing so, opening the door to entirely new interpretations of this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic of American literature. “This book and the ideas it presents will intrigue some readers and enrage others,” said James, a leading Warren scholar who has been working on this volume since 2001. “It should at the very least call attention to and renew interest in what many believe is the best American political novel ever written.”

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Reunion ¶ Brian Keeley, president and CEO of Baptist Health South Florida, the region’s largest health-care organization, plans to retire in 2022. Brian began his career as an administrative resident with

Baptist Hospital in 1969. Under his leadership, Baptist Health has become the largest and most preferred healthcare organization in the region with an operating budget of $4 billion, providing $380 million in charity care and community benefit last year. Among his proudest accomplishments, Brian notes Baptist Health being named one of the 100 Best Companies to Work For by Fortune magazine; one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies by the Ethisphere Institute; and achieving top ranking in U.S. News & World Report year after year. ¶ Rob Price was included in an international juried exhibition, “Americas 2021: All Media,” hosted by Minot State University from Aug. 13-Sept. 25, 2021. His is a collage and acrylic work on paper titled “American Songbook II–Poverty Rag.” Rob explains that the work uses stereotype images of Black Americans that prevailed in early music sheet publications. Rob has lived in Menomonie, Wisconsin, since 1970, where he taught at the University of Wisconsin-Stout until retiring in 2000.

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Neil Glazer has come out of “retirement” a second time to teach advanced placement high school biology and chemistry at the Williamsburg (Virginia) Christian Academy. This is his 52nd year in education. He has been a science teacher, elementary, middle, and high school principal, and an adjunct professor at Cleveland State and John Carroll University. He attributes his longevity in education to his lifelong passion for working with young people and the thrill he gets when his students show their excitement for learning. The “Mr. Chips” of teaching, he now has the grandchildren of his original students. ¶ David James, who lives in London, England, was interviewed and filmed

class notes

by Vogue UK for a feature, “Looking Back With Pride,” which came out the week of June 21, 2021. “After Stonewall, it was like the sun had come out,” recalls David in the magazine’s second annual Pride video series celebrating LGBTQIA+ communities.

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Ronald Crutcher, who became the University of Richmond’s first Black president in 2015, concluded his term as the school’s 10th president in August 2021. Most people would say he retired, but he may never retire. He will serve as a consultant this year and, in the fall of 2023, he will return to the university as a professor, teaching classes in leadership and music. Before coming to Richmond, he served for 10 years as president of Wheaton College in Massachusetts, ending his tenure there and being named president emeritus in 2014. Miami’s provost from 1999-2004, he began studying the cello at age 14 and has performed as a member of the Klemperer Trio for many years. By his side and equally active is his wife, Betty Neal Crutcher PhD ’06. ¶ Tony Danzo and Terry Maltarich, DEKE brothers, enjoyed a mini reunion in Dennison, Ohio. ¶ Jeffery Hawk MA ’69 completed his PhD dissertation at the University of California summa cum laude and is now a Dr.

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Reunion ¶ Steve Hinds, retired in 2016 after 31 years as headmaster of the Meadowbrook School in Weston, Massachusetts.

However, he chose to “unretire” because he felt compelled to give back and is currently board president for WPS in Newton Centre, Massachusetts.

“We have purchased two small and contiguous colleges, Andover Newton Theology School and Hebrew College.

One goal is for developing a campus

plan to fit the goals, needs, and aspirations WPS has established. WPS is an educational institution that is modeled on the premise of a lab school.

We design and deliver educational PD programs for teachers and administrators of under-served rural and urban school systems. Steeped in the work of equity and justice, we also offer programs in ethics, civics, STEM, SEL, Harkness Table methods, and case studies. Additionally, we support high school seniors who are matriculating to college from under-served and first generation communities. We provide them with skills development, support systems, and mentoring, all with a goal of assisting them to succeed in graduating from college. I am concurrently a trustee for a Boston charter school of under-served families. I find my trustee work to be rewarding and that WPS and the charter school compliment / complement one another in who is being served and how best to serve them. Combined, they help me to bring to one entity, or the other, new ideas that may drive future goals and vision.” ¶ Robert Oberst has a new book, Time Traveler — 1491 (Global Future Press).

“When venture capitalists steal his lucrative app, Rand seeks solace on a backpacking expedition to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, where he slips and is swept into the turbulent rapids.

Nearly drowned, battered, and bruised, he takes refuge in a hidden cave, where glowing lights lure him further in, and a mysterious galvanic force overcomes him. Barely able to move, he wakes in the bed of a beautiful maiden who nurses him back to health. While Rand recovers, the maiden’s father, Ireland’s first printer, teaches him the burgeoning profession. At their sponsor King Edward’s castle Rand meets the beguiling Marie, a captivating, French royal, bibliomaniac with whom all

the lords — including the formidable knight Reginald — are infatuated. Marie induces him to compete in the Games, where he wins her favor — along with a formidable foe. Rand has one advantage — a downloaded copy of Wikipedia on his iPhone, which he must access judiciously before the battery dies.” ¶ Rick Shafferman of Louisville, Kentucky, writes, “This year is special to me. I have just retired after 25 years as a financial advisor with Edward Jones.

Plus, my oldest granddaughter, Abigail Baumann, is enrolled for the fall semester at Miami. She is the firstborn of a Miami Merger between Meredith Shafferman Baumann ’98 and Patrick Baumann ’96. My plans for the future are to continue with my volunteering at a couple of charities, once-a-month adult Sunday School teacher, play more tennis, and maybe some golf. Martha, the woman who married me one week after graduation, and I will travel and dote on our five grandchildren.”

Brothers Jeff Eckel ’80 (left) and Peter Eckel ’77 (right) were treated to a fly-fishing tutorial by Jay Sheppard ’63 (center), retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Jay graduated with a BS in biology and went on to have a long, distinguished career at the USFWS and continues to be an ardent and effective environmentalist and avid birder and angler. The picture was taken on Jeff’s farm, The Merrill Homestead at Twin Maples in the Savage River, Maryland, watershed, in April.

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Phil Coffin retired to the Jersey Shore after 24 years as an editor at The New York Times and 47 years in daily journalism. He finished his tenure at The Times on the Flexible Editing Desk, which edits articles from

See photo in online class notes, MiamiAlum.org/Classnotes. Online Miamian at MiamiAlum.org/Miamian.

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The Hill Street Brews team survived a 72-mile Ville to Ville Craft Brew Running Relay, coming in 9th out of 15th in their division. The team members, all over 60 (their wives were more than a little nervous), were: (bottom row, l-r) Jon Gunneson ’81, Ed Jarosz ’81, and Tom Leftwich ’81; (back row, l-r) John Staudt ’81, Brad Ross Shannon ’81, Jeff Zeisler ’81, Steve Amon ’82, Todd Downey ’82, Ken Caskey ’81, and David Blasi ’81 (not pictured). The challenge started at Asheville, North Carolina, and finished at Greenville, South Carolina, on April 17, 2021. Proceeds went to local charities.

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all across the newspaper’s print and digital departments. A former sports editor of The Miami Student, he also worked at The Bloomington (Indiana) Herald-Telephone and The Louisville (Kentucky) Courier-Journal. ¶ Mitch Engel’s fourth novel, The Senator’s Suitcase, was awarded the silver medal for general fiction/novels by The Reviewers Choice Awards for 2020.

Earlier this year, Mitch published his second nonfiction book, Miracles by the Mountain, that he co-wrote with former Chicago Tribune columnist/reporter Mike Conklin. It chronicles the remarkable 20-year history of Faraja Primary School in Tanzania, a school for physically handicapped children funded almost entirely by American families. ¶ John Trautman MA ’74, who earned his undergraduate degree in 1972 from Defiance College (DC), was recognized as the 2021 Silver Pilgrim Medal recipient during DC’s commencement.

The Pilgrim Medal is the highest honor awarded by the college and recognizes awardees’ reliance in self, pride in work, courage in conscience, strength in education, and faith in God. John was also awarded an honorary doctorate — the first to receive both of the college’s highest honors at one ceremony.

Reunion ¶ Mark Kolp writes, “Morris Hall is the genesis for a group that still meets regularly. As freshmen, Kim Lewis, Steve Rubino, Dan Waid, Brian Hinders, Bill Enouen, Tony Coffield, and I met in the fall of 1973 in 3-North Morris. Over the next few years at Miami, the group grew to include Denise Webner Lewis, Cindy Payne, John Coffield, Neil Davis, Bob Moritz, Dave Schnell, and Teresa Coffield. Through the next 40-plus years, factions of this group continue to meet multiple times a year via an annual picnic, group travel, Zoom calls, monthly luncheons, and, occasionally, a trip back to Oxford.”

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Karen Parrish Baker MS ’78

sent in a lovely note to catch us up on her news through the years: “My family moved to Nacogdoches, Texas, in August 2009 for my husband’s career. I continued to teach online for Morehead State University in Kentucky through fall 2008 as an associate professor of adult and higher education in its master degree program. Prior to completing my doctorate at Ohio State, I taught at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, where I lived with my husband and two children. Our family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where our two children attended college, and I began working at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. First, I was the administrator over developmental education curriculum. For the past six years, I have been the director/PI, TRIO Student Support Services. My husband, also a higher education administrator, and I have five grandchildren.”

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Mike Coombs has a new book, It’s Okay to be … (Dorrance Publishing). Throughout its pages, Mike illustrates new and big emotions

young ones encounter as they grow into themselves. He believes that understanding that these feelings and experiences are normal and okay is the foundation for children to meet them head on and learn to just be themselves.

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Hamilton County (Ohio) Municipal Court Judge Heather Stein Russell was recently recognized as a Cincinnati Enquirer “Woman of the Year” for creating and presiding over CHANGE Court, a Restorative Justice specialty court for sex-trafficked people.

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Gregory Biernacki is the new medical director of Olde Towne Medical & Dental Center in Williamsburg, Virginia. For several years, he has worked in both the Sentara Healthcare and Riverside Health System networks. He practiced with the Riverside Williamsburg Medical Arts Family Practice for 15 years and at Sentara New Town Family Physicians for eight. He earned his Doctor of Medicine from Georgetown University School of Medicine, attending medical school as part of the Health Professions Scholarship Program, and was commissioned as a captain in the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps upon graduation. Aside from his new role with Olde Towne, he serves as an associate clinical professor for the Family and Community Medicine Department at Duke University, as associate clinical faculty at Medical College of Virginia, and as associate clinical faculty at Old Dominion University. ¶ Earl Bogle earned English Personal Narrative Scholarship - Honorable Mention. He was the only evening student nominated. ¶ Robin Carlson Butler, Merrill Lynch wealth management financial advisor, was named to the 2021 Forbes America’s Top Women Wealth Advisors

class notes

list. Robin, who lives in Barrington, Illinois, volunteers as a board member of Pursue Scholars, which supports leadership development and college scholarships for inner-city students, with Willow Creek Care Center food pantry, and with her church. ¶ Keith Dennis recently became the 37th person in the world to complete play of the top 100 golf courses in the world as ranked by GOLF magazine. Completing this list made him eligible to join one of the smallest golf clubs anywhere, the Global Golf Centurions Club, whose members have completed play of at least one of GOLF magazine’s world 100 lists, which have been compiled biannually since 1981. Over the course of 30-plus years, Dennis’ quest has taken him to Canada, Mexico, Scotland, England, Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, Abu Dhabi, China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. “I’ve met guys who claim to be the youngest to do it, who have done it in the shortest amount of time, even one guy who did it a second time in 100 consecutive days,” Dennis said.

“I thought about what my special claim might be, and I think I’ve settled on being the guy who took the longest to do it, and with the least amount of golfing talent.” Dennis’ favorite golf story of all time was told to him by a 75-yearold member of New South Wales Golf Club in Sydney, Australia. “As we were walking across a rope bridge above the ocean to get to an island tee box on the fifth hole, he told me how he had blown the top off the island in the 1970s to make it possible to build a tee box there. He had suggested the idea of the tee box location to the club president and was told it wasn’t possible because the island was solid rock. The member was in the construction business and happened to have a couple of cases of plastic explosives in his garage because,

as he said, in Australia during the 1970s ‘you could get just about anything.’ So, on an early Sunday morning, he wired the island up and, with no warning to or authorization from the club, blew it up. When I suggested he must be a rock star around the club, he said they don’t talk about it much because you could get arrested for something like that.

The story has been confirmed by multiple members of the club.” Dennis’ top five courses: Cypress Point (U.S.), Royal County Down (Northern Ireland), Pine Valley (U.S.), Tara Iti (New Zealand), and The Old Course (Scotland). ¶ Christopher Kerosky is a professor of law at Empire College of Law in Santa Rosa, California. He specializes in immigration law for the firm of Kerosky & Gallelli with offices in San Francisco and northern California. Previously, he served as trial attorney for the civil division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Reunion ¶ Mary Lynne Quinnan Zahler ’82 MA ’86

is the author of the new book All Life Matters (Lighthouse Publishing). She writes, “Every one of God’s creations is special. Kids of all ages will relate to this simple but important message of love and connection, encouraging kindness, gratitude, and respect for all living things.”

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Dave Eshbaugh is the director of donor relations for the Humane Society of Southern Arizona, the oldest and largest nonprofit in southern Arizona, serving pets and the people who love them.

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Tina Stewart Owen, CPA and EY managing director, of Strongsville, Ohio, retired in February 2020 after more than 35 years with EY. After graduation, Tina served on audits of the EY Cleveland office’s health-care

and public company manufacturing clients. She transferred to EY’s national auditing professional practice group in 1993, where she led teams in researching, developing, and communicating technical accounting and auditing content, including auditor reporting standards, and in determining compliance with PCAOB standards.

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Lori Kaiser, CPA, CGMA, MBA, founder, and CEO of Kaiser Consulting, was honored by the National Association of Women Business Owners Columbus Chapter (NAWBO Columbus) as a 2020 Visionary Award winner. Since 1998, NAWBO Columbus has been honoring Central Ohio women business owners who have achieved success with their business while making notable contributions to their communities, industries, and initiatives for other women in business. The coveted award is a prestigious way to showcase these amazing women who own and operate businesses vital to Ohio’s economy and find time and resources to identify needs and drive social change. Kaiser Consulting offers a full suite of accounting, finance, and information technology compliance and data security

See photo in online class notes, MiamiAlum.org/Classnotes. Online Miamian at MiamiAlum.org/Miamian.

Robin Friedlander Dulli MEd ’81, the counselor at Stone Mill Elementary School, was honored with the 2020-2021 School Counselor of the Year Award, celebrated to focus attention on the unique contributions of professional school counselors within Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools and the tremendous impact school counselors have in helping students achieve school success, plan for a career, and be college ready, especially last year during the challenges associated with moving from in-person to virtual learning.

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with Stantec Architecture. Tracy

been promoted to mortgage compliance officer with Dollar Bank, FSB. Mary and her husband, Keith, have called Pittsburgh home since 2010.

Mary is also president of the Pittsburgh Miami University Alumni Chapter. ¶ Shari Sesler Obrenski was elected president of the Cleveland Teachers Union on April 16, 2020. She is only the second woman to lead the 5,000-member union. She also serves as the first vice president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers. Shari has been a social studies teacher in Cleveland for 23 years.

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associate professor at Thompson Rivers University. They live in Canada, specifically Kamloops, British Columbia.

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Mark Lombardi MA ’83 sent in this photo and note: “Just weeks away from celebrating our 37th anniversary, we celebrated our niece’s high school graduation and acceptance to Miami. The celebration was all the sweeter in that our grandson was very interested, well maybe in just the cookie.

Here we are: Susan Walker Lombardi ’84, Kathryn Morris ’25, Caden Matthew Lombardi ’43, and me. Great to be a Miami Merger and welcome our niece into Miami.”

solutions delivered with industryspecific expertise to help organizations of all sizes navigate the complexities of growth and change. ¶ Ann Kiernan Robb ’85 sent in a note and photo of her and husband Thomas ’84 MEd ’86, Peter ’83 and Mary Taylor Wright ’83, and Christine and John Trauth ’84 enjoying a beautiful June day gathering at the Trauths’ waterfront home on St. George Island, Maryland.

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James Dunnan, MD, com-

missioned into the U.S. Army Reserve medical corps, completed his direct commission course at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and is assigned to a mobile hospital unit in Twinsburg, Ohio. He participates in Miami M.E.D, inviting current Miami students interested in medicine to shadow him in his office in Dublin, Ohio.

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Cris Moore Kaminskas was appointed mayor of Liberty Lake, Washington, and will be running in the November 2021 election to retain her seat. She previously had served 11 years as a council member.

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Brian Christianson MArch ’90 celebrated his 21st year

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C. Melissa Knorr Owen, of Charlotte, North Carolina, a founding partner of Tin Fulton Walker & Owen, was one of 16 individuals sworn in to serve on the board of directors of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers at the association’s annual meeting July 24, 2021. She has served NACDL in numerous capacities and is currently co-chair of the Women in Criminal Defense Committee, co-chair of the Zealous Defense of Sex Crimes CLE, a program vice chair in the CLE Institute, and a member of the Audit, Bylaws, Governance, Membership, and Title IX committees. Her practice areas include state and federal criminal defense, with a focus on white-collar matters, financial crime, sex offense prosecutions, and Title IX representation.

Christianson received the rank of

Mary Woody Gottschalk has

Miami Mergers Gary ’93 and Jenny Tinch Young ’96

celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary by renewing their vowels at Turks & Caicos, an island in the Atlantic, with their three daughters on June 15, 2021.

They live in Wyoming, Pennsylvania.

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Mark Lewis has written a children’s book, Coco and the Brown Blanket (Lighthouse Publishing).

“This children’s book is a great bedtime story read. Great for reading ages 9 to 12. You can travel the world with Coco in seven days, allowing your dreams to come true.” ¶ Gwendolyn Boyce Porter, who earned a master’s in occupational therapy in 2006 from Ohio State University, started a 501(3)(c) titled Alex’s Sunnyside Playroom on Oct. 2, 2018, after the death of her husband, Dr. Alex Porter, from Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia at the age of 37. Their first family playroom opened at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus on May 18, 2021.

Angela Lindner Dengel, a high school Spanish teacher at Fairfield (Ohio) Freshman School, takes students and parents on trips to Spanish-speaking countries, including Costa Rica, Mexico, and, most recently, Puerto Rico this past summer. The next trip is to Ecuador in 2023. ¶ David Dotson ’99 MFA ’06 is the new preparator/building manager of the Miami University Art Museum. Both of his Miami degrees are in sculpture.

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Amer Ahmed is the new

vice provost for diversity, equity, and inclusion at the University of Vermont, starting July 1, 2021. In his new role, he is helping to advance strategic DEI initiatives and oversee the Center for Cultural Pluralism, the Prism Center, the Mosaic Center for Students of Color, the Women and Gender Equity Center, and Interfaith Education and Engagement. A nationally recognized DEI practitioner and thought leader, Amer has almost 20 years of experience

DULY NOTED Notable Ways to Stay Connected

On your mark, get set, accelerate!

Accelerating Ahead: Miami’s Focus on the Future is a must-watch virtual conference for anyone who wants to know where Miami is heading in the post-pandemic world. With TED Talks-style presentations from Miami’s senior leadership, faculty, and staff, you’ll gain insights into how Miami will remain a vibrant, innovative, and compassionate learning community — now and in the future.

A new window on good writing Who better than the faculty and staff of the Howe Center for Writing Excellence to teach us how to re-think what constitutes good writing? That’s the main focus of the upcoming Miami Writing Institute, an online, professional education course offered exclusively to Miami alumni free of charge. Filled with unexpected, thought-provoking, interactive content, this course will help you come away with a clearer understanding of writing that will encourage you to “see” in a new way.

That’s a promise we’ll put in writing.

The four-part, on-demand course opens in January. You can learn more at MiamiAlum.org/MWI.

Calling all grandparents If you thought your college days were behind you, think again.

Grandparents College (July 13-15, 2022) is a chance to relive your Miami experience AND share it with your grandchildren (ages 8-12).

You’ll do everything together — stay in a residence hall, go to classes, and have lots of fun. Space is limited, so we encourage you to plan ahead for next year. Registration opens March 1, 2022. Contact Kathryn.

Myles@miamiOH.edu for more information.

Don’t miss out!

Craving a toasted roll and a stroll down Slant Walk?

We thought so. Mark your calendars now for Alumni Weekend June 1011, 2022. We’re thrilled to welcome you back to campus — toasted rolls taste better in person!

Update your alumni contact information.

class notes

David King MS ’93 (in the front row to the right of the person in the beige jacket) got to ring the NASDAQ opening bell as the CTO of Flywire for its IPO (Initial Public Offering) May 26, 2021. David co-founded OnPlan Holdings, a company that focused on solving affordability challenges in health care and higher education, in 2014. Four years later, he merged his company with Flywire, another startup that was focused on international student payments. Since then, they have grown rapidly in health care, education, travel, and B2B payments.

David is also super excited that his daughter, Aly, is a first-year at Miami this fall.

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advancing inclusive excellence strategies that span disciplines and operating areas while creating new opportunities for collaboration. He is known for his success in bridging religious, secular, and spiritual identity with broader DEI and social justice work. In addition, he brings a strong focus on intercultural and global education.

01

Erin Stefanec Rhinehart, co-managing partner at Faruki, is president of the Ohio Women’s Bar Association (OWBA), sworn in during the OWBA Annual Meeting and Conference April 30, 2021.

“It’s an honor to serve and support Ohio’s women attorneys as OWBA president,” Erin said. “Our mission and values are of utmost importance to advancing women in the legal profession, and I will see that this work is carried out to the best of my ability.”

The OWBA was formed in 1991 to build a community of lawyers who are interested in the issues that uniquely affect women. The organization’s mission is to promote the leadership, advancement, and interests of women attorneys through professional education, networking, and the exchange of ideas between its members, local bar

associations, business, and the community. She maintains a litigation practice focusing on class-action defense, health-care law, media and communications law, breach of contract and tortious interference issues, and environmental litigation matters. She has significant trial experience in federal and state courts across the country. ¶ Natalie Hostacky Stevens, a shareholder/employment attorney in the Cleveland office of Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, was recognized by The Best Lawyers in America in the category of Employment-Law Management (2020) and Ohio Super Lawyers in the category of Employment Litigation: Defense (2021).

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Reunion ¶ Singer and songwriter Griffin House returned to his alma mater for a one-night performance during Homecoming Weekend Oct. 15.

Recording and performing for more than 15 years, Griffin has toured with John Mellencamp, The Cranberries, Josh Ritter, Mat Kearny, and Brett Dennen, just to name a few. He has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning and CNN Newsroom, and was recently the subject of the music documentary Rising Star.

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Becky Ackford Magaw was

promoted to vice president, human resources for the Columbus Blue Jackets after 13 years with the organization, including the past five as senior director of human resources. She joined the Blue Jackets in November 2008 as a partnership activation specialist, was promoted to partner activation manager in 2011, and was instrumental in the planning and executing of activities throughout the NHL All-Star Celebration hosted by the Blue Jackets in 2015. She and her husband,

Troy, and their children live in Lewis

Center, Ohio.

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Born: to Steve and Rachel Bachouros Flaherty ’07, Kelsey Marie. Sept. 25, 2020. She joins older siblings Caylee, Conner, Kendall, and Kinsley. ¶ Eliza Nellums is the author of The Bone Cay (Crooked Lane Books). In Eliza’s second novel, Magda Trudell, botanist, avid historian, and the caretaker of Whimbrel Estate, the Key West home of the famous poet Isobel Reyes, refuses to leave the property during a devastating hurricane. In the fire and floods that follow, secrets both old and new emerge. The unexpected appearance of a teenage girl and her father seeking shelter from the storm poses unnerving new questions.

Could they have a connection to the house’s shadowy past? As the storm rages, Magda desperately tries to solve the real mystery of Isobel’s death — and keep the living in one piece.

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Reunion ¶ Women entrepreneurs are often portrayed as aggressive, high-heeled alphas, out to disrupt the status quo or dominate the boardroom. Some are. Many are not. In her new book, This Won’t Be Pretty: First Year Lessons for the Female Entrepreneur (Grammar Factory Publishing), Cassandra D’Alessio writes for the latter. With a background in education and creative writing, Cassandra never intended to be a business owner. But after feeling unfulfilled in her career, she started and grew a successful marketing business without any real guidebook or role model. In her new book, she shares the lessons from her first year as an entrepreneur, including real-world tactics for businesswomen of all industries, backgrounds, and personality types.

Part memoir, part business strategy, her

class notes

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Neil Byrne Bruce was awarded Faculty Teacher of the Year 2020-2021 by the child psychiatry fellows at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center. He is a child and adolescent psychiatrist at University Hospitals and also serves as an assistant professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

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Jordan Schoenfeld, after graduating, worked for

Deloitte in Washington, D.C., and Chicago, and then went to graduate school at the University of Michigan, earning a PhD in 2015 in business administration.

After that, he worked as an accounting professor at the University of Utah from 2015-2018, then at Georgetown University from 2018-2019, and most recently at Dartmouth College from 2019-2021. The University of Utah recruited him back and awarded him a tenured professorship in accounting. As of July 2021, he is a tenured associate professor of accounting at the University of Utah.

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Reunion ¶ Born: to Alex Cejer and Danielle, Adeline

Rose, March 1, 2021. Alex works as an underwriting field manager for Hastings Mutual Insurance Co., and Danielle is a nurse case manager for the Cleveland Clinic. They live in Avon Lake, Ohio. ¶ Kyle Weldon has join the Miami baseball staff as assistant coach.

He was a member of the baseball team from 2008-2011. During his time at Miami, he was named to the 2011 First Team All-MAC, while his team finished as MAC tournament runners-up. The season prior, he was named an NSCA

Strength & Conditioning All-American.

In his post-playing career, he has seen coaching stops at Mason High School, the Cincinnati Steam, and Midwest Athletic. More recently, he was a co-founder and director of hitting at ALPHA Baseball, where he worked with hitters to help bridge the gap between data and players.

© John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation- used with permission

book is a real look at the chaos, humor, and sometimes difficult lessons of her first year in business and how that first year can alter a life forever — in the best way possible.

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Elizabeth Peters was a Harrison Scholar during her time at Miami and president of her AOPi chapter. After graduating, Libby went to U.C. Medical School, then entered a residency in Cincinnati.

After investing many years into her education, she finally entered the workforce this summer. And that’s not all. Libby was married to Kyle Back on May 22, 2021. Kyle is a Navy veteran (still serving in the reserves) and a U.C. grad. They are the proud “parents” of Igby, an 80-pound mixed breed they rescued about a year ago. ¶ Jonathan Slemp is co-founder and head of marketing and business development at Rhove. Slemp, a financial services application that partners with building and apartment owners to offer renters the ability to earn rewards, save money, and invest in real estate through their rental payments. Columbus Business First described it as a “Robinhood for real estate app.” Jonathan is grateful to the faculty who taught him and influenced him. As a testament to his alma mater and in effort to inspire others, he has remained active with Miami, currently sitting as a judge and mentor for the John W. Altman Institute for Entrepreneurship Social Innovation Weekend and Startup Weekend. ¶ Ethan Taylor, PhD, MPH, must have been influenced by today’s headlines while writing his new book, When Nature Calls. “Dr. Jack Billingsly, an infectious disease epidemiologist,

leaves a corporate position to join an academic research team in an altruistic attempt to aid in the pandemic response. It doesn’t take long before Jack realizes how small his actual impact will be. Stuck alone in an office staring at numbers, he feels his dream of helping people in an applied setting begin to fade. As the pandemic grows, the media coverage increases, as does the pressure. Impromptu one evening, he explores hiking road trips and books flights, cabins, and a car in search of what makes him feel alive. As Jack hikes, he is enamored by the beauty of nature and life outside of the pressures of the everyday. While enjoying the sights, unbeknownst to him, he is being stalked. In parallel with the ebbs and flows of his own anxiety, a mountain lion lurks in the shadows before everything comes to a head, and Jack is in a fight for his life.”

Nicole Fleetwood ’94 (Western College Program) has been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, a $625,000 grant given to extraordinarily talented and creative individuals as an investment in their potential.

Nicole is an art historian and curator exploring how the art of incarcerated people is essential to our understandings of contemporary art, the carceral state, and the humanity it contains. Now at New York University as the James Weldon Johnson Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, up until this academic year, she had been at Rutgers University since 2005.

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Papa’s Legacy, by Elizabeth Herzog and Greg Finke, is an educational book to teach young adults why it’s crucial to start investing at an early age. The story follows Tereza, a recent high school graduate, and how her grandparents and parents teach her to invest just $25 a month to build

See photo in online class notes, MiamiAlum.org/Classnotes. Online Miamian at MiamiAlum.org/Miamian.

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businesses with a focus on r&d tax credits, Start-Up NY, and state and local tax.

Headquartered in Buffalo, Lumsden & McCormick is one of the largest locally owned certified public accounting firms in western New York.

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Hillary Stifler ’04 is the proud new owner of the Garden Grove Inn: Bed & Breakfast in Union Pier, Michigan. After 18 years in market research in Chicago, she shifted into the career of her dreams and to be closer to nature and her family.

She’d love to welcome any RedHawks to her inn!

a nest egg. Investing and retirement certainly aren’t on her mind, but she is glad someone is looking out for her and teaching her what she needs to know before it is too late. Papa’s Legacy explores all of the basics — monthly investments, added value, mutual funds, Roth IRA, compounding interest, and more — that will equip any reader with the confidence and eagerness to shape their financial future.

The following 2019 alumni received the 2021 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship: Nicholas Fendinger, graduate student in psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Krystina Hird, graduate student in the biochemistry and molecular program at Michigan State University.

She was a 2018-2019 Beckman Scholar; Robert Krueger, graduate student in mathematics at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. He was a 2018-2019 Goldwater Scholar; Leah Kuhn, graduate student in chemistry at Florida State University. ¶ JD Fletcher is the newest head coach for Miami golf.

He comes to the RedHawks after serving as head coach and director of golf at Earlham College.

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Married: Danielle Linowes ’16 MEd ’21 and Grant Collins ’17,

July 24, 2021, after six and a half years together. They live in Cincinnati. ¶ As a youngster, Zoltan Powell lived for nearly nine years in a Romanian orphanage. With tears and laughter, despair and hope, you will read Zoltan’s vivid depiction of his personal journey, Tabula Rasa: Beyond a Place Called There ..., as he shares his personal struggles of being a young boy caught in the circumstances of life within a communist institution.

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Kayla Gruen has been pro-

moted to senior accountant with Lumsden & McCormick. She provides tax compliance and planning services to a variety of commercial

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Lexie Adams and William Carson have been awarded

fellowships from the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program. The prestigious award recognizes outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master’s and doctoral degrees. The fellowship provides three years of financial support, including an annual stipend of $34,000, coverage of tuition and fees, and opportunities for international research and professional development. This fall, Lexie joined Stanford University’s doctoral program in bioengineering. At Miami, she was a research assistant for Andrew Jones, assistant professor of chemical, paper,

and biochemical engineering. She worked with him on a project involving the production of psilocybin in the Escherichia coli bacteria. Psilocybin, the psychoactive component of “magic mushrooms,” is currently being tested in treatments of depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Andrew and his lab were the first to report a new approach to the production of psilocybin by E. coli.

William is a new doctoral student in chemistry at Princeton University. He was a member of Miami’s university honors program and a recipient of the 2020 Provost’s Student Academic Achievement Award. He conducted undergraduate research with faculty mentors Scott Hartley, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Wei Liu, former assistant professor. ¶ Perrysburg, Ohio, resident Caroline Bearss MA ’21 has been applying the tools of science, education, and conservation to become a leader in the conservation community. In May, she concluded her master’s course of study in biology from Miami through Project Dragonfly. Since joining the Advanced Inquiry Program master’s in 2018, she has taken courses on the web from Miami, while also participating in on-site and field studies at Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and conducting projects that have made a difference in the Perrysburg area. She works as an education programmer.

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Junior right-hand pitcher Sam Bachman was selected ninth overall by Los Angeles Angels in July during the 2021 Major League Baseball Draft. He is the first RedHawk to be selected in the first round of the MLB Draft in school history and is the highest Miami student-athlete drafted since Wally Szczerbiak ’99 was picked sixth in the NBA draft in 1999. Sam has a fastball that “touches” 100 mph.

farewells

IN LOVING MEMORY OF

Richard Farmer ’56

At his memorial service, one of his closest friends, Roger Howe ’57, gave a eulogy. The following are excerpts: Dick and I were the closest of friends for 66 years, dating back to our college days. At Miami, he had a reputation for being a popular and fun-loving fellow with an outsized personality.

At our first meeting, Dick — a guy I had never met — walked in with a big smile on his face, threw an arm around my shoulder, and said, “Rog, old buddy, good to see you again!”

The first in his family to attend college, he graduated from Miami, served in the Marine Corps, and married college sweetheart Joyce Barnes. Then he sought a career with a great company.

His father’s 12-person family business was Acme Wiper and Industrial Laundry. To use his words, he didn’t want to be just in the “shop towel business.”

Learning his son’s intentions, his father was deeply disappointed. As Dick told me, “I was breaking his heart.” Dick succumbed and joined his father. As he grew it, he founded a sister company that became Cintas and later merged Acme into it. Today it provides employment for 42,000.

Eventually he was in pursuit of what he termed BHAGs — Big Hairy Audacious Goals — that would take years to achieve. I knew no one else so driven and motivated.

A key ingredient in the mix was the unfailing support of Joyce Farmer, who for years ably managed the homefront.

Often, he acknowledged her critical role, saying he could never have done what he did without her.

Dick never stopped impressing me. A few weeks ago, I was visiting him at home in Cincinnati, and his son, Scott ’81, was there. He had just one question for Scott about Cintas: “How are our people doing?”

It was quintessential Dick, showing concern and compassion for his partners at all levels.

Photos courtesy of Joyce Barnes Farmer ’57

Miami University mourns the loss of Richard “Dick” Farmer ’56, who died Aug. 4, 2021, of Parkinson’s disease at age 86.

In 1992, Dick and his wife, Joyce Barnes Farmer ’57, provided the cornerstone gift to Miami’s business school. A little more than a decade later, they announced a $30 million leadership gift through the Farmer Family Foundation, $25 million of which helped underwrite the construction of the Richard T. Farmer School of Business building. He also served as a university trustee and chairman of its board, a foundation board member, and chair of the business school’s board of visitors.

As illness advanced during the past couple of years, Dick no longer brought up subjects in our conversations.

However, he would participate on subjects I introduced.

Two years ago, as we were going out for lunch, he was having considerable difficulty getting out of the car. It was an exception when he said, “You know, this darn disease is really taking a toll on me.” Then he stopped, looked me in the eye, and said, “Hey, I’m 84 years old. I’ve had a wonderful life, and I don’t have a thing to complain about.”

Just a month ago, to my utter surprise, he again brought up a subject, saying, “You know, there are a lot of big problems in this country, but our country has always had big problems, and somehow we muddle through them. I’m optimistic that America has a good future.” Again, quintessential Dick — thoughtful and forever the optimist.

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farewells 1930s Mary Elizabeth Davis Lang Mannweiler ’37, Naugatuck, Conn., March 2, 2021.

Dorothy Ruppelt Bradley ’53, Daytona Beach, Fla., Feb. 17, 2021.

1940s Anale Howard VanWagenen ’45, Cincinnati, Ohio, Dec. 6, 2020.

Mary Ann Coffey Gregg ’53, Durango, Colo., March 8, 2020.

Joan Drumpelmann Gustavson ’46, Greer, S.C., June 11, 2021.

Walter B. Fowler ’47 MA ’49, Silver Spring, Md., March 10, 2021.

Howard F. Newberry ’47, Portsmouth, Ohio, May 2, 2021.

Mark O. Flanagan Jr. ’48, Fort Wayne, Ind., Feb. 23, 2021.

John E. Frost ’48, Hendersonville, N.C., Nov. 11, 2020.

Beatrice Leith Radcliffe ’48, Lake Forest, Ill., Aug. 15, 2021.

John L. “Jack” Akerman ’49, Kettering, Ohio, March 28, 2021.

Marilyn Blanche Speer Anderson ’49, Redwood City, Calif., Sept. 17, 2021.

1950s Lois Haager Guise ’50, Dayton, Ohio, May 1, 2021.

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Charles D. “Dave” Diebold ’53, Sandusky, Ohio, March 31, 2021.

Bernard C. Griesinger ’53 MBA ’59, Hamilton, Ohio, May 25, 2021.

Walter J. Gurney ’53, Saratoga, Calif., March 12, 2021.

Ruth “Peggy” Curry Harrington ’53, Oxford, Ohio, Aug. 22, 2021.

Robert K. Puckett ’53, Cleveland, Ohio, Nov. 15, 2020.

Doris Green Ferrone ’54, Cathedral City, Calif., Aug. 16, 2020.

Jerome K. Stephens ’55, Warren, Ohio, March 25, 2020.

Thomas W. Coyle ’56, Dayton, Ohio, Aug. 10, 2020.

Richard M. Johnson ’56, Chicago, Ill., Jan. 7, 2020.

George H. McFerron ’56, Tucson, Ariz., Dec. 29, 2020.

Margery Hersh McFerron ’56, Dallas, Texas, March 19, 2021.

Joseph A. Pugliese ’50, Oakland, Calif., Aug. 6, 2021.

Eugene R. Perrin ’56, Portland, Ore., April 22, 2021.

Dorothy Johnson Broz ’51, Cleveland, Ohio, June 3, 2021.

Henry L. Christmon ’57, Richmond, Ind., Jan. 19, 2021.

Cloyd E. Kress ’51, Mansfield, Ohio, July 12, 2021.

Mark C. Parman ’57 MEd ’60, Auburn, Ind., July 15, 2021.

George W. Runser Jr. ’51, New Bern, N.C., April 26, 2021.

Harry D. Pfingsten ’57 MEd ’59, Avon Lake, Ohio, March 25, 2021.

Barbara Wilkinson Bradbury ’52, Dayton, Ohio, Feb. 15, 2021.

Gwendolyn Miller Waltz ’57, Oakwood, Ohio, Sept. 15, 2020.

Robert W. Eckley ’52, Avon, Ohio, March 2, 2021.

Carol Armstrong Hatch ’58, Cincinnati, Ohio, Jan. 9, 2021.

Herbert C. Fulger ’52, Westlake, Ohio, March 24, 2021.

Steven J. Heeter ’58, Battle Creek, Mich., Oct. 8, 2020.

Betty Henneke Healion ’52, Brunswick, Maine, March 30, 2018.

Robert N. Wistner ’58, Dublin, Ohio, July 13, 2021.

Miriam Bloom Miller ’52, Lincoln, Neb., June 30, 2021.

Alice Bradley Coury Pike ’59, Mission Viejo, Calif., May 12, 2021.

Harold C. “Hal” Smith ’52, Pickerington, Ohio, July 19, 2021.

Robert H. Stockdale ’59, Sandusky, Ohio, Oct. 2, 2020.

Thomas R. Books ’53, Hendersonville, N.C., April 30, 2021.

Susan Foreman Stockdale ’59, Sandusky, Ohio, Oct. 10, 2020.

miamian magazine

1960s Linda Edwards Dodds ’60, Streetsboro, Ohio, March 15, 2021.

Helen Hamer Geoffrion ’60, Santa Monica, Calif., April 13, 2021.

Peter S. Milch ’60, Houston, Texas, July 3, 2021.

Barbara Bailey Potter ’60, Lake Mills, Wis., July 9, 2019.

Carol Hardey Shafer ’60, Dayton, Ohio, Aug. 6, 2021.

John W. Criss ’61, Elyria, Ohio, April 19, 2021.

Tresha Krebs Allen ’62, Gig Harbor, Wash., June 1, 2020.

John L. Mather ’62, Decatur, Ga., Aug. 31, 2021.

Larry E. Duberstein ’63, Memphis, Tenn., March 10, 2020.

Charles B. Helburn Jr. ’63, Toledo, Ohio, Feb. 23, 2021.

Murray “Dean” Peters ’66, Hamilton, Ohio, June 30, 2021.

James G. Pratt ’66 MBA ’67, Greensboro, N.C., Feb. 21, 2021.

Wilda Hurley Steiner ’66, Palm Springs, Calif., Nov. 4, 2020.

Susan O’Connor Thielen ’66, Keene, N.H., Jan. 30, 2021.

Joseph E. Hart Jr. ’67, Fairfax, Va., Aug. 30, 2020.

David L. Latham ’67, Ladson, S.C., June 28, 2021.

Robert K. Gray Jr. ’68, Miamisburg, Ohio, June 12, 2020.

Karen Durst Kinstler ’68, Tiffin, Ohio, June 26, 2021.

Martha Mehl Zecher ’68, Middletown, Ohio, April 14, 2021.

Harold R. “Hap” Eighme ’69, Martins Ferry, Ohio, May 7, 2021.

John D. Meakin ’63, Stevensville, Mont., Oct. 10, 2020.

1970s Gregory G. Hardwick ’70, Roswell, Ga., March 17, 2021.

Timothy D. Newton ’63, Sharpsburg, Ga., June 27, 2021.

Joseph H. “Jay” Casey Jr. ’71, Dublin, Ohio, Aug. 13, 2021.

Michael C. Parisi ’63, Pinetop, Ariz., December 2020.

Laurie Johnson Fox ’71, Huntington, W.Va., Aug. 9, 2020.

James W. Shelton ’63, Willoughby, Ohio, April 28, 2021.

James R. Grover MA ’71, Pittsburgh, Pa., April 23, 2021.

Paul R. Westerfeld ’63, Hilton Head Island, S.C., Feb. 8, 2021.

Sandra Shultz Ramage ’71, Hamilton, Ohio, Aug. 18, 2021.

Ronald F. Bernstein ’64, Kingston, N.Y., May 4, 2021.

Deborah Howard Schindler ’71, Oxford, Ohio, April 30, 2021.

Richard B. Meyers ’64, Chesapeake, Ohio, May 6, 2020.

Jan J. “Jay” Wittenber ’71, Gresham, Ore., May 20, 2021.

James A. Smith III ’64, Bradenton, Fla., Oct. 22, 2020.

Jonathan S. Hunt ’72, Monroe, Ohio, May 1, 2021.

Russell B. Starkey Jr. ’64, Oxford, Ohio, May 16, 2021.

Octaviano “Viani” Navarrete ’72, Miami, Fla., Feb. 19, 2021.

Janet Renc Wisner ’64, Fort Myers, Fla., July 21, 2021.

William J. Creasey ’73, Cincinnati, Ohio, Aug. 25, 2020.

Theodore D. Owens ’65, Yuma, Ariz., April 12, 2021.

Todd F. Hollenbaugh ’73, Oxford, Ohio, Aug. 2, 2021.

Ronald J. Perey ’65, Seattle, Wash., Jan. 23, 2021.

Steven E. Shively ’73 MAT ’80, Troy, Ohio, March 4, 2021.

Richard H. Schuman ’65, Dayton, Ohio, Nov. 2, 2020.

John T. Stevens Jr. ’73, Phoenix, Ariz., May 2, 2021.

Thomas E. Pawley ’66, Liberty Township, Ohio, Nov. 23, 2019.

Frank L. Trippett ’73, McLean, Va., April 29, 2021.

farewells

Paul A. Hood MS ’74, Salem, Ohio, April 3, 2021.

Richard A. Little MS ’86, Eaton, Ohio, Feb. 28, 2021.

FACULTY, STAFF, AND FRIENDS

Douglas A. Ison ’74, Blanchester, Ohio, May 22, 2021.

Jeanne Matolyak Kay ’87, Olmsted Falls, Ohio, June 29, 2021.

Thelma Ballew Johnson MEd ’74, Cincinnati, Ohio, May 18, 2021.

Gary W. Luttrell ’87, Windyville, Mo., March 30, 2021.

Dorothy L. Avery, Oxford, Ohio, March 4, 2021. Secretary for Miami NROTC for over 30 years.

Michael D. O’Leary ’74, Hamilton, Ohio, July 10, 2019.

Nancy Ferdinandsen Cowden MS ’88 PhD ’93, Lynchburg, Va., Nov. 14, 2020.

Jeff J. Pandora ’74, Brunswick, Ohio, July 5, 2020.

Dennis E. Parkinson ’74, Frisco, Colo., May 23, 2021.

Mark S. Hoxie ’76, Beavercreek, Ohio, May 31, 2021.

Jennifer L. Mader ’76, Berea, Ohio, Oct. 12, 2020.

Robert J. Mulligan ’77, McLean, Va., June 20, 2021.

William R. Pomeroy ’77, Sarasota, Fla., June 20, 2021.

Jerry E. Hauck ’78, Edgewood, Ky., July 28, 2021.

1980s Robert A. Buehler ’80, Wooster, Ohio, April 28, 2021.

Mary Ann Schneider Handley ’80, New Albany, Ohio, March 22, 2021.

David W. McCampbell ’80, Richardson, Texas, April 14, 2021.

Jane Roth Williams ’80, Woodsfield, Ohio, May 13, 2021.

Shari White Farmer MEd ’81, Oxford, Ohio, Feb. 17, 2021.

David P. Thomas ’81 MS ’82 MS ’85, Middletown, Ohio, Sept. 6, 2020.

Lisa Alsip Cosentino ’82, Defiance, Ohio, June 11, 2021.

David S. Yeager ’82, North Tonawanda, N.Y., April 30, 2021.

Carol Clark Kerler ’84, Eaton, Ohio, April 3, 2021.

Linda Armstrong Rittenhouse ’84, Hillsborough, Calif., Nov. 10, 2020.

Walker A. “Tony” Brandenburg ’85, Hamilton, Ohio, May 31, 2021.

Robert W. Redick ’85, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Sept. 3, 2020.

1990s Kristin Marie Reiboldt Fischer ’90, Hudson, Ohio, Aug. 31, 2021.

Richard J. Kuhar ’90, Indialantic, Fla., May 23, 2021.

Frank W. Jevnikar ’91, Cleveland, Ohio, March 22, 2021.

Julie True Weisbrodt ’91, Goshen, Ohio, May 5, 2021.

Robert T. Meyer ’93, Hamilton, Ohio, June 10, 2021.

Clifford E. Browne II ’94, Columbus, Ohio, Aug. 21, 2021.

Gina S. Grigsby ’94, Lebanon, Ohio, March 5, 2021.

Jeffrey W. Bowling ’95, Hamilton, Ohio, Aug. 27, 2021.

Mark S. Goins ’96, Cincinnati, Ohio, May 17, 2021.

David C. Ferch ’98, Fernandina Beach, Fla., May 22, 2021.

2000s Shane R. Estep ’00 MEd ’08, Franklin, Ohio, Aug. 24, 2021.

Karl J. Heinz ’00, Oakland, Mo., April 24, 2021.

Travis S. Heck ’05, Hapeville, Ga., Aug. 6, 2021.

Paul F. Jewett ’11, Hamilton, Ohio, March 13, 2021.

William C. Soppanish ’12, Monroe, Ohio, May 31, 2021.

Jeff R. Kepper MA ’15, La Jolla, Calif., June 4, 2021.

Elizabeth A. Hammargren ’17, San Antonio, Texas, April 7, 2021.

Zachary S. Wilson ’18, Chicago, Ill., March 25, 2021.

Phyllis J. Ayers, Oxford, Ohio, April 2, 2021. Employed by Miami 61 years in Martin Dining Hall.

Michael S. Broida, Oxford, Ohio, Aug. 14, 2021. Professor emeritus, decision sciences and management information systems, 1970-2007.

James H. Burch, Fort Myers, Fla., March 10, 2021. Retired, director of audio visual services.

Jeannie Marie-Lise Ducher, Oxford Ohio, Aug. 3, 2021. Associate clinical professor in the College of Education, Health and Society.

Donald J. Fitzpatrick, Auburn, Mass., Oct. 22, 2020. In charge of Miami’s NROTC program, beginning in 1984. Retired from the Navy and stayed in Oxford as professor of business management until 2004.

Pamela Ilg Harring ’69 MAT ’95, Fairfield, Ohio, July 22, 2021.

Worked with student teachers.

Michael G. Hawisher, New Paris, Ohio, June 16, 2021. Retired, computer supervisor.

Bessie Jean Suel Miller, Oxford, Ohio, Aug. 27, 2021. In food and dining services, Harris Dining Hall, late 1970s-1980s.

Philip Morsberger, Augusta, Ga., Jan. 3, 2021. Widely respected painter, taught at Miami in 1960s.

Winifred C. Pearson, Oxford, Ohio, Aug. 27, 2021. Former first lady of Miami, 1981-1992. (See tribute letters on page 5.)

Karl L. Schilling, Oxford, Ohio, May 11, 2021. For over 20 years assistant, associate, and acting dean of Western College Program.

Also associate director of Center for Teaching Excellence.

Lawrence W. Sherman, Fort Collins, Colo., July 15, 2021.

Professor emeritus of educational psychology, 1971-2010.

David ’92, Oxford, Ohio, June 26, 2021. Professor of finance since 2004, also director of Global Business Programs.

Gilbert H. Siegel Jr., Oxford, Ohio, Aug. 6, 2021. Associate vice president emeritus for Student Affairs, came to Miami in 1966 as a freshman advisor, retired in 2002 as president’s executive assistant.

Anne H. Hopkins, Jacksonville, Fla., July 4, 2021. Provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, 1994-1998.

Kristine Elise Stewart ’91, Oxford, Ohio, Sept. 21, 2021.

Started as coordinator of Parents Program in 1995, later assistant to vice president for Parent Programs and Divisional Initiatives, 1997-2014.

William E. Knight, Fairfield, Ohio, April 7, 2021. Assistant provost for institutional research and effectiveness.

Miles M. Vance ’52, Hamilton, Ohio, July 19, 2021. Associate director of Student Health Service, 1977-1992.

Anita Rena Lee, Oxford, Ohio, June 16, 2021. Office administrator at Rinella Learning Center; at Miami over 20 years.

Jacqueline S. Wallace, Coral Gables, Fla., June 11, 2021.

Director of Western College Alumnae Association, 1983-2000.

Chung H. Lee ’61, Kailua, Hawaii, May 12, 2021. Taught economics.

Robert Zwirn, New Orleans, La., May 1, 2021. Former professor and director of architecture department, 1984-1991.

Sandra L. Mastandrea, Xenia, Ohio, April 19, 2021. Tutoring center coordinator in Rinella Learning Center, retiring in 2009 after 32 years.

In Memory of… If you would like to make a contribution in memory of a classmate, friend, or relative, send your gift to Miami University in care of Megan Smith, Advancement Services Building, Miami University, 926 Chestnut Lane, Oxford, Ohio 45056.

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days of old

Art Bridges Cultures Artist Eugene Brown created “A Tribe Named Miami, A

“A Tribe Named Miami, A Surveyor’s Stake, A Town Named Oxford” was created by Tribe Elder Eugene Brown in 2003 to strengthen the relationship between the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and Miami University. The 31 x 10 x 30-inch wood sculpture is currently on display at the Miami University Art Museum. An enlarged cast bronze replica of it was installed by the artist in the art museum’s sculpture park in 2008.

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miamian magazine

Surveyor’s Stake, A Town Named Oxford” in 2003 as part of his mission to keep his tribe’s culture alive.

“I want to preserve American Indian culture. If just one generation keeps it and doesn’t pass it on, then it is lost,” said Brown, who was born in 1926 in Quapaw, Oklahoma, and was an elder of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma.

His original work — a 31 x 10 x 30-inch wood with pigment — is on display at the Miami University Art Museum (MUAM), on loan from the collection of Joseph Leonard, Miami professor emeritus of Management and son of the late Miami Chief Floyd Leonard.

In 2008, an enlarged cast bronze replica was installed in MUAM’s sculpture park. It features natural elements valued in the Myaamia culture, such as a loon, a sandhill crane (representing the Myaamia people), and a turtle at the base (representing Myaamia land), with cattails surrounding other plants and animals important to the Tribe.

The white post through the center represents a surveyor’s stake, which symbolizes the transition of this land from Myaamia homelands into a territory and a state, upon which the university was founded.

This sculpture aims to strengthen the relationship between the university and the Tribe. As explained in the Miami University Sculpture Park Viewing Guide, “The sculpture represents an intersection of Miami with the land it was built on, as well as a connector between the past, present, and future. This initiative to revitalize the ties to [Myaamia] culture in 2008 is another branch in Miami’s ongoing initiative to more adequately honor its borrowed name.”

While Brown passed away in 2017, his work continues to keep both his and his tribe’s memory alive. He became active with the Miami Tribe in the early 1970s, in an effort to recapture his heritage. He learned woodworking skills as a child and started making flutes, mainly from rivercane, after attending many powwows to study Native American flute music.

The Oxford campus as painted by nature in warm fall colors.

Summer 2018

3

Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage

PAID

Burlington, VT 05401 Permit No. 396

Miami’s Oxford campus on the rise See page 26