Out and In: What's new at Drew? by Renee Olson

new Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Drew

A fresh intellectual energy and culture of camaraderie pushed us to try and bottle the current campus zeitgeist. Was it hubris to think we could? That never stopped us before. > > > Illustrations by Rebecca Chew

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Lynne DeLade

Being behind the times ABRAHAM LINCOLN TWEETS.

After global consulting firm Teneo Holdings read Taylor Fichtman’s honors thesis, it created a position for her (wearing ribbons).

Nat Turner twees. So does Louisa May Alcott. So it’s not surprising that the longdeparted @DanielDrewU is a Twitterphile too. As is his social media–minded missus: “I think everyone should follow my lovely bride @RoxannaMeadDrew ’cause I’ll never hear the end of it if you don’t.”

What’s Next for the Class of ’13? Kimberly Ammiano Columbia | journalism Tim Barnum MIT | chemistry

Bright futures

Sophia Blum Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey | actress

SIX MONTHS AFTER GRADUATION, 95 PERCENT OF DREW’S

IT’S ALL GOOD > > > OUT: greenhouse emissions (down 16 percent) IN: smarter electricity use (down 12 percent) OUT: TV reruns

20 Drew Magazine I drewmagazine.com

Brooke Bode New York Life Investment Management | analyst Gillian Bradley Baylor College of Medicine | neuroscience

Tomasz Walenta

Class of ’12 were employed or in graduate school, according to data collected by Kim Crabbe, director of Drew’s Center for Career Services. “Even in a recovering economy, 67 percent of last year’s class are members of the workforce,” says Crabbe. “Another 28 percent are enrolled in graduate school.” Crabbe is expecting the trend to continue, given these enviable futures for members of the Class of ’13 (list at right). We couldn’t be prouder.

Sarah Cannavale Christie’s Education | history of art and the art market Sarah Colmer UPenn | veterinary medicine

IN: Drew International Film Festival OUT: Drew-supplied laptop IN: your own laptop OUT: bullies IN: hipsters > > >

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The trial that made scores a choice SEVEN YEARS AFTER DREW MADE THE SAT OPTIONAL FOR HIGH

school seniors applying for admission, the university has reinstated the standardized exam as a requirement in the application process. During this past academic year, an eight-person task force studied the impact of the SAT-optional policy. Outgoing CLA Dean Jonathan Levin says task force members expressed strong beliefs on both sides of the debate. “I think where the committee came together was the sense that we felt the SAT could be a valuable component of the review process,” he says, referring to identifying strong candidates, particularly in the sciences. “But we wanted to maintain the flexibility and opportunity to identify students who are coming with different kinds of strengths.” The task force also considered that roughly 80 percent of high school seniors who applied to Drew since 2006, the year the SAToptional policy took effect, included their SAT scores, even though they were not mandatory. The group recommended retiring the policy, which Drew President Vivian Bull signed off on this spring. The first class to enroll under the new requirement will start in fall 2014. Students who feel their test scores don’t reflect their abilities will still be able to submit supplemental material for consideration, such as a graded paper or a portfolio. “One thing that won’t be changing is our commitment to students as individuals,” says Bull. “We will continue to evaluate each applicant based on his or her entire record of achievement.”—CHRISTOPHER HANN

Finding the sweet spot THE VOTES ARE IN: DOWNTOWN

Madison is all about eating. A recent campus poll showed that students flock to Drip for coffee and hitting the books; Crowley Cupcakes for, well, you know; and McCool’s Ice Cream for frozen love.

Naming your son Daniel Drew WHEN PICKING A NAME FOR HIS

second child, Joshua Drew ’98 did what very few Drew graduates could: He chose the moniker of the university’s founder, the 19th-century cattle drover and financier whose philanthropy kickstarted the institution. He also handed his alma mater a sweet news story in about 16 years when Daniel submits his application.

Peter Byron. Facing page, Bill Cardoni

drew.edu/undergraduate/what-you-learn

> > > OUT: a summer flipping burgers IN: DIS to Paris & Morocco OUT: refusing to vote IN: support for same-sex marriage > > >

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> > > OUT: ennui-inducing apparel IN: 2013 Drew African Students Association fashion show OUT: Welch Hall group bathrooms IN: Welch single bathrooms OUT: paperback romances IN: Drew’s Willa Cather letters, part of new Random House anthology > > >

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that’s because they are. An oil in the style of Caravaggio and Raphael, Imago Dei depicts 12 Theo students and alumni in acts of fellowship and faith. “These seminarians fit the characters that I imagined for the painting,” says artist and MDiv student Richard Romero T’14, who gracefully sidesteps defining why he chose them. “I am glad my piece invites

IF THE FACES IN SEMINARY HALL’S NEWEST ARTWORK SEEM FAMILIAR,

and provokes questions and maybe even mystery.” Romero, a Peruvian ex-pat who immigrated to the United States in 2000 and the Theo School’s 2013 arts intern, spent a full year creating Imago Dei. He appears in the painting himself, the figure immediately in front of the woman in red. Says Romero, “The artist functions as the bridge between the viewers and the scene.”—MICHAEL BRESSMAN ’06

A painting Raphael would love

WALK AROUND CAMPUS

and you’ll see a riot of color on people’s heads. Going rainbow in 2013 has all sorts of impetuses, but the most common one? “Pretty soon we’ll be out in the real world trying to get jobs,” says cover model Taylor Gecsey ’14. “We need to get a little crazy with our appearance while we still can.”—KATHRYN MCMILLAN ’13

Bill Cardoni

Ho-hum hair

Left: James Mataresse ’14. Clockwise from top: Camille Mobley ’13, Judea Hill ’13, Hai Ri (pronounced “hairy,” we must point out) Lee ’15.

> > > OUT: thumb-twiddling at the EC IN: new EC gaming tables, gift of the Class of ’13 OUT: dumbphone IN: iPhone > > >

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Denying film its academic due MCKENZIE CHAPMAN WAS ELATED.

Film & Media Studies Minor Foundation courses

Introduction to Film Analysis Introduction to Media Studies Production course

Digital Imaging, Photography I or Digital Video Three electives

Aeneas, played by Christopher Talbot ’13, sings to Dido, queen of Carthage, played by Rachel Schachter ’13.

Opera on a grand scale ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MUSIC JASON BISHOP DID NOT WASTE TIME

Nick Romanenko

From any discipline

The Drew sophomore had just asked one of her professors about changing her major from Chinese to film—no mean task. Because Drew had no official film program, Chapman would have to create the major herself. Hearing rumors about a new minor in film and media studies, Chapman checked in regularly with Shakti Jaising, an assistant professor of English and one of the champions of the proposed minor. Before long, the news was out: The minor, under the direction of Associate Professor of English Martin Foys, had been approved and would be available this fall. “I was thrilled,” Chapman says. “The classes I’ve taken in film were some of the greatest I’ve taken at Drew and taught me so much about film as an art form and how it operates in culture and media.” The average first-year student comes to Drew having consumed some 36,000 hours of electronic and visual media, the sort of immersive experience that makes it essential for today’s undergraduates to learn to think critically about media. That’s the philosophy that inspired Drew’s newest minor. “The way young people experience the world today is mediated through so many different technologies,” says Foys, who, together with faculty members Lee Arnold, Audrey Evrard and Wendy Kolmar, was instrumental in creating the new minor. “We wanted to provide a way of making students aware of that, intellectually and culturally.” Foys says another of his students has already decided to use the new program to form her own major. She may be prescient. “If this continues to grow and flourish as we hope it will,” he says, “we’d like to see it become a full-scale major.”—LESLIE GARISTO PFAFF

> > > OUT: gossip IN: Drew Compliments on Facebook OUT: cutting oneself off from nature IN: flagstone patio outside the Pub

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making his mark as Drew’s new director of choral and vocal studies. After just nine months, Bishop staged Drew’s first opera ever. And not just any opera, but a monumental Baroque opera: Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. Though some worried for Bishop’s sanity at such an undertaking, Bishop, who came to Drew from Penn State Erie, sees this as a first step toward his long-term dream. “We have great facilities, an excellent concert hall and great faculty,” says Bishop. “My goal is to make Drew a destination school for music.” —CHRISTOPHER HANN

OUT: education sans social exigency IN: largest class of Civic Scholars arriving fall 2013 OUT: nail biting IN: bejeweled nails > > >

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Turning a cold shoulder

New trustee leadership

ony Ingrao steps into the ba

ONE HURRICANE LAUNCHED DREW DISASTER

Lynne DeLade

Relief (DDR). And another is keeping it going. For seven consecutive years, starting the winter after the smite of Hurricane Katrina, service-minded Drewids have traded downtime revelry for hands-on recovery in Louisiana, helping residents and businesses with cleanup, demolition and reconstruction. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, that mission has come home. Over winter and spring breaks this year, plus numerous weekends, Drewids have headed to devastated communities to bring sheer brawn and raw energy to the task of rebuilding the Jersey Shore. “It was humbling to see how people’s lives were tossed around,” says Drew Civic Scholar Alyssa Petersen ’16, who worked over winter break in Union Beach, N.J. “We picked up everything from dolls to family photographs to jars of food along the marshes. Hurricane Sandy indiscriminately tore many people’s lives apart.” While these efforts have been herculean, what’s equally remarkable is how DDR has brought together disparate parts of campus. Since the storm, dozens of people have pitched in, including—now get ready for a long list— undergraduates Nick Klein ’13 and Victoria Dayton ’13, library cataloger Lucy Marks, chemistry professor Molly Crowther, staffers Shawn Spaventa and Rita Gregory, residence life staff, members of the lacrosse team, Drew alumni, and students from the Caspersen and Theo schools. “It’s the first sustained cross-school, crosssector activity I’ve seen take root here,” says Amy Koritz, director of the Center for Civic Engagement and DDR co-chair. “It was great to see everyone working toward one goal.”

THERE ARE FEW

people as woven into the fabric of Drew as Dean Criares ’85, who expects that rich history to inform his new role as chair of Drew’s trustees. Since graduating, Criares, a former partner in The Blackstone Group, a Manhattan investment firm, has served on the College Alumni Association Board and the Drew Alumni Recruitment Team. “As an alumnus, I have a sense of the strengths we want to amplify, the traditions we want to uphold and the core values of the liberal arts education that we don’t want to lose,” he says. “As I sit at every board meeting, I constantly remind myself of what my experience was like at Drew and how I would react as a student to each development.” Two significant goals—approving a three-year budget that balances programmatic priorities with available resources and hiring a new president—lie ahead in 2014 for Criares and the board. “The two goals are closely related,” says Criares. “The steps we’re taking to plan for our future will make Drew a most appealing prospect for the highest caliber of presidential candidate.” Criares’ predecessor as chair describes the former Drew Rangers catcher as “uniquely qualified” to lead the board. “He is a graduate, he loves the university and since his election to the board in 2004, he has been very active,” says John Crawford III T’65. “Dean’s challenge is to take a strong board and make it even stronger.” —PATTI ZIELINSKI

—MICHAEL BRESSMAN ’06

Over spring break, Drew Disaster Relief volunteers helped residents reclaim their houses after Sandy.

> > > OUT: BC basement space for digital art courses

ESL students take advantage of a Drew-tutored class in Morristown, N.J.

IN: airy Mac lab with good vibes in DoYo OUT: laser lab > > >

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“ I never in the world imagined that a teacher would go so far to do something for me like that.”

Simple human kindness

–Joseph Lee ’13

Thirst. Facing page, Bill Cardoni

WHEN HE WAS A HIGH SCHOOL

senior, Joseph Lee narrowed down his college choices to Rutgers and Drew. He talked it over with his father, and they agreed that a small private school would be the better choice. “I was going to get more attention from teachers,” says Lee ’13, a biochemistry and molecular biology major. “I was going to have more opportunities to stand out and get more personal with the community.” As things turned out, the attention Lee received from his professors and the personal connections he made with classmates helped him overcome a series of hardships and might well have rescued his academic career at Drew. Things started to sour shortly after Lee enrolled in the fall of 2009. With the economy reeling, his family’s business ventures—his parents owned two farmers markets and a mineral spa—were hit hard. Money grew tight. As a sophomore, Lee, who scored 800 on the math SAT, couldn’t afford to buy the textbook for his physics class. Then, that fall semester, his eyeglasses broke. Unable to replace them, he began skipping classes for the first time in his life. “There was absolutely no point of me going to class,” Lee says. “It hurt my head trying to see the board and write down notes.” When things looked their gloomiest, in 2010, a trinity of Good Samaritans buoyed him from the depths. On the day before Thanksgiving, Lee was sitting in his dorm room when a Drew classmate, Heather Tynan ’13, and her father walked in carrying grocery bags bearing a

turkey, potatoes, cranberry sauce—a complete holiday dinner. Enough, in fact, for Lee, his parents and his younger brother and sister. And his grandparents. And cousins. The bags, he says, “filled up a good portion of my room.” But his day was not done. Not long after Tynan’s family delivered the holiday meal, Lee got an email from his organic chemistry professor, Jane Liu, who now teaches at Pomona College. Earlier in the semester, she had taken Lee aside. He confided about his family finances, about his broken glasses. Liu’s email informed Lee that professors in the chemistry department wanted to buy him new glasses. That afternoon she drove him to a nearby LensCrafters. An hour later, Lee could see again. “I never in the world imagined that a teacher would go so far to do something for me like that,” Lee says. “This was not just an act of kindness. It showed me that the teachers at the school cared for me.” The kindness kept coming. A month later, while “studying my butt off” for a physics final, Lee noticed that someone had slipped under his door $500 worth of Stop & Shop gift cards. He thought it was a joke. It wasn’t. He found out later that it was the benevolence of another Drew friend, Julie Liss ’12. Lee, who graduated this May and aspires to become a surgeon, says his Drew experience has inspired him to return the humanity he’s received. “I want to give back, hopefully, in the future,” he says. “I was helped out when there was no need to help me out. I just want what their kindness did for me to multiply.”—CHRISTOPHER HANN

Keeping mum about academic energy WHAT SETS DREW APART?

New undergraduate major webpages now make that plain. Through wry visual distillations of pedagogy and culture within academic departments—an innovative mind meld between Drew and the Chicago-based design firm Thirst—the website hands high school students and their parents a memorable way to pick Drew out from the crowd. It’s also the top-rated university website in the nation, says CASE, a Washington, DC-based education association.

KILLER BROWNIES We ask students to use their critical acumen to rate aptly named faculty creations during the annual Psychology Department BakeOff.

IN: atmospheric chemistry and confocal microscopy lab OUT: copier paper from Indonesia IN: copier paper made in the U.S. n

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