Northern Magazine Winter 2010-11 by Northern Magazine

NORTHERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY

WINTER 2010-11 VOLUME 9, NO. 1

The Silk Road

One woman’s voyage to fashion nobility MEET THE

LIFESAVERS

Radio Free KENTUCKY

M A K E U P FO R

THE SOUL WINTER 2010-2011

A m e s s ag e f ro m t h e p re s i d e n t “The transformation NKU has experienced over the past decade has been nothing short of remarkable. For those who haven’t been to campus in awhile, I encourage you to visit.” The holiday season is upon us, and we’ve just wound down another exciting fall semester at Northern Kentucky University. As I was walking across campus the other day, I was struck by how much things have changed during my nearly 14 years at NKU. In some ways, it doesn’t even look or feel like the same campus. The amount of green space increases every year, and the campus feels softer and more inviting. As just one small example, look at Loch Norse. What was only a short time ago an isolated farm pond that sat at the foot of a large, inconveniently situated grass hill has been completely transformed. The lake, along with the Oakley and Eva G. Farris Amphitheater (formerly that grass hill), is now one of the most popular areas of campus. As we expected, the Student Union has become our social hub, and The Bank of Kentucky Center has brought tens of thousands of new visitors to NKU. And our growth goes far beyond new facilities. In response to community needs, we’ve created or expanded countless new undergraduate and graduate programs. To help address the nursing shortage that will pose an unprecedented challenge to our region and nation as our population continues to age, we’ve created programs such as our cutting-edge online M.S. in Nursing program. We’re also developing a Doctor of Nursing Practice program. To help prepare our next generation of education leaders, we created the Doctor of Education in

Educational Leadership. As we continue to grow, NKU will continue to build academic programs that are critical to the success of our region and the commonwealth. Throughout 2010 we’ve watched Griffin Hall, the new home for our College of Informatics, take shape. We can’t wait to host the dedication ceremony in 2011. And we’re already working to secure funding for a new health innovations center. All you have to do is pick up a newspaper or turn on a television these days to know why this facility is so important to our region and to the commonwealth of Kentucky. The simple fact is, there aren’t enough nurses or skilled healthcare professionals to handle the rapidly increasing needs of our aging population. Inside this edition of Northern, you can read profiles of some of our nursing alumni and read about the positive impact our new College of Health Professions has on the community. The transformation NKU has experienced over the past decade has been nothing short of remarkable. For those who haven’t been to campus in awhile, I encourage you to visit. Even if you just drive through, you’ll notice more facilities, more students (we’re up to nearly 16,000), and more school spirit than ever before. Every day I see more NKU T-shirts and license plates, and every time I speak with our students I’m reminded that while our school has grown and our campus has changed, we have not lost sight of what makes NKU special. NKU is a place of small classes and caring faculty, a place where dreamers come to get the support and tools they need to enhance their lives and change the world. We’re a family, and I want to take this opportunity to thank you for all that you have done in support of Northern Kentucky University. Your dreams are our story, and your accomplishments are our legacy. From our family to yours, I hope that you have a safe and happy holiday season.

President James Votruba

Co nt en t s

NORTHERN W i n t e r 2 0 1 0 - 1 1

regulars

features

PRESIDENT’S PAGE

NORSE NUGGETS

NORTHERN NEWS

NORTHERN ATHLETICS

ALUMNI JOURNAL

CLASS NOTES

PASSION, FASHION, AND THE KENTUCKY COUTURIÈRE

Of all the ways to break into the fashion design business, few involve cold-calling the Museum of London and having them create a custom position for you. But Celia Reyer did, and she’s not stopping there.

URGENT CARE

Just as they’re gaining stature in our healthcare system, a massive shortage of nurses is predicted in the coming years. After you meet four of the region’s best, you’ll know why you can’t live without them.

MIKE TUSSEY’S VOICE OF VICTORY

Meet Mike Tussey, voice of Norse basketball, author, coach to Billy Ray Cyrus, broadcasting Hall of Famer, and the man who knows just how far Pete Rose will go to win a charity basketball game.

GOAL!!!

We counted every seat, step, and blade of grass at NKU’s new soccer stadium just to bring you this photo essay. You’re welcome.

ON THE COVER:

Celia Reyer puts final touches on a figure before it enters permanent casing at the Museum of London. The ship hat was designed by world-renowned milliner Philip Treacy in 2010, adding a contemporary element to the historic two-piece gown. N O R T H E R N M A G A Z I N E I S N O W O N L I N E ! Check out web-only features

at http://northernmagazine.nku.edu. There, you’ll find updates to these articles and additional information exclusive to the web.

VOLUME 9, NO. 1

EDITOR Brent Donaldson ’05

DESIGNER Dionne Laycock ’90

COPY EDITOR Tira Rogers ’01, ’05

PHOTOGRAPHER Timothy D. Sofranko

PUBLISHER Deidra S. Fajack Director of Alumni Programs Gerard A. St. Amand Vice President for University Advancement

CONTRIBUTORS Josh Blair

Jon O’Hara

Matthew Brewer

Don Owen

Ryan Clark

Tira Rogers

Chris Cole

Chad Schultz

Jill Liebisch

Rich Shivener

Katie Morris

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Lee Rose ’96, President Gregory L. Cole ’82, President-elect David McClure ’83, ’08, Vice President Christopher A. Sturm ’95, Immediate Past President Deidra S. Fajack, Secretary/Treasurer

CORRESPONDENCE Northern Kentucky University Office of Alumni Programs 421 Johns Hill Road Highland Heights, Kentucky 41099 phone: web:

(859) 572-5486

alumni.nku.edu

e-mail:

alumni@nku.edu

N O RT H E R N

WINTER 2010-2011

NORSE NUGGETS

Photo credit: FOTOCROMOO

Career opportunities

Y.E.S. Festival

Do the right thing

Going mobile

Does your résumé need a boost? The Career Development Center in the University Center offers résumé assistance, career tips, and job listings for NKU alumni. If you dream of owning your own business, NKU and the Small Business Development Center provide free (you read that right) and confidential consulting as well as inexpensive classroom seminars and workshops. For more information, call (859) 572-5680, e-mail cdc@nku.edu, or visit cdc.nku.edu.

April 7–17, Northern Kentucky University’s Department of Theatre and Dance will present the 15th biennial YearEnd Festival series of new, cutting-edge plays. Since its inception in 1983, the Y.E.S. Festival has presented 45 world premieres from playwrights from across the United States, Canada, and Europe to more than 64,000 patrons, and it’s only getting better. For ticket information, call the NKU Theatre box office at (859) 572-5464.

Each year NKU sponsors a weeklong Combined Giving Campaign to provide assistance to those in need within our community. This year, more than $42,000 has been raised for United Way and Community Shares, who work with other nonprofits to provide local assistance. The official campaign is over, but it’s never too late to give. To donate, contact Tammy Knochelmann at (859) 572-5191 or knochelmann@nku.edu.

Four NKU students from the Mobile & Web Academy (part of the College of Informatics) developed the FireDepartment.org iPhone app that gives San Ramon Valley, Calif., residents the ability to locate fires, traffic accidents, and hazardous mishaps via interactive map with the touch of a finger. Don’t live in that area? That’s OK. This free app’s live feed of dispatches is oddly compelling no matter where you live. For more information, visit the iTunes store.

N O RT H E R N

to go, but I think at the end of the day, a lot of the incumbent

NORSE NUGGETS

I don’t know which way the surge is going

Democrats have done a good job....We’re either going to be down 20 seats, or we’re going to hold the House. I don’t think it will be a number in between. Howard Dean at NKU’s Alumni Lecture Series, as quoted on nky.com about his predictions for the Congressional midterm elections.

The Daily Show provides the most intelligent political commentary on U.S. TV, but it’s also not above scatological humor. In a way, Stewart is like a smart adolescent—

The Barton Effect

Your name here

Total bragging rights

which is very appealing

Back in August, NKU’s esteemed and oft-quoted professor and cave microbiologist Hazel Barton again appeared in the national media, this time earning a spot in a Popular Science piece titled “30 Awesome College Labs.” Keeping company with labs like Carnegie Mellon’s robotic institute and MIT’s toy lab, her lab is where you go to “study Martian conditions here on Earth.” To see the list, visit popsci.com and search for “awesome college labs.”

To commemorate NKU’s new $6.5 million, stateof-the-art soccer stadium, the university has created a way for alumni and fans to become a part of this amazing new facility with a brick paver program. To customize your own brick in the entrance plaza of the stadium, visit www. nkunorse.com and click on the “Brick Paver” link under the “Giving” tab, or contact Taylor Wood at (859) 5727894 or woodt4@nku.edu.

Forbes magazine recently gathered students’ points of view on the top colleges in America. Based on more than four million student evaluations, ratemyprofessor.com info, records of post-grad success, and the average grad’s debt level four years after graduation, NKU ranked ahead of Western Kentucky University, Eastern Kentucky University, and the University of Cincinnati. Go Norse! Check out “America’s Best Colleges” at forbes.com.

to a lot of men. John Alberti, professor and director of cinema studies at NKU, as quoted in Montreal newspaper The Gazette about Jon Stewart being named the most influential man of 2010 in an online poll by AskMen. com.

NKU BUZZ WINTER 2010-2011

Best Western

Photo credit: Melissa Fields

On local indie band The Western’s recently released, self-titled debut EP, the fourth song—a bouncy ballad wrapped in introspection called “Facade”—features a steady hum that underscores the intro and verses. It’s an oddly pleasant sound, and one that should be familiar to all who grew up around the NKU region. “We include the ambient sounds of Cincinnati on several of our recordings,” says Rich Shivener (’06, ’10), the band’s guitarist and lead melody-maker. “We like people to guess.” On “Facade,” the mystery sound is a recording the band made of cars driving over the Roebling Bridge. “Can you hear it?” Shivener asks. Rich Shivener is a staple of the local music scene, easily recognizable with his curly mop of brown hair and default brown blazer with button-up shirt and jeans. He’s a veteran guitarist in bands like Walk the Moon, Charlie Hustle, Slow Claw, and Sparrow Bellows—local acts who’ve drawn respectable crowds in clubs around the region. But The Western is the first band he’s shared with his cousin, singer Leigh Ann Shivener, and the first band we’ve heard of that practices and records in a pizza commissary. That last detail is thanks to The Western bass player Ben Jones. “Ben is a best friend of mine from Norwood,” Shivener says. “He works in a pizza factory, and his dad basically makes the bread for Angilo’s Pizzas across the region.” (Incidentally, Leigh Ann recommends the Ham Delight hoagie.) But what does The Western sound like, you ask? Well, it’s not country. Or western. Cincinnati CityBeat has this to say: “The well-produced EP showcases the band’s versatile, catchy sound, which veers from the textured modern/vintage approach of Camera Obscura or She & Him to more punchy, driving songs.” Shivener, however, goes with a quasi-visual approach: “PJ Harvey skydiving without a parachute from a Jefferson Airplane? I’m a nerd.” The Western performs at venues like Northside Tavern, Southgate House, Mayday, and other local clubs on a regular basis. Look ’em up, get your boots on, and go. N O RT H E R N

If you didn’t attend NKU’s Alumni Association and Fidelity Investments Alumni Lecture Series because you thought that former governors Jeb Bush and Howard Dean would be too predictably partisan, guess again. Here are a few quotes from the evening; between Jeb Bush and Howard Dean, see if you can guess who said them: 1. On the midterm elections: “I don’t think the president is going to be spanked a lot. A mild paddling, maybe.” 2. On Americans’ views on homosexuality: “Fortunately, it’s appropriate to evolve and transform.” 3. On our national debt: “The worst thing that we could do to this country is leave the next generation with a $14 trillion national debt.” 4. On getting this country moving in the right direction: “The longest journey starts with a single step, and we better make that step in a hurry.” 5. On the war in Afghanistan: “I don’t see a clear mission, and I don’t see the end zone.” The fact that the answers (below) defy common political stereotypes is a testament to just what an insightful and indeed inspiring debate it was—especially when you consider that the debate took place a week before polarizing midterm elections. With the divisive and often rancorous tone that defined this past election cycle, it was almost shocking to witness intelligent and civil political discourse. The Tea Party. Marriage equality. Human rights. Limited government. The deficit. Taxes and regulation. Bush and Dean covered all of these topics with genuine thoughtfulness and minimal political posturing. In fact, at one point, after each man had talked about how to lower the unemployment rate, shocked moderator Clyde Gray asked, “Where has this level of civility been throughout this election?” It’s a great question. The alumni association is busy organizing next year’s debate, so stay tuned. In the meantime, here are the answers. See you next year!

(Answers: 1. Dean 2. Bush 3. Dean 4. Dean 5. Bush)

NORTHERN NEWS

CIVIL DISCOURSE

Letter of the law Over the course of 24 years residing on Kentucky’s highest court, Kentucky Supreme Court justice Donald C. Wintersheimer collected more than 8,000 legal briefs, memos, and opinion writings. In a boon for legal eagles everywhere, the now-retired justice recently donated his files to NKU Chase College of Law. Incredibly, the college has already converted the paper files into a massive digital archive.

Wintersheimer’s choice to give Chase the archives was built on the justice’s longtime affiliation with the university—his offices used to inhabit the top floor of Nunn Hall, and Wintersheimer teaches regular seminars here on campus. He was also the college’s former distinguished jurist in residence. Michael Whiteman, associate dean for Chase’s law library services and information technology, is eager to see how the archives will aid students in understanding Kentucky’s judicial decision-making process. “The donation tripled the coverage that we already had,” Whiteman says. “Students can now look back and review the decision-making process for the most important cases in Kentucky from the past 30 years.” While the halls of Chase Library are already graced with abundant resources and technology, the Wintersheimer donations will allow students to better track the modus operandi of the Kentucky legislative process. In fact, cases with prominent legislative impacts constitute much of the former justice’s repertoire. To wit: Kuprion v. Fitzgerald upheld the constitutionality of Kentucky’s family courts—a decision crucial in allowing for the creation of courts and judges dedicated to hearing and deciding domestic issues. To access the digital archives, visit chaselaw.nku.edu/library/wintersheimer.

LOOK WHO’S 40! Roughly 40 years ago this past November, former NKU president Dr. W. Frank Steely and four other men convened at the First National Bank Building in Covington, Ky., for the inaugural meeting of the NKU Foundation. The Foundation—then known as the Northern Kentucky State College Research and Development Foundation—had been incorporated only four days earlier to provide oversight for endowments and other donated funds they hoped to receive for the school. On that day in 1970, the fledgling group elected five members to its board of directors; by the end of their first year, they had amassed $15,501. Fast-forward 40 years. This past September, just three blocks away from its first meeting place, the NKU Foundation convened at The Ascent in Covington to celebrate its 40th anniversary. Its five members have grown to 63. Its $15,501 coffer now holds more than $86 million, including $54 million in permanently endowed funds. Before Dr. James Votruba began his speech that evening, he scanned the faces in the audience. He saw new members, and he saw those who had dedicated their lives to NKU and its Foundation—people who’ve spent decades preserving and progressing the university through the stewardship of private donations. And he saw members who helped steer the foundation’s

investments through the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. He also saw Judy Gibbons, who, though she didn’t attend NKU, became so impressed with the university that she joined the Foundation in the early 1990s and recently celebrated her own one-year anniversary as its president. “Since 1970, the NKU Foundation has effectively and successfully managed critical sources of private revenue,” Votruba said. “These gifts from generous donors have funded student scholarships, campus expansion, building renovations, technology upgrades, community outreach programs, and more. I would like to thank all of you who have in one capacity or another helped make NKU what it is today. Your efforts are one of the major reasons that Northern Kentucky University will be here tomorrow.” WINTER 2010-2011

NORTHERN NORTHERN ATHLETICS NEWS

Football

Division of power Someday, Northern Kentucky University will enter the ranks of Division I athletics competition. Until then, the athletics department is doing the next best thing: recruiting Div I players. Three transfers—two of them from Division I—could play key roles for the NKU men’s basketball team this season. The first is senior point guard Malcolm Eleby, a three-year St. Bonaventure veteran who averaged 5.8 points and 2.5 rebounds per game last season. As a sophomore two years ago, Eleby averaged 7.0 points and 3.4 rebounds, and he ranked 14th in the Atlantic 10 Conference with 42 steals. “Malcolm is the best passer on the team,” NKU head coach Dave Bezold says, “and he is one of the best guards I have seen in getting the ball to open teammates.” The Norse also welcome former Tennessee Volunteer Josh Tabb, who saw action in 96 games in three years for the Volunteers, including 11 starts as a junior in 2008-09—a season that saw him score 10 points against UNC-Asheville. Finally, the Norse welcome 6-foot-5 forward and College of Southern Maryland transfer Bobby Shannon, who led the Maryland Junior College Athletic Conference in scoring last year at 23.0 points per game. He also led the Hawks in field-goal percentage (.545) and rebounds per game (6.3) last season. No wonder Arkansas, Georgetown, Maryland, Villanova, Memphis, UTEP, George Washington, and Iowa State all tried to recruit him after he graduated high school in 2006.

THE SCHAPPELL SHOW Kevin Schappell (’07), the new men’s basketball assistant coach for NKU, knows a lot about winning at both the NCAA Division I and II levels. He’s a four-year letter-winner who scored 868 career points for the Norse from 2003 to 2007; then he spent the past three years as a graduate assistant coach at West Virginia University. Last season, he helped the Mountaineers advance to the NCAA Division I Final Four. “It was a great experience to go to the Final Four with West Virginia,” Schappell says. “I was fortunate to be a part of a great program.” While a player at NKU, Schappell was key in the Norse’s NCAA Division II Great Lakes region championship game. The Norse knocked off top-seeded Findlay in the regional semifinals of that tournament, ending that team’s— and the nation’s—longest home winning streak at 59 consecutive games. “Kevin knows our program about as well as anyone,” NKU head coach Dave Bezold says. “He’s been at one of the elite basketball programs in Division I the past three years, so he’s also going to give us a different perspective on many things.” N O RT H E R N

Dear NKU students, alumni, staff, faculty, enthusiasts, and citizens of Highland Heights: Northern Kentucky University finally—after 42 years of suffering without pass rushes and corner blitzes and illegal horse-collar tackles—has a football team. Sort of. The Northern Kentucky River Monsters, members of the newly formed Ultimate Indoor Football League, will call The Bank of Kentucky Center home for the upcoming season of arena football. “In northern Kentucky you have good high school football; you just don’t have good professional football,” says Ray Jackson, owner of the River Monsters and a former fullback with Cincinnati Bengals and Tennessee Titans until an injury ended his career in 2005. Rodney Swanigan, current assistant running backs coach at Central State University who spent last season on the coaching staff of the Continental Indoor Football League champions Cincinnati Commandos, will coach the River Monsters. The league will bring its fan-friendly atmosphere to BOKC March 13, 2011, with the River Monsters’ first home game against the Johnstown Generals. “The players sit down, and the parents and kids get to come on the field and get autographs from the players,” Jackson says. “It’s just a different atmosphere.” The River Monsters will play seven regular-season home games from mid-March through June. Single-game tickets are on sale now with prices starting at $7 or $5 for alumni. Season tickets start at $35. For more info, check out nkyrivermonsters.com.

STORY: Chris Cole ’99, ’04, ’09

Bob Sheehan, who just completed his 14th season as the women’s head soccer coach, has seen a lot change during his tenure. The inaugural 1997 NKU squad played its games on an old, divot-marked field that is now a parking garage. This year, the Norse christened a spectacular new $6.5 million complex that seats 1,000 fans. But one thing that has remained constant under Sheehan’s watch is success. He’s spent about half his tenure at NKU defending the Great Lakes Valley Conference title, and heading into the 2010 season, his teams had won five regional championships, advanced to three national semifinals, and played for the NCAA Division II national championship in 2000. Northern magazine recently sat down with Sheehan to talk about soccer, his program’s humble beginnings, and the spectacular new stadium he now calls home. NORTHERN: We’re sitting here in the Founders’ Suite of the new NKU Soccer Stadium. Talk a little bit about this place. SHEEHAN: It’s unbelievable. We’ve been renters for 12 years at Town & Country. We had a wonderful relationship there; it really served us well for many years, but it just wasn’t our home. For the president, the board, and the entire university to make this

investment in soccer—we are absolutely thrilled. NORTHERN: What are some of your favorite features of the stadium? SHEEHAN: The surface is spectacular. Majorleague soccer stadiums are installing this type of surface. It’s in Ohio State’s football stadium. The building itself—my gosh—the outer suite, coaches’ offices, locker rooms, athletic training space, concessions, wonderful press box, all the amenities—it truly can be overwhelming. For them to have a locker room—we’ve actually never had a locker room before. Really, it was changing in the car on the way down to practice and putting your shin guards and cleats on in the parking lot. NORTHERN: Your alumni who played on the old field here on campus—what do they say when they see the complex? SHEEHAN: We had the alumni game here at the end of August, and they were proud to see how far we’ve come. I still remember that first team in 1997. We had very little money. When the women got on and off the bus, they were so gracious to the bus drivers just for driving them to the games because they were so used to getting their money together for gas and driving to West Virginia for club games. There was a sense of respect and not taking anything for granted NORTHERN: What difference can a stadium like this make when it comes to wins and losses? SHEEHAN: These players can park right here. They walk in, have a locker and locker room. As far as pregame goes, it’s all right here—we’re not wondering who’s stuck in traffic trying to get off the Wilder exit. We have time now if we need to work on individual things. As far as home-field advantage goes, it’s our field and we can utilize it when we need it. Oh, and the field is 120 yards by 80 yards [most GLVC fields are 115 x 70], so our players have to be very fit. We like it that way. NORTHERN: It must be nice having an office at the complex. SHEEHAN: It’s overwhelming to think that four years ago I really didn’t even have an office. My office was the trunk of my car. It’s been an interesting process from the start of our program 13 years ago with one set of uniforms, one T-shirt, and our players could only order off the dollar menu. We’ve advanced beyond the dollar menu.

WINTER 2010-2011

NORTHERN ATHLETICS

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

PASSION, FASHION, and the KENTUCKY COUTURIÈRE On a brisk February morning, a shifting mass of small schoolchildren sporting smart suit jackets shuffled into the Museum of London, where they did their best to remain still until the start of their tour. Standing with them Fashion designer was Celia Reyer (’04, ’09), fresh off the London Underground. Reyer wasn’t Celia Reyer prepares exactly a student (in fact, between earning two degrees from NKU, she’d graduated from one of the top fashion design schools in the world), and for the world stage she wasn’t a teacher. Reyer had worked and studied everywhere from the Cincinnati Museum Center to Palm Beach to Scotland, designing for on- and STORY: Jill Liebisch off-Broadway plays and consulting for an Academy Award costume design exhibition. On this day, Reyer, just 27, added to her résumé the title of assistant fashion curator at the Museum of London—a position created specifically for her by the esteemed author and fashion curator, Beatrice Behlen. “I always refer to Celia as my little NKU fashionista,” says David Conzett, Reyer’s former mentor and curator of history objects at the Cincinnati Museum Center. “She was one of those people you thought had been working in museums for years.” N O RT H E R N

NFLgNKU The cultural wellspring from which Reyer’s artistic passion took root wasn’t the world of art museums or academia. It was the National Football League. Reyer’s parents designed apparel for the NFL from their own sports merchandising business in Edgewood. “It was amazing to grow up with a mother who knew so much about fashion,” Reyer says. “She is a very beautiful, feminine woman, but she’s involved in the sports world and I’m at the other end of the spectrum. She was a huge influence because she was the one who was teaching me and exposing me to places in Cincinnati that had the designer goods.” Reyer attended Scott High School in Taylor Mill, where she says she had “different tastes than people of my age”—more PBS and Vanity Fair than MTV and Rolling Stone. Before Reyer entered NKU’s liberal arts program, she’d already begun constructing her first garments, and by the time she graduated in 2004, she’d created an entire line of clothing. At just 22, Reyer put on her own fashion show. “It was very expensive because I created the patterns from scratch,” she says. “I wove together almost every possible color, using leather piping along with a beautiful lining and great interfacing. They were amazing.” Reyer took her designs to Palm Beach, Fla., where she assisted the head of the costume department at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre for a number of on- and off-Broadway plays. Local boutiques showed interest in her work, but after two years in Florida, Reyer was ready to pursue her passion in earnest.

BACK to SCHOOL In 2006, Reyer began studying at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, the star-making fashion design school in Los Angeles, Calif. “My favorite memory was being in Nancy Riegelman’s class,” Reyer recalls. “She is a leading author of an array of fashion textbooks used all over the United States. Learning from people who have had such a great background in the industry— I just wanted to write down everything they said.” In 2008 Reyer was selected to help arrange the 16th annual Academy Awards costume design exhibition, where she helped display costumes from films such as Sweeney Todd, Atonement, Elizabeth the Golden Age, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and The Golden Compass. By the time she graduated, it seemed she’d hit Hollywood gold, which is why her next move was so surprising: Reyer came home.

Kelly O’Donnell, assistant director for the Weston Art Gallery. “So smart, so professional, and such a progressive thinker.” Reyer also took part in a work-study job at the Cincinnati Museum Center, working with David Conzett in the museum’s collections department. Reyer arranged the museum’s collection of historical garments as they were being photographed for online accessibility. “Celia dressed all of the mannequins, arranged all of the clothing, without supervision,” Conzett says. “It was her call, and I knew I could trust her. She did amazingly.” During the summer of 2009, Reyer took advantage of NKU’s International Study Scholarship and set off to Scotland on an independent study program. She traveled to castles in Edinburgh and throughout the country, studying the fashions of nobility depicted in castle art. “Scotland was like an open book for discovering architecture, landscapes, and fantasy,” Reyer says. “Bagpipers even provide the soundtrack. And they play on the streets.”

LONDON CALLING

Turns out that Celia Reyer is the type of felicitous entrepreneur who takes a weekend trip to London, thinks, “I would love to live there,” then does so. When Reyer returned home from Scotland, she contacted the curatorial department for the Museum of London to inquire about potential job opportunities. The museum’s fashion curator, Beatrice Behlen, took one look at Reyer’s bona fides (Three college degrees? Check. Serious fashion design chops? Check. Museum experience? Check.), and opened a position for Reyer in exhibition design. Working with the museum’s Royal Collections, Reyer was an exhibition stylist for garments dating back to 1600s–era British nobility, including fashions worn by Queen Victoria. “Queen Victoria’s pieces were incredible,” Reyer says, “but to touch, and observe, and see the construction and design elements of those pieces—it gave me great knowledge as SCOT-FREE a designer.” Between Florida and L.A., Reyer had been away from Today, Reyer is traveling between the United States her family for four years. That was long enough. “I have a and the U.K., meeting with potential investors and prereally close family,” she says, “and it was really important paring to launch her own international, ready-to-wear for me to come back and reconnect. I had the opportulabel (“Pairing with the right people is key,” she says). nity at NKU to get my B.F.A., and I knew that later in life Rosemary Seidner, director of the Miller Gallery on Hyde I wouldn’t be able to give that time commitment.” In ad- Park Square and the organizer of Reyer’s first fashion dition to studying exhibition design with NKU’s art galshow, believes Reyer’s is a name that “will be known in lery director David Knight, Reyer worked at Cincinnati’s the world of high fashion.” Seidner’s own e-mail signature Weston Art Gallery as a gallery assistant. “Celia was one suggests that she not only believes it—she’s counting on of the sharpest young people we have ever hired,” says it: “Rosemary Barrett Seidner, owner of a Celia Reyer design.” WINTER 2010-2011

Care

MEET the FRONTLINE AGAINST the COMING HEALTHCARE CRISIS STORY: BRENT DONA LDSON

N O RT H E R N

Late this past summer, just before his bedtime, my 6-year-old son began complaining of a headache. The entire week he’d displayed the usual assortment of cold symptoms—coughing and scratchy throat and congestion—but clearly, this was different. Daddyyyyy! What’s happening to my head? OWWWW! DADDYYYY! And then the screaming began. Appropriately freaked out, I scooped him up and set off for St. Elizabeth in Covington. After signing in and meeting with the triage nurse, we were met not by a doctor but by an advanced registered nurse practitioner (ARNP, or simply, NP). Some states allow NPs, who by definition have obtained a master’s or doctoral degree, to see patients and prescribe medications without a physician’s supervision. Some, like Kentucky, require a written collaborative agreement with a doctor. Our NP asked us a few questions, performed a routine examination where she discovered the onset of an ear infection, and prescribed an appropriate antibiotic. We were on our way home in less than an hour. On the heels of the 2010 Affordable Health Care Act—the most significant overhaul of healthcare this country’s seen since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in the mid-1960s—a committee chaired by former Health and Human Services Department head Donna Shalala released a two-year study recommending a greatly expanded and more independent role for nurses like the one who diagnosed my son’s ear infection. Right now, only 14 states and Washington, D.C., allow nurse practitioners to see patients without a physician’s supervision or collaborative agreement. But momentum is gaining toward greater independence and autonomy in the nursing profession. This is where NKU comes in. The likelihood that our nurse was an NKU graduate was extremely high—estimates of St. Elizabeth nurses who earned their degrees at NKU go as high as 90 percent. NKU’s College of Health Professions is having to turn away more applicants than ever, as those affected by a down economy look to enter what they consider a “recession-proof” field, and as nurses with associate or bachelor’s degrees return to school in order to advance their career. Dr. Denise Robinson, dean of the College of Health Professions, points out that just seven years ago, in 2003, what was then NKU’s nursing “department” had registered 850 students and 80 graduate students. By 2009, what is now known as the College of Health Professions had registered 1,500 students and 280 graduate students. That kind of exponential growth—particularly increasing the number of nurses who hold advanced degrees—is going to be vital as this country faces what many are predicting to be a catastrophic shortage in both primary care physicians and nurses in the coming years. “The average age of nurses is pretty old—probably 45 or higher,” Robinson notes. “What’s frightening about

D R . D E NI S E RO B I NSO N

that is their imminent retirement. It means we are going to have a shortage of just monumental proportions coming up.” Couple that with the federal mandates for health coverage potentially bringing in millions of new patients, and the situation becomes even more dire. The following pages feature the stories of four extraordinary healthcare professionals who exemplify not only the trend this country is seeing in healthcare but also the impact these professionals are having on the greater community. There’s the former P&G chemistturned-nurse for the homeless and underprivileged; there’s an executive director of patient care services who has to keep one step ahead of new nursing technologies; there’s a man who has convinced an entire wing of nurses to volunteer around the region; and there’s a woman who has come back to advance her education after spending decades caring for the terminally ill. There’s also an interview with the head of Kentucky Disaster Medical Assistance Team about his experiences providing emergency care in the wake of natural disasters around the country. And there’s a fascinating look at both the old and new technology employed by NKU’s simulation lab, where students play out scenarios that could mean life or death in the real world.

WINTER 2010-2011

“It’s a long story, but I have a chemical engineering degree and worked as a perfumer for P&G,” the petite, 50-something Cummins says. “It wasn’t a good fit for me. I wanted something else in my life so I found nursing.” “Found” might be a bit misleading. Cummins was 28 with two small children when she earned her associate degree in nursing at NKU in the early ’80s. After nearly 20 years in the field, she came back to earn her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. “When I was in the master’s program I researched the healthcare needs of women in substance abuse treatment,” she says. After some advice from Dr. Denise Robinson and based on the promise of that study, Cummins went on to co-found the Nurse Advocacy Center for the Underserved, which stations nurses at up to a half-dozen social service agencies around the city. Cummins found her calling in the people who fall through the cracks of our healthcare system—the homeless and the poor who don’t qualify for assistance. “We had a gentleman who was at the cold shelter last winter who was living in his truck,” she says. “We were very worried about him that evening because he had extremely high blood pressure. He had a prescription but M ARI A N CU MMI N S didn’t have money to pay for the script, and we had to ’81, ’0 0, ’0 2 coerce him into going to the ER.” She and her team work with women to improve their knowledge about preventing birth defects. She encourages people to take control of their health. She helps the poor receive much-needed medications for high blood pressure and infections, for chronic pain and dental problems. “We have to encourOn one end of the professionally compassionage them to go to the next step,” she says. ate spectrum, if such a thing existed, you’d have the “I’ll tell you—any Monday evening stop in the Madinurses and volunteers at Covington’s Madison Avenue son church, that place is full. They serve 50 to 100-plus Christian Church, who provide needed healthcare and every Monday, year-round. Talk about tugging at your preventive care to destitute and homeless men, women, heartstrings.” After so many years of service, of trying to and children in Northern Kentucky. On the other end of obtain grants and working with tiny, unreliable funding, the spectrum, you’d have, perhaps, a perfume designer and after so many hours of volunteering, Cummins is in for P&G. Which is why Marian Cummins’ story is so need of a break, but it’s not that easy. “It’s hard to back captivating—she’s been both, and not in that order. away from it, knowing there’s so much need.”

The ADVOCATE

The DIRECTOR

ST E P H ANI E MEA D E ’ 10

N O RT H E R N

One day in June of 2008, an employee at Christ Hospital clicked on a button and set in motion a sea of change. Months—years—of preparation had preceded this click, and afterward, Christ Hospital’s operations would be fundamentally different. The moment represented the hospital’s implementation of an electronic medical record (EMR) system, a protocol of health information technology specifically targeted in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Christ Hospital was well ahead of the curve, and Stephanie Meade, their executive director of patient care services, knows just how vital EMRs can be. “Everything we do in the future is going to be centered on the EMR,” she says.

The VOLUNTEER Jason Schenck was promoted at Christ Hospital the day before his interview for this story. You could say it was a coincidence, or a moment of grace or serendipity, or you could simply look at his accomplishments. He was named one of the Cincinnati Business Courier’s “Health Care Heroes” this past year (as was Marilyn Cummins) and later was one of just six employees at the hospital to receive a medical staff award. As the hospital press release about his award states, he took the “cardiopulmonary step down unit, nursing float pool, and patient transportation departments to new heights.” But what’s really behind his promotion, and the likely promotions he’ll receive throughout his career, is that he gives of himself and has genuine care for others. You can see it in his face and in his demeanor. He talks quickly but seems pleasantly calm. He has the Mona Lisa’s smile. Schenck was the founder of Christ Hospital’s “Cause of the Quarter” in which he convinced an entire wing of the hospital, 4 South, to volunteer for community projects. “Every three months we pick a new community to help out,” Schenck says. “I want it to be the staff’s picks. We are bringing in donations for “Project Thank You” for the troops. We have worked with Kids Café in Price Hill, giving Christmas gifts and serving food every Thursday night. We have done stuff for the Humane Society. We did a lot for Harlan County when they were going through their (mine disaster) troubles. We sent a big group down there to help out with that.” Schenck came to NKU on a chemistry scholarship in 1993 but, as he says, “was not really interested in where that was taking me.” After a career counselor suggested nursing, he jumped on it, graduated in 1999, and quickly found a job at St. Elizabeth. He began work at Christ Hospital in 2003. And that promotion? He’s now the divisional director of patient care services—Stephanie Meade’s old job—where he oversees nursing operations

of the hospital’s ER, four cardiac units, and two support departments. But it’s his attitude as much as his work ethic that sets Schenck apart. “I help set up an urban farm at Vine and 14th Street in Over-the-Rhine,” he says. “You want people to have the basics—food, clothes. A lot of what we do is that kind of stuff—school supplies and book drives. There are a lot of things that you can do to help people out there. We are really big about picking out smaller things that we can affect because they aren’t necessarily getting what they need. It’s just the way I am. If someone needs you, you go to them. You’re the last person you think of at the end of the day.”

Consider the barcodes the hospital uses for patients and medications: “When you scan the patient and then scan the medicine in, if the drug isn’t the right drug, it will alert you,” she says. “Or if you’re sent one (dose) and should have been sent two, the computer will ask you: ‘Why aren’t you giving two instead of one?’ or ‘Are you sure you want to give the patient this? They don’t have an order for this.’” Meade, who already holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing, is currently enrolled in NKU’s M.B.A. program. She also received a post-graduate certificate in health informatics from the university this past May. “I knew that NKU had one of the very first certified infor-

matics programs, and I could see everything that nursing directors were being charged to do with incorporating technology in the healthcare environment,” she says. Meade is currently assessing the costs of integrating the hospital’s vital machines to become wireless with the system, so that when a nursing assistant takes someone’s blood pressure, it’s automatically uploaded rather than the nurse typing it in and risking the possibility of an error or delay. “Looking at what the cost of that would be,” Meade says, “and what additional equipment would be needed, and what the return on investment would be for the organization—all of that really impacts care processes.” In other words, you and me.

JASO N SCH E NCK ’99

WINTER 2010-2011

COMPARATIVE STUDY

A lot has changed since Florence Nightingale revolutionized the field of nursing from that of glorified servitude to a modern scientific and humanitarian profession. Likewise, much has changed since NKU began its nursing program more than three decades ago, including the technology behind NKU’s simulation lab and its high-tech patient simulators (just don’t call them “dummies”). Here are a few faces of nursing at NKU, then and now.

N O RT H E R N

BEYOND the ORANGE DOORS Before electronic high-fidelity human patient simulators or haptic devices for teaching IV insertion (but well after the rise of machines that go “ping”), Dr. Marilyn Schleyer was an NKU nursing student—before there was an NKU. Now chair of the Department of Advanced Studies in the College of Health Professions, Schleyer is particularly qualified to speak to the technological foundation of NKU’s early nursing programs. Now then, where’s the patient? Has anyone seen the patient? We called it Hilltop Tech, which was actually a branch of University of Kentucky. UK had a community college system all the way throughout Kentucky. Ours was in Covington off Dixie Highway. We had what were called “Trainex” films. Oh, my goodness, this was considered to be the cutting edge of nursing education. It was 35 millimeter, and they would load up the film and you would watch certain techniques being demonstrated. We’d watch the film; then two to three of us would work together on wooden dummies. One of us would record what was being demonstrated; one of us would observe; and the other one would actually perform the demonstration. It got a little more sophisticated when I was here teaching the first time in the early ’70s. We thought we had something extraordinary when we had the nursing department in a house on Johns Hill Road. Our skills lab was in the basement of that house, which is where we watched the Trainex films. We had just two beds. There was never enough room, so I remember using the bathroom to give my students their evaluations because it was the only place we could have a quiet area. When I came back in the ’80s, we were in this building (Albright Health Center), and at that time we had the beginnings of a contemporary skills lab and large classrooms for students upstairs in HC 108. It was a modern building at the time, and it honestly hasn’t changed that much. Orange doors. I got a master’s in critical care nursing with a focus in cardiovascular nursing. I was the first head nurse in the very first coronary care unit in the area. Patients who were severely ill were out on 40-bed floors, so I really did experience quite a transition in terms of history. This is my third time back at NKU. I was here in the ’70s, came back in the ’80s, and then in ’04 and then I started into this position as chair as we became the College of Health Professions in July of 2009. WINTER 2010-2011

K ERRY H A MNE R ’09

The GUARDIAN It’s hard to imagine life through Kerry Hamner’s eyes. Hamner has worked for 23 years as a nurse in critical care units at the former Bethesda Oak and now at Bethesda North, caring for patients who are unlikely to leave the hospital alive. During her career, she’s had opportunities to take on other responsibilities, like the time she was a charge nurse overseeing her own staff, which she soon left because of what she calls the “politics” of the job. Hamner smiles a lot. She is genuinely lighthearted and has the conversational ease you’d expect from a lifelong professional nurse. She’s raised four children, ages 19 to 25, and is going to be a grandmother this January. Hamner came to NKU in 2007 to earn her master’s—she graduated in 2009 with a 3.8 GPA and was inducted into the Honor Society of Nurses—and became certified as a nurse practitioner this past April. In addition to working at Bethesda North, Hamner is the administrator and director of nursing at Sincere Home Healthcare, a local private practice that dispatches nurses to people’s homes. But her dream is to start her own all-inclusive practice, replete with primary care physicians, a lab, diabetic education programs, a nutritionist, and an exercise room. And she guarantees that each patient’s appointment will last at least 30 minutes. The master’s degree, the NP certification, and her dream of a private practice—it’s all because, she says, the suffering she sees just isn’t necessary. N O RT H E R N

“It’s really frustrating to see people so sick,” she says. “When you get to a point where you have no more quality in your life and you are ready to go, and you just want to go peacefully, and you have a living will in place and you’re saying ‘I don’t want [to be kept on life support],’ but your family members won’t allow you to go peacefully—who wants to be poked at, intubated, be on a ventilator, have a feeding tube and depending on someone else solely for your care? Most patients don’t want that, but often the family members do.” Hamner recommends creating a power of attorney specifically for these situations—someone who can act as your legal advocate to carry out your final wishes. But if the person with the POA goes against those wishes, Hamner notes that there’s not much she or anyone else can do. She’s seen that situation arise many times, and it’s part of why she came back to school. “I decided to go back and become a nurse practitioner because working critical care for so many years, you’re seeing people who are so sick that really there’s not a whole lot you can do,” she says. “I always had a gift of helping people. I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to be there for people. But I decided I needed to get to these people before they get so sick that I’m standing next to them in critical care. I wanted to go back and become a nurse practitioner because I want to see people in primary care. Can I get to them before they get sick? Can I make a difference?”

AFTER the HURRICANE DAV I D McCLUR E ’8 3, ’08

After that deployment there was an ice storm up in New York. It was 10 degrees below zero. Ten inches of ice everywhere; all the high transmission towers were broken because they had so much ice on them. This was Malone, N. Y. We flew into Albany, and we drove up to Malone, near the Canadian border. People were sheltered because they had no heat. One of the nurses and team leaders went to this house, which we usually don’t do for safety reasons, and found this guy who said ‘I’m fine. I don’t need anything.’ We finally got the state police to get him out of there because he was hypothermic. After riding about two hours My first deployment was during Hurricane Andrew in ’92. in a heated car, his core temperature was only 92, which is We went to south Florida, and there was a 30-mile-wide barely living. swath of total destruction. We flew over in a C-130 military aircraft and landed at a coast guard airbase just north of Fast forward to Katrina. Katrina was huge because of the Miami. We ordered five military trucks, put all our equipment landmass it covered—from Texas all the way over to Florida. in them, and went on down to Homestead, Fla. We were The hurricane hit New Orleans, and we were notified that stationed at a senior citizens’ center that had lost its roof. night to get going. There were no flights available so we It took the Army about four hours to patch that up. There rented three trucks, packed all our gear and drove. We set was a kitchen area we turned into a 12-bed emergency up at East Jefferson General Hospital. They were up and room. There was no communication, no radio; the towers running while a lot of other hospitals were down—there were down; the concrete telephone poles in Florida were was only about six feet of water in the street there. Some broken off. It was very destroyed. We slept across the places were more like 12 feet. We saw about 1,200 people street at a Presbyterian church where the windows were a day, giving them hepatitis A vaccinations or tetanus all blown out. We swept the glass, set our cots down and vaccinations. I was there 17 days. The people we saw, that’s where we were stationed. I was there as a nurse, in they couldn’t believe they survived a hurricane only to get charge of the night shift team. We worked basically an ER, flooded. The psychological event—we thought we were sorting our patients into a fast-track or trauma area, and prepared and we did everything, and then the next day we the doctors would float around and see the patients we get wiped out—I think that was the biggest thing about split up for them. It was quite an experience. I learned that Katrina. most of the time in a hurricane, those with means leave. There are people in your community who are in charge Those without, don’t. of emergencies. If they say go, go. The other big thing is We get back from Hurricane Andrew and lick at our that trying to find people after communications have been emotional wounds. One month later, Hurricane Iniki hit disrupted is usually chaos. The best way to deal with that is Hawaii, and so 10 of us went to Hawaii. There wasn’t a to have an out-of-town contact. Almost everybody knows doctor on the island. Three days after the hurricane hit, somebody who lives two or three states away. Ask them if when the doctors got back they were wondering why we they will be your phone resource. Many times, you can take were taking care of their patients for free! I understand why a cell phone and dial somebody in California, but you can’t dial somebody in Highland Heights. Sometimes you can dial they left, but someone had to do it. some distance away but you can’t dial locally. So if everyone In ’95 we had Hurricane Marilyn that hit St. Thomas. We in your family knew that Aunt Jane in Chicago is your contact slept on the mezzanine at St. Thomas airport. Every day person, if you’re at school and mom and dad are working we would go to different villages. There was a little village and there’s all of the sudden a communications disruption, called Tutu. It was a little commerce area, and we went everybody should call Aunt Jane in Chicago and let her be out and posted where and when there would be a doctor your switchboard. She can say, ‘Yeah, I heard from your dad; this is where he is,’ etc. Also, go to FEMA.gov, and there’s a there. free publication called ‘Are You Ready?’ It lists what to do and how to prepare for any kind of emergency. As unit commander of Disaster Medical Assistance Team, KY-1, it’s David McClure’s job to restore normalcy in the wake of major traumatic events. Now the applications coordinator for St. Elizabeth Healthcare, McClure (’83, ’08) has been dropped in the chaotic aftermath of everything from ice storms to hurricanes—including Andrew and Katrina. Here he talks about the evolution of disaster medical assistance, his experiences working around the country, and what you need to do to prepare yourself for an emergency.

WINTER 2010-2011

MIKE Y’S E S S U T

E C I O V

a yan Cl R : Y R STO

Mike Tussey walked out of the NKU athletics director’s office and felt like anyone would after turning down a dream job—awful. The year was 2000, and the Norse needed a new radio playby-play voice for their powerhouse basketball team. Tussey—who had decades of sports radio experience—was ripe for the position, but he was already an officer on the campus police force, and his schedule wouldn’t allow him to do both. He couldn’t believe he was that close to working in radio again, and as the NKU women’s basketball team advanced through to the NCAA Elite Eight, and then to the national championship game, Tussey followed them with enthusiasm and personal regret. When the team won its first national title, Tussey could only think one thing: I missed my chance. That could have been me. But that was then, back when Tussey didn’t know fate was still smiling on him, as it was eight years later when he got his chance to call a game for a national champion. But it was a long road for the 71-year-old Tussey, one that started in Ashland, Ky., and wound N O RT H E R N

rk ’10

up in the West Virginia Broadcasting Hall of Fame, a distinction he earned this past summer and one he shares with the likes of Soupy Sales, Don Knotts, and Bob Denver. We sat down with the old radio talk jockey to discuss career changes, national championships, and what it’s like to be broadcast to Beijing. Northern: So how exactly did you end up at NKU? Tussey: When I was young, I was convinced by a junior college professor to perform in a play, and I found confidence I never knew I had. All of a sudden, things began to change; my persona had changed; I had confidence; my self-esteem was there. I could do something. And so I went down to the radio station in 1958, and that’s how it began. In 1967, I took a job at this station [in Huntington, W.Va.] that wanted to change from country music to the new modern country music sound of the late 1960s. So I was given the task to do that, to come up with a whole new bunch of people to get the thing done. And the next thing you know, we got the thing rolling where it should be. Today it’s a 50,000-watt radio station, a giant in Huntington, and really sets, I think, the standard for coun-

try music radio throughout the West Virginia area and into Kentucky. So then, through a wage dispute, I got out of the radio business. I was out of work for quite some time. I thought, “You’d better find yourself a job,” ’cause I had a wife and two kids. So I saw an ad in the Daily Independent in Ashland, Ky., for a police officer. So I took the test, got the interview, and next thing you know, I’m hired at 30 years old. And I really regretted leaving radio because I loved it. [Tussey continued working as a police officer for 20 years, but he also dabbled in sports reporting, hosting a local sports television show with exstate senator and high school basketball coach George Conley.] In 1976, I had three jobs. I was working at the police department; I was working at [radio station] WIOR and working cable TV on weekends. In 1993, I got into pro baseball for the Huntington Cubs, which was a team in the Appalachian League, and they needed a play-by-play announcer. I only did two years. Then the [baseball] strike of 1994 hit; the Huntington franchise was dissolved; the team was gone; and I was out of a job. I looked up one day and my three sons had all left and went on

amer F f o l l a at NKU H e o m i o d How ra ey found a h uss Mike T

Y R O T IC

with their own personal lives and [my wife and I] decided to move to be closer to them, so we came to Northern Kentucky. The next thing you know, I look in the paper and it says NKU needs a police officer. I’m 59 years old, and I did about everything you can do in law enforcement. So I come up to NKU and I talk with the chief there and some other people, and they told me I was hired because [I had] the experience and the savvy. Northern: And then there was an opening for a radio announcer? Tussey: In 2000, they were looking for a play-by-play guy to call the women’s basketball team at NKU. So I take the afternoon off and I go meet with [former athletics director] Jane Meier. The problem was that in college basketball, you’re gone Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and you might get back Sunday morning about 3 a.m. The only way I could do it was to take my vacation days and apply those to the games I would be away. Trouble was, there were more games than there was vacation time, and that wasn’t feasible to do. I told Jane at the time I’d love to do it but it’s not feasible. So ironically enough that year, 2000, the women won their first national championWINTER 2010-2011

on You’re called is avails k k o he bo ve boo T a . h g l in ’l we writ ucky]. s), and started t f Kent roPres o ic e y t edia ou b a (M t y rent m [the s e pla the Air e h t f t , u if s g o d k h in ch do boo roug so mu apers, e been able th newsp ld hav n: With seems , r u in e n o e io h c t io w d r r I a o is No rts r telev ship. olice f o , p p t . s e t U n u — n K r o o ok g eN Inte lost eportin Facebo from th play. I there— e kept r retired er, and h t In y , ? it . e g r] s o io w s in s T d t u [T hat f res entato he ra blogs, ow is t stead o comm es for t H U r in . m K eople t e a lo r p u N g o b u t r. ll g fo t tha ago [c o end 2003, in t u footba s it r l o a o a d o e w h n Y y c : fou hs people been -pla Tussey d I, we play-by t, even all he’d local hig c n e io a e n d r t h t a e h r t t rig e In d; we en’s e go enny W ounde s on th w wom 2006, h f D e u b n o m a t u d n ium of re d ste I’ve eede at med ould li We we 6, and again n h ! w 0 t l a 0 e 2 in v h s a wa are stil ou h t ride ing, C e. That tations man.] it. So y in Beij he bes s m t e d v io n n e e e d e t li ir a e b lis er ’t be They h ce. It’s t, but ou can also th couldn t, and ever sin bs were grea bile—y e o e n r y r m r e e o h t ’s t u gs e it been the In . The C tant. e a lon becaus g playimpor er had o mak today ’s T t . d a t o a h o ou doin I’ve ev e T g y b . r r a a m c e ’e r oer h team? got you me. orite m etball l we ev o it in NKU’s v t k d a ho il s a n f a W u r b : o u n f r when s yo NKU I’ve Northe , [but] short, ision I hat wa m iv W iu D : r n a o r ney is rat for ed Northe the mo rivileg ’s a mo y-play sting? e p b a d r c to g n e d a h in a t T e o : br nswer ch righ ay, b Tussey in Mar . The a ligned ment in : Far and aw n a ., e b pe e p e o r p a h N a , oh e to for nets rney Tussey game going t uld lov the pla at Kea o ’s ip e w it h d I id s a k . s n o t pio thin our e br e me Dakota I. I lov here, I ill hav to sit c e cham t h t h n w t e u io o U h ll t is S a K be Div ed] t all nd c , if N could we go defeat as tha 2008 a that is eday I when n they ecial w m d e p o in n h s s u d t e o e [w a r yb th nk NKU I’m a at all. Ma made sn’t ra er. Wh What KU wa g footb o sit N t in all. t b d n s t o n a o s 63-58. of Fam a c o a , f ll e s a e m s a H e r e a t h th at t f No you’re bigges s a gre throug voice o as my n: Now . It wa r w 5 rld to e 2 e h t p r m o o a N the wo the t you? in that g g o t ll in a n h c a nd eers. I me r eryt ans ev there a y my p a majo does it e b . n s e m o t k r t w m I o : sp n to ntly ey too Tussey thrill in rn: You rece t. as give ers. Th t s w s e a d it t c o n e d us me s roa be m as a Northe e beca mplish Don’t 8. It w other b m o 2 ? c y t y. c e b c a n e d e r y e n Ju g toda tm voic , cor lect a call o red it and a n wha award till doin was se t io s o t g a o r I ’m s I e : e at nsid Tussey I answ And I’m nd wh id, “We into co at to me. ht, and I did, a one sa n g t ig h a io n p in t h h c y e at’s wh t w a h le y ever Sund e of t ur se were, sed. Th s o s id y n s le a r r b e o e f u oth at m d. I’m Broad late yo on the And th U humble Virginia ngratu t ’m o s I c e . d e of NK d n o W t e o r e c the voic a se want to th hono s r . a in o e r f n lo n m t o o s c h io o w m, sea no uct oug ns t en’s tea e.” I th don’t k his fifth for ind it mea m I n m o . a a e w e g F h t e e t f m s b h o rt ing hen all o [Tussey what m -play fo e kidd er 31 w cast H play-by . Octob , “You’r “That’s , — exhibiid d .m ll id p e a a n t a s b a 2 s a t I and ter in d he redic baske n— at n e p n e n m A s C a e ! .” e y h t w m t It Yu o him o for e la o sa I call.” listen t ew KFC k in th what t analyst n n c n e a a e he c h t h b t . u w n n o d id o say the le. Y ’re pene tId rk tha Louisvil people ok, You Norse o station o o t s b m]. w io o in d is e a .c a n H h y g r on t AM. that ame a ibutio etusse 0 r g d 6 ik t e 1 n n g 1 .m o io really t n c w T ha QR ww ant ati’s W hen I c able at ignific ’60s w Cincinn is avail ade a s , ) s m s k e it o r o roP aid ing a b They s Air (Mic ’re writ sting. u a o c y d a w o d no to br rn: An s? dcast Northe rience y broa e m p f x o e r e te urs you ordina the co about any in : Over y g m e s o in t s s e u T t me tered ncoun , or jus e s I ip a , r h e e s rit care elation ould w es, or r id I sh a 2008, I s in le episod d p n o e a , P . it s t r u sta ht abo megaI thoug d n A . book

N O RT H E R N

EDITI Y T I BR

lities ersona p e m to give with so y man s la in p n y u r play-b luded has inc ry radio iggest. r a e d e n r e a eted c the leg f the b ultifac asked three o e m n o W ’s . y s s e n t r uss ressio ese pa Mike T , uff imp und th c o r e a h ing team t ly off e wide rnstorm a n m b r o a w u ) s o o d d us kn eds ha ati Re to play

E –CEL

Cincin

hen the

, ty, Ohio

er ht, oun 5, w E (form s to lose. In 196 r in Lawrence C bad. But that nig ut 30 S O R e v lo d abo were , hate PETE h Schoo average and we sm, grit

, ho er sia ill Hig Ironton me oth “Enthu er guy w Rock H le tt with so li WIOR in tar, and anoth g t to n a r in lo s a u a e o w o m to .I FL s e tw they ca ll] team came in ht thos be an N asketba te Rose e broug oon to e your [b s w P d , , ia o a n d d S h r o e . c a m fterw y; you in ’65 rey Ba p A k o . p c C e a a h b lose, m in e ti t ated to e you’r le over ad State h brough p b e o e u h h h o e r d o ‘I o in nd s aid, for M 113-110 ed again tars!’ A nd he s a game we play nk all-s we won down a , la e d 6 b o n 6 just ta 9 h e s , 1 k s lan re was ay in w his gunner d your b ers; the nd thre to the d n n a a r n s te u m r g 0 o la e y 5 o r o t la ea en locker r otball p by abou me. A y ere wer ot killed -blank fo y basketball ga time th g ty rward, is e e e h k ft W T n a . . la s b writer r room e ool gym r p charit k e h u c c p k S a lo ic p r h p ou Hig college news even a came in -Blazer ys and ve your d e e a n k h h te c la ’t in jo h n a s c dis bout Pe u did nd ag in the A rweight know a yers; yo ame. A e I g v la t o w p a f o ll o h th a in otb at’s a bunch had 52 your fo r. So th the doo n’t have and Pete t , id u d ts o tor.” u ti in d e o o e p comp d walk t ‘Well, y n a , a e s r y d g a n s a ou e’s and he rned ar g, but h nd he tu anythin A t !’ a s r e s ta s to lo ante hates at he w Rose. H new wh k e ) h r ; m e d a g te se ry sin as focu aseball (count 92 he w mmer b 9 S u 1 s rs from U e a in y R t h r la CY to sta thoug ll of p Y d l, fu A e a r u id R te c id s e anted to nd d t a ro B I L LY igh-strung indiv e’ve go me he w nd a frie w a ld , e w ee h to o m y e r n , uk eon “Ve 979 o or thr thing yo ack in 1 and som ed, I think, tw t b , x t y e a u n d B e r. . e h e o g t on s. T play ed to d as a sin ame ou . So he e player ke it big ly Ray c f colleg a ry good il o e n the m v B o e , . d y to n d r a a e w m be v trying orehe as do s to w a M it t it w u d o n d ly a n il ,B rned n, a er make Dayton Later on r Motio , ‘If I ev nd he tu e a t. id art m n a r, e a s e m r H h e e u b y reak wn. H alled S B o as exu c play catc y d w ., h t y c d n K n A e , a r Iw r me, Ashland nths late him since.” h,’ and years fo event in Ten mo n, Coac n !’ to w a e o k t d a m a e n h p o it s im ce to you w ‘Come n I saw h g , a h in id c k a s a ta ad m k. He oach, I’ aven’t h riverban iness, C tory. I h s is u h b is is t res big in th nd the tball) e 1992, a in e k baske o e’s mor r ’s b n e m ade; sh c o e w D p o e U K pe le f th T E L (N ision II Coach o entucky Center, hen S N I K w N C Y W e the NCAA Div in The Bank of . Not only that, rH NA s e sh v lk C y Confe a a is e A h w ll ly a e O n ld V h o u s C s o t e c o n k e e a N h L . w at at nd n. W “A lege the Gre oach th to be a stitutio u have e best c oach in o c y e’s an in th y : h t r s s o e g v g t: e in a e’ve almost o th ct of than th know w y well. I e respe to be tw r ly e e th v rv te s a lu a th h o h o sb you she d her fo just abs she doe e road, ny level, ’s aroun d a e th n t h e to n a A s o id ll r. n s s a e wh soft nicato sketb she goe ppy dog here’s a commu oach ba u T c p a ry . e u e m le v o b a tt y ’s he 0 te e to y a li ence. If the 200 where s you hav e’s reall d e d h n n id S a s a . s a r, m e t a go 8 te motivato a couple of tim ut she’s the 200 cry often. B pecially r s y e r e h e , v w w e a o s se u kn ’t get to yers, yo you don mer pla t a th l inste ers.” Nancy W round her play a l a n emotio

WINTER 2010-2011

GOAL A by-the-numbers look at NKU’s kickin’ new stadium

We’re writing this just after the NCAA Division II regional men’s soccer tournament, which the Norse have won in 2006, 2007, 2008, and now 2010. But the real goal here is not to recap highlights from the season or heap well-deserved praise on the young soccer phenoms from the men’s and women’s teams—it’s to give you an inside look at the new $6.5 million, state-of-the-art, World Cupstyle soccer stadium. Now you don’t have to worry about counting how many blades of grass are in the field’s turf. You’re welcome.

There are approximately

1,006,020,000

in the soccer field turf.

N O RT H E R N

There are

38 There are

45 DOORS in the building. There are

12,970 BLADES OF GRASS

Fans cheer on players as they take the field during the official stadium dedication this past September. In the background you can see the Founders’ Suite, a 1,000-square-foot luxury box with a walk-out deck.

I N D I V I D UA L EUONYMUS PLANTS on the hillsides around the stadium.

STEPS that lead from the plaza down to the field area.

There were R A I N DAYS during the summer of 2009 while the earthwork was performed before the turf field could be installed.

The FIELD is

109,350 square feet.

There is a foot diameter STORM LINE that is buried

35 570

feet below the soccer field and is

feet long.

No, we don’t know how many balloons were strung up at the entrance of the brand-new stadium on its dedication day. We were busy counting grass.

There are approximately

Dr. Votruba greets player Maggie Smith, a South Dearborn High School grad who earned all-county, all-conference, and alldistrict first-team honors during her senior year there.

418,000 POUNDS OF SAND in the turf field.

The men’s team takes the field at the dedication, no doubt happy to finally play on their own field. Before this stadium, the men’s and women’s teams practiced at the Town & Country Sports Complex in Wilder.

THE LIGHT POLES are

120

feet tall.

WINTER 2010-2011

ALUMNI JOURNAL

ALUMNI JOURNAL Gatherings A season to celebrate While winter is upon us and the growing season is past, NKU is thriving with the largest freshman class in history—nearly 16,000 students and more than 50,000 alumni. As you can see in this issue, both are flourishing. Speaking of alumni, the NKU Alumni Association recently hosted two very special events, most recently the Alumni Lecture Series featuring former governors Howard Dean and Jeb Bush. Despite the sometimes-contentious tone of this election year, the debate featured thoughtful and insightful conversation (see “Civil Discourse” on page 8) in front of a record crowd. Fidelity Investments served as our title sponsor, and its support and that of all our sponsors allowed us to have a truly fantastic event for alumni, faculty, students, and the community. We also recently hosted the NKU presidential portraits unveiling reception. Stop by the Student Union Governance Room to see these beautiful works of art. The NKU Alumni Association sponsored these portraits to preserve the history of the university and to show our gratitude for the incredible accomplishments and successes of our past presidents. You will notice that we have a new editor of Northern magazine, Brent Donaldson. As the former associate editor of Cincinnati Magazine and a graduate of NKU, we are proud to have Brent join our staff and look forward to his leadership. In the meantime, take a look at the alumni events featured here, and then check out alumniconnect.nku.edu to make sure you don’t miss the next one—especially this year’s Homecoming. On January 28, we’ll host our annual Alumni Awards Celebration, and January 29 features our legendary chili cook-off, the Homecoming basketball games, and a blockbuster after-party sponsored by our Young Alumni Association. Stop by and introduce yourself—I want to see you there! Deidra S. Fajack Director of Alumni Programs and Licensing N O RT H E R N

1) Bert Devantier and Tracy Schwegmann (’95), get an autograph by former Florida governor Jeb Bush at the 2010 Alumni Lecture Series reception. 2) Joel Jones (’09), Jason Streety (’07), Matt Miller (’07), and Jon Aydt pause for pic at the alumni golf outing at the Kenton County Golf Course in August. 3) Dr. Votruba applauds as former NKU president Dr. Leon Boothe and his wife, Karen, see for the first time the official portrait of Boothe at the presidents’ portrait unveiling in October. 4) WKRC traffic reporter and Friday Dance Party danseur noble Bob Herzog (Chase ’02) clutches his trophy at the Cincinnati Business Courier’s “40 Under 40” event in September. 5) Former NKU Alumni Association president Chris Sturm (’95) was also named one of the Courier’s “40 Under 40.” 6) Alumni gather between rolls at the New York alumni reception at Lucky Strike Lanes in NYC. 7) Former Vermont governor Howard Dean and NKU alumnus Earl Walz (’76) pose at the Alumni Lecture Series reception.

WINTER 2010-2011

CLASS NOTES

CLASS NOTES From Here to Hollywood

NOTABLE NORSE FILMMAKER JAMIE BUCKNER HAS STARS IN HIS EYES Jamie Buckner (’02) doesn’t know when to quit. When he was assigned to write 30 pages of a screenplay for an NKU theater class, he wrote an entire movie script. In New York City, he’s worked his way up the ladder from movie-production-office-lackey to a production coordinator for a film starring Robert DeNiro. This is Buckner’s default mode. Born and raised in Louisville, he graduated summa cum laude as a radio/TV communication major with a minor in theater. He was both a high school teacher and a camera operator for a Louisville TV station before moving to New York City, where he landed production office jobs for blockbuster films such as The Departed, War of the Worlds, and Julie and Julia. Now he’s the New York unit production coordinator for Neil Burger’s The Dark Fields, which debuts this March, and is in the beginning stages of putting together his first feature film, a “romantic bowling comedy” called Split. “I work with a lot of people that went to NYU and USC to get film degrees—the top film programs like the Columbia,” he says. “I feel like I’ve been as well prepared, if not better, than a lot of people that went to those schools. NKU definitely did me right.” Buckner’s hard work isn’t without reward. The first major Hollywood production he worked on—a quirky romance called Elizabethtown—saw him spending a weekend with director Cameron Crowe and recording artists My Morning Jacket. “I looked around at like 1 a.m.,” Buckner says, “and I was in one of the best recording studios in Nashville with one of my favorite bands and Cameron Crowe sitting back drinking Budweiser. That was when I was like, ‘Cool, I’m going to stick with this.’” Today, Buckner is focused on fundraising for Split, a film he plans to shoot entirely in Louisville. (Anyone interested in donating to the film can visit www. kickstarter.com.) “Our philosophy is bringing quality work back to Kentucky and getting quality work out of Kentucky and showing the world, even, what we’re capable of,” he says. By the way, Split features a version of the movie script that was gloriously overwritten for Buckner’s theater class—a class taught by longtime NKU professor and current Lois and Richard Rosenthal chair in theatre, Ken Jones. “I fully plan on being two inches from my television screen when Jamie is one day accepting his Academy Award,” Jones says. “He was destined to work in film.” —Chad Schultz

N NO ORT RTH HEERRN N

1975 Carl E. Esposito has been named publisher of The Daily Times of Maryville. Esposito has most recently been regional publisher and group leader of Media General’s Tri-Cities/Southwest Virginia Group, including the Bristol Herald Courier. Prior to that, he held leadership positions at Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc., Cox Ohio Publishing, Thomson Newspapers, and Chew Newspapers. R i c h a r d C . G o o dw i n (Chase), a U.S. administrative law judge in the Office of Hearings, U.S. Department of Transportation, in Washington, D.C., was elevated to chair-elect of the judicial division of the American Bar Association during its meeting in San Francisco, Calif., in August. Born and raised in Annapolis, Md., Goodwin practiced law in Annapolis prior to his current position.

1977 Gary Ruschman has been part of renowned male vocal ensemble CANTUS since 2004 and serves on the group’s elected artistic leadership and board of directors. CANTUS made its Northern Kentucky debut in March with Elemental, an eclectic concert featuring songs about earth, wind, fire, water and other things that are elemental to our lives.

1980 Jeannine Kreinbrink, an anthropology professor at NKU, is the museum director at the James A. Ramage Civil War Museum at Battery Hooper and heads up all the archaeological work performed at the Civil War battery.

1981 Steff Chalk was recently recognized as one of the Top 300 Retirement Plan Advisers out of a field of approximately 75,000, and she has recently been appointed as a founding lecturer at UCLA’s Anderson School of Business. Chalk was previously an adjunct faculty member in NKU’s finance department.

ALUMNI ON THE MOVE

Cultural Cohesion A PENTECOSTAL MINISTER IN BLACKFEET NATION

Nancy C. Nelson (Chase) retired in 2005 as an assistant district attorney. She currently serves as a Spring Grove, Minn., city council member.

1985 Roderick Vesper (’85, ’04) graduated in August from the Vermont College of Fine Arts with an M.F.A. in visual art.

1988 John M. Sebree (management) attended the United Nations Conference on Global Climate Change in Copen-

Eric Bates is an ordained Pentecostal minister, much like his highly respected father, Pastor Tommy Bates of the Community Family Church in Independence, Ky. He grew up in a large, religious family where church served as both a social and a cultural foundation. But Eric Bates has always been fascinated by another culture—one rarely associated with Christian principles—though it wasn’t until he was able to study this culture on an academic level that his interest took root. When Bates enrolled in NKU anthropology professor Sharlotte Neely’s course on Native Americans, “I was hooked,” he says. Today, Bates is teaching that same NKU anthropology course he took more than 10 years ago. Now a Ph.D. candidate at Union Institute & University in Cincinnati, Bates graduated from NKU in 2003 with a triple bachelor’s degree in geography, speech communication, and anthropology and a minor in Native American studies. (Eric Bates’ brother, sister, mother, and father all hold degrees from here.) In 2006, Bates earned a Master of Arts in liberal studies at NKU, where his thesis, “Native American Identity, Christianity, and Critical Contextualization,” focused on a single question: “How can Native Americans continue to be native and be Christian at the same time?” Bates is studying the influence of Pentecostalism on the Blackfeet Nation in Montana’s East Glacier National Park, where the rates of poverty, alcoholism, and suicide are all high. With that in mind, he’s worried about the way some Pentecostal missionaries are going about their work. “What missionaries have done for years—and are still trying to do,” he says, “is to make Native Americans stop being Native Americans and start being Christian. What I’m looking at is, can Native Americans, if they choose to do so, incorporate Christianity into their beliefs?” Bates has seen first-hand evidence of this intermingling already. During one visit to the Blackfeet Nation he attended a Christian Native American religious service. The congregation gathered around a Native American drum, singing Christian songs. “Contextually it was Native American,” Bates says, “but the content was Christian.” —Josh Blair

hagen, Denmark, in December 2009 as an observer delegate. Sebree is vice president of public policy for Florida Realtors and is active in the movement to offer “Support Homeownership for All” license plates in Florida. The movement’s goal is to provide housing assistance to teachers, nurses, and others who are unable to afford a home.

Leader Award and the Business Courier’s Forty Under 40 Award.

1995

Kimberley S. Naber (Chase) recently accepted a position at KHA Solutions Group as the director of professional

Chris Sturm (marketing) was honored with the Legacy Next Generation

1997 Michael J. Farris (B.S. from College of Business, Chase ’03) became a partner at Deloitte & Touche, LLP, in June. He currently lives and works in Houston, Texas.

1999

WINTER 2010-2011

CLASS NOTES

liability claims and associate general counsel. She is married and the mother of two, Samantha, 4, and Joshua, 3.

2001 S t e v e n F. C l ay p o o l e (Chase) reports that in May of 2010, he graduated from the University of Louisville, where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish. The Ministry of Education of Spain has nominated him to serve as an Auxiliar de Conversación de Lengua Inglesa in the autonomous region of Aragón.

2002 Pat Gunning (mental health/human services) earned a Master of Social Work from the University of Kentucky in 2007 and recently finished the licensing process to become a licensed clinical social worker.

2003 Elmira Bagaoutdinova is working as a journalist-editor for the Russia Today TV channel and spent 14 years as a radio presenter. Thomas Eric Bates (’03, ’06) and his wife, Erin (’05), celebrated the birth of their second son, Greylen Ross Ohiyesa, in May 2009. The couple has an older son, Garrison. In 2009, Bates was recognized by Cincinnati’s Union Institute & University as one of its Learners of Distinction. Check out his full profile on page 31.

2006 Craig Gray (’03, ’06) has accepted a teaching position with the AngloAmerican School of St. Petersburg in St. Petersburg, Russia. Prior to this position, he taught for four years in Chandler, Ariz., and three years in Cincinnati. Keith Jackson (biology) graduated from The Ohio State University College of Dentistry in 2010 and is now a practicing dentist in Madeira, Ohio.

N O RT H E R N

NOTABLE NORSE

Family Dynamic THE OWEN FAMILY TAKES UNITY TO A NEW LEVEL The call that the Owen family had won the 2010 Midwest Black Family Reunion Celebration “Family of the Year” first came to Renee Wilson, who quickly decided to put off the celebration for a few moments. She had the representative call back so that her daughter, Serena Owen (’98), could hear the news first hand. “It was very hard for me to hold it in and contain myself,” Wilson says. “I just really wanted my daughter to get the phone call.” It was Serena’s mother, son, and a family friend who nominated Serena and her husband, Larry (’98), for the award. To them, the Owens are the perfect example of how a family should function. To wit: Both Larry and Serena volunteer in their church and at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Larry is a Marine veteran and Serena is an educational grant writer and Youth Service America representative for the city of Elsmere, where they live. They are both certified educators and youth ministry directors; they both volunteer at their children’s schools; and they both assist their son, Jibril, with a free annual basketball sportsmanship camp they created in 2007 for elementary school students. It’s enough to make your head spin. To say that the Owen family is dedicated to NKU is like saying President Obama has ties to the White House. They are both working toward their second master’s in education at NKU. Jibril is a high school senior who completed NKU’s Project Aspire Program and may begin classes here next year. To top it off, Serena and Larry were married at NKU’s Baptist Student Center December 19, 1998—the very day that they completed their undergraduate studies. “Both of our families were coming in from out of town, and we just thought it would be easier on everyone to do it the same day,” Serena says. “I graduated around 11 a.m., we got married at 2, and [Larry] graduated around 6 that night.” Somehow, within this busy schedule the Owens still find time to be together as a family, setting aside one night a week for a “family event.” They also perform much of their volunteer work together in the belief that it strengthens the family bond and instills traditional values in their children. Add it all up and it equals “Family of the Year.” “We were so proud and fortunate that we won,” Serena says. “We were shocked. We are the youngest family to win it, and the first family from Kentucky.” The mayor of Elsmere, Billy Bradford, wasn’t surprised at all. “They are great mentors and get really involved in the community. What they are doing is setting a great example.” —Matthew Brewer

ALUMNI ON THE MOVE

History buff ALUM VANESSA VAN ZANT IS DIRECTOR OF CINCINNATI HISTORY MUSEUM

Game Face

LYNDSEY YEAGER APPLIES MAKEUP TO THE SOUL

Photo credit: Mike Bresnen Photography

Between contractions and sips of decaf in the Crestview Hills Panera Bread, Lyndsey Yeager (’04) is breaking down the two minutes she had to peel the prosthetic snout off the lead character in Beauty and the Beast. Yeager’s headed to the hospital the next morning to be induced for her first child, but here she is talking to an alumni magazine journalist about her makeup brand and shop of the same name—Glossa—and her role in the reality makeover show being shopped to networks as we speak. Yeager is one of the tri-state’s premier makeup artists, once mentored by makeup guru Laura Mercier when Yeager managed her cosmetics line at Saks Fifth Avenue. She’s done makeup for the neo-soul crooners Maroon 5 (who knew?) and the “Hometown Hotties” in Maxim magazine. She paints fright on the faces of ghouls and zombies for the U.S.S. Nightmare, and she’s the owner of Glossa, a professional makeup artistry studio in Covington. On top of that, Yeager is an integral part of the cast of Kim’s Closet, a “lifestyle and makeover” reality show that seeks to help hard-working moms and families get organized and improve their daily routines. In the pilot episode, Yeager teaches a busy special education director and mother of five how to achieve a professional makeup look in five minutes. “We are all so inspired by the message behind Kim’s Closet and what it stands for,”

Yeager beams over her decaf. “It’s just another way for me to put my ability to do makeup toward a good cause.” Kimberly Anderson, the show’s namesake producer and creator, chose Yeager for the makeup and skin care component because Lyndsey “really grasped the importance of the makeup and skin care combination, and her suggestions fit the lifestyle of our guests,” Anderson says. “Not to mention she is medicine for me. She always has me laughing about something.” After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in communication studies from NKU (with a minor in theatre), Yeager went on to graduate from the world-renowned journeyman program at the Makeup Designory in Los Angeles. Today, she’s using her talent to help others beautify themselves. “People think that I do this for fun—and don’t get me wrong, it is fun, but it is also a business,” she says. “Above it being a fun business, it is a rewarding experience to see the person sitting in that chair look in the mirror and have a smile from ear to ear because they know they look beautiful or look the part in which they aspired to be. That is why I do what I do.” For more information on Glossa makeup artistry or Kim’s Closet, visit www.glossamakeup.com and www.kimscloset.tv By the way, Lyndsey had the baby the day after the interview, October 12, and named her Lily Marie. —Katie Morris WINTER 2010-2011

CLASS NOTES

The Telltale Heart VETERAN JOURNALIST BRUCE JOHNSON REPORTS HIS BIGGEST STORY YET— HIS SURVIVAL

NOTABLE NORSE Bruce Johnson (’74) has an ongoing assignment. It’s not about Washington politics, Haiti’s recovery plans, or even overseas warfare, though he has reported on all three. His assignment is surviving, being what he calls “heart healthy.” “It’s the most important assignment I’ve ever had, and I’ve had every assignment,” he says by phone from Washington, D.C., where he’s worked as a reporter and anchor for TV station WUSA for more than 20 years. His reporting varies: One day he covers reforms in the public school system; the next, a piece about how President Obama’s policies affect urban communities. “At any moment, if something major breaks out in the world, we get on a plane and we go,” he says. “You’re always on your toes.” It’s the type of lifestyle that catches up to you without warning. In Johnson’s case, it caught up in 1992 while driving through a rough D.C. neighborhood he’d covered numerous times for WUSA. Johnson was in the passenger seat when he felt a sting in his chest and had trouble breathing. He thought he’d been shot. “I should have died,” he recalls, “except my photographer knew something was wrong and got me to a firehouse. The paramedics at the firehouse got me to an emergency room, where they stabilized me, and then flew me by helicopter to the hospital.” Emergency angioplasty saved him, and he took up recovery like the tenacious reporter he is. More than 10 years later, he champions what he calls N NO ORT RTH HEERRN N

“the heart-healthy lifestyle,” guest lecturing, fundraising for the American Heart Association, and exercising daily. Yoga and rigorous biking (20 miles or more) make up his weekly workout schedule. “We still don’t recognize that heart disease is the leading cause of death in this country,” he says. Johnson touches on the issue in his part-memoir, partprofile book Heart to Heart: 12 People Discover Better Lives after Their Heart Attacks (iUniverse). Rather than a straightforward guide to healthy living, the book tells the tales of a diverse array of heart attack survivors—a pastor; a psychiatrist; folks “young, not so young; women; men; well to do; struggling; different parts of the country,” he says. “And not just about their heart attacks, but the things they were doing before their heart attacks—what kind of lifestyles they had, how they handled stress, what their diets were like, what they were doing to make a living.” Johnson hopes to visit NKU in the near future for a guest lecture and tour of the expanded campus. In fact, when he attended in the early ’70s, NKU was still referred to as Northern Kentucky State College. Back then, Johnson was a political science major and a commuting student working full time as a reporter-in-training with WCPO in Cincinnati. “It was just nose down and moving at full speed.” Read about how Johnson survived that lifestyle at www. brucejohnsonhearttoheart.com. —Rich Shivener

2007 Je re my S ch ra n d has currently launched a custom invitation company with his wife, Angelina (www. jandacreates.com). They reside in Northern Kentucky.

2009 Tara Ryals has been selected as one of 75 people to participate in the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals, a yearlong, federally funded fellowship for study and work in Germany. She will attend a two-month intensive German language course, study at a German university or professional school for four months, and complete a five-month internship with a German company in her career field.

2010 Karen Cope (nursing) married Travis Rasso (’08 B.S. with major in sports business) June 26. Travis is now enrolled in NKU’s Master of Arts in Teaching program, and Karen is a registered nurse at St. Elizabeth Hospitals.

Still a mystery

While we haven’t positively identified the students here, we’ve received info from Brad Cobb, ’85 that helps narrow our focus: “I don’t know the students in the picture but I do know what they are doing. I am a 1985 physics and mathematics graduate and as part of our statics class we had to build bridges that demonstrated the various trusses we were studying. In this picture you can see a bar lying across the floor of the bridge that would have been attached to a platform on which weights could be placed. The experiment was to see how much weight it would take to ‘break’ the bridge. I can tell from the picture that this class was more recent than my years at NKU.”

PARTING SHOT

A student speaks with senator-elect Rand Paul before his debate against Attorney General Jack Conway at Greaves Concert Hall in October. Three weeks later, Paul won the election by 12 percentage points.

Tell us what you’re up to! NAME: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ADDRESS: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ TELEPHONE: (________)_________________________________________________________________________________________ E-MAIL: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ GRAD YEAR/MAJOR: _______________________________________________________________________________ WHAT’S NEW WITH YOU? NEW BABY? SPOUSE AN NKU GRAD? NEW JOB OR A PROMOTION? EARN ANOTHER DEGREE SINCE YOU LEFT NORTHERN? __________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Send to: NORTHERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY Office of Alumni Programs 421 Johns Hill Road Highland Heights, KY 41099 Are you firmly planted in the digital age? Then fill out our online form to let us know what’s new with you. If you’ve got a new baby, we’ll send a gift for your baby! http://alumniconnect.nku.edu.

N EW L E A F PA P E R environmental benefits statement

Comments, questions, concerns? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at northernmagazine.nku.edu

Northern Kentucky University saved the following resources by using New Leaf Reincarnation made with 100% recycled fiber, 50% post-consumer waste, and processed chlorine free.

trees

water

18,227

fully grown

gallons

energy

solid waste

greenhouse gases

3,987

6,738

million BTUs

pounds

Calculation based on research by Environmental Defense and other members of the Paper Task Force.

www.newleafpaper.com

888.989.5323

WINTER 2010-2011

NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION U. S. POSTAGE

PAID

NORTHERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY OFFICE OF ALUMNI PROGRAMS

BURLINGTON, VT

421 JOHNS HILL ROAD

PERMIT NO. 540

HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, KY 41099

Mystery Photo! 1974: OPEC ends the oil embargo; Patty Hearst is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army; Richard Nixon becomes the first sitting U.S. president to resign; and these mystery NKU students (dig that tie!) cut a rug at what appears to be a Christmas party somewhere on campus. Can you identify the revelers and where they’re gathered? E-mail NKU archivist Lois Hamill at hamill1@nku.edu and help us solve the mystery. Speaking of the NKU campus, it was hopping in ’74: David Crosby, Sly and the Family Stone, and Kenny Loggins were among the acts that performed at the university that year. Photo credit: Schlachter Archives