Miamian - Spring/Summer 2022 by David Hummel

miamian The Magazine of Miami University

Visual Voices By turning ordinary objects into extraordinary art, the incarcerated find a way to be heard. MacArthur Fellow Nicole Fleetwood ’94 is listening.

Spring/Summer 2022

I N T H I S I SSU E :

Now 100, Scripps Center Ages Gracefully A Dear Friendship with Hank Aaron Sometimes You Just Gotta Brag

OV E R THE MO O N Preston Anderson’s “Tunnel Vision,” a 24 x 24 inch acrylic on canvas, will head to the moon one day. The Miami junior from Nashville, Tennessee, a double major in business economics and finance, is thrilled to be among 76 artists from the curated exhibit “Shelter” whose works will be laser-etched on nickel microfiche to be enclosed in a time capsule on a Nova-C lunar lander. The exhibit, a response to the global pandemic, explored objects, places, and memories that offer safe harbor, tranquility, comfort, and solace.

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

Vol. 40, No. 2

miamian

Photographers Jeff Sabo Scott Kissell

The Magazine of Miami University

Copy Editor Lucy Baker

STORIES

Design Consultant Lilly Pereira www.aldeia.design

18 One for the Ages

Among the nation’s best for research in aging, Scripps Gerontology Center celebrates its 100th birthday.

University Advancement 513-529-4029 Vice President for University Advancement Brad Bundy Hon ’13 brad.bundy@MiamiOH.edu

22 From Hero to Kindred Soul

Friend and mentor for 40 years, home run king Hank Aaron teaches sports writer Terence Moore ’78 how to handle racism.

Alumni Relations 513-529-5957 Executive Director of the Alumni Association Kim Tavares MBA ’12 kim.tavares@MiamiOH.edu Office of Development 513-529-3867 Interim Senior Associate Vice President for Development Ryan Elias eliasrr@MiamiOH.edu

24 Marking Time: Creativity Behind Bars MacArthur Fellow Nicole Fleetwood ’94 uses prisoners’ art as a lens to encourage new approaches to justice.

30 Bragging Rights Bragging Rights (see page 30)

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

Nicole Fleetwood ’94 is a 2021 MacArthur Fellow, one of only 25. She received the “genius” grant because she is “demonstrating that art and imagery produced and used by incarcerated individuals is a critically important form of human expression.” Photo courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. See more about her and her work on page 24.

From the Super Bowl to the Frisco Bowl, Miami’s proud of its athletes — both its students and its alumni.

IN EACH ISSUE

MiamiOH.edu/alumni

ON THE COVER

Spring/Summer 2022

12 From the Hub

14 Media Matters

13 Back & Forth

16 My Story

Scripps Gerontology Center: Aging Well

To and From the Editor

Game On (see page 10)

16 Along Slant Walk Campus News Highlights

10 Such a Life Game On

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 Inquiry + Innovation Who’s Peeing in the Global Pool?

Arnie and Jack and Charlie

Miami Made It Happen

32 Love & Honor

Addressing a Lack of Black Male Teachers

34 Class Notes

Notes, News, Weddings

46 Farewells 48 Days of Old

Coming Up Roses

Miamian is published two times a year by the University Advancement Division of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056. Copyright © 2022, 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

Scripps Gerontology Center: Aging Well By President Greg Crawford “Sweetie.” That single word, whispered by Cora to

Elizabeth “Like” Lokon, became the impetus for one of our Scripps Gerontology Center’s most significant programs, Opening Minds through Art (OMA). Before she founded OMA in 2007, Like (pronounced Leeka) was a master’s student in Miami’s gerontological studies program. During that time, she regularly visited an Oxford nursing home to meet with Cora, a woman in her 80s with advanced dementia who couldn’t talk, walk, or eat on her own. “What Cora could do is hold a paint brush and move it ever so slowly to blend colors and create new colors,” explained Like, who has since earned two master’s degrees and a doctorate from Miami. “I’ll never forget when one day, I was kneeling next to her wheelchair, talking to her about a painting, when she slowly raised her hand and touched my head. I stopped talking. “Then, out of the blue, she whispered, The OMA story is ‘Sweetie.’ It was the first time she had spoespecially powerful ken in years. The nursing home staff was stunned. I knew something really special as it ties back to just happened.” everything Scripps Inspired by Cora’s coming out of her silence to declare her friendship, Like is about — making wanted to share Cora’s gift with others. It a positive difference was at that moment that OMA was born. Since then, nearly 2,600 of our students in the lives of have participated in this intergenerational aging individuals, art program, directed by Like, which pairs them with older adults and successfully their families, and builds bridges across age and cognitive communities. barriers. The OMA story is an especially powerful one because it ties back to everything that the Scripps Gerontology Center is about — making a positive difference in the lives of aging individuals, their families, and communities. Founded in 1922 by Cincinnati newspaper magnate E.W. Scripps to conduct research in population

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problems, our center has a rich history and has become one of the leading voices in gerontology and demography. In 2011, it was named an Ohio Center of Excellence because of the support its staff, faculty associates, students, and alumni provide through stellar research, education, and service. As we celebrate its first 100 years this September, we also look toward its next century and how it can continue to help society. Suzanne Kunkel MA ’79, its director since 1998, believes reframing the way we approach aging is a key aspect of both the center’s foundation and its future. I sat in on a teaching session where Suzanne explained reframing by discussing unintentional ageism such as when we use the word elderly. Suzanne, who appreciates that we intend no disrespect, looked around the small group and asked, “What does it mean to be elderly? When You are invited to write to do you decide someone is President Greg Crawford elderly? Age 65 or 110? The at president@MiamiOH.edu. Follow him on Twitter word conveys frailty and @MiamiOHPres. is too vague. If you want to talk about people who have losses and declines and need assistance, that’s what we say, not the elderly or the seniors. We used to say demented people. Now we say people living with Alzheimer’s. They are not the disease.” This is what OMA’s students are discovering as they sit side by side with their older partners, getting to know each other as they collaborate on their weekly paintings. During Scripps’ 100th birthday, Miami University recognizes all that the center has accomplished and is thankful for the many gifts it has provided us and so many others. We look forward to its next 100 years.

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miamian The Magazine of Miami University

Fall/Winter 2021

myaamiaki eemamwiciki M I A M I AWA K E N I N G

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

IN THIS ISSUE:

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

Beauty of sandhill cranes I was surprised to see the recent Miamian cover — so beautiful! We see sandhill cranes regularly here in south Florida. Just a few weeks ago, a flock of them passed in front of my car. The cranes are very interesting in their movements and interactions with people. One time I was washing my car on a hot Florida summer day and a few cranes came from across the street and seemed to want me to gently spray them. I did, and they preened their wings and seemed to enjoy it! One more story about the cranes: I saw a guy with a hunting dog instruct his dog to chase a group of them until they flew away. The dog came back to its owner, and the cranes flew back as well. They enjoyed the interaction and wanted to be chased again! —Dave Gibson Venice, Florida Red-brick reverie The Fall/Winter 2021 Miamian had lots of good articles. I especially enjoyed the story on “The

Two Miamis,” about the relationship between the Miami Tribe and Miami University. As an undergraduate student in the early 1970s, I recall learning about the blossoming communication and sharing of ideas between the Tribe and the University, with a visit by Chief Forest Olds. I am very impressed with the work of Daryl Baldwin and the Myaamia Center. The work being done with the Tribe’s art and language is a great step in bringing history and people together. I am excited for their future. I haven’t been back to Oxford in quite some time, so I enjoyed the article on all the new construction going on around campus, “Innovation Among the Red Bricks.” I get the impression our school colors should be brick red and white, which is fine with me. I look forward to walking the campus the next time I’m in town, and seeing the most beautiful campus in the country, with its red-brick atmosphere and wonderful landscapes. Come to think of it, why not share some of this college atmosphere with the rest of the country. We should incorporate the faint outline of red bricks on some of our attire. I don’t think the Red Brick Society would object. In fact, let’s go one step further and incorporate just a faint outline of red bricks on Miami’s athletic uniforms. Imagine a light outline of bricks across the front of track jerseys, of course using the “running bond”! Even better, put a light outline of red bricks on the shoulders of football jerseys. Let opposing teams know they are up against Miami’s Brick Wall. Coaches, are you picking up on this?

Well, enough of this craziness for now. Thank you for the fine stories brought out in this recent Miamian. I would even enjoy a page or two on Miami sports teams and student athletes. I haven’t heard about Miami’s hockey team in a long time. I watched the RedHawks have a good bowl game. And how is the Rugby Club doing these days? —Chuck Thompson ’75 Fayette, Missouri 3 generations of learning Great article in the Fall/Winter Miamian, “The Two Miamis.” Three generations of Baldwins studying the Myaamia language is impressive. —Becky Smith Stebelton ’62 Lancaster, Ohio

Send letters to: Donna Boen Miamian editor 301 S. Campus Ave., Room 22 Campus Avenue Building, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056 Miamian@MiamiOH.edu; or fax to 513-529-1950.

Library study ‘dates’ The photo of the Alumni Library reading room and the brief commentary about it on page 34 (Fall/ Winter 2021 Miamian) drew my attention. I cannot be certain that the reading room of my time at Miami (1954–1958) was the same one pictured, but there was a large rectangular reading room appended to the east side of the main structure that was set up similarly to the one pictured (long rows of tables and chairs). As I recall, it was fairly well utilized. At the time, it served as a destination

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.

Spring/Summer 2022

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“Quickly this room became not only a study room, but a favorite meeting place for students bent on other activities.”

for “library study dates,” apparently considered a bit less adventurous than College Inn or Mac and Joe’s dates. By the way, the notion of a general reading room in academic libraries did not disappear in more modern times. I became the director of libraries for the University of North Dakota in 1973 (and until 1989), thus having had the opportunity to visit an array of academic libraries during that time. I observed that nearly all had maintained a general reading room. —Ed Warner ’58 Toledo, Ohio Editor’s note: In her book, History of the Miami University Libraries, Jane Baer ’46 describes the reading room, which adjoined the rotunda to the east after Alumni Library opened in 1910 and before the later east wing was added in 1924, the reading room Ed recalls. Jane writes, “The author’s parents were both freshmen in the year 1909, each welcomed by a personal handshake from President Benton. Both young people had memories of those last days of the “McSurely” library in Old Main, the young man remembering, as a sub-freshman, studying at the famous McGuffey table. … She recalled the influx of students to the East Reading Room each day at 4 o’clock when classes were over. “Quickly this room became not only a study room, but a favorite meeting place for students bent on other activities.” Endearing tribute I was shocked (quite pleasantly, I hasten to add) while watching Saturday Night Live several years

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ago to see one of the actors in a sketch wearing a navy-blue sweatshirt emblazoned in white letters with the words Miami University. I thought, “What??!! How cool is that!!??” Little ol’ Miami University gets a boost on nationally televised SNL!! I wondered how the heck that happened. Well, I learned the answer to that question when reading “From Studio 14 to NBC and Back” (Fall/ Winter 2021 Miamian) about the late Rick Ludwin ’70, who was executive vice president of NBC Entertainment before his untimely death in November 2019. A tip of the hat to Josh Chapin ’02, associate director of content in Miami’s Advancement Division, for his informative and endearing tribute to the late Mr. Ludwin. —Lou Pumphrey ’64 Shaker Heights, Ohio

She enriched the lives of students and faculty at Miami. —Allen Berger, Heckert Professor emeritus of Reading and Writing at Miami University Savannah, Georgia

One of the best I’d like to say a few words about Anne Hopkins. I saw the announcement of her death in the Fall/ Winter 2021 Miamian. I simply wish to say she was one of the best administrators I’ve experienced in my 40 years in higher education. In her position as provost, she supported Teens for Literacy, a program I founded during my tenure at Miami University. She went to the annual lunches and mingled with the inner-city school students when they visited campus. Anne often ate breakfast at McDonald’s in Oxford. She sat at the same little table for two, reading a newspaper and sometimes talking with people nearby. If I had a question, I would phone her office and was often told, “Let’s meet tomorrow morning in McDonald’s.”

Puzzling response I finally put together this Miami U. jigsaw puzzle and discovered yet another value of a Miami education. Most 500-piece puzzles say 10-99 years; it only took me 3 days. —Steve Shaffer ’76 Richmond Heights, Ohio Editor’s note: Wondering how much Steve’s Miami Merger, Becky Smith Shaffer ’77, helped. Just saying. Merci, Dr. Wing I was a freshman at Miami in 1974. I liked my classes, Tappan Hall, the dining hall, new friends, but one professor really stood out for me. His name was Dr. Nathaniel Wing; he taught French. I had taken four years of French in high school and liked it and wanted to take it as a humanities

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credit. Dr. Wing was amazing from the start. He was so interesting in class. If I needed to see him at his office hours, he was so helpful and friendly. That made my first quarter at Miami so much better. I went on to be an English teacher for 33 years, but I will always remember Dr. Wing. I just wanted to say thank you. —Peggy Dewey Opatken ’78 Powell, Ohio Highly regarded Today, my wife and I went to the tennis club to which we belong to get some hitting practice on a ball machine, and I happened to wear a Miami University ball cap — a red one with a black and white M. On the adjoining court, there was another couple practicing. When the man saw me, he asked, “Where is that hat from — is it Miami of Ohio?” I told him that it was, and he immediately commented, “That is the most beautiful college campus I have ever seen.” He had no real tie to Miami although his daughter almost attended, and it was clear that he thought highly of Miami in all aspects, not just its beauty. We Miamians know how wonderful Miami is, but I thought it important to share this unsolicited comment showing how highly regarded our campus is by casual visitors. —Robert Peiffer ’65 Charleston, South Carolina A faithful reader As always, I read it cover to cover. Great content. Great photos. I’m always happy to open my mailbox and see the Miamian. —Kathy Branch Spicer ’87 Athens, Ohio

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Tales T-shirts Tell Day in and day out, I wear nothing-special shirts. I know you do, too.

We don’t recall where we bought them or got them or even how long ago. But we have to wear something. Pajamas in the office just aren’t part of the dress code, at least not yet … in most offices. However, I have a selection of T-shirts that have a lot to say, and I wear them proudly. Furthermore, I can tell you in mind-numbing detail about every one of them. Actually, they can do their own talking. The black-and-white #MoveInMiami T isn’t shy. It announces to everyone: “They unpack. We give back.” I own a few more subtle conversationalists as well, the long-sleeved zip and the bright red pullover that simply state “Miami University.” Enough said. My favorite is the T that I picked up in Miami, Oklahoma, at the Miami Tribe headquarters. The eye-catching design features the Myaamia word neepwaantinki and explains it to mean that the Miami Tribe and Miami University are learning from each other. I keep telling myself I better reach for this one less, or I’ll wear it out and be mighty unhappy. Ironically, the one I like least is the one I wear most. The message, “2019 Team Miami Plus,” brings back good memories of training for Miami’s Red Brick Run, in which I walked, but fast. Certainly faster than I have since then. It’s not the message I dislike, but the material. We all have ’em. You know what I mean. It’s too clingy for my taste, so every time I have a messy house project — going after irksome weeds, painting over the scar in the garage door (don’t ask), rolling pie dough — I pull this shirt on. It’s stained and graying, but it refuses to die. Ironically, the Miami shirt I value the most is one I never wear. Instead, I have it carefully folded and put away on a top shelf of my closet. It’s the gray sweatshirt I’m holding in the photo at right. I gave it to my dad as a Christmas present in 1997. My dad never went to college, but all four of his kids did. He made sure of that. And he wore that sweatshirt with such pride. When anyone came up to him and asked about it, you’d have thought, the way he talked, that I was Miami’s president or maybe even its founder. Enough of my Miami shirt stories. Now it’s your turn. I know you have similar Miami gear with their own stories — your freshman corridor shirt, the 25-year reunion garb you all donned for your group photo. I’d love to chuckle over your anecdotes and see pictures of your special Miami gear. If I receive enough, I may even run an article featuring them in a future magazine. My address in on page 3. I can’t wait to hear from you. —Donna Boen ’83 MTSC ’96

My dad was as proud of his Miami sweatshirt as any alum. Sure wish I could see him wearing it once again.

Spring/Summer 2022

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Co-principal investigators for the $1.49 million NSF grant are Kumar Singh (center) and Fazeel Khan (far left), both professors of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering; Robert Davis, associate dean at the Regionals (not pictured); and Rose Marie Ward (second from right), associate dean of the Graduate School. Other faculty involved include Marianne Murphy, chair of Computer Information Technology, Regionals (second from left); Mert Bal, chair of Engineering Technology, Regionals (not pictured); Daniela Inclezan, associate professor, Computer Science and Software Engineering (far right); and Zhiyuan Yu, assistant professor of Engineering Technology, Regionals (not pictured).

Filling the STEM Gap National Science Foundation grant of $1.49 million will help students with financial needs obtain degrees in STEMrelated fields.

miamian magazine

Over the next six years, a $1.49 million grant

from the National Science Foundation (NSF) is expected to fund 132 scholarships for highachieving Miami University students with financial need interested in earning degrees in engineering, computer science, and technology. Nationwide, there is a critical demand in the growing areas of computer science, advanced manufacturing, and robotics, but there is a gap in the current workforce and required skill sets, said Kumar Singh, professor of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering. Singh is principal investigator for the NSF grant, which is a collaborative effort between Miami’s Oxford and Regional campuses. “This National Science Foundation STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and

Mathematics) grant will have a tremendous impact on the college,” said Beena Sukumaran, dean of Miami’s College of Engineering and Computing. “It aligns with our goals by providing access to diverse student populations.” Singh and Fazeel Khan, a departmental colleague, have launched a project to better align engineering programs at Miami with industry needs through the university’s “Boldly Creative” Strategic Academic Enrichment Initiative. The two professors are members of a Miami team who received nearly $600,000 from the Ohio Department of Higher Education to help induct more students into Ohio’s workforce. This Choose Ohio First grant supports more than a dozen Ohio students per year who are studying robotics, manufacturing, or automation.

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A Miracle Match

I’M GLAD YOU ASKED

Graduating senior provides life-saving gift to 69-year-old with leukemia

We asked members of the Class of 1970, 1971, and 1972 celebrating their 50th Reunion Alumni Weekend:

Zoe Kelley was sitting in class when she

What advice do you have for the Class of 2026?

learned that a cheek swab she did during a marrow donor recruitment drive on campus was a match for a 69-year-old battling leukemia. “It was nice to know that I was about to make a difference in someone’s life,” said Kelley, a double major in Marketing and Professional Writing from West Chester, Ohio. She had swabbed her cheek at her sorority Zeta Tau Alpha’s chapter meeting in 2019 and did not think anything would come of it. But two years later, she was contacted as a match, said Jordan Ledyard, recruitment specialist for Gift of Life Marrow Registry, a public bone marrow and blood stem cell registry in Boca Raton, Florida. After completing additional testing, Kelley was able to donate her peripheral blood stem cells at Gift of Life’s headquarters in January. She and her mother flew to Boca Raton. (Her father is Chris Kelley PhD ’03, assistant teaching professor of Political Science.) Kelley ended up having a “once-ina-lifetime opportunity to be a miracle match for this patient,” said Ledyard, explaining the donation process known as apheresis, in which stem cells are separated from the donor’s whole blood.

If all you do is go to class and go back to your room and study, I don’t think you’re going to grow. You want to be involved. Today there are many more clubs and committees and things like that. — Mike Bevis ’70, Centerville, Ohio

Zoe Kelley ’22, interested in book publishing, donated peripheral blood stem cells in January.

“Her stem cells get set aside, while the remainder of her blood is filtered back into her body through the other arm,” she said, describing it as a “fairly simple procedure.” Following her donation, Kelley went on to organize two more donor recruitment drives on campus, which led to more than 120 new donors added to the registry, improving patients’ odds of finding a match.

“What I had was rare. I had parents who were willing to turn off the TV. They would sit down in the living room and read at night.” — Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked and dozens of other novels for adults and children, speaking on “No Rest for the Wicked,” Feb. 14, 2022, as part of Miami’s 2021-2022 Lecture Series

Be prepared, be ready for new experiences, find someone to study with, be organized, study, yet save time to have fun. — Deloris Rome Hudson ’71, Eaton, Ohio

You are starting a once-ina-lifetime experience, but one which will fly by. Don’t procrastinate. Jump in with both feet. — Pat Sidley ’72, Oxford, Ohio

Spring/Summer 2022

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NOTEWORTHY

Maj. Gen. (Dr.) Sharon Bannister ’88 gave the keynote speech at Miami’s spring ceremony May 14. The director of medical operations of the Office of the Surgeon General of the U.S. Air Force congratulated the 4,300 graduates at the morning ceremony in Yager Stadium, assuring them that their Miami education has given them what they need to establish their “why.” “It’s now time to go out and find it — it’s time to start building your list of experiences and make the world a better place.” Denise Taliaferro Baszile, professor of Educational Leadership and associate dean of diversity and student experience in the College of Education, Health, and Society, has been awarded the 2022 Benjamin Harrison Medallion. Named for America’s 23rd president who graduated from Miami in 1852, the medallion is Miami’s most prestigious career faculty honor and recognizes contributions to the education of the nation. Her scholarship brings together concepts from curriculum, Black feminist thought, and critical race theory. Travis Steele is the new men’s basketball coach. He joins Miami after a four-year stint as head coach at Xavier University, where he posted a 70-50 mark while at the helm of the program and led the Musketeers to two postseason berths. Steele said his style will have Miami pushing the ball offensively, playing smart and together, and taking pride on the defensive end.

miamian magazine

RISING RANKS

2nd 38th

in U.S. for study abroad for undergraduates among public doctoral universities in latest Open Doors report

in top 50 of nation’s “Best Value Public Colleges,” as ranked by Princeton Review for 2022

Promising Researchers Rising seniors Evan Danielson and Zoe Platow have received Goldwater scholarships for 2022-2023. They are among seven from Ohio public universities and only 417 nationwide to receive the premier undergraduate award for students intending a research career in mathematics, natural sciences, and engineering. Danielson is a Chemical Engineering and Music Performance double major from Oxford. He is planning to start work on a project researching how

enzymes can be used for polyester degradation — or recycling plastic — to replace the solvents and energyintensive high temperatures currently used in the process. Platow is a Biochemistry/Psychology double major and Neuroscience comajor from Harleysville, Pennsylvania. She is researching the effects of adolescent exposure to benzodiazepines (such as Valium, Xanax, and Ativan) on adulthood stress and alcohol intake, using rats as research subjects.

Evan Danielson with his faculty mentor, Jason Berberich, associate professor of Paper, Chemical, and Biomedical Engineering, and Zoe Platow with her faculty mentor, Matthew McMurray, assistant professor of Psychology.

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Precise footwork golden: Miami’s collegiate team (seen here during practice) captured a gold medal and the program’s 20th collegiate national title with a record-setting performance at the U.S. National Synchronized Skating Championships in March, while the senior team produced the best free skate score at the competition en route to a silver medal and their ticket to the world championships. A month later, a powerful free skate program at the ISU World Synchronized Skating Championships punctuated a thrilling weekend for Miami’s senior synchronized skating team, which finished sixth in the world among a 23-team field of the best. For more “Bragging Rights,” see page 30.

$500 Million Milestone A strong fundraising performance for

2021 has put University Advancement over the $500 million mark in funds raised since the conclusion of the For Love and Honor campaign in 2013. The division raised more than $53.7 million in new gifts and pledges last year, including $52.5 million in cash, the second highest cash total in a calendar year. Scholarship support remained high at $16 million in donations. Corporations, foundations, and other organizations gave $17 million.

Engaging alumni in meaningful ways also remained a priority. The Miami University Alumni Association continued reaching alumni everywhere in the world with its popular Love. Honor. Learn. series of webinars and a hybrid of virtual and in-person events. The alumni association’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts continued with 33 webinars on DEI topics, as well as more multigenerational programming, including Grandparents College and travel opportunities.

NEW ADVANCEMENT VP With more than 30 years of experience in higher education fundraising, Brad Bundy Hon. ’13 is stepping into the top leadership position for Miami’s Division of University Advancement. Named vice president earlier this spring, Bundy brings a wide range of experience to the position, including 21 years of leading fundraising efforts at Miami, most recently as senior associate vice president for University Advancement and chief development officer of the Miami University Foundation.

Spring/Summer 2022

such a life

GAME ON Miami isn’t playing around when it comes to its Games + Simulation bachelor’s degree. Only two years old, it’s been named one of the top 10 game design degrees in the U.S. for 2022 by Intelligent.com, which assessed 236 education programs in 209 universities and colleges, evaluating flexibility, faculty, course strength, cost, and reputation. Housed within the Department of Emerging Technology in Business + Design, Miami’s program prepares students for careers in a rapidly growing industry. Recent forecasts are estimating that the video gaming industry will be worth $268 billion by 2025. When not in class, students keep their minds and skills sharp in Miami’s new Esports Lounge (seen here) in the Armstrong Student Center. Esports features multiplayer video games played competitively, often with spectators. BestColleges named Miami’s the No. 1 varsity esports program of 2022 in the U.S.

Spring/Summer 2022

inquiry + innovation

Who’s Peeing in the Global Pool?* By Elizabeth Preston

A giant database of the underwater excretions of fish, frogs, and other creatures could help scientists understand the effects of fishing and climate change.

* 12

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Compiling more than 10,000 lines of data on the waste products of aquatic animals, from lake trout to pond insects to ocean shellfish, was more time-consuming than ecologist Michael Vanni expected. But he didn’t mind. “I love data on fish pee,” he says. Vanni, of Miami University, and his co-author, Peter McIntyre, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, had plunged into the project for their own research. But they soon realized the giant dataset they put together could be a resource for other scientists, too — all that work on animal waste didn’t have to go to waste itself. Why anyone cares about fish pee or frog pee or snail pee in the first place has to do with recycling. Nutrients in an ecosystem are used over and over again as they cycle through the food chain. In a forest, for example, when leaves fall to the ground, fungi and bacteria break them down and return their nutrients to the soil, where plants can use them again. Especially in aquatic environments, Vanni says, animals do a lot of this recycling. When fish excrete nitrogen and phosphorus, algae can take the molecules back up. To understand this accounting for a given ecosystem, it would help to be able to look at any animal and predict how much recycling it’s doing. That’s what Vanni and McIntyre wanted to know: “Are there ways that we can predict how much nitrogen and phosphorus an animal will excrete?” Vanni asks. “Are there general rules across all animal life?” To answer the question, they gathered as much data as they could find on excretion by animals living in water, whether freshwater or ocean — in other words, anything peeing in the global pool. Vanni says collecting these data for a small animal is pretty straightforward. You put the animal in a container of water, wait a given amount of time, then measure what it left behind. As long as you don’t stress the animal too much in the process — “You don’t want to literally scare the pee out of them” — you’ll get a decent idea of what it excretes. (A word on poop: In fish, just as in mammals, some

inquiry + innovation

molecules from food enter the bloodstream and are later released in urine. Waste products that go all the way through the gut without ever being absorbed become feces. Different animals handle their waste streams differently; birds, for example, combine the two types. This study is about urine, more or less. Animals living in water are releasing it all the time. It’s harder to study feces, Vanni says, because — as the at-home scientist may have observed — animals don’t release it as predictably.) Vanni and McIntyre contacted scientists who’d published studies about aquatic animal excretion and asked for their raw data. They ended up with data from about 100 sources, totaling 10,534 observations from around the world. Fish made up 36% of the observations, and 7% came from amphibians and reptiles. The remaining 57% came from invertebrates such as insects, crustaceans, mollusks, and worms. (Most water-dwelling mammals are too big to easily study this way; nothing in the dataset was much bigger than a few pounds.) Each observation included an animal’s species, size, habitat, water temperature, and position in the food chain. With that information, the researchers found they could come “pretty close” to predicting an animal’s nitrogen and phosphorus excretion, Vanni says, without actually making it pee in a bucket. But that’s far from the only question researchers might be able to answer with all this excretion data. Have closely related animals evolved similar excretion rates? Does the same species pee differently in different environments? Understanding how each creature affects the nutrients in its home could help researchers predict the effects of fishing, which weeds out larger animals, or climate change, which is expected to shrink body sizes. It could also help scientists deal with pest fish that recycle too many nutrients into the water, encouraging algal blooms.

“We wanted to put the data out there so people could use it, and we hope other people will write papers on this,” says Vanni, who notes that most of his research was funded by the NSF (National Science Foundation). He and McIntyre published their study about predicting animal excretion December 2016 in Ecology. The full dataset is available as a separate paper in the same journal, with everyone who shared data listed as a co-author. “This is certainly the way science is going,” Vanni says: researchers building big datasets and making them available to others. As much effort as he put into quality control for 10,000 points of pee data, he adds, “that’s nothing” compared to what other researchers are generating in fields like genomics. “It was just really refreshing to see how eager people were to share their data,” Vanni says — recycling their own nutrients, as it were, into the scientific ecosystem.

Understanding how each creature affects the nutrients in its home could help researchers predict the effects of fishing or climate change.

Michael Vanni, Miami professor of Biology, is being honored for his excellence in teaching and mentoring by the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) with the 2022 Margalef Award. He is fully committed to his trainees, and that is reflected in their success, said ASLO President Roxane Maranger. “His infectious curiosity and devotion to aquatic science excellence, combined with his kind and open demeanor, make Dr. Vanni a stellar example of what an effective leader and mentor in the field should be.” Focused on the ecology of lakes and streams and how they are influenced by the land surrounding them, he has provided research opportunities for more than 100 Miami undergraduates over the years.

Spring/Summer 2022

media matters

Arnie and Jack and Charlie Former LPGA Commissioner Charlie Mechem ’52 shares personal stories about his close friends and golfing legends Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus Asking Charlie Mechem ’52 to choose his

favorite story about his buddies Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus is like making him pick the greatest golfer of all time. He can’t do it. So when Mechem tells a few from his new book, Arnie and Jack — more than 40 personal stories that have never been published before — he obliges only after emphasizing that he loves them all equally. He then recalls an anecdote he heard from Arnold’s wife, Kit, about when she and Arnie were married in 2005 in Hawaii while Arnie was playing in a tournament. “They found a justice of the peace way out in the wilds of Hawaii,” said Mechem, who was a close adviser to Palmer for over 20 years. “She was a little lady, and as they were going into her tiny home, Kit says she said to Arnie, ‘Now Arnie, remember, we’re in the middle of nowhere, and she’s not going to know who you are, so don’t be offended.’ Anyway, nothing happened, and she married them. As they walked out the door, the justice of the peace said, ‘Lady, do you know how lucky you are?’ ” Mechem is discussing his third book from the La Quinta, California, home he and Marilyn ’54, his wife of almost 70 years, built at Tradition Golf Club, a course Arnie designed. The Palmers’ house is next door.

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He actually met Nicklaus before Palmer while head of Taft Broadcasting, when it commissioned Jack to build a public course north of Cincinnati across I-71 from Taft’s Kings Island. Nicklaus was just getting started with his course design efforts. When Nicklaus, now affectionately called the Golden Bear, joined the pros in 1962 and began challenging Palmer, Arnold’s fans, aka Arnie’s Army, hurled far less flattering nicknames at him. Because of that “ugly” time, Mechem is often asked if the two were truly friends. “Many people will be surprised to learn how warm and close these two men were,” he said. One of Mechem’s favorite stories happened when he was asked to become commissioner of the LPGA. He wanted to find out if Nicklaus thought he should accept. “ ‘Jack,’ I said, ‘the LPGA has asked me to be its commissioner. I’m inclined to do it, but what do you think?’ Jack said, ‘You better damn well do it. I recommended you.’ ”

Jack Nicklaus wrote in Arnie and Jack: “I can say with complete conviction that there isn’t a person, past or present, who knows more about Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, and the stories that took place between the two of us — and individually — than Charlie Mechem.”

media matters

Angeline’s Bluff Nancy Greene Vietor ’67 Archway Publishing Visiting Beaver Island, home of a monarchy and past home of the Odawa Tribe, to view an archaeological dig on her property, Kitt Graham falls in love with handsome part-Irish, part-Odawa detective Ben Donovan. Together, they must face a demented killer. How to Retire and Not Die Gary Sirak ’73 and Max Sirak LinMax Publishing Learn about the pillars of successful retirement and build a custom plan that’s right for you. With a little patience and practice, you will be enjoying the retirement of your dreams. Astra the Lonely Airplane Julie Lewis Whitney ’82 Belle Isle Books Astra is a sleek airplane who loves to fly with Capt. Dan. But when Astra and Dan find themselves out of a job, Astra must wait in her lonely hangar for a new owner to come along and give them somewhere to go! For K-5 readers and preschoolers, the rhyming picture book comes with a tour of

Astra by the real Capt. Dan (Julie’s husband) via a QR code. Fear Traps: Escape the Triggers That Keep You Stuck Nancy Stella MA ’84 PhD ’89 Berry Powell Press With more than 30 years of experience as a clinical psychologist, Nancy Stella helps us get unstuck by teaching us how our brains store painful memories. Her Courageous Brain Process provides six science-based steps you can take to manage your fears. Setbacks Into Comebacks Andy Billman ’90 Ethos Collective Diagnosed with stage three malignant brain cancer in 2018, Andy Billman believes struggles are as much a part of life as breath, but they don’t have to be debilitating. His story will empower you to live your best life. Ninety Days In the 90s Andy Frye ’94 Atmosphere Press A failed Wall Street trader who becomes a nostalgic Generation X record store owner decides to time travel to the mid-’90s to “reboot” her life and gets caught up in the music and fun of yesteryear.

Enjoy Your Solo: How To Be Great at Being Single Mary Delia Allen ’95 Kaywood Press Offering tips for how to be single and happy alone, Mary Delia Allen covers finances, friendships, and the functionality of single life, with insights and strategies on how to know yourself better and be positive about being single. The Valuation Treadmill: How Securities Fraud Threatens the Integrity of Public Companies James Park ’96 Cambridge University Press A leading expert, James Park reviews the history of securities fraud regulation from the 1960s until today, when, he writes, corporations have an incentive to issue unrealistically optimistic disclosure to convince markets that their success will continue. He believes securities regulation must do more to protect. Life Among the Milkweed Melissa Borowicz Betrus MA ’03 Buffalo Arts Publishing Featuring high-definition macro photography, this is a visual and poetic celebration of the creatures whose lives depend on the milkweed plant.

Connectable: How Leaders Can Move Teams from Isolated to All In Ryan Jenkins ’07 McGraw Hill Remote work, advancing technology, and an always-on work culture are fracturing our relationships, resulting in deep disconnection. A colossal 72% of global workers feel lonely at least monthly, with 55% saying at least weekly. Not only unhealthy, loneliness decreases productivity, loyalty, collaboration, and engagement. Learn how to transform a workforce into happier, more engaged employees.

Spring/Summer 2022

Alashi / Getty Images

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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Miami Made It Happen By Tom Romano ’71 MEd ’75

When the girl I would marry learned I was studying to be an English teacher, she was eager to introduce me to her aunt. Born in 1900, Aunt Mary taught public school children in Ohio for 35 years, earning a master’s degree during summers. She retired and moved 800 miles to Minnesota to teach English 10 more years in a private school for girls. When I was introduced to Aunt Mary, I thought, “You’ll never catch me teaching that long.”

my story

And here I am, recently retired after a 45-year teaching career, the last 24 of them in the Department of Teacher Education at Miami University. Taking the job wasn’t the first time I’d made it Miami. I’d done so in 1967, an unlikely first-year student. There was no legacy of academic accomplishment in my family. My mother had quit ninth grade in the teeth of the Great Depression. My father, an Italian immigrant and owner of a tavern and two bowling alleys, had no formal education. My hometown was working-class and small. The high school was tiny, with just 29 in my graduating class. No guidance counselor. No art class. No foreign language except Latin. The home ec teacher was also the English teacher. I was woefully ill-prepared for college. When I was 15 years old, two drag racers crashed head-on into my father’s car and killed him. Mom was insistent I go to college. The money was there. My parents’ prosperous business had enabled them to buy a mutual fund in my name when I was a child. I reaped the benefits of an America that welcomed immigrants, even swarthy southern Italians who spoke no English. Begrudgingly (and naively), I applied to one college, one with a cool name, I thought, even though I didn’t know where it was in Ohio. I got accepted and checked a map. It was the farthest in-state university from my hometown: 248 miles. My widowed mother didn’t blink. She was happy I was going to college, or, as she called it her entire life, “Miami U.” That fall of 1967 I quickly learned I was out of my league, socially, intellectually, educationally. I registered for anthropology, for example, thinking it was about dinosaurs. First semester I earned a 2.2 GPA … and wiped my brow in relief. Six credit hours of B, six of C, and one D in the course that was not about T-Rex. But I’d survived. I’d not gone on academic probation. Junior year I found the diminutive Milton White, a fiction writer of modest success and prodigious teaching skills. Milton believed in growth and development, not gatekeeping. He reveled in students’ baby steps as well as their strides. Milton badgered me to quell the pretentious written voice I had cultivated, a voice I believed educated people used when they wrote. I produced lengthy, complex sentences that included big words I barely

understood. Fifty years later, I can still hear Milton: “Say it simply, Romano.” Milton was a model of living with a heightened sense of language, of teaching with a sense of humor, of looking upon others with soft eyes and inviting their stories. Through Milton, I saw that writing could become a passion of my life. I became an English teacher, first of teenagers and then of college students. I sought to teach others to write a little better than they already did. The act of using language, I came to believe, was an act of creativity. Words are generative, malleable, and writing, first and foremost, is a journey toward meaning. The wall between creative writing and … well … uncreative writing crumbled. The last 24 years at Miami capped a fulfilling career. The final weeks were one long goodbye: an open house hosted by a colleague, an anthology of appreciations compiled by a former student, a celebratory retirement dinner in the College of Education, Health, and Society, and the task of finding homes for hundreds of books. During exam week, I was humbled by a letter from a graduating senior whom I’d taught two years earlier. She wrote in part, “Thank you for showing me what an effective writing teacher looks like, what it takes to get students enthusiastic about writing. You lovingly talked about Milton White throughout the semester. I hope you know you have succeeded in carrying on his legacy. You have inspired others the way he inspired you. I hope that I, too, can someday do the same for my students.” Ellen is studying for a doctorate now at Indiana University. I’m confident she will someday do what she hopes. Her gracious letter reminded me of Milton speaking affectionately of his writing teacher at Columbia in the 1940s, Mabel Louise Robinson. “I keep her name alive,” said Milton. The line of teachers and students, mentors and learners, grandparents, parents, and children who learn from each other is a long one. Learning and accomplishment grow from trusting relationships, encouragement, practice, critique, and often, a bit of good fortune. I certainly attest to all of those, especially the good fortune. We alumni have distinctive stories of our time at Miami, stories tied to family and friends, professors and courses, to indelible moments that changed our lives. I won’t forget. Neither will you.

The high school was tiny. The home ec teacher was also the English teacher. I was woefully illprepared for college.

Tom Romano ’71 MEd ’75 retired from Miami University in 2019. His most recent book is Write What Matters.

Spring/Summer 2022

100 SCRIPPS GERONTOLOGY CENTER @

ONE FOR THE AGES

D U RIN G A 1 9 1 8 boating expedition to China, retired newspaper mogul Edward Willis “E.W.” Scripps found time as he recovered from a stroke to examine a dissertation by prominent demographer Warren Thompson. In his paper, Thompson warned of an “unchecked population multiplying much faster than the world’s ability to provide subsistence for it.” Because of this research and the ensuing trip, where Scripps saw overpopulation and hunger firsthand, he reached out to the demographer. Together, the founder of 32 newspapers, with a home near Oxford in West Chester, and the lone academic began the Scripps Foundation for Research in Population Problems in 1922 out of an obscure reading room in Miami University’s Alumni Library. For more than 40 years, the foundation led in the study of population and fertility. Then, with its faculty increasing their expertise in aging-related research, the new direction called for a new designation. In 1972, its name changed to the Scripps Gerontology Center. Now one of the nation’s top centers for research in aging, its mission is to make a positive difference in the lives of aging individuals, their families, and communities. Here are a few highlights of Scripps’ many accomplishments during its first 100 years.

Scripps Gerontology Center, one of the nation’s top centers for research in aging, is maturing gracefully as it celebrates its 100th birthday

TIMELINE DETAILS COURT E SY O F

T H E M I A M I U N I V E R S I T Y S C R I P P S G E RO N TO LO GY C E N T E R A N D “ H I STO RY O F S CRIPPS GERO NTO LO GY C EN TE R: A L EG AC Y OF L E A D E RS HI P ” BY M I K E PAY N E M G S ’0 6

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1922

1963

In an April letter to Miami President R.M. Hughes — there is much correspondence among Hughes, E.W. Scripps [1], and Warren Thompson [3] in the year leading up to the foundation’s beginning on Sept. 1 — Thompson writes, “To do this will involve … a great deal of criticism from men who are established and doing work in the general field of economics. It will mean that for several years at least, the whole project will be pooh-poohed by the orthodox workers in this field.” No need to worry. Under Thompson, Scripps becomes the preeminent center for the study of U.S. population.

When Whelpton retires after decades of renowned service, he leaves an office not much bigger than the one he stepped into 39 years before. It is still in Alumni Library.

1964

Fred Cottrell, [5] a Miami professor of Political Science and chair of the Department of Sociology who participates in the first White House Conference on Aging in 1961, is named director. Public service becomes part of the foundation’s work when he shifts its focus to gerontology research and brings in Bob Atchley ’61. The office moves to Harrison Hall.

1926

E.W. Scripps dies on his yacht, The Ohio, [2] while traveling the coast of Liberia.

1967 [1] [2]

E.W. Scripps Archive, Photo Collection, Ohio University Libraries Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections

1930

[3]

U.S. Bureau of the Census begins a long partnership with Scripps Foundation for population statistics.

1948

A huge step for Scripps is publication of the Indianapolis Study, the first social/psychological investigation of fertility in the U.S.

1953

P.K. Whelpton, [4] who joins Scripps in 1924 and introduces cohort fertility, a long-standing, broadly used innovation in fertility projection, becomes director after Thompson retires.

Scripps receives a $170,000 grant to study the social/psychological effects of retirement on men and women. Cottrell also starts working with Mildred Seltzer ’42 PhD ’69, a longtime Sociology professor at Miami, to develop the university’s first gerontology course.

1972 [4]

[5]

During Scripps’ 50-year birthday, the Older Americans Act calls for the establishment of national centers of gerontology. The Scripps Foundation for Research in Population Problems becomes the Scripps Foundation Center of Gerontology, soon condensed to Scripps Gerontology Center. It moves to Hoyt Hall on Western campus.

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[7]

1974

Although the center remains separate from the Sociology Department, Atchley, [6] who becomes director of Scripps in 1974, reinforces strong ties between the two through his research in the sociology of aging and retirement and his collaboration with Seltzer in developing training programs in gerontology. “We did some of the real landmark research on women’s retirement,” Atchley said in a 1983 Miamian article. “What was nice about that research was that it really destroyed a lot of myths about women and their jobs.”

1994

[6] [8]

The U.S. Administration on Aging designates Scripps as one of only seven multidisciplinary centers on aging in the U.S. The $190,000 accompanying grant allows for production of “Developing Programs in Gerontology,” a guide that becomes a model across the U.S.

[9]

Scripps begins collecting biennial data on behalf of the Ohio Department of Aging to inform the Ohio Long-Term Care Consumer Guide (www. ltc.ohio.gov) through the Ohio Nursing Home Family Satisfaction Survey. In 2016, the Ohio Residential Care Facility Family Satisfaction Survey is added. To date, 200,000 families have provided input about Ohio's long-term care facilities.

[10]

2005

1989

The Ohio General Assembly funds Scripps to head the Ohio Long-Term Care Research

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Suzanne Kunkel MA ’79, [7] the center’s associate director and a former student of Cottrell, Atchley, and Seltzer, becomes the new director when Atchley, named Distinguished Professor of Gerontology in 1986, retires to chair Gerontology at Naropa University in Colorado.

2001

1977

The Ohio Long-Term Services Utilization Study funded by the Ohio Department of Aging begins. The 28-year study has been used by Ohio policy makers to design the current long-term services system.

1998

1976

Sociology and Gerontology and Scripps launch their Master of Gerontological Studies (MGS) program, making Miami one of only a handful of U.S. universities offering such a degree. Atchley and Seltzer continue to publish prolifically, producing seminal works including “The Concept of Old: Changing Attitudes and Stereotypes.”

Project, which produces reports for legislators, service providers, and planners on population, nursing homes, assisted living, home care, and family caregiving. Scripps moves to Upham Hall, its current home.

[11]

The Department of Sociology and Gerontology, with assistance from Scripps, implements a PhD program in Social Gerontology

To commemorate its 100th, the Scripps Gerontology Center will host a celebration on Miami’s Oxford campus Friday, Sept. 9, and Saturday, Sept. 10.

[12]

— the first in Ohio and among the first 10 nationwide.

2007

Opening Minds Through Art (OMA) [8+9] is created by Elizabeth “Like” Lokon MAT ’93 PhD ’97 MGS ’08. [10] People with dementia (artists) are paired with volunteers (usually Miami students) trained to rely on imagination instead of memory. (scrippsoma.org) By 2022, this intergenerational program is being used in more than 200 facilities across the U.S. and Canada.

[13]

2011

Scripps is recognized as an Ohio Center of Excellence in Cultural and Societal Transformation.

2013

The center creates the Ohio Population website [11] to help others visualize how Ohio’s older population will change over several decades. By 2025, over 1 in 4 Ohioans will be 60 and older. (ohio-population.org)

2016

The Ohio Department of Medicaid awards Scripps $1 million to improve nursing home residents’ quality of life using data from the Preferences for Everyday Living Inventory (PELI), whose principal investigator is Katy Abbott MGS ’97, associate professor of Gerontology and a Scripps Research Fellow. To look at the practical resources and research on how to improve care for older adults, go to PreferenceBasedLiving.com.

2022

OMA receives National Endowment for the Arts funds to build ScrippsAVID (Artsbased, Virtual, Intergenerational, and Dementia friendly), a free video-chat platform that will pair older adults with someone younger — typically college or high school students. They will share art, music, stories, and poetry. A research component measuring reduction in loneliness will be an integral part of the project. Whether in person or online, the goal for OMA remains to connect people across generations through the arts, because social engagement and creative expression are critical in promoting physical and mental health, Lokon said. “This is especially vital for people living with dementia.”

Into the Future 2019

An Interactive Data Center launches as part of the Ohio Population Website. Nader Mehri PhD ’20 leads design and implementation (miamioh. edu/data-center) in collaboration with Scripps researchers and Miami’s Department of Statistics. It allows users to explore data and projections of Ohio’s older population using interactive maps and animated charts that respond instantly to the criteria selected.

2021

Miami becomes only the second university in Ohio to be designated an age-friendly university,

For details, go to miamioh.edu/scripps-centennial.

an accomplishment spearheaded by Scripps.

2022

Our Family, Our Way [12] (miamioh.edu/ScrippsAging/ OFOW), free resources developed by Scripps, helps families talk about caregiving and navigate the difficult process of coordinating care. Conceived by Scripps Senior Research Scholar Kathryn McGrew (retired), the OFOW development team is now led by Scripps Associate Director of Research and Senior Research Scholar Jennifer Heston-Mullins ’97 PhD ’17 [13]. “Some families need help communicating with each other and just don’t know where to begin.”

Just as its founder and first director could not have possibly predicted Scripps’ use of websites and apps by its 100th birthday, it is difficult to look too far into the center’s future. There are some immediate goals, of course, such as transitioning to a new director, as Kunkel, named University Distinguished Professor of Gerontology in 2017, is retiring this summer after 24 years at the helm. Amazingly, she is only the fifth director. Through her, the center has maintained ties to the Scripps family, specifically with great-granddaughter Marilyn Scripps. “No matter the specifics of our future,” Kunkel said, “dignity and belonging for people of all ages will remain at the heart of everything Scripps does.”

Spring/Summer 2022

FROM HERO TO KINDRED SOUL STORY BY

DO NNA BO E N ’83 MTS C ’96 PHOTOS COU RT E SY O F

T ER ENC E M OORE ’ 78

Over a 40-year friendship, baseball icon Hank Aaron often advised sports columnist Terence Moore ’78 on how to deal with racism

“I think that I kind of look back (at the death threats and the hate mail I received while chasing Ruth’s record) and say, ‘You know, things are the same, really.’ ” Hank Aaron at age 86 (excerpt from The Real Hank Aaron: An Intimate Look at the Life and Legacy of the Home Run King by Terence Moore ’78)

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TERENCE MOORE ’78 WILL NEVER FORGET THE DAY HANK AARON DIED. At home the evening of Jan. 22, 2021, Moore was on the phone consoling the baseball legend’s new widow, Billye, and helping her write the obituary and a program for the funeral. Now a nationally known sports columnist and commentator, Moore first spoke to Aaron over the phone during the spring of 1982 while working on a “Blacks in Baseball” series for the San Francisco Examiner.

In the nearly 40 years since, their relationship grew to the point where Moore considered Aaron a second father. When Billye Aaron asked Moore to be an honorary pallbearer, he felt overwhelmed. To use his words, that question “felt like a Hammerin’ Aaron line drive slamming against the logical part of my mind.”

POSTER COMES ALIVE In Moore’s second-story home office, a framed poster of Aaron dominates one wall. Aaron is in his 1960-ish Atlanta Braves uniform, slightly crouching with his bat, while looking over his right shoulder. Moore has treasured this poster since he was 12 and sacrificed his model car money to buy it. The poster traveled with Moore when his family — his father, Samuel, AT&T’s first Black manager in the Midwest, his mother, Annie, and he and his two younger brothers — moved from South Bend to Cincinnati to Chicago to Milwaukee. It accompanied him to Miami University and watched over him in Dennison Hall and then in Hepburn Hall while he majored in Economics. It was with him during his early reporting days at the Cincinnati Enquirer and then the San Francisco Examiner, and during 25 tumultuous years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Moore fulfilled one of his bucket-list items during his first month in Atlanta in 1985, stopping by Aaron’s office at Fulton-County Stadium to introduce himself in person and ask the man to autograph his poster. Their bond grew from there. “He was famously private,” Moore said. “Even so, he was totally open whenever we huddled, either in person or on calls. We were kindred souls, and here’s why: Jackie Robinson.”

<< Terence Moore (left), seen here with his mentor, Hank Aaron, a second father to him, learned from the baseball great how to survive and prosper despite adversity.

like Jackie and Aaron, I needed to respond by using more brain than brawn.”

GUY NEXT DOOR

BRAIN OVER BRAWN On April 8, 1974, Braves outfielder Hank Aaron hit a home run off the Dodgers’ Al Downing. The 715th home run of Aaron’s career, it broke Babe Ruth’s 39-year record. When Aaron retired in 1976 after 23 seasons in Major League Baseball, he topped the record books with 755 career home runs and stayed there until Barry Bonds hit his 756th to center field in the San Francisco Giants stadium on Aug. 7, 2007. That part of Hank Aaron’s story is well known. Moore’s new book, The Real Hank Aaron: An Intimate Look at the Life and Legacy of the Home Run King, takes up Aaron’s story after he put down his bat. Moore’s book came out in May, 75 years after Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier on April 15, 1947, with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Aaron idolized Jackie Robinson. Moore counts him among his all-time favorite sports personalities. “Next to the Bible, the Jackie Robinson autobiography is the greatest book I ever read,” Moore said. “I studied everything

about that book because it was a how-to book for anybody in life — how to overcome adversity, particularly for a Black man, a Black person in volatile situations.” Moore followed Robinson’s and Aaron’s leads and focused on perseverance. He persevered as the first Black player for his high school baseball and football teams, the first Black writer/editor for the Miami Student, the first full-time Black sports journalist at the Cincinnati Enquirer and the San Francisco Examiner, and the first Black general sports columnist in the Deep South when he joined the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Nowadays, in addition to writing for CNN.com and MLB.com, Moore is a frequent television contributor to CNN, MSNBC, ESPN, and the Black News Channel. He also produces work for the NFL Network and appears every Sunday night on a TV sports show in Atlanta, where he lives. “Just like Jackie and Aaron, I was a Black man in a unique situation, facing hostility at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Just

As for his book, his first, Moore said it goes beyond sports. Written with Aaron’s blessing, its message is about prospering in spite of racism and adversity, he explained. What makes his book different? The decades of recorded interviews Moore had with Aaron, stories Aaron never shared with any other reporter. In fact, during Barry Bonds’ chase of Aaron’s home run record, Moore was the only media person Aaron would talk to. “Before Barry edged close to Hank’s record, Hank bore his soul to me in unprecedented ways on his turmoil as a Black man dealing with death threats and hate mail during the 1970s,” Moore wrote in his book. “He was assaulted for racing toward tying and passing the home run mark of 714 established by Babe Ruth, America’s most celebrated Great White Hope. Hank told me commenting on the Barry chase to those beyond me would remind him of what he wanted to forget, which were the horrors surrounding his Ruth chase.” Never caught up in being “the famous Hank Aaron,” he truly thought of himself as the guy next door who happened to hit a lot of home runs, Moore said, remembering the baseball legend as tremendously humorous and extremely compassionate. On the day Hank Aaron died, Terence Moore agreed to serve as an honorary pallbearer for him. The honor was all Moore’s. Donna Boen ’83 MTSC ’96 is editor of Miamian

Spring/Summer 2022

Marking Time Creativity Behind Bars

MacArthur Fellow Nicole Fleetwood ’94 uses prisoner art as a lens to encourage new approaches to justice

BY DONNA B O E N ’ 8 3 M T S C ’ 9 6 A RT P H OT OS C OU RT E S Y OF T H E A RT IS T S

miamian magazine

Three weeks after Nicole Fleetwood ’94 graduated from Miami University, the Hamilton, Ohio, native sat devastated in a Butler County courtroom next to her aunt and cousin, crumbling inside as she heard the judge sentence her cousin Allen to an indefinite life sentence. How was this possible? The first person in her immediate family to graduate from college — magna cum laude with an interdisciplinary studies major from Miami’s Western College program — she found herself grappling with the harsh reality that while she was heading to San Francisco to start her teaching career, Allen was heading to prison. In that moment, at age 21, she pledged to regularly write to Allen, who might as well have been her brother, they were that close. She also vowed to return to Ohio every year to see him. She kept these promises without fail and began to notice the art displayed in the visiting rooms of various Ohio prisons. Intrigued by these makeshift gallery spaces, Fleetwood started researching the artmaking and eventually interviewed more than 70 people, both currently or formerly incarcerated. She also began displaying photos around her apartment of her many relatives, neighbors, and childhood friends locked away in an attempt to deal with her own discomfort and grief. At first, she hesitated to discuss the photos. “I just didn’t know if I had the emotional capacity and the strength to actually take on a topic that felt so personal and so painful and that also involved the pain of my family,” she said. “I didn’t want my family to feel exposed, to be made more vulnerable to a level of suffering and kind of spectatorship.” However, her conversations were so cathartic for her and for those she talked with that her art collection and research evolved into a book that became an exhibition of the same name, Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration. >> Locked in a Dark Calm by Tameca Cole

Spring/Summer 2022

Locked in a Dark Calm

Spiz’s Dinette

In prison for some 26 years, Tameca Cole created Locked in a Dark Calm in response to abuses she was experiencing by prison staff, Fleetwood said, explaining, “Instead of saying anything or doing something that could have extended her sentence, she turned to making art, and she said in the making of that work, she created her own space of survival.” Locked in a Dark Calm is prominently featured in Fleetwood’s exhibition and book, which has been described as a “powerful document of the inner lives and creative visions of men and women rendered invisible by America’s prison system.” It has earned top accolades, among them: National Book Critics Circle Award, a Smithsonian Favorite Book of 2020, New York Review of Books Best of 2020 Selection, and a New York Times Best Art Book of the Year. She produced Marking Time while at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., where she held faculty appointments in American Studies and Art History from 2005–2021. Fleetwood makes it clear that her focus is never on guilt or innocence. “My project is meant to really look larger at the criminal legal system and how prisons, instead of creating spaces of transformative healing and societal repair, are actually institutions that incapacitate people, remove them from everyone and everything they love, and cause more harm,” she said. “In many ways, they create higher risk and higher forms of marginalization and more likelihood for early death or other kinds of poor life outcomes.”

The size of a toaster, Dean Gillispie’s miniature Airstream trailer took six months for him to carefully craft. His work demonstrates the ingenious ways imprisoned people experiment with severely limited resources in an attempt to fill their seemingly limitless time. To build the trailer’s iconic sleek, silver body, he removed foil from a cigarette pack and smoothed it over a piece of notebook cardboard. The silver rivets came from straight pins “procured” from the prison sewing shop. The window’s curtains started life as tea bags. Bits of popsicle sticks serve as the hitch. During his 20 years in prison, Gillispie designed these “vibrant, playful miniatures based on a kind of nostalgic idea of Americana,” Fleetwood said. “He also

collage and graphite on paper, 8" x 11", by Tameca Cole

miamian magazine

tablet backs, stick pins, popsicle sticks, cigarette foil, 16" x 8" x 5", by Dean Gillispie

used those works to manage what I call penal time, and that’s experiencing time as punishment. For him, it was an especially meaningful way of managing time because he had been wrongfully convicted.” Generally, when discussing artists, Fleetwood does not state why they were sentenced and imprisoned or bring up guilt and innocence. “We need to complicate our ideas of guilt or innocence. We shouldn’t just have sympathy for people who were wrongfully convicted because even the idea of guilt can be problematic, given the circumstances of poverty, racism, addiction, all kinds of social ills that really create untenable conditions for certain people to live in, right? I mean, some people are literally so on the margins of society that their options are extremely limited in terms of just survival, basic needs, food, housing, and things of that sort.”

<< Spiz’s Dinette by Dean Gillispie

Fleetwood was introduced to Gillispie through her cousin Allen. In prison together for 16 years, Allen and Gillispie became great friends. Fleetwood was as fascinated by their friendship as by Gillispie’s art. To understand her fascination, you first need to know that Gillispie is white and from rural southwest Ohio, whereas Allen, who is Black, is from the much more industrial or perhaps postindustrial city of Hamilton. “Prisons can often function in ways that are parallel, if not more extreme, than the racial structures outside of prison, so it’s almost like an apartheid system where very rarely do people of different races interact in prison,” said Fleetwood, pointing out that more than 2 million people are currently behind bars in the United States, making it the world leader in incarceration. During her research, she observed that art serves as a facilitator that brings people together despite racial and ethnic differences in prison and out.

One Ton Jezek

One Ton Jezek by Daniel McCarthy Clifford

by Daniel McCarthy Clifford and

Pivot

by Sable Elyse Smith Sable Elyse Smith, a professor of Art at Columbia University whose father began a life sentence for murder when she was 10, is a highly regarded contemporary Black artist. Her work speaks to Daniel McCarthy Clifford, a white man living in Minneapolis who went to art school after coming out of prison. Both created sculptures that are featured together with pieces by more than 30 other artists in Marking Time, which opened at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati on April 22 and runs through Aug. 7, 2022. “One thing really important about this show is to have artists who have been in

prison or who are in prison in the same room in conversation with artists who’ve never been in prison but are doing similar kinds of investigations through their artmaking,” Fleetwood said. In Pivot, Smith took the stools that people sit on in prison visiting rooms and turned them into a kind of playful blue object that she said reminded her of the children’s game Jacks. McCarthy’s work, One Ton Jezek, weighs a half ton and consists of hundreds of cafeteria trays that you would see in a prison and in other institutions such as public schools and colleges. “For Daniel, that’s really important because he’s thinking about the relationship between all of these types of disciplinary institutions,” Fleetwood said.

Another piece Fleetwood spotlights is An Institutional Nightmare, a 32.25 x 24.25" acrylic paint on canvas, in which artist Gilberto Rivera mixed together scraps of a federal prison uniform, commissary papers, prison reports, and newspaper with floor wax. According to The Marshall Project’s March 15, 2021, article “Spotlighting the Ingenuity of Artists Behind Bars,” the former Brooklyn street artist was “drawn to abstraction because it led to improvisation. In 2012, Rivera said, he saw his family for the first time in more than a decade.” “Around that time, he also felt especially hassled by corrections officers. The goal was less to communicate ideas to others than to work through his tangled feelings: ‘It was a

Spring/Summer 2022

Self-Portrait by Russell Craig

Pivot by Sable Elyse Smith

form of meditation.’ It was technically illegal to destroy state property as he did in this piece, and his friends helped him sneak it out of prison in the mail.” Postponed by months because of COVID19, Fleetwood’s Marking Time exhibition debuted in September 2020 at New York’s MoMA PS1, one of the largest art centers in the United States devoted solely to contemporary art. For visitors viewing the show, called “stirring” by New York Times art critic Holland Cotter, Fleetwood wants them to appreciate the aesthetic inventions and also leave “more motivated than ever to ending prison as we know it.” One year and one week after the MoMA debut, Fleetwood was in the back of a taxi on her way to a welcome reception at New York University. After 16 years at Rutgers, she’d move to NYU to become the James Weldon

miamian magazine

Johnson Professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication. The art historian-curator-activist answered her ringing phone and was told she’d been named a 2021 MacArthur Fellow, one of only 25 chosen from around the country. “It was a very New York moment,” she said. “We were driving along the West Side Highway, and I screamed so loud that I startled the driver.” Her excitement is understandable. The MacArthur is one of the most prestigious and significant scholarly awards in the United States and comes with a $625,000 no-strings-attached, five-year stipend. Also known as the “genius” grant, it was awarded to her by the MacArthur Foundation because she is “demonstrating that art and imagery produced and used by incarcerated individuals is a critically

important form of human expression, and her work sheds new light on the toll the criminal justice system in the United States takes on human lives.”

Self-portrait

8" x 8", by Russell Craig

Self-taught artist Russell Craig, who since his release from prison has painted public murals in his native Philadelphia, told Submittable how he was inspired to create Self-portrait while going through his court documents in a halfway house. ‘‘ ‘I was planning to throw them away,’ Craig recalls. ‘I was just cleaning up. But I decided instead to do something creative with the papers. And that’s how the idea started, to do a portrait on them.’ He glued

A fair, equitable, viable, sustainable society is a society where love is not just practiced toward people we know and are familiar with, but love is a really activating force that we practice and participate in even with strangers.

Photo of Nicole courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

NICOLE FLEETWOOD ’94

his prison paperwork to four canvases, then painted his face over them with pastel.” A wide variety of self-portraits are prevalent in the Marking Time exhibition, which indicates how much Fleetwood has learned. When she started writing her book, she had no idea how precious portraits are in prison. She now knows and understands that portraiture offers imprisoned people another representation of themselves — both symbolically and literally — other than the mug shot or the prison ID card. Although she hasn’t lived in Ohio since graduating from Miami, Fleetwood still considers Hamilton home. The heart of her family remains in Ohio, including her cousin Allen, who was released in 2015 and is faring well. “In doing this work, I feel like I’m growing my community of beloved beings,” she said. “A fair, equitable, viable, sustainable society is a society where love is not just practiced toward people we know and are familiar with, but love is a really activating force that we practice and participate in even with strangers.” Donna Boen ’83 MTSC ’96 is editor of Miamian.

Spring/Summer 2022

BRAGGING RIGHTS FROM THE SUPER BOWL TO THE FRISCO BOWL, MIAMI’S PROUD OF ITS ATHLETES — BOTH ITS STUDENTS AND ITS ALUMNI. 30

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Miami posted a convincing 27-14 win against North Texas to win the Frisco Football Classic on Dec. 23. The RedHawks used a stingy defense to hold the Mean Green to 89 rushing yards, well off their average of 246. ¶ Quarterback Brett Gabbert, a junior majoring in Sport Leadership and Management, was named the game’s Most Outstanding Offensive Player. He threw two touchdowns and completed 22 of 31 passes for 228 yards.

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Miami standout and 2011 Hobey Baker Award winner Andy Miele ’11 was captain of the 2022 U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team. ¶ The Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, native starred for four years (2007-11) with the RedHawks. The forward played on both of Miami’s Frozen Four teams, first in 2009 and again in 2010. He also represented the United States at the IIHF World Championship twice, in 2011 and 2014.

When the LA Rams won this year’s Super Bowl, Sean McVay ’08 became the youngest coach ever to triumphantly hoist the coveted Lombardi Trophy. He also set a second record that makes his alma mater proud. Miami University is now the only school to have three alumni win the big game as the head coach. He joins John Harbaugh ’84 (2013) and Weeb Ewbank ’28 (1969).

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Miami ‘s MAC-champion field hockey team enjoyed a banner season, qualifying for the NCAA tournament for the fifth straight season (one of only three universities to do so), hosting a home game in the 2021 national tournament for the first time, and winning that openinground game against Maine to advance and play third-seeded Michigan in Ann Arbor. ¶ The RedHawks took an early 2-0 advantage but lost in a heartbreaker when No. 3 Michigan scored the deciding goal with two seconds to play to earn a 3-2 victory.

Two Miami synchronized skating team alumnae supported the U.S. Figure Skating team in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. ¶ Dr. Kristin Abbott ’05 served as the team physician for the U.S. delegation, which included athletes, coaches, and support staff. Ingrid Benson ’13 was senior manager for athlete high performance logistics for the team, responsible for all administrative support in the years leading into and during the Olympic Games, including travel logistics, athlete entries and music submissions, athlete and staff credentials.¶ “This year brought additional challenges with extensive COVID protocols that we had to navigate,” said Kristin, who has served as chair of the Sport Science and Medicine Committee since 2018.¶ Ingrid and Kristin are two of many synchronized skating alumnae who have continued their active involvement in the sport by supporting athletes, teams, and programs through U.S. Figure Skating, serving as officials, coaches, and competitive athletes in the sport.

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Helping in the Super Bowl win and joining Sean in the celebration was Chris Shula ’08, the Rams linebackers coach. Sean and Chris became friends their first day at Miami in 2004. Sean played wide receiver on Miami’s football team, and Chris was a linebacker. ¶ Still good friends, both coaches credit their time at Miami with shaping who they are on the sidelines. ¶ “Consistency and a commitment to a philosophy and a way of doing things — I learned that really from [Miami] Coach Hoeppner from the jump,” Sean said. ¶ Chris agreed, adding, “As a coach, you’re just a product of your past experiences. Try and surround yourself with the smartest people possible, never stop learning, and never stop evolving.”

Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Rams

Photos courtesy of the Los Angeles Rams

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Spring/Summer 2022

love & honor

ROB HENDRICKS ’11 MED ’18 wasn’t a

bad student growing up. He was a late bloomer, an introvert who many wrote off as being shy. As a result, he wasn’t being challenged, and no one noticed. That’s why he’s now committed to helping others like him — the ones who are overlooked for one reason or another — by ensuring they have strong mentors in the classroom, especially Black role models. “I’m always looking for how do we get that child involved. How do we make sure they are going to be supported,” Rob said. “I had questions that didn’t always get answered.” Founder of the He Is Me Institute, he sees his mission as empowering Black men to discover teaching through collaborative programs that help school districts recruit and retain Black male educators.

NEW KIND OF GUIDANCE

ADDRESSING A LACK OF BLACK MALE TEACHERS: A NATIONAL CRISIS With school districts struggling to recruit and retain Black male educators, Rob Hendricks ’11 MEd ’18 is making it his mission to bring more into classrooms By Josh Chapin ’02

miamian magazine

Rob started to break out of his shell in high school, first as a news anchor for a broadcast journalism class and then through an internship as a Walgreens store manager. By the time Rob arrived at Miami, he was already becoming more social. He acknowledges that he didn’t have the easiest transition academically, but he made his time count by joining 10-15 organizations. He also helped found the Black Presidents Caucus. Originally a Business major, he switched to Education after taking a course on pedagogy. That led to work study with America Reads America Counts and a chance to interact with students at his former elementary school. After graduation, he continued in a leadership role as assistant principal at Match High School in Boston, where he saw students who weren’t receiving the help he thought they needed. There was one student in particular whose struggles mirrored his own.

love & honor

“He was almost stuck at a tier of courses below his abilities because he wasn’t engaged and getting higher grades,” Rob said.

A CHANGE IN TRAJECTORY While the assistant principal, Rob encouraged students to be independent thinkers and colleagues not to limit their own vision. It was through this new lens that the He Is Me Institute was born in 2018. About a year later, Rob moved full time into his role with the institute and its mission of empowering Black men to “help change the trajectory for the next generation of Black youth.” “It really comes down to seeing the impact that Black males, myself included, have on students, coupled with the limited perspective a lot of colleagues had of our students,” Rob said. Noting that just 2% of teachers are Black men, Rob is determined to change that statistic, and, along with it, positively enrich the lives of countless students. He believes the lack of Black male teachers is part of a cycle. He himself missed out on higher-level math classes in high school because of the way his tracking began in the seventh grade. “We’re making these quick, limited judgments on students, particularly our Black students, that have really long-term impacts. “There are way more Black males who want to teach. A lot of young Black males don’t have a strong Black teacher in their lives. They need to experience Black teachers as students, be exposed to the profession by a mentor, and, as an educator, they need the opportunity to expand their skills.”

A LEADER IN CONFRONTING THE CRISIS Rob is working on implementing the I AM KING program in the Oxford area, including at Miami. The program gives Black male college students the opportunity to explore teaching while mentoring boys of color in social-emotional learning.

The university applauded him and his accomplishments last fall with the Spirit of Western College Award, which recognizes the advancement of education and human values in diversity, equity, and inclusion at the local, national, or international level. The award is named after the Western College for Women (1853-1974), site of the Freedom Summer training in 1964. His efforts are inspiring Jonika MooreDiggs ’02, Miami’s director of Diversity and Outreach Initiatives, who worked in the Admission Office when Rob was an undergraduate. “He was always a student who would push back and ask why,” Jonika said. “He would be the person to play devil’s advocate to get his classmates as well as administrators to see things a different way. He was very much a questioner, which you have to be if you are going to take the road less traveled.” As a senior, Rob added another to his growing list of organizations — he became a member of Alpha Phi Alpha. What followed was more service, including working in Hamilton’s schools. Before he graduated, he earned the President’s Distinguished Service Award for exemplifying the strength and intellect of an effective campus leader, teacher, and mentor. “I think that revved up that engine and made him say, ‘This is where I need to focus my energy,’ ” Jonika said. “I think it’s amazing. I’m so very proud of him.” Jason Lane, dean of Miami’s College of Education, Health, and Society, sees Rob’s efforts as crucial. “The lack of diversity among teachers is a national crisis, and Rob Hendricks’ work through the He Is Me Institute is leading the way to address this crisis,” Lane said. “Not only is he envisioning a new tomorrow of having more men of color in front of classrooms, he is actively working to see it come to reality.”

NOTING THAT JUST 2% OF TEACHERS ARE BLACK MEN, ROB HENDRICKS IS DETERMINED TO CHANGE THAT STATISTIC, AND, ALONG WITH IT, POSITIVELY ENRICH STUDENTS’ LIVES.

Josh Chapin ’02 is the associate director of content in Miami’s University Advancement division.

Spring/Summer 2022

class notes

class notes An Oxford house with history: Built in 1862, this Italianate painted brick house at 110 S. Campus Ave. in Oxford was the third home of David and Elizabeth Swing and their children. Swing, who taught in Miami’s preparatory school, lived here with his family for four years before his ministerial career took him to Chicago, where he became a nationally known preacher. Other families lived here until 1910, when the residence, across the street from McGuffey Hall, became the Phi Alpha Psi house. The chapter’s dog is in the front doorway of this photo taken by Frank R. Snyder in 1912. It was next the home of Geology professor William Shideler for nearly 40 years, before becoming a fraternity house again in the 1960s. The photo and text are from a new coffee table book, Homes of Old Oxford: An Album of Photographs by Frank R. Snyder and Others, compiled by Irene Moore Lindsey ’37 and Valerie Edwards Elliott ’75. The book appeals to historic preservationists, local history enthusiasts, and anyone who has ever walked Oxford’s Mile Square.

class notes

of the lie that Trump won the 2020 election is hypocritical and affects the testimony of Evangelical Christians.

Max ’50 and Koneta Abe Schneider ’50 celebrated their 70th anniversary on June 9, 2021. While both were Dayton natives, where they still live today, they did not meet until they were introduced by friends in Oxford. They have four children, eight grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. They will turn 97 and 95 respectively this spring and summer.

A number of Gil Kessler’s ZBT fraternity brothers representing the Classes of ’60, ’61, and ’62 gathered in Palm Springs, California, during Super Bowl Weekend. Three are Miami Mergers and celebrating 60 and 62 years of marriage this year: Robert ’60 and Susan Ullmo Tasner ’61, Gilbert ’62 and Lynda Spero Kessler ’63, and Gene ’61 and Wendy Eisenstark Elconin’62. Gil points out this is 182 total years of being together. ¶ Elizabeth Pogue Marshall has written a poetry book, not published but bound, for her grandchildren and dedicated to them because they inspired her. Her cat, Spot, also received special recognition for leading her down intriguing poetic paths.

Richard Reese was inducted

into the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame in 2021. In the fourth graduating class with a Paper Technology degree from Miami, Dick has worked in the paper industry for 60 years, making many technical contributions. He now focuses on energy conservation. ¶ Charles Robinson has recently written several books. His latest, Under His Power — Believing the Lie — Hypocrisy in the Church, explores how the blind belief of and promotion

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Les Wyse says friends mainly

from Hepburn Hall in the 1960s talk weekly despite being spread out across the U.S. “The group uses Zoom to greet, harass, and converse with each other. … While football and basketball still dominate the conversations, grandchildren, doctor’s visits, and travel now are prominent topics. We talk about going from bikes to e-bikes, tennis to pickleball, but still sticking to golf.” Hepburn roommates Leslie Wyse, Paul Schudel, Jim Bright, and Tom Garwood ’67 are involved as are Jim Goodfellow, Jerry Peirson, Bob Jackson, Joe Rogers, Wayne Warden ’67, and Rich Chamberlain.

Andrea Smutz has a new

book, Hopefield: Evolution: Hopefield Chronicles Book 1. “In 1866, Stannis Hopefield arrives in Denver eager for challenges in the expanding West. He begins evolving into a mountain man, and his skills are honed as he is befriended by an experienced trapper and members of the Arapaho. Returning to Denver for supplies, he falls in love and marries the beautiful Lily. A horrific occurrence changes Stan to a dangerous man dedicated to revenge.” ¶ Richard Tolliver, rector of St. Edmund’s Episcopal Church in Chicago, is a member of the Cook County Commission on Human Rights, protecting people who live or work in the county from discrimination and harassment.

Charles Fenwick experi-

enced Miami University for the first time in 1957 when he and his family visited his aunt, Jane Rees, after she was hired as chairperson of Home

Economics. He and his family fell in love with Miami. He applied to only one college. A comparative criminologist whose research involves constructing a new theory to explain variations in rates of serious street crime in East Asia vs. Western Europe, he and his family lived extensively in England and Japan. In 1978, while studying in Japan, he was humbled and honored to have private audiences with Crown Prince Akihito (emperor of Japan 1989-2019) and Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda. When Charles goes back to Princeton University, where he was a postdoctoral fellow and visiting faculty fellow, and Oxford University, where he is a permanent senior associate member in graduate/international studies, he is excited, but nothing like when he comes back to Oxford, Ohio. He lives in Chalfont, Pennsylvania.

Charles “Chick” Freund

III, retired as a lieutenant colonel from the Air Force, has written a memoir, Not Quite the Way You Heard It in School ... or, Everything Is Relative: Lighter Side Memories of Vietnam. He describes it as “an insightful, entertaining account of his early military life, focusing on the Vietnam conflict. Unlike most other stories readers have heard, his experience in Southeast Asia was mostly enjoyable.” He and his wife, Andrea Daskivich Freund ’69, live in Marietta, Georgia, and have two children and two bright, marvelous grandchildren. ¶ Tom McKnight says the Downey golf outing, in Williamsburg, Virginia, widely attended by Miamians, has resumed after a two-year hiatus.

Reunion ¶ Ronald and Jatana Vance Davidson ’70 MS ’96 of Franklin, Ohio, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary during a family vacation on March 18, 2022. Jatana

class notes

retired as a developmental specialist for the Butler County Board of Developmental Disabilities. Ron, who was in accounting management, retired from Ruthman Corp. in Cincinnati. ¶ Sharon Draper MAT ’73 is a 2022 Ohioana Book Award finalist in the middle grade/young adult literature category for her book Out of My Heart (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books). The winners of the 81st annual awards will be announced in July. ¶ Mark Nolan Hill, MD, FACS professor of surgery at the Chicago Medical School and president and CEO of North Shore Surgical Associates, was honored to be the cover article, “A House Call with Dr. Mark Hill,” for his hometown monthly magazine, Highland Park (Illinois) Neighbors. ¶ David Persky co-authored Wisdom From Five Cancer Travelers: Lessons Learned, which takes the readers through the journey experienced by cancer patients.

Douglas Donnell, an attorney

with Mika Meyers, a law firm based in Grand Rapids, was named by Best Lawyers in America as Grand Rapids’ 2022 Environmental Law Lawyer of the Year. ¶ Wil Haygood’s latest book, Colorization: One Hundred Years of Black Films in a White World (Alfred A. Knopf ), made the list for New York Times Critics’ Top Books of 2021. It is also a finalist in the nonfiction category for the 2022 Ohioana Book Awards. Winners of the 81st annual event will be announced in July. ¶ Roger Koch of Koch Christmas Trees in Butler County is president of the board of directors of the nonprofit Ohio Christmas Tree Association for 2022. There are 144 members. ¶ Deb Yandala, president and CEO of the Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park, is working temporarily with the National Park Foundation

(NPF), the official nonprofit partner of the National Park Service. Deb, who has led the Conservancy for nearly 20 years and continues in that role, is lending her counsel and expertise to a variety of NPF education, partnership, and philanthropic initiatives.

A wonderful group of unsuspecting women were placed on the same first-floor corridor in Miami’s Emerson Hall in September 1975. Now living in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, California, and Ohio, they continue this great friendship that started at Miami their freshman year: Mary Ulrich Chandler, Cindy George Chaike, Diana Hickman Rice, Jane Thirkield Wong, Linda Smith Dinkel ’97, Kimberly Gregory O’Brien, and Jan Logan Massey.

Paul Furiga has a new book

out, Finding Your Capital S Story (WordWrite Communications Publishing). Why should someone buy from you, work for you, invest in you, or partner with you? A longtime storyteller who has written and edited 20,000 stories as a journalist, covering everything from murders to the White House, Paul reveals the importance of your Capital S Story and shares a formula to quickly describe your true business purpose and your genuine identity, identify those in your organization best equipped to share your story, and continually engage your most important audiences.

Frank Braun joined the

University of Arkansas at Little Rock last August as the dean of the College of Business, Health, and Human Services. He previously served as dean of the School of Business and a professor of Business Informatics at Baldwin Wallace University of

Berea, Ohio, and as department chair and director of the Master of Science in information systems program at Northern Kentucky University of Highland Heights. He has held senior leadership positions with United Dairy Farmers, TouchScreen Systems, and Klosterman Baking.

Rollins College Philosophy professor and George D. and Harriet W. Cornell Chair Margaret McLaren was awarded the FulbrightNehru Professional and Academic Excellence Award for the 2021-2022 academic year to pursue her research project, “Tagore’s Cosmopolitanism: Educating for Global Citizenship,” at Visva Bharati University in Santiniketan, India. Margaret explores Indian thinker Rabindranath Tagore’s contributions to global citizenship (cosmopolitanism). According to Tagore, global citizens should embrace humanitarianism, internationalism, and sustainability as goals, believing that educating for global citizenship involves respect for differences, empathy, and open dialogue. ¶ Michelle King Otzen and her husband, John Otzen ’81, who live in Michigan, reunited with Lee Tabenken ’82 in Portland, Maine,

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

At a Library of Congress dinner in Washington, D.C., are (l-r) Suraj Maraboyina ’01, an executive producer with Creative Wealth Media, raising capital for film and TV projects; John Altman ’60 and Mark Ridenour ’82, former members of Miami’s board; and current Miami trustee Mark Sullivan ’81.

Spring/Summer 2022

class notes

County townships, and the various boards and commissions of the county, and supervises the other members of the division. Randal lives in Norwalk with his wife and goldendoodle.

Proof that the Upham Arch tradition really works, Mark Gardner ’75 and Christie Hilbert Gardner ’76, who met in Ogden’s dining room, celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary last year by returning to Oxford. Accompanied by their daughters, Molly GardnerSchmidt ’14 and Elizabeth Gardner, grandson, Uriah, and son-in-law, Austin, they spent the time back on the Oxford campus reminiscing about how they first met and retelling their love story.

miamian magazine

where Lee lives. She wrote, “First time getting together since graduation day in 1982. So fun to see each other in person! We had kept in touch all these years through Christmas cards.” ¶ Married: Cathy Ponitz and John Rego ’81, Sept. 18, 2021, in Dayton. Theirs was the first ever wedding at the Levitt Pavilion outdoor music venue and was officiated by Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley. It was followed by a concert by The Ohio Players attended by more than 10,000 people including Miami alum friends and family from across the country. Cathy writes, “We were good friends at Miami and reconnected decades later. True love is worth the wait!” ¶ Jamie Rice is director of sales and tourism at National Harbor, responsible for leading the implementation of sales strategy and expanding on membership and strategic alliances. Included in her position is selling National Harbor as a premier destination to the meetings and group travel markets.¶ After 25 years in private practice, Randal Strickler is chief assistant prosecuting attorney of the civil division of the Huron County prosecutor’s office. In that role, Randal is counsel to the Huron County Board of Commissioners, the other elected officials of Huron County, the 19 Huron

Reunion ¶ Mark Baker has published a book in Czech on the Velvet Revolution of 1989 and the period just before and after the anticommunist revolution. Čas proměn (Time of Changes) was published by Albatros Media, the largest publisher in the Czech Republic. It is the first book in Czech by an expatriate author on those historic events. “Miami University — particularly the Luxembourg Center — plays an important role in the first chapter of the book when I write about a car trip that I and some fellow students took from Luxembourg through the former Eastern Bloc to Bulgaria and the Black Sea. That trip led to an MA at Columbia, a journalism job in Vienna, and ultimately to Prague in late ’80s and ’90s.” ¶ Karen Hirschbach DeSue ’83 ’91 is the author of Grandma’s Carrot, a KaDe creation. “The book is actually a true account that occurred when I was growing up. We lived just up the hill from my grandparents, and my grandfather wanted to get something special for my grandmother as a Christmas gift. The jewelry store had recently moved to another location, and while he was unsure where it was, I knew the location and was given permission to go along with him. Thus, the adventure!” ¶ The following “Casablanca Ladies” (Casablanca was the name of their college house), who have been Miami friends since 1979, recently met up in Sedona, Arizona, to celebrate birthdays and 42 years of friendship: Susan Esler Skibo, Lee Marshall MacKenzie, Vicky Sheridan Hart, Linda Hubert Denecke, Carol Becka Prendergast, and Dianne

DeVillez Sunderman ’13 (Not a typo.

She finished many years later with the BIS program in Middletown campus.)

MUDEC (Miami University Dolibois European Center) classmates (1982-1983) Lita Jensen Davis, Suzanne Spaeth Roy, Kathy Woeber Gardner, Lori Kadusky Pin, Joan Lusheck Madsen ’83, and Ann McKillip Clifford gathered in Denver and Rocky Mountain National Park the first weekend of November. They are all looking forward to MUDEC’s 55th anniversary in Luxembourg in October 2023. ¶ Gary Loxley was inducted into the Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame, Class of 2021, established to recognize the post-military achievements of outstanding Ohio veterans. Gary retired as a colonel from the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s Corps in 2018. Since 2013, he has been a judge on the Warren County Court in Lebanon, Ohio, where, in addition to his regular duties, he founded and presides over the Warren County Veterans Court, a specialized docket designed to identify, treat, and rehabilitate veterans who have found their way into the criminal justice system. Gary and his wife, Jennie, are the parents of four grown children, including Lauren ’13, and have five grandchildren.

William Burtch MBA ’86

and his sister, Donna Burtch, have written W.G.: The Opium-addicted Pistol Toting Preacher Who Raised the First Federal African American Union Troops (Sunbury Press). Their biography of W.G. Raymond, their 3x great-grandfather, uncovers a complex and consequential person at pivotal moments in history. ¶ Kevin King became president of Donatos in January, rejoining a company he was part of from 1990 through 2003.

class notes

He was thrilled this meant moving back to Columbus, where he grew up. Kevin began his career in operations at Domino’s Pizza after graduating from Miami. He served first in store operations, then multi-unit supervision, and finally in international operations in Australia. He then joined Donatos in 1990 to start the franchising department and served as the vice president of development until 2003. He went on to hold positions at JPMorgan Chase, Papa Murphy’s, and Smoothie King. Over his career, Kevin has been part of building nearly 1,500 restaurants across the U.S. and around the world. ¶ Jenny Dye Warner of Tipp City, Ohio, in 2019 founded a not-for-profit, the Miami Valley Nonprofit Collaborative, serving Dayton-area nonprofits with training and development and consulting services. She continues to serve as its executive director, helping to build the capacity of other nonprofit organizations to help them sustain as healthy, viable community organizations.

Steve Cox of Cincinnati is a remarketing logistics coordinator for Enterprise Holdings, joining Enterprise in September 2019. He was recently presented Group 38 Elite MVP Award for 4th Qtr 2021. ¶ Gretchen Spreitzer is one of the professors featured in the new book Seven Essentials for Business Success: Lessons from Legendary Professors (Routledge, 2022). Gretchen is the Keith E. and Valerie J. Alessi Professor of Business Administration at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, where she is also an associate dean. In the book, she mentions the important role that the late Richard Nault, then head of Miami’s Honors Program, played in her career choice. In her words, “He had a deep interest in helping students identify and play

to their strengths rather than having a cookie-cutter model of success.” ¶ Doris Serruto Thomas is vice president of engagement at the nonprofit Virtual Enterprises International, driving its corporate and community engagement through corporate sponsorship growth, corporate responsibility initiatives, individual giving efforts, and skillsbased volunteerism opportunities. VE is a national nonprofit that transforms students through authentic business experiences that prepare them for fulfilling, financially secure futures. ¶ Donna Zeinner-Hansen (illustrator) and her husband, Steve (author), have published their second children’s book, Meet Spencer Spider Scout. “It’s time for a summer adventure! Join Spencer on a fun journey as he meets new friends and learns why his eight Spider Scout rules are so important. Hold on tight — it’s going to be a wild ride! Experience pizza night with Spencer’s family at the Spider house. Ride with Spencer in his secret camp behind the sideview mirror of a car. Meet Penny the praying mantis … Andre the ant … Liam the ladybug. Join Spencer on his big adventure!”

Reunion ¶ Stephen Eoannou MA ’88 is bringing to life the little-known story of an ingenious bank robber, Al Nussbaum, a man FBI director J. Edgar Hoover dubbed “the most cunning fugitive in the country.” Rook (Unsolicited Press, June 2022) is Stephen’s fast-paced technicolor noir/ historical fiction and his first novel. His award-winning short story collection, Muscle Cars, was published by the Santa Fe Writers Project. He has been awarded an Honor Certificate from The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and won the Best Short Screenplay Award at the 36th Starz Denver Film Festival. He lives and

writes in his hometown of Buffalo, New York, the setting and inspiration for much of his work.

Brad Graft’s latest book

is out. Set during the 13th century, Edge of Armageddon is the climax in the Brotherhood of the Mamluks trilogy. The story brings together characters from Books 1 and 2: Duyal, the enslaved nomad boy who rose to command a reconnaissance unit; Leander, the French soldier who abandoned the Crusades to join the devout Islamic warriors he admired; and Baybars, a Kipchak from the Eurasian steppe who is now the charismatic leader of the elite Bahri Mamluks of Egypt. The novel introduces readers to Esel, a respected bowmaker in her nomadic tribe, who is seized, enslaved, and sold to a wealthy arms merchant in Syria. Overhearing her master plotting against Baybars, a nephew she has not seen since his adolescence, Esel risks her life to flee Damascus and warn Baybars of the coming betrayal. Brad, a former U.S. Marine officer, conveys to his characters an authentic understanding of combat. His inspiration for the book started with the history of the Mamluk Sword, the saber worn

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

Greg Seamon ’80, fire training specialist for the National Interagency Prescribed Fire Training Center, recently led a prescribed burn for Tall Timbers, a private research station, as part of a Learn and Burn for private landowners, and got to work with Vanessa Niemczyk ’19, research technician in the fire science lab at Tall Timbers. The event was successful with the implementation of good fire for ecological objectives and some good discussions of the differences at Miami between the times both attended classes in Oxford.

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estate transactions over the past 20 years, accounting for more than $200 million in sales, recognition as a top producer by the Chicago Association of Realtors annually, and a Chicago Agent Magazine Who’s Who Winner, among other industry awards.

Tim Baxter ’91, CEO and director at Express (the fashion retailer), returned to Miami’s Oxford campus in November to talk with students in a class taught by Leslie Stoel, professor of Marketing and Fashion. Tim has served as CEO of Express since June 2019. He is also on the board of Ronald McDonald House of New York.

miamian magazine

traditionally by Marines as part of the dress uniform.

Jeff Brown was named

2021 Dean of the Year by Poets&Quants, the preeminent source for information on business education. Dean of the University of Illinois’ Gies College of Business, Jeff was recognized for his courageous decision to suspend Gies’ full-time residential MBA program and direct its resources into the college’s rapidly growing online MBA, securing a $150 million naming gift, and increasing the number of faculty at the college and the amount of scholarships awarded to students. Under his leadership, the fully online MBA — known as the iMBA — has grown from 114 students to more than 4,200 students. ¶ Greg Vollan was nominated as a Who’s Who real estate broker in 2021. Last year was his 19th being recognized among the top residential brokers in Chicago, but his first Who’s Who nomination. Greg embraces a consultative approach focused on identifying his clients’ needs, understanding their goals, and explaining the market’s nuances so that they are comfortable with the buying or selling process. These ideas have permeated hundreds of his real

Brent Gledhill, president of

William Blair, a premier global boutique with expertise in investment banking, investment management, and private wealth management, has been elected chief executive officer. He succeeds John Ettelson, who has been appointed chairman. The announcement follows on the heels of William Blair celebrating a record year for client impact and firmwide growth in 2021. ¶ Betsy Drake Noxon has published a young adult dystopian adventure/medical thriller, The Eden Project. “Armed with knowledge and grit, Sienna, a genius, takes on an elusive virus that threatens her close circle of family and friends. She’s faced with hard choices as she battles her own identity and peers to save her loved ones, her city, and world from crumbling out of control.” Betsy has completed a second book, The Crescent File, and is focused on a third book. ¶ Don Peifer, a resident of Mountain View, California, is one of the winners of the Department of Energy’s L-Prize, given for creating next generation lighting concepts. The last time the award was given was in 2010 and was awarded to Philips for its LED incandescent replacement A-lamp. This year’s competition was focused on breakthrough lighting products for commercial applications such as offices, education, and health care. The award was announced by the Secretary of Energy on a Zoom call in February. Don is a lighting designer by training, having worked for Annie Leibovitz. His first startup, Lunera, was venture-backed

and responsible for supplying the lighting for the fleet of Apple stores and Facebook data centers. His latest venture, Smash the Bulb, is scheduled to launch this spring.

Sharon Cohn Chamberlin,

owner of Cincinnati-based Catalyst 4 Fitness, has launched a new line of meal replacement bars called the Catalyst Bar. Sharon’s work as a certified personal fitness trainer and nutrition coach led to the creation of the bar. “I realized there is a need for a true meal replacement bar that is both nutritionally sound and tastes good.” Two months after announcing her peanut butter brownie bar, Sharon launched Fit Biz In a Box, a comprehensive program for health and fitness professionals wanting to start a new business or scale up their current one.

Reunion ¶ Jay Bley, CRCP, has been promoted to senior vice president of annuity strategy and sales at Ohio National Financial Services of Cincinnati. He is responsible for the development and execution of the annuity strategy to support corporate growth and sales objectives. Jay started at Ohio National in 1999 as a field compliance consultant and most recently served as vice president of annuity strategy and sales. ¶ Catherine Sheets Dunwoodie is vice president client success for Passport, a transportation software and payments company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. In this role, she is responsible for expanding a robust customer success department, ensuring operational excellence while driving clients to gain additional value from their investments in Passport’s product solutions. Catherine was most recently with Paycor as senior director of strategic alliances. ¶ Craig and Connie Case

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DULY NOTED Notable Ways to Stay Connected

Such a Place. Such a Homecoming. MARK YOUR CALENDAR NOW FOR HOMECOMING WEEKEND OCT. 7-9, 2022.

There’s just something about fall on Miami’s campus. The autumn leaves. The crisp air. A hot Bagel & Deli sandwich. We know you miss it, and we miss you. We want to celebrate BIG this year, so we’re pulling out all the stops to welcome alumni and friends back to campus for Homecoming Oct. 7-9. Cheer on the RedHawks.

Take a selfie with Swoop.

Relive your memories of painting Uptown red.

Go on a campus construction tour and check out the new buildings.

Check out the winners of the house decorating contest. Enjoy a toasted roll with that bagel sandwich. March in the Hawk Walk parade (yes, we’re bringing it back). Visit the bigger-than-ever Alumni Tailgate area for free swag, eats, and drinks.

Connect with friends. 10. Meet us Uptown after the game for the first-ever Oxtoberfest in partnership with the City of Oxford. A family-friendly, inclusive take on the traditional Oktoberfest, this promises to be a great new addition to Homecoming Weekend. MiamiOH.edu/Homecoming

See You This Fall ... • #MoveInMiami, Annual Day of Giving, Aug. 18

Ready for Prime Time If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Amazon Prime’s docu-series The College Tour. Season three features Miami University in a 30-minute episode highlighting 10 students and their stories. Amazon describes Miami as “the kind of place that inspires and motivates students to achieve their dreams.” Sounds like Miami to us. Not an Amazon subscriber? You can watch the video here.

• Pregame football events for alumni @ Kentucky, Northwestern, and Cincinnati in September • Homecoming Weekend Oct. 7-9 • Family Weekend Oct. 22-23 Stay up to date on alumni events.

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

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Enjoying a reunion in Cleveland last August were Jason Schaffer, Rich Plum, Pat Cowhard, Allison Ordona Decapite, Kerianne Detloff Hearns, Seth Tomasch ’93, Holly Duermit Kuhnell, Doug Ford, Graham Hearns, Mike Kral, and Hussien Talb.

96 Lori Varlotta PhD ’97 was inaugurated as the first woman president of California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks on Feb. 27, 2022. She was named CLU’s eighth president in June 2020, overseeing a university of 3,800 students and about 550 full-time and 340 parttime faculty and staff. She officially became president in September 2020, but her inauguration was postponed due to the pandemic. Gil Kessler ’62 of Westlake Village, California, represented Miami at the ceremony.

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Petertonjes celebrated their 25th anni-

versary in November 2021. Connie was appointed to assistant vice president of the Cincinnati Insurance Co. while serving as an underwriting manager for the management liability department. ¶ Elizabeth Wiecher Pierce, president and CEO of Cincinnati Museum Center, is one of eight selected as 2022 YWCA Greater Cincinnati Career Women of Achievement, outstanding role models for their leadership, vision, community service, and renowned professional success that also embraces the mission of the YWCA. The first woman to lead Cincinnati Museum Center in 200 years, she supervises a $16 million operating budget, 150 employees, and collections containing more than 3 million items. A renowned collaborator, she oversees the National Underground Railroad and Freedom Center in conjunction with Woody Keown Jr., its president/COO. In addition, she was recently one of seven named to the Ohio Commission for the U.S. Semiquincentennial by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine ’69 to plan the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States in 2026 and the impact of Ohioans on the nation’s past, present, and future.

Julie Childers Henry is

excited to let the Miami community know that her first book has been published. It started as a senioryear project when she was in Ann Haley MacKenzie’s Education class. “Dr. Ann was instrumental in helping me figure out how to get a job in the Education departments of zoos and aquariums — which I went on to do for 10 years before starting my own leadership consulting business (started at Cincinnati Zoo and Shedd Aquarium in Chicago). Dr. Don Kaufman — my primary Zoology professor — was the other half of my success, and I owe them both a deep debt of gratitude along with the fertile ground that Miami provided for my dreams!” Wisdom from the Wild: The Nine Unbreakable Laws of Leadership from the Animal Kingdom is an Amazon Bestseller in Biology of Wildlife and Business Mentoring and Coaching.

Chris Mikolay, Amanda

Adams, and their friend Matthew Carey Jordan are the hosts of the “Three Questions, Three Drinks” podcast, which is now ranked in the top 2% of all podcasts globally and climbing. Described as “a cocktail party for inquisitive people,” each podcast episode poses thought-provoking questions around one topic and captures a fun and intelligent conversation that gets more interesting with every sip. Guests have included British Open champion Ben Curtis, internet “Truth Bomb Mom” Kristina

Kuzmic, comedian Mike Polk Jr., and assorted authors, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists. “3Q3D” is available on all podcasting platforms.

John Eric Buckley has a

new book out on Kindle, Stranger Times (The Worst of Times Book 2). “It was the worst of times. And those times became stranger with each passing day. Despite the pouring rain, a lone figure perched on the roof of the tallest building. Meanwhile detectives Patches O’Brien and Jim Potter prepare to say goodbye to respected loved ones while notorious crime lord Paulie Durrant recovers from the bullet wound that almost killed him. Meanwhile, Durrant’s former bodyguard, Big Jack, and his love, Katherine, return from hiding to find a price on their heads. While Jack pays his own respects, a vicious murderer from the past emerges and kidnaps Katherine, leading Big Jack and the detectives on a chase deep into the bowels of the city.” ¶ Meghan “Mags” McElroy DeRoma is the author and illustrator of Awake (Roaring Brook Press, a Macmillan imprint). In the picture book, for ages 4-8, a girl who “lives at the tip-top of a building in a big city is going to bed one night, she is soooo sleepy, when out of the corner of her eye: SPIDER. The book details her crescendoing brainstorm on how to get rid of the HUGE beast, before realizing that the beast is actually just a tiny creature. Not so dissimilar from her.” This has been called Mags’ “brilliant debut.”

Stephanie Hogue was

featured on the cover of the 2021 Diamond edition of The Top 100 Magazine — Top 100 People in Finance. In investment banking and asset management for the past 16 years, Stephanie is the managing partner and

class notes

chief investment officer at Bombe Asset Management in Cincinnati, an alternative asset manager focused on optimizing transportation infrastructure.

Jeff Ewan ’02 MAcc ’03 has

been promoted to partner at the accounting firm Lavine, Lofgren, Morris & Engelberg, San Diego’s largest independent certified public accounting firm. Jeff has extensive experience providing tax services to individuals and a wide range of closely held businesses, including multistate entities. He has been with the firm since 2009. Active in the community, he is a board member of Hillel of San Diego, where he serves as audit chair. He and his family live in Poway, California. ¶ Jeffrey Rockenfield is vice president, producer management at American Modern, a leading specialty insurance provider and subsidiary of Munich Re. He lives in Cincinnati with his wife, Lisa Tegt Rockenfield ’03, and their two children. ¶ Married: David “Rusty” Shuffelton and Stephanie Spear, June 25, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

Reunion ¶ Katherine “Kate” Christoff is director of legal recruiting and professional development at the Cincinnati law firm of Keating Muething & Klekamp. She is involved in the hiring process for all attorneys including summer associates and lateral attorney hires. Prior to KMK Law, Kate was the recruiting and analytics manager in the Center for Professional Development at the University of Cincinnati College of Law.

Tiffany Garrett Gardner

was elected vice president of communications for U.S. Donor Conceived Council, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 2022 by a team of donor conceived people who serve on

a volunteer basis. The council recently spearheaded passage of the Colorado “Donor Conceived Persons and Families of Donor Conceived Persons Protection Act,” the first act in the U.S. that will abolish anonymous sperm and egg donation in Colorado for donations made on or after Jan. 1, 2025, and provide other necessary protections for donor conceived people. Tiffany, an attorney who learned she was donor conceived in 2018, testified in favor of the act. For more information, visit usdcc.org. ¶ Born: to Seth and Samara Chodosh Preisler ’05, Sloan Isabelle, July 16, 2021. They live in Columbus. ¶ Andrea Small is co-author of Navigating Ambiguity: Creating Opportunity in a World of Unknowns (Ten Speed Press). Designers and educators Andrea Small and Kelly Schmutte use humor and clear steps to help you embrace uncertainty as you approach a creative project. First, they explain how the brain works and why it defaults to certainty. Then they show you how to let go of the need for control and instead employ a flexible strategy that relies on the balance between acting and adapting, and the give-and-take between opposing approaches. The book includes beautiful cut-paper artwork illustrations.

Lauren Burgeson is the new

president of Iowa State Bank, the first woman to hold the position. She has worked at the bank for more than 16 years and has served on its board of directors since 2016. Lauren is active in the community, serving on the boards of EMC National Life Co. (since 2018) and Chrysalis Foundation (since 2016). She was recognized as a Business Record “Forty Under Forty” in 2019. ¶ Michael Westrich’s debut novel, Cornerstone: The King, was released in the fall of 2021. His pseudonym as an author is Michael Paul. “This is

a story of loss and grief and how the many shapes of love lead Jeremiah and Jameela to form a fiery bond, battle their internal demons, and learn the secret the queen has kept hidden for many years. Despite finding the legendary stone as a boy, Jeremiah can’t shake the feeling he is destined to always be an outsider. This restlessness haunts him into adulthood until he leads a quest to return the stone to its original home with his spiritual father named Padre, a fellow fugitive, a giant, and a mysterious woman named Jameela.”

Friends and roommates from Miami who graduated in 2002 got together in Phoenix, Arizona, in May 2022 to celebrate their 20-year anniversary: (l-r) Jennifer Smith Hoops, Andrea Lucarelli, Andrea Meroney Sponsel, and Helen Nauts Bridge. Photo was taken at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix.

Stephanie Caprini Houser

recently published her first children’s book. What Faye Loves. It is based on a true story about Stephanie’s youngest corgi, Faye, and highlights the importance of loving life’s little moments to find true joy.

Reunion ¶ Born: to Garrett and Erika Wirtz Eesley, Lane Harlow, Aug. 14, 2021. She joins big brother Pierce Keaton, born March 11, 2019. Everyone is happy and healthy and enjoying the warm California sunshine. ¶ Angela Lydon has been elected a partner with Frantz Ward. ¶ Jessica Mlinaric celebrated the release

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

Spring/Summer 2022

class notes

Effe Addae ’22, a native of Ghana, West Africa, earned her Nursing degree at Miami Regionals while working full time and raising her children, ages 4, 7, 8, and 10. People discouraged her from applying to the program, but losing a relative because of a nursing shortage cemented her intentions. She worked 12-hour shifts at AstraZeneca her first two years in the program and currently works full time at Effkay as a supervisor. She credits several Regionals faculty members with helping her power through. This fall, she will be one of the first students enrolled in Miami’s new online master’s degree program in Nursing. She intends to work toward the Family Nurse Practitioner degree.

of her second book, Chicago Scavenger: The Ultimate Search for Chicago’s Hidden Treasures (Reedy Press), this spring. It’s an interactive scavenger hunt guide to more than 300 hidden gems in 17 Chicago neighborhoods. It’s a follow-up to Jessica’s first book, Secret Chicago: A Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure (2018). ¶ Married: Ashley Wilson and Matt Giljahn ’11, surrounded by loved ones and the Albertan Rockies. Ashley and Matt live in Minneapolis with their fluffy boy, Bodhi. Ashley is a pediatric critical care intensivist at Children’s Minnesota hospitals in Minneapolis - St. Paul. Matt is a communications coordinator with Dakota County Public Health, acting as the public information officer for the COVID-19 response.

Charles Slife ’09 and Kerry

McCormack ’10 were elected to keep their seats on Cleveland City Council. Charles represents Ward 17, the West Park / Kamm’s Corners neighborhood and Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Kerry represents Cleveland’s Ward 3, which contains parts of Downtown Cleveland and the Ohio City, Stockyards, and Tremont neighborhoods.

miamian magazine

Jessica Bayles was elevated

to the partnership of Stoel Rives, effective Jan. 1, 2022. Jessica is an energy regulatory attorney in the energy development group based in the Washington, D.C., office. Her practice focuses on regulatory support for renewable project development and transactions, compliance counseling, and regulatory controversies. She counsels renewable energy developers and asset managers on compliance with the requirements of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and has significant experience in complex FERC litigation and settlement proceedings. She also advises large electric customers in state public utility commission proceedings. ¶ Jennifer Dickerson Van Horn ’10 MArc ’13, vice president of construction and planning at the Toledo Zoo, received a 2021 “20 Under 40” Leadership Recognition Award. She and the other 19 were selected from 209 candidates. Jennifer oversees the zoo’s master plan for capital projects, including managing a 10-year, $90 million capital fund. She oversaw the $30 million ProMedica Museum of Natural History, which received a Build Ohio award from the Associated General Contractors of Northwest Ohio. Jennifer volunteers in the community as an advocate for thoughtful planning and design to improve lives in low-income Toledo neighborhoods. She is co-chair of the Toledo Design Collective and is working on the Broadway Mile Plan in the Old South End. She and her family live in Waterville, Ohio.

Born: to David and Ellie Mescher-Miller ’12 , Theodore James, March 16, 2021. David is in communications for the city of Columbus, where they live. Ellie is an art teacher in Pickerington Local Schools.

Attorney Michael Pelagalli has joined internet defamation law firm Minc Law in Cleveland. Michael represents large corporations, executives, medical professionals, small businesses, and individuals in defamation matters. As lead counsel, he tackles all aspects of the litigation, trial, and appeals processes on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants. From removing defamatory content throughout the internet to establishing the monetary damages resulting from online defamation in courts across the country, Michael combines his deep litigation and jury trial experience to achieve tailored solutions for his clients.

Reunion ¶ Married: Katherine Lawicki and Ryan Costello, July 24, 2021, at the Ariel International Center in Cleveland. Miamians celebrating with them spanned two generations. They shared Morris residence hall freshman year, but their paths never crossed during the four years spent at Miami University. It wasn’t until dollar beers and a fateful picnic bench on an Ohio State Buckeye game day in fall of 2013 that Katherine and Ryan were brought together.

In summer 2021, Devin Mingesbruney was admitted to the Global Field Program at Miami. As part of Devin’s first Earth Expeditions course, he traveled to Baja Mexico and studied desert and marine landscapes through ecological and social field methods. ¶ Zachary Ross joined the taxation and real estate team of GrayRobinson Law Firm at its Orlando, Florida, office. He started his career in the audit and tax departments of KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers during which time he became a licensed certified public accountant. He then attended the University of Florida

class notes

Levin College of Law and obtained his JD and Master of Laws.

Caitlin Barry, who focuses on

medical negligence and health care litigation, has joined law firm Swanson, Martin & Bell in its Chicago office as an associate. She earned a JD in 2021 from DePaul College of Law. ¶ Married: Emily Hart and Austin White, Nov. 13, 2021, in Columbus. They live in Charlotte, North Carolina. ¶ Married: Rachel McVicker and Ryan Jun, July 31, 2021, in Columbus with dozens of fellow alumni celebrating and wishing them well. ¶ In summer 2021, Julianne Turner was admitted to the Global Field Program at Miami. As part of her first Earth Expeditions course, she traveled to Belize and studied coral reefs, manatees, howler monkeys, jaguars, and other wildlife while learning the methods communities are using to sustain them.

Aurora Oliva, DPM, earned a

degree of Doctor of Podiatric Medicine in 2021 from Dr. William M. Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. She is a podiatrist (foot and ankle surgery) in the Chester, Pennsylvania, area. ¶ Tyler Rigg has published a collection of short fiction, Riverside Daydreams, through Proving Press, a Columbus-based publisher. Each story was inspired by the plain, unassuming realm of the Midwest and by the imaginative, fantastical multiverse that it inspires. Tyler is a copy editor for BestReviews. This is his first publication.

Reunion ¶ Married: Katelyn Bier and Robert Ward ’15, Oct. 15, 2021, on Marco Island. Katelyn, who earned an MS at Bowling Green State University in spring 2020, is

a speech-language pathologist at a skilled nursing facility in Cleveland. Robert is a sales representative with Stryker Neurosurgical. They live in the Cleveland area. ¶ Married: Savannah Boerger and David Colston ’17, Aug. 21, 2021, in Lake Forest, Illinois. David is a PhD student at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and Savannah is a research fellow with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. They live in Carrboro, North Carolina. ¶ Attorney Caroline Ford has joined internet defamation law firm Minc Law. She worked at Minc Law while attending law school and has been trained by the firm’s attorneys on the complexities involved in the niche field of internet defamation law and litigation. She has successfully obtained a wide variety of removals for her clients, including removal of revenge porn postings, fake Google business reviews, and defamatory videos and posts published on blogs and social media platforms. She has also been able to successfully identify anonymous posters who go to great lengths to hide their identities in an attempt to avoid being sued for defamatory statements published about her clients. ¶ Isabelle Hanson is finishing her one-year reign as Miss Illinois, which she won in June 2021. An on-air news anchor and reporter at KFVS12, a CBS-affiliate news station that covers southern Illinois, southeast Missouri, and western Kentucky, Isabelle spent her year of service promoting The Media Literacy Movement by advocating for media literacy education in schools, providing resources to educators and parents, and by empowering students. She finished in the top 10 for the Miss America title, winning the talent competition during the second preliminary night and was awarded a $2,500 scholarship. Her talent was the classical violin. ¶ Ryan Slovis has

joined the Chicago office of law firm Swanson, Martin & Bell as an associate. Ryan, who earned a JD in 2021 from Chicago-Kent College of Law, focuses on medical negligence and health care, as well as product liability.

Zach Crowe is founder of

The Hero Project (THP), his nonprofit fitness organization that fights against the secondary impact of substance abuse in the Toledo community. THP is meant to empower children who have grown up with family drug addiction to share their feelings, stories, and experiences. The THP community is available to help them work through the secondary impact of substance abuse, something that each family member takes with them as they progress through life. “This is our mission, to end the projection of darkness from within through self-accountability, change, and healthy grieving.” Zack came up with the concept while a senior at Miami. ¶ In summer 2021, Savannah Pheanis was admitted to the Global Field Program at Miami. As part of her first Earth Expeditions course, she traveled to Baja Mexico and studied desert and marine landscapes through ecological and social field methods.

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

Caroline Brega ’22, a Finance and Sport Leadership and Management graduate, taking notes during a Miami RedHawks softball game, accepted a position as a Diversity & Opportunity Fellow with the Haslam Sports Group, where she will focus on business analytics for the Cleveland Browns and the Columbus Crew. Caroline will work with four other fellows from different universities around the country. Their goal is to drive revenue and to set optimal prices based on data generated from sponsors, fans, and customers, as well as to manage a variety of DEI related efforts.

Spring/Summer 2022

farewells Carl E. Boyer Jr. ’54, Lexington, Ky., Oct. 19, 2021.

Charles E. Bevilacqua ’59, Hamilton, Ohio, Dec. 5, 2021.

Steven R. Seals ’63, Miamisburg, Ohio, Sept. 25, 2021.

Robert L. Cottrell ’54, Hamilton, Ohio, Jan. 31, 2022.

William A. Finzel ’59, Midland, Mich., Nov. 25, 2021.

Joyce McKendree Silber ’63, Novi, Mich., Feb. 1, 2022.

C. Richard Dawson ’54, Suwanee, Ga., April 27, 2021.

Mary Ellen Smith Givens ’59, Chico, Calif., Sept. 26, 2021.

David H. Binstadt ’64, Fishers, Ind., April 7, 2022.

Lois Hall Gleason ’54, Hamilton, Ohio, Dec. 17, 2021.

Donald L. Huber ’59, West Chester, Ohio, Jan. 26, 2022.

Martha Baker Greenberg ’64, Boulder, Colo., Dec. 15, 2021.

Mary Jane Noel Speelman ’47, Tucson, Ariz., April 12, 2022.

Marcia Bowman Herrmannsfeldt ’54, Los Altos, Calif., Nov. 17, 2021.

Joan Schmidt Jouett ’59, Mariposa, Calif., Dec. 4, 2021.

Donald R. Perkins MEd ’64, Springfield, Ohio, Sept. 3, 2021.

John A. Kuhlman ’48, Palm City, Fla., Dec. 5, 2021.

Sarah Miller Soika ’54, Oxford, Ohio, June 25, 2021.

Robert C. Settlemire ’59, Port Saint Lucie, Fla., Sept. 13, 2021.

Nancy L. Reichelt ’64, Waynesville, Ohio, Sept. 6, 2021.

Richard F. Bates ’49, Baraboo, Wis., Jan. 1, 2020.

Jay S. Horton ’55, Salem, S.C., Jan. 15, 2022.

Ted M. Silverberg ’59, Beachwood, Ohio, Jan. 5, 2022.

Timothy P. Schwartz-Barcott ’64, West Greenwich, R.I., Oct. 28, 2021.

Kathryn Boehmer Kami ’49, Pompano Beach, Fla., Sept. 4, 2021.

Thomas A. Rickelman Sr. ’55, Cleveland, Ohio, July 22, 2021.

1960s Milton J. Arter MEd ’60 PhD ’73, Hampstead, N.C., June 23, 2021.

James P. Berry ’65, Bath, Ohio, Dec. 1, 2020.

1950s Marie Matson Carle ’50, Lakewood, Ohio, Oct. 30, 2021.

Richard L. Barr ’56, Arlington, Va., Sept. 22, 2021.

Jack R. Jeneson ’60, Chicago, Ill., Nov. 9, 2021.

Marcille Bowser Fink ’56, Cleveland, Ohio, Jan. 24, 2022.

Donald W. Rossman ’60, Chillicothe, Ohio, Aug. 23, 2021.

Richard A. Brunemann ’57, Naples, Fla., Aug. 24, 2021.

Thomas R. Fosnaught ’61, Mount Vernon, Ohio. Sept. 12, 2021.

Edward J. Dublin ’57, Evanston, Ill., Oct. 3, 2021.

Wayne L. Nicely ’61, Indianapolis, Ind., Sept. 15, 2021.

Barbara Shapiro Friedman ’57, LaPorte, Ind., Dec. 6, 2021.

Richard H. Rogers ’61, Santa Fe, N.M., Sept. 26, 2021.

Edward M. Grabill Jr. ’57, Northbrook, Ill., Jan. 15, 2022.

Marsha Corlett Sarakaitis ’61, Shaker Heights, Ohio, Feb. 11, 2022.

Walter A. King ’57, Verona, Wis., Jan. 13, 2022.

William E. Schmitz ’61, Dunwoody, Ga., Oct. 19, 2021.

Barbara Crowe Richter ’57, Olmsted Falls, Ohio, Sept. 27, 2021.

Paul L. Schneeman ’61, Greenwood, Ind., Nov. 9, 2021.

1940s Ann Frazier Rose ’44, Newark, Ohio, Dec. 28, 2021. Verl E. Luzena ’46, Pisgah Forest, N.C., Dec. 10, 2021. Martha “Anne” Bryan Davis ’47, Oxford, Ohio, Aug. 23, 2021. Robert A. Langenhan ’47, Stamford, Conn., Aug. 1, 2021.

Jean Hage Penniston ’50, Coatesville, Pa., Nov. 6, 2021. Miles W. Donaldson ’51, Marion, Ind., Sept. 2, 2021. Shirley Clippinger Lausch Smith ’51, Harrison, Ohio, Dec. 30, 2020. Eleanor Koons Stratton ’51, Plain City, Ohio, Dec. 13, 2021. Robert Barr Jr. ’52, Fairfax, Va., March 27, 2022. Marshall D. McCollum ’52, Beaverton, Ore., March 20, 2022. Alta Waugaman Miller ’52, San Antonio, Texas, Dec. 25, 2021. Cash Powell Jr. ’52 MA ’57, Springboro, Ohio, Aug. 26, 2021. Doris Stanfill Pulley ’52, Honolulu, Hawaii, Sept. 9, 2021. Paul M. Trottman ’52, Madrid, Spain, Nov. 26, 2021. Sally Vezina Green ’53, Dayton, Ohio, July 3, 2021. Gordon L. Hegenbarth ’53 MBA ’54, Sister Bay, Wis., Nov. 4, 2021. Alberta Mahaney Howard ’53 MEd ’76, Harrison, Ohio, Aug. 1, 2021. Wanda Spence Reid ’53, Palmyra, Pa., Sept. 13, 2021.

miamian magazine

Donna Chinberg Stanton ’57, Leland, Mich., Aug. 10, 2021. Patricia Schehl Catarrinho ’58, Cincinnati, Ohio, June 30, 2021. Robert W. Cottington Jr. ’58, Seattle, Wash., Aug. 1, 2021. Anthony F. Fata Sr. ’58, Largo, Fla., Aug. 12, 2021. J. Richard Jones ’58, Stow, Ohio, Sept. 15, 2021. Harry G. Walter ’58, Northfield, Ill., Feb. 27, 2022. Richard E. Wells ’58 MA ’60, Eaton, Ohio, Feb. 16, 2022. Golf coach for Miami Hamilton’s team around 1990.

Carol Crane Engledow ’62, Carmel, Ind., Oct. 27, 2021. Michael B. Blacker ’63, South Orange, N.J., Nov. 6, 2021.

John A. McCabe ’65 MEd ’66, Newark, Ohio, Aug. 29, 2021. Georgia B. Ardner ’66, Monroe, Mich., Oct. 13, 2021. Richard J. Baker Jr. ’66, Westerville, Ohio, Sept. 26, 2021. Kathy Siereveld Issenmann ’66, Hamilton, Ohio, Nov. 6, 2019. Jane Winans Schauer ’67, Three Rivers, Mich., Sept. 17, 2021. Paul R. Swenson ’67, Springfield, Mass., Oct. 16, 2021. Susan Raish Warden ’67, San Clemente, Calif., Dec. 9, 2021. James R. Slagle ’68, London, Ohio, June 26, 2021. Bob Babich ’69, Clairemont, Calif., April 3, 2022. Patrick J. “P.J.” O’Rourke ’69, Sharon, N.H., Feb. 15, 2022.

John E. Cocanougher Jr. ’63, Oxford, Ohio, Dec. 14, 2021.

1970s Michael D. Davies ’70, Carlsbad, Calif., Jan. 16, 2022.

Susan Shelby Gross ’63, Fairfax, Va., Feb. 16, 2021.

John B. Dilly ’70, Johns Creek, Ga., Nov. 9, 2021.

Gloria Smagola Palagie ’63 MEd ’65, Solon, Ohio, Nov. 11, 2021.

Allan S. “Scott” Livingston ’70, Mason, Ohio, Aug. 25, 2021.

Leonard G. Phillipps Jr. ’63, Atlanta, Ga., March 6, 2022.

Robert S. Lucas ’70, Old Greenwich, Conn., Dec. 22, 2021.

Tryon C. “Try” Rosser ’63, Jackson, Miss., Jan. 11, 2022.

David E. Hamilton ’71 MA ’73, Bellbrook, Ohio, Sept. 3, 2021.

William F. Russell ’63, Reno, Nev., May 16, 2021.

Michael R. Minich ’71, St. James, Minn., Jan. 26, 2022.

farewells

Chester J. Bojanowski MBA ’72, Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., Sept. 26, 2021. Henry W. Cepluch ’72, Hamilton, Ohio, Nov. 8, 2021.

Renita Gomer Peck ’89, Indianapolis, Ind., Dec. 10, 2021.

co-founder, Institute of Environmental Sciences.

Michael W. Stevenson ’89, Westerville, Ohio, Feb. 10, 2022.

Anne W. Baxter, Oxford, Ohio, Jan. 14, 2022. Professor emerita of Piano and Music Literature, 1965–1992.

Mary Wegner Grisez ’72 MEd ’74, Vandalia, Ohio, Oct. 28, 2021.

Kathryn “Kate” E. Stewart ’89, South Lyon, Mich., March 1, 2022.

David P. Walter ’73, Bloomington, Ind., April 10, 2022.

1990s Ronald G. Smith ’91, Loveland, Ohio, Nov. 25, 2021.

Penny Free ’74, Spring Valley, Ohio, Dec. 10, 2021.

Lock P. Beachum Jr. ’92, Youngstown, Ohio, Oct. 12, 2021.

Robert C. “Bobby” Guerin Jr. ’74, Massillon, Ohio, Oct. 25, 2021.

Amber Lucas Donovan ’92, Bay Village, Ohio, Jan. 4, 2022.

Constance Marten Herbert ’74, Carlsbad, Calif., Nov. 18, 2020. Jennifer Oldfield Davis ’75, Oxford, Ohio, Dec. 25, 2021. Sue Grasley Miller ’75, Brookville, Ohio, Dec. 29, 2021.

Scott M. Knaul ’93, Westerville, Ohio, Aug. 27, 2021. Ilana N. Klein ’95, Chicago, Ill., Jan. 11, 2022. Bryan D. Walters MS ’96, Cincinnati, Ohio, Nov. 10, 2021.

Robert D. “Bobby” Davidson ’77, Dublin, Ohio, May 8, 2021.

2000s Christopher T. Jackson ’06, Topeka, Kan., Nov. 1, 2021.

Huntington S. Kelley ’77, Weston, Conn., Nov. 24, 2021.

Evan J. Barr-Beare ’12, Providence, R.I., Aug. 7, 2021.

Dennis D. Shamp ’77, West Chester, Ohio, Feb. 14, 2020.

Brice L. Terrell ’12, Cincinnati, Ohio, May 18, 2021.

1980s Kelvin R. Utendorf ’80, Powell, Ohio, Oct. 8, 2021.

Hunter N. Wright ’12, Mount Vernon, Ohio, Oct. 4, 2021.

Emily Kisling Horn Medearis ’82, Eaton, Ohio, Dec. 27, 2021. John A. Oehlerts ’83, Richardson, Texas, Oct. 15, 2021. Raymond C. Pater III ’83, Cincinnati, Ohio, Dec. 19, 2021. Scott M. Lenz ’84, Centerville, Ohio, Sept. 3, 2021. Marcia Beer McCutchan ’84, Hamilton, Ohio, Sept. 5, 2021. Tamara Fuhrman Spilka-Pope ’85, Allendale, N.J., July 20, 2021. John S. “Scott” Karcher ’86, Cedarburg, Wis., Jan. 11, 2021. Shelley R. Larned ’86, Ann Arbor, Mich., Jan. 16, 2022. Laura Buchsieb Stephens ’87, Youngstown, Ohio, Sept. 18, 2021.

Bobbi J. Miller MA ’14, Seattle, Wash., Sept. 17, 2021. Alexis M. Burney ’17, Dayton, Ohio, Dec. 20, 2021. Heather M. Statt ’18, Tucson, Ariz., Oct. 2, 2021. Samuel C. Flora ’20, Dublin, Ohio, Feb. 26, 2022. FACULTY, STAFF, FRIENDS W.E. “Eric” Aikens, Youngstown, Ohio, Jan. 23, 2022. Professor emeritus, Kinesiology and Health. Gwyn “Bud” Angus, Decatur, Ga., Oct. 1, 2021. Professor emeritus, Business Technology, 1985–2005. Gary W. Barrett, Athens, Ga., April 10, 2022. Founding director, Miami’s Ecology Research Center, 1969–1992;

David W. Bean, London, England, Jan. 11, 2022. Artistin-residence, director of Artist Series, and professor of Music, 1960–1983. James L. Buckley, Oxford, Ohio, Jan. 13, 2022. Miami’s first recycling coordinator, 1992–2003. Chiang-Tsu “C.T.” Chow, Oxford, Ohio, March 26, 2022. Professor emeritus of Chinese Language and Literature, 1966–1998.

Barbara R. Kolb, Oxford, Ohio, Nov. 27, 2021. Secretary in Student Affairs, 1986–2001. Chung H. (Hoon) Lee ’61, Kailua, Honolulu, Hawaii, May 12, 2021. Professor of Economics, 1966–1980. Randall W. Listerman ’60, Oxford, Ohio, Jan. 19, 2022. Professor in the German and Spanish departments for 35 years, retiring in 2000. William M. Rouse Jr., Leelanau County, Mich., Dec. 25, 2021. Professor emeritus of Teacher Education, 1967–2002. Rebecca Rumpler, Oxford, Ohio, Feb. 1, 2022. At Miami for 25 years, last position as assistant director, Financial Affairs.

Orval M. Conner, Burlington, N.C., Dec. 3, 2021. Professor emeritus of Educational Leadership, 1968–1995.

Margaret T. “Margo” Sacco, Oxford, Ohio, Oct. 5, 2020. Professor emerita of Teacher Education, 1973–2013.

Peter Dahoda, Oxford, Ohio, Jan. 6, 2022. Professor emeritus of Art, 1955–1987; began ceramics program and CraftSummer.

Pamela J. Seibold ’73 MBA ’77, Middletown, Ohio, Oct. 26, 2021. Taught at Miami for over 30 years.

Thomas C. Egbert, College Corner, Ohio, July 22, 2021. Head groundskeeper for 30 years.

Marilyn J. Serraino ’72 PhD ’98, Cincinnati, Ohio, Sept. 10, 2021. Taught English Literature.

James R. Grover MA ’71, Pittsburgh, Pa., April 23, 2021. Instructor, Communications Telecommunications, 1968–1971.

Mary Lee Malcom Sonander ’56 MEd ’62, Athens, Ohio, Aug. 3, 2021. After 22 years, retired as an associate professor of Home Economics in 1984.

Evah “Jo” Smith Heimsch ’74 ’80 MA ’86, West Chester, Ohio, Jan. 29, 2022. Joined staff in 1968, and served for 25 years.

Benjamin R. Spilman ’95 ’04 MS ’18, Hamilton, Ohio, April 10, 2022. Retired as captain after 26 years with Miami Police.

Rachel Louise McCastlain Hill, Marlinton, W.Va., April 24, 2022. Administrative assistant in several departments, including Geology, History, Aeronautics/ Physics, and for President Emeritus Phillip Shriver.

James D. Swartz, Oxford, Ohio, Oct. 29, 2021. Professor of Instructional Design and Technology, starting in 2004.

Ned C. Hoelzer ’61 MBA ’64, Oxford, Ohio, Jan. 26, 2022. Taught at Miami, 1966–1998. Fanny Banis Kisling ’73 MEd ’74 PhD ’86, Eaton, Ohio, Oct. 28, 2021. Former academic counselor.

Linda Goff Tatman MEd ’78, Lawrenceburg, Ind., July 31, 2021. Former assistant director of Ohio Writing Project. Scott R. Van Dam ’77, Oxford, Ohio, April 29, 2021. Retired in 2011 as head of Access Services for University Libraries.

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.

Spring/Summer 2022

days of old

Coming Up Roses On a warm June afternoon in 1889, Leila McKee, principal of

History courtesy of Stephen Gordon ’75 MA ’81, administrator of the McGuffey House and Museum, and Beta Theta Pi, whose national headquarters is in Oxford.

miamian magazine

Western Female Seminary, better known these days as Western College for Women, hosted a reception to recognize Miami University’s Beta Theta Pi graduating seniors. (Leila had ties to the fraternity as her longtime Beta sweetheart, John Young Craft, died in 1878 while an undergraduate at Centre College. She wore his Beta badge for years.) The event also marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of the fraternity at Miami. At the appointed time, Henrietta McGuffey Hepburn — the daughter of William Holmes McGuffey, a professor at Miami (1826-1836) when his first eclectic readers were published, and wife of Andrew D. Hepburn, Miami professor of English Language and Literature — stood to make a much-anticipated proclamation. According to the June 1889 Miami Student newspaper, “The most pleasing event of the day was when Mrs. Dr. Hepburn arose from the banquet table and announced that the fraternity had chosen a floral emblem. Mrs. Hepburn, her daughter Miss Etta Hepburn, and Miss McKee had chosen it.” They had selected an old-fashioned climbing rose from a bush that grew on the seminary’s front porch, a building later named Peabody Hall (pictured left). Believed to have been a Queen of the Prairie, the pink flower was presented to Beta founders John Knox, Miami Class of 1839, and Samuel Marshall, Miami Class of 1840, who were “on hand for the grand affair.” Later that fall, Beta’s 50th General Convention officially adopted Queen of the Prairie as the society’s representative flower, believed to be the first such notion of any fraternity. Today, the only known specimens of this variety in Oxford can be seen on the west wall of the McGuffey House and Museum, on campus at the corner of Spring and Oak (pictured right). Two bushes were planted along the wall in October 2015 with funds donated by Ed and Sue Jones in memory of Sue’s mother, Eva M. Clement. Sue is a former professor in the School of Education and a docent at the Miami University Art Museum and the McGuffey House and Museum. Her husband, Ed, is a Wichita State Beta and professor emeritus of Miami’s Department of Teacher Education.

Queen of the Prairie roses at McGuffey House.

Summer 2022

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