Where Spring Hill students begin their college journey, where they walk when they graduate and where they return to fond memories and make new ones.
Dear Alumni and Friends:
The Jesuit educational traditions central to Spring Hill College run deep, much like the roots that serve as the foundation for the grand live oaks that grace our campus. The unique enlightening experiences provided by our faculty support each student’s intellectual and spiritual development, preparing them to make contributions in significant, impactful ways.
Today, as our world faces many challenges, the stories you will find in this issue illustrate how our students, alumni, and faculty demonstrate the principle of cura personalis in their daily lives, helping to improve those around them.
As we celebrate the success of our graduates, we also take great pleasure in preparing students to engaging others with a deep understanding of the value found in each individual and how our collective uniqueness enriches the beautiful tapestry of our world.
Thank you for your continued support as we help our students enter the world ready to serve others, making a meaningful difference in the lives of individuals and our society as a whole.
President E. Joseph Lee II, Ph.D.
Racheal Banks, Ph.D.
Traci Swoboda
Laura Burton
Paul Taylor
Steve Millburg
Paul Taylor
David Adkins
Tracy Eason
Seth Laubinger ’02
Brian Strickland
Jeff Tesney
The Lilly Company
Steve Millburg
Comments should be addressed to: Spring Hill College Magazine 4000 Dauphin Street Mobile, AL 36608-1791 (251) 380-4000
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E. Joseph Lee II, Ph.D. President Spring Hill College
THESPRINGHILLCOLLEGEALUMNIMAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER2022
David Dow via Getty Images
Kenneth England, Ed.D., executive vice president and chief financial officer, joined the team in September of 2021, bringing more than 12 years of experience. He is tasked with guiding the College to maintain financial efficiency, promoting donor and alumni engagement, and advancing admissions and recruitment. England said, “There are so many fantastic opportunities here at Spring Hill and I look forward to helping our students, faculty, and staff achieve their goals. The work ahead will transform Spring Hill into a true beacon of excellence for generations to come.” He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Samford University and his Ed.D. in higher education admin istration from the University of Alabama. He is joined here by his wife and three daughters.
Laura Burton has been with Spring Hill College since 2016, previously serving as director of visual content and brand identity. In December, she was named chief marketing officer, responsible for the College’s overall communications strategy. Her award-winning career spans more than 25 years. Before coming to Spring Hill, she owned VERGE, an advertising, marketing and public relations firm. “Great things continue to happen at Spring Hill College,” Burton said. “I look forward to using my industry knowledge alongside my leadership experience to further the College’s goals. We have a great team; excellent leadership and I look forward to the work ahead.” Burton’s husband is a local business owner and she is the mother of two sons who are both in college.
Racheal B. Banks, Ph.D., vice president for advancement, joined Spring Hill in 2018 and began leading the advancement team in July 2021. Banks said, "I have worked in fundraising and alumni relations for almost 20 years and there's no comparison to Spring Hill. Every day I work with a dedicated team of professionals and fiercely loyal alumni. I am fortunate to be a part of an institution that is truly dedicated to its students, alumni, families, faculty, staff and the community." She earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Montevallo, a master's from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Ph.D. in higher education administration from the University of Alabama. She is married to Lee and has two children, Maddie and Brantley.
Nathan Copeland, Ed.D., vice president for enrollment, came to Spring Hill in November 2021 with a focus on driving student enrollment. He began his academic career in the College of Business at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., where he taught classes on leadership, business communications, promotional strategies, and entrepreneurial studies. “I am motivated to work and focus on growing our footprint here in Mobile, as well as across the Southeast and throughout the United States. Spring Hill is such a special place, and there is so much history and opportunity here.” Copeland holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration at Harding and earned his Doctorate of Education at the University of Alabama. He is joined in Mobile by his wife, daughter and three sons.
Spring Hill welcomed Paige Raney, Ed.D., as division chair of education in August 2021. She is focused on new undergraduate and graduate programs, developing partnerships, and increasing enrollment. She previously served as a district administrator in city and county school districts across the state. “Spring Hill College has quickly become such a home to me and is a wonderful place to lead and
teach. Our students are eager to learn and positively impact young people. I’m honored to serve the next generation of teachers.” Rainey is a national board-certified teacher in literacy and holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting, a Master’s degree in Elementary Education and Higher Education Administration, an educational specialist and doctorate degree in Educational Leadership.
Michael Cozart joined Spring Hill as its new TRIO Student Support Services director. The program was funded in 2020 and serves first-generation students who meet financial guidelines and students with disabilities. Cozart is a first-generation TRIO alum. He is a two-time graduate of Grambling State University, where he met and married his college sweetheart. He is a lifelong learner with 20 years in education (K-12, career tech & higher ed). Cozart and his wife have two children and have found a home in Mobile. He has connected with the local graduate chapter of his fraternity, Kappa Alpha Psi, Inc., and they have enjoyed his first Mardi Gras.
Spring Hill has named Rebeca Cantor, Ph.D. as the new Provost. She has served as a department chair, a professor of English and assistant provost. Cantor earned a bachelor’s in English literature from Fairfield University in Connecticut, an master’s in English from Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles and a Ph.D. in English from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, CA.
Lisa Hager, Ph.D., has been named associate provost, having served as interim provost since September 2020.
Michael Cozart Leads Spring Hill’s TRIO SSS Program
Althoughhis choice eventually proved very useful, Joe Clark ’59 didn’t really think in practical terms when he decided to major in Economics at Spring Hill College. “It was just an interesting subject,” he said.
Thomas J. Clark III (just call him Joe) planned to go into the military for a couple of years after graduation; his Catholic education had strongly ingrained in him the concept of service. Then he would probably come back home to Memphis, Tennessee, and join The Lilly Company, the family materials-handling business. His grandfather had founded it in 1919.
“A couple of years” became 20. Clark finally retired as an Army major who had flown helicopters and a variety of fixed-wing aircraft. His spent two tours, in 1965 and 1966, piloting helicopter gunships in Vietnam.
Younger people familiar with today’s respectful “thank you for your service” interactions between civilians and military personnel may not realize how polarized the country was about the Vietnam War –or how opponents of the war sometimes took out their anger on random service members.
“You never knew when you went to town in your uniform whether somebody was going to throw something on you or spit on you,” Clark said.
When he left the Army in late 1979, his father welcomed him into The Lilly Company. Suddenly, that decision to major in Economics seemed pretty smart. Three years later, Clark became company president. Today, he’s chairman of the board, with son, Wade Clark, having taken over the presidency.
The company provides and services forklifts and supplies other products for materials handling and storage. When Joe Clark took over in 1982, it had one office located in Memphis, Tenn. Today, it has 13 locations in Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas.
The attention to detail that had kept him alive while flying aircraft in combat paid off in the business world. “Everything affects business,” Clark said. He insisted that every facility, including working shops, be kept clean and organized.
“That relates to whether customers who are coming in to look at a piece of equipment or to have their forklift truck worked on have respect for you,” he said, “or not.”
“I’m still a real advocate of studying economics itself and understanding what makes things flow in business,” he said, “which is the same thing as the supply chain.”
-Joe Clark
His college years helped him relate to all kinds of customers and suppliers, including many from other countries. “Meeting the diversity of people at Spring Hill was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me,” Clark said.
He attended Spring Hill partly because some cousins had done so. Also, “Somebody had told me they let you off school for Mardi Gras.”
The college had recently been racially integrated. “I was kind of proud of that.”
Not everyone shared that sentiment. Clark witnessed the Ku Klux Klan’s fumbled attempt to burn a cross in front of Mobile Hall on the night of January 21, 1957. Students were studying for exams when about 25 cars drove onto campus. An article in The Springhillian titled “Night Riders Visit Hill” said a few men were assembling a cross when students poured out of the dorm and began yelling at them.
As Clark remembers it, the screaming students intimidated the klansmen that “only one guy got out of his car. Nobody would help him.” The cars fled back toward Old Shell Road and off the campus, leaving the cross behind. “It was a good break from studying,” Clark said.
The next night, students again chased away robed men in a station wagon who burned a small cross at
the Old Shell Road entrance.
During his student days, Clark said, “You had to be in the dorms at 10 o’clock at night.” That’s changed, but the character of The Hill hasn’t. “I just like the smallness of the school. The professors and the students are more connected with each other.”
He has maintained strong ties to the College. A daughter attended and he was a member of the board of trustees for a couple of years.
He is interested in Spring Hill’s new Supply Chain Management major."Supply chains," he said, "represent the principles of economics as they play out in the real world."
“I’m still a real advocate of studying economics itself and understanding what makes things flow in business,” he said, “which is the same thing as the supply chain.”
When he came to The Lilly Company from the military, he remembered those economic principles, but he needed to get up to speed on the nuances of materials handling. He devoured every magazine and trade publication he could find. He even read forklift parts manuals.
“Whatever business you enter,” he advised, “or whatever in life you go into, read everything you can on it.”
Spring
The
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Jack Gleeson ’61, above and left. Below, Brian Donaldson ’71 enjoys catching up with others at Spring Hill College’s 59th Reunion. Left to right: Brian Donaldson, Suzanne and Alfred Montgomery, Jerry Carmody.
THE CLASS OF 1961 STARTED IT. THE CLASS OF 1971 PICKED UP THE IDEA. Now they’re both encouraging others to do what they did: launch a Spring Hill class scholarship fund.
Jack Gleeson ’61 and his wife, Fran, organized the Class of 1961 Scholarship Fund at the 45th class reunion in 2006, along with Class President Joe Imorde ’61, wife Margie, John Brennan ’61 and wife Geri, and Mike Coughlan ’61 and wife Robin.
In that first year, Gleeson said, the fund raised $75,000. Every year since has seen at least $35,000 in additional gifts from the class. The fund now sits at more than $638,000. It supplies $25,000 annually for five to 10 scholarships administered by Spring Hill.
Brian Donaldson ’71 led the effort to launch a similar fund for his class’s Golden Reunion in 2021. “My understanding is that there are donations and pledges of somewhere around $54,000 to start,” he said.
He and Gleeson spoke of the lifelong friendships forged among classmates. “Our class is a very proud class that has stayed together very closely,” Gleeson said. “We have an email list of about 75 class mates.”
Donaldson said, “I have friends that I met on my first day at Spring Hill that are still fast friends today.”
Both said they hoped for a flurry of other classes following their ex amples. “The school needs every dollar it can get,” Gleeson said. He had a message for all who heed the call:
“Jack Gleeson’s rooting for them.”
To explore the possibility of setting up a fund in the name of your own class, email Racheal Banks, Vice President for Advancement, at RBanks@SHC.EDU.
DONMEKA MARTIN-MERCER ’99
HOW DOES SERVING OTHERS, ONE OF THE CORE VALUES OF A JESUIT EDUCATION, PLAY OUT IN THE MIDST OF A GLOBAL PANDEMIC?
DONMEKA MARTIN-MERCER ’99 HAS THIS REPORT FROM THE FRONT LINES:
Donmeka Martin-Mercer, RN, MSN/MHA, RN-BC, is a graduate of Spring Hill College’s first nursing class. Now back home in Jackson, Tennessee, she’s Executive Director of Acute Care Services for West Tennessee Healthcare, a public, not-for-profit healthcare system.
Early during the pandemic a patient coughed in her face. She didn’t think much about it until she learned that the patient had tested positive for COVID-19.
“I was terrified, because I have children at the house,” she said. She had to quarantine herself for a couple of days. “That was the longest, the absolute longest time, just sitting at home. My kids would come to the door, and I wouldn’t allow them to come
into the room. It was very intense.”
Taylor Stine ’20 graduated on May 8, 2020, a month and a half after Spring Hill had suspended in-person classes because of COVID. She began work just days later in the emergency department in Mobile before starting a new job with Travel Nurse Across America, where he receives a new assignment at different hospital every three months. Her work helps hospitals overcome staffing shortages, ensuring that patient care is readily available.
Stine, who is a registered nurse, sees this nomadic experience as an extension of her Jesuit learning experiences at Spring Hill and her high school. “Being able to go into communities with different cultures
“IT’S LIKE BEING IN A HURRICANE AND NOT KNOWING WHERE YOU ARE GOING TO LAND.”
and healthcare needs as well as different working environments gives you an opportunity to help others and at the same time develop as a person and a more culturally competent healthcare provider,” said Stine. His Spring Hill training also helped him care for COVID skeptics. “One of the biggest things that a Jesuit education taught me was to be able to understand somebody that wasn’t me, wasn’t my background, wasn’t my culture or my ethnicity or my race,” Stine said. “Having an open mind and an open heart like that really helped me grow to be able to serve my patients better.”
Taylor Fontenelle, a junior nursing student at Spring Hill, is also learning how to deal effectively and respectfully with patients who distrust medical advice. It doesn’t help that COVID has made communication itself more difficult.
“The masks and especially the respirators make it so hard to speak clearly, especially if you have elderly patients or people who are hearing-impaired,”
she said. “It’s really, really hard for them to understand. It’s even hard for me to understand my fellow students.”
Fontenelle is from Spanish Fort, Alabama, just across Mobile Bay, and plays on the Spring Hill volleyball team. “Talking to patients and getting to know them and where they come from is my favorite part,” she said.
She’s sure she’s found her calling. “You are making a difference in these people’s lives. They’re so grateful to have us there.”
Stine and Martin-Mercer said they felt the same. “I got into the profession to help people,” MartinMercer said. “It’s servant leadership, being a servant to the people."
Even though she has trouble getting masks to fit well when she has a patient who is COVID positive, “I will put on two or three masks and still go in that room. I always sacrifice myself to take care of them. Because if not me, then who?”
The Spring Hill College Division of Nursing offers Bachelor of Science programs on campus and Master’s degree programs online. Also online, Spring Hill offers a Bachelor of Science program for those who are already registered nurses and want to move into leadership roles in healthcare. Last year, RNCareers.org ranked Spring Hill’s Division of Nursing as the top four-year nursing program in Alabama. LEARN MORE BY VISITING SHC.EDU/NURSING
ANDREW PRINCE, ’14
You try to ask a nurse what’s going on. But you can’t. The breathing tube in your throat means you can’t talk. Can’t make a sound. What do you do?
You freak out, of course.
Voicelessness strikes a million people a year. Although it’s usually temporary, it can be frightening, maddening, even dangerous. Answering medical questions by scribbling on a notepad leaves both patient and caregiver frustrated. Patients may be misunderstood or provide incomplete information.
Dr. Andrew Prince ’14 aims to ease the terror and improve the communication. He came to Spring Hill from Slidell, Louisiana. After graduation, he received his medical degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is now an otolaryngologist (ENT) resident for UNC Health at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
He’s also CEO of a start-up company called LiRA. That’s pronounced “LEERuh,” and it stands for Lip Reading Assistant. LiRA (liraglobal.com) is developing software to be downloaded to a smartphone or tablet. The software would read the patient’s lips via the device’s camera.
“You would just start ‘speaking,’” Dr. Prince said, “and then an artificial intelli gence-generated voice would translate those lip movements into words through the device’s speaker.”
Voicelessness usually results from a tracheostomy — insertion of a breathing tube into the throat. That can relieve a variety of breathing problems, even save lives. But it redirects airflow away from the vocal cords.
“As an ENT, we’re constantly taking care of patients that have breathing issues and ultimately require some type of procedure that precludes voice,” Dr. Prince said. “I had a hard realization my first year of training about just how signifi cant that is.”
A woman was airlifted from western North Carolina to UNC Health because of increasing breathing difficulties. She woke up after a tracheostomy, with no family members or friends at her side, and learned that she had throat cancer. “It just precipitated a panic attack,” Dr. Prince said.
He felt helpless. “I’m a pretty chatty guy myself,” he said. “Seeing somebody lose their ability to speak and how it affects them psychologically kind of blew me away.”
From his education at Spring Hill and the Jesuit tradition of cura personalis, he had taken to heart the notion of caring for all aspects of his patients — mind, body and spirit. In 2020, he and a team of four other graduate and professional students at the University of North Carolina founded LiRA to help do just that.
LiRA is currently teaching its software how human lips form certain phrases that patients often use to communicate with their caregivers. You can give it an assist; see the accompanying story for details.
Dr. Prince has chosen a career of serving others. If LiRA works the way he hopes, he’ll be able to do a better job of that. Still, he can’t help but feel that he’s the one being served.
“You get so much out of it. Getting to take care of patients is a true gift. I just love the banter with patients and being able to help them.”
You can help teach the LiRA software how to read lips. If you have a computer with a camera and a microphone, you can participate in a volunteer campaign called LipTrain.
Simply go to liraglobal.com/liptrain.You’ll be asked to read 100 short sentences, including “my throat feels sore,” “I want to go home” and “when will the tube come out?” It takes just a few minutes, and you’re potentially helping Dr. Andrew Prince ’14 and his team at LiRA make life easier for future patients who will have lost their ability to speak.
Last October’s Jesuit Experience Trip to El Paso, Texas, affected Lucia Reyes ’21 profoundly. “It broke my heart, in a beautiful way,” she said.
“Your heart aches for anyone suffering. But it also made me understand my own impact and my role now as a missionary in Mobile. So I’m really grateful overall.”
Reyes, a Miami native, studied business at Spring Hill. She now works as a missionary for Vagabond Missions Mobile, part of a national organization that ministers to urban teens. She made the Jesuit Experience Trip (JET) as a postgraduate member of the Sodality group that she had joined as an undergraduate.
Spring Hill started the JET program in 2016 to connect students with Jesuit ministries to the poor and marginalized within the United States. Campus Ministry operates the program as well as the International Service Immersion Program for trips outside the country. Other alumni who joined stu dents on the El Paso journey are Sofia Ruiz-Castaneda ’18, Joseph Crapanzano ’17, Alexander Scalco ’18, Jay Williams ’19, Gabrielle Smith ’17 and Stephanie Morris ’69.
The trip was organized by Rev. Matthew Baugh, S.J., for the Sodality, and in El Paso by the Encuentro
Project, which tries to increase understanding of migration. Rev. Rafael Garcia, S.J., created and directs the Encuentro Project.
The visitors talked to migrant mothers waiting out their immigration proceedings in a shelter in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, across the Rio Grande from El Paso. Participants also visited the border wall and met with priests, nuns and lay people, including immigration attorneys, U.S. Border Patrol agents and migrant advocates.
Reyes said she appreciated the immersive look. Migration means something personal to her. Her family emigrated from Cuba to the United States in 1959.
“I was pretty trepidatious because I didn’t want the trip to become an opportunity to feed our egos or be self-serving,” she said. “We were able to look at it in a holistic way and humanize it through the people we met there.”
She said her group did a lot of listening. “I think it’s our role to not assume the needs of someone but allow them to tell you who they are and what they need.”
Gathering information matters, she said. “There is objective truth. If we lose sight of that, if everyone’s allowed their own versions of the truth, we lose the idea of a common good, which is how we come together as a community.”
Vagabond Missions, a Catholic organization headquartered in Pittsburgh, has missions in several cities around the country, including Mobile. “In each of our missions,” says the website of the Mobile chapter, “we place four to five missionaries to live, love and serve inner-city kids and neighborhoods.”
To learn more, see www.vagabondmissionsmobile.com.
IT HAD BEEN A LONG DAY. SEAN WRIGHT ’93 HAD SPRINTED UP AND DOWN THE COURT REFEREEING A NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION GAME.
Afterward, as the crew chief, he wrote a game report for the league. Then he reviewed video of the first two quarters with a less experienced crew member, “going over things to help his growth — also looking at stuff that I could have done better.”
Finally, he settled into his airline seat for a rare treat: an in-season trip back home. Time to relax? Not yet. He still had “tape work” (video) to do. As fellow passengers dozed, he watched the final two quarters, still looking for ways to improve.
“You’re competing against yourself to be the best you can every night,” he said. “That’s the fun of it.”
The travel is not so much fun. During the season, he gets home to Dacula, Georgia, northeast of Atlanta, maybe six days a month. He and his wife, a government attorney, have two sons and two daughters, the youngest in fifth grade.
Wright, who grew up in Mobile, played point guard for the Badgers basketball team. He dreamed about competing in the NBA. Now he’s in his 17th season of doing just that, albeit not quite the way he envisioned back then.
He said Spring Hill definitely made him Real World Ready, with the ability to connect with anyone, no matter their background. “Spring Hill, to be honest, is just about people, and doing as much good as you can in the short amount of time you’re here in the world. I still try to live by those values to this day.”
And he tries to pass them along. He’s lobbying his younger daughter, a high school junior, to follow his example and attend Spring Hill. “Best decision I ever made.”
Cherished memories and friendships from his years at Spring Hill College led Msgr. Warren Wall ’67 to enrich the lives of future stu dents through scholarship money left to the College in his will.
“I hope that the scholarships make it possible for people who are truly deserving to have anywhere near the kinds of blessings I feel like I have had in my lifetime,” he said.
Msgr. Wall is a native of Mobile; his family owns the century-old flooring and interiors business T.S. Wall & Sons. He earned a bache lor’s degree in History and Economics at Spring Hill and a master’s in Social Work at the University of Alabama, then studied for the priesthood in Rome.
After ordination in 1976, he returned to serve as an Archdiocese of Mobile priest in several parishes, including St. Ignatius, which encompasses the Spring Hill campus. When updating his will as he was retiring in 2020, he included a bequest to fund two ongoing Spring Hill scholarships.
He urged fellow graduates to contact the Office of Advancement (rbanks@shc.edu) and follow his example. “I do encourage them to make it possible for people in future generations to have what we received.”
Msgr. Wall formed lifelong relationships during his time on The Hill. “Many of the people that were in school with me, even those that live in far-flung places, are still some of my closest friends right up to the present.”
He richly values Spring Hill’s cura personalis educational approach. “I have a deep conviction that the role of the Catholic faith in the for mation of a person in the midst of all the accompanying education the person receives is a very substantial gift and blessing.”
THE NEW NURSING SIMULATION LAB at Spring Hill College will allow students to engage with an innovative educational environment to better prepare them to care for patients. The revamped facility, established through generous donors, features the updated classrooms, expanded skill labs and faculty control rooms that facilitates better learning opportunities. It also features two state-of-the-art patient simulators, an adult female and pediatric child, that will allow for hands-on training.
Give Day 2022 made a financial impact of more than $325,000 (the highest total of any Give Day) from the combined generosity of over 750 alumni, parents, students and friends. Sixty-three percent of those donors were Spring Hill graduates who gave back to support students to follow in their footsteps. More than 100 alumni came together with a very special goal: to honor the memory of Rev. Roy "Chief" Vollenweider, S.J. who served the College for 41 years. Their generosity helped endow a scholarship in Chief's name which celebrates the memories they shared together as students and Chief's unforgettable impact on their lives.
