January 2010 | Trinity University Magazine

TRINITY THE MAGAZINE OF TRINITY UNIVERSITY | JANUARY 2010

Introducing Trinity’s New President and His Wife ALSO: Bottom Line Thinking About Health Care

A Little Goes a Long Way in Nicaragua EDITOR’S NOTE:

Inspired by the article “Alternative Spring Break Focuses on Service” in the July 2009 issue of TRINITY, alumnus Carl Boyer in Santa Clarita, California, was moved to share his personal experience with service on an international level. His essay demonstrates “what alumni, particularly in retirement or in lieu of a European vacation can do to make a real difference.”

by Carl Boyer ’59

In the past nine years I have visited Nicaragua nine times.

In the beginning, my trips were in the company of an ophthalmologist, Dr. Jonathan Song, and a few nurses or technicians.

On one such trip we were able to perform 20 surgeries in a week at a total cost of $4,000, raised from friends and relatives.

Most of the patients were children who needed surgery for strabismus (misaligned eye muscles), cataracts, or cornea

transplants. We worked through a local doctor who was overwhelmed by his own patient load but willing to recruit patients over the radio and pre-screen them. Over the course of five visits, we performed more than 100 successful surgeries.

When the political situation in Nicaragua changed, it became necessary to provide services that did not require going through channels. I found it easier to recruit friends who paid their own way and were willing to carry school supplies donated by local students and purchase additional items, such as paper, which is heavy to transport, in the country with funds that had been donated for that purpose.

Should a small group decide to take on such a project, they should know that fares to Latin America do not generally require purchase much in advance to get the better rates and the Managua airport charges a small $5 entry fee. I do recommend that any such group include one person fluent in Spanish.

School children, we found, are greatly in need of 9 x 6-inch, saddle-stitched notebooks as well as pens.

In a country where many adults earn less than $2 a day, buying a notebook and pen for a child entails real sacrifice.

And sadly, many children only attend school a short time because parents cannot afford to buy supplies for more than one child at a time. Teachers need markers to use on white boards, which have come into vogue in the past couple of years.

A few years ago I was told that one person could sponsor an entire community school for $600 per year and keep many children in school by doing so. It cost some friends of mine $434 to pay for an older child’s first year in university in Estelì. That included fees, bus fares, meals, and supplies.

Imagine how such an investment in humanity can break the cycle of poverty for a family.

Opportunities to help in this way are easy to find. We often just drove through villages, dropping in on the blue and white schools visible from the car window and asking what their needs were. At one school we were able to provide enough cloth, buttons, zippers, thread and the like to allow the mothers to sew the required uniforms for an entire student body. The cost was a couple of dollars per child.

Similar situations, along with similar opportunities for amelioration, exist in Honduras, Ecuador, and other places I have visited repeatedly. For example, you might adopt a school and follow the children’s progress. You might want to help a village dig a well and put in a water supply. The list of needs is almost endless.

The point I want to stress is that it doesn’t take much to make a huge difference in a poor country. But, I do offer a word of caution. Pick your country carefully, for you will probably be going back to it as often as you can.

TRINITY THE MAGAZINE OF TRINITY UNIVERSITY | JANUARY 2010

F E AT U R E S 22

Bottom Line Thinking About Health Care Reform Associate professor Ed Schumacher looks at our health care system and discusses the options proposed for changing it.

Books, page 11

27

The Art of Cinematography Assistant professor Patrick Keating teaches courses in film studies and video production. His favorite Academy Award is for Best Cinematography.

30

World Travels Inform Professor’s Teachings, Writings Trinity political science professor Peter O’Brien traces both his teaching emphasis and research passion to an observation during his junior-year study abroad.

Health Care, page 22

D E PA RT M E N T S 4 Campaign Wrap-Up, page 24

Trinity Today

13

Faculty/Staff Focus

16

Campus Life

20

Sports

32

Dream. Inspire. Achieve.

34

Profiles

42

Alumnews

49

Class Acts

56

Commentary

Swine Flu, page 18

New Building, page 8

Cover photo by Susan Masinter Riley ’69

F R O M

TRINITY JANUARY 2010

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Sharon Jones Schweitzer ’75 EDITOR

Mary Denny ART DIRECTOR

Venetia DuBose CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Carl Boyer ’59, R. Douglas Brackenridge, Julie Catalano, Nancy Cook-Monroe, Susie Gonzalez, Russell Guerrero ’83, James Hill ’76, David Holmes ’82, Patrick Keating, John F. Kerr, Mary Lance PHOTOGRAPHER

David Smith PROOFREADER

Mary Fran Degen ’94

PRESIDENT

Dennis A. Ahlburg BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Sharon J. Bell, Phyllis Browning, Richard W. Calvert, Miles Cortez, James F. Dicke II, Douglas D. Hawthorne, George C. Hixon, Peter M. Holt, Walter R. Huntley Jr., John R. Hurd, James W. Jones IV, E. Carey Joullian IV, The Rev. Richard R. Kannwischer, Richard M. Kleberg III, Katherine W. Klinger, John C. Korbell, Oliver T. Lee, Gregory Love, Steven P. Mach, Robert S. McClane, Melody Boone Meyer, Forrest E. Miller, Marshall B. Miller Jr., Clarkson P. Moseley, Michael F. Neidorff, Barbara W. Pierce, Thomas R. Semmes, G. P. Singh, Paul H. Smith, L. Herbert Stumberg Jr., Charles T. Sunderland, Lissa Walls Vahldiek

Trinity is published two times a year by the Office of University Communications and is sent to alumni, faculty, staff, graduate students, parents of undergraduates, and friends of the University.

EDITORIAL OFFICES

Trinity University Office of University Communications One Trinity Place San Antonio, TX 78212-7200 E-mail: mdenny@ trinity.edu Phone: 210-999-8406 Fax: 210-999-8449 www.trinity.edu

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It’s a new year and, with the arrival of Dennis Ahlburg and his wife, Penelope Harley, the beginning of a new chapter in Trinity’s history. Over the course of the coming year, I’m sure many of you will have an opportunity to meet the new president in person. The article on pages 4-5 offers a precursory introduction and hopefully conveys the expertise, enthusiasm, and international perspective the couple bring to the Trinity campus.

But the arrival of a new president is not the only big news. In September, Dream. Inspire. Achieve. The Campaign for Trinity University surpassed its unprecedented $200 million goal. (See page 32.) To celebrate the successful conclusion and recognize the thousands of donors who helped make that happen, we launched a new Web site that highlights the campaign’s impact and notes some impressive statistics.

Among the features in this issue, “Bottom Line Thinking about Healthcare Reform” offers associate professor Ed Schumacher’s thoughts on a topic dominating the news. Film buffs will enjoy assistant professor Patrick Keating’s piece on cinematography. We are especially pleased to include two articles contributed by two alumni. Whether delivering medical services or school supplies in Nicaragua (inside front cover) or sharing real world insights and experiences with Trinity students (page 56), both alumni exemplify the concept of “giving back,” a value Trinity regards highly and seeks to instill in all its graduates.

The July issue of TRINITY elicited a record number of letters. I hope this trend will continue. Positive comments that result from a memory evoked or an article that inspired, entertained, or informed reaffirm our purpose, and pointing out errors—which we try hard not to make—keeps us on our toes.

Best wishes for a happy new year.

pick up Denny signature

THANK YOU, JESSE MACLEAY

I noticed that in Sally Laurie’s letter she mentioned Trinity’s swimming program. It brought back memories of the summer of ’65 at Trinity. Also I was simply amazed to see the obituary of Dr. Jesse MacLeay in the July 2009 Trinity. Only a couple of days before, I had spent a long time telling my lady friend all about him. He was a man’s man and spoke often of courage and how courage is learned. From the beginning I admired him greatly. One day he called me into his office. He said, “You remind me of someone.” Expecting to be flattered, I asked who. He said, “Me.” Then he delivered to me a Jesse MacLeay-style “kick in the slats.”

He was concerned that I was not reaching my full potential. He cared about me. I regret that I [didn’t have] an on-going relationship with him all these years. Those who rubbed elbows with him for a little while, as I did, were better for it. I’d like to say, “Thank you, Jesse MacLeay.”

Jim Doss ’67 Millsap, Texas I BELIEVE THE PRs WERE FIRST...

I was pleased to see in TRINITY magazine that the Pikes had been accepted as a chapter in Trinity’s Greek life, thus broadening the warm on-campus social atmosphere I remember so fondly from 33 years ago. But I would like to point out one factual error.

On page 18 the article cites Pi Kappa Alpha as being “Trinity’s first national fraternity.”

I respectfully remind the author and the University that the National Society of Pershing Rifles established a very active chapter at Trinity in the early 1960s. As a Chapter officer from 1973-1976, I was part of 45-man Company R/17, and a proud member of a national fraternity founded in 1894 at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Among famous Pershing Riflemen are former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Audubon Society president Elvis Stahr, and actor James Earl Jones. The “PRs,” as we were known, were active members of the Trinity Greek Council and had the second largest fraternal organization on campus at the time. During that same period, we also

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rushed and pledged Ms. Evelyn Delgado, the very first female member of the Pershing Rifles in the nation. While not a Greek lettered fraternity per se, the Pershing Rifles was indeed a national fraternity and a very active part of campus social life. Unfortunately, with the demise of the ROTC program at the University in later decades, Company R/17 was later disbanded and the Trinity chapter de-chartered. The University lost its first and only national fraternity chapter until today. As an alumnus, I welcome the Pikes and wish them all the best.

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Your comments and suggestions are

TRINITY THE MAGAZINE OF TRINITY UNIVERSITY | JULY 2009

Trinity Profs Weigh in on Economic Outlook

Please note that on the picture you posted at my sister's home (July 2009, page 59), there are two ladies not identified who should have been. After Vaughan Huge Clark is

Communications, One Trinity Place, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200, or mdenny@trinity.edu

YOUR JOB MAY JUST DEPEND ON IT

ON CLOSE READING

Cary Lindsay Spring, Texas

Send them to Mary Denny, Editor, Trinity University, Office of University

James A. (Jim) Krempel ’76 Lt. Col., US Army (Ret.)

My daughter got her undergraduate degree from Trinity and I always enjoy reading her copy of TRINITY magazine. On my first read of the [July 2009] edition may I offer the following suggestions? Page 19 – Should be Daily Show (not Dailey Show). Page 19 – It’s possible that there are two Lance Alworths, but the only one I’ve ever heard about was a professional football player for the San Diego Chargers. Page 31 – Instead of me delineating the disagreements that I have with the economic position put forth by Professor Cooley, let me merely reference the leadership he has shown with the Student Managed Fund (assuming everything is correct in the article). You state the fund has a current value of $940,000, however, you indicate the fund was created with an initial $500,000 and subsequently was allocated another $500,000. Considering that $1,000,000 was available for investing and that has turned into the current $940,000 that indicates to me that the Cooley lead effort has lost $60,000. Not a performance that I think he should be advertising when Trinity’s name is being associated with his stock investing acumen.

always welcome and encouraged.

Jolyn Bowling Greer and Cindy Cunningham Duffey (class of 79, I think). All of us in the picture are XBEs. We have since gotten together again and I would be happy to submit that photo if you would like. My sister is Amy Dunn Taylor ’78.

Beth Dunn Plummer ’81 San Antonio WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

I was reading through the July issue of TRINITY magazine and noticed in the article “Thoroughly Modern Trinity” that Trinity owns works by Rauschenberg. I would be curious to know what these works are. I’ve been working for Rauschenberg for 15 years and since his passing last May am now deeply involved in his archives and the history and provenance of his artworks.

Matt Magee ’83 Robert Rauschenberg, Inc. New York, N.Y.

[Aaron Delwiche] forgot one thing in [his] recent TRINITY magazine article titled, “It’s All In The Game” and that is #7: Your job may just depend on it. As a 53-year-old 1978 graduate of Trinity with a B.A. in J.B.&F., I have recently wished MANY times that I had grown up playing video games.

Now, with the Ross Overdrive automated system running our control room, I find myself learning to be an “operator assist” running Deko c.g. and the robotic cameras, as well as learning to code shows. This is what the NBC O&O’s installed in their control rooms to run all things production.

Libby Altwegg ’78 Production Studios Supervisor NBC-5 TV, Fort Worth A GOOD READ

My parents went to Trinity and I was reading their July issue of TRINITY magazine and wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed John Kerr’s article, “Economic Outlook: Recovery Expected but Storm Warnings Ahead” It was well-written, informative, and thoroughly enjoyable. The ideas were presented lucidly and the graphics and pictures were excellent.

I just wanted to say “Thank you.”

Lewis Shaw, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA

In your most recent TRINITY magazine, there was an article about Dr. John Marshall, who recently passed away. I had tried to locate him in the past, but was never successful.

He was one of my favorite teachers.

I wanted to let you know how much I enjoy the TRINITY magazine. I always read it cover to cover! I thought the profile on Gina Swift Harvey was so interesting!

Claudia Carroll ’78 Lees Summit, Missouri

Karen Risley San Antonio

JANUARY 2010 3

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TRINITY WELCOMES ITS 18TH PRESIDENT

Noted Economist Dennis Ahlburg Brings International Perspective

Call it kismet. Call it fate.

Call it coincidence. But whatever you call it, know that it bodes well for the future of Trinity University.

Just as the 15-member committee headed

by Trustee J.R. Hurd was searching for Trinity’s 18th president, internationally prominent economist Dennis Ahlburg, dean of the Leeds School of Business University of Colorado at Boulder, was being approached by headhunters about a provost position at another large public institution. Ahlburg told them that after 25 years at the University of Minnesota, where he worked almost exclusively with graduate students, he had discovered in Boulder that he really liked working with undergrads, alumni, and boards. “That sounds like a presidency,” they said. And as luck would have it, they happened to know of the Trinity search in progress.

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Last fall, shortly after he was announced as the next president of Trinity University, Dennis Ahlburg made several visits to campus where he lost no time in getting to know students.

Photos by Susan Masinter Riley ’69

President Dennis A. Ahlburg

Ultimately chosen from among more than 100 candidates, the 59-year old native of Australia, who did possess an awareness of Trinity—not surprisingly gained through the Nobel Economist Lecture series now in its 25th year—was drawn to Trinity because “the future of education lies with the undergraduates” and he was impressed by the enthusiasm of the search committee composed of faculty, staff, Board members, and a student and by the strength of the Board of Trustees. And he relished the challenge of doing something different.

“Something different” might be said to be a leitmotif of his career. Happy that he ignored his graduate adviser’s advice to become an expert in a very narrow field, Ahlburg has done “many different things.” A quick scan of his impressive 21-page curriculum vitae provides a glimpse into the breadth and depth of his research, expertise, and experience. Besides teaching and research, Ahlburg has served in a variety of administrative posts, published more than 100 scholarly

articles and books, collaborated with fellow scholars around the globe, and consulted with numerous entities including the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and the governments of Australia and Great Britain on subjects as diverse as “Work, Gender, and Family Issues in Arab countries” to “Income Distribution and Poverty in Fiji.” Although his presidency at Trinity is, indeed, something different, his tenure, which began January 5, holds exciting promise for the future of Trinity University.

Growing up poor in Wollongong, 50 miles south of Sydney, Ahlburg developed an appreciation for the empowering value of education at an early age. He traces its origins to an elementary school teacher who recognized his potential and tutored him privately outside of class. By age 14, inspired by another teacher, Ahlburg had found his passion: economics. “It’s in my DNA,” he says. After earning his undergraduate and master’s degrees in economics in Australia, Ahlburg pursued his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, coming to the United States because it offered more opportunities. “In the U.S. it’s all about merit,” he says. “Here you have a chance to prove yourself.”

As an educator, Ahlburg takes an economist’s view, focusing on outcomes and how to make things better. He values the liberal arts and sciences but believes the traditional

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Trinity’s first family—Dennis, Penelope, and three-year old Benjamin—begin unpacking as they settle into their new home at 150 Oakmont Court adjacent to campus. Proudly wearing his new hat, young Benjamin looks like a Texan already.

model needs to be flexible and redefined for the 21st century with the emphasis on interactive and experiential learning. “It’s no longer enough to give students a book and say, ‘Learn this,’” he says. “You need to teach them the basic skills and technology and then confront them with situations where they have to make decisions.” He views the presence of the business administration program at Trinity as a major plus and something that distinguishes the University from many other small, selective liberal arts colleges.

“To be truly educated, you must understand society,” he states emphatically, “and you can’t understand society without some understanding of business and finance.” He values the practical side of liberal education, noting “employment is not a dirty word.”

Having traveled all over the world in the course of his work, he is also a firm believer in the value of study abroad and hopes that one day Trinity can boast that every single student will have had international experience.

Of his own numerous international experiences, Ahlburg might be the first to tell you his most significant one was meeting his British-born wife, Penelope Harley. Introduced by mutual friends in England 12 years ago, “We both knew immediately,” he confides.

Harley, who uses her maiden name simply because it’s my name and I like it,” has an impressive résumé in her own right, starting with a degree from Oxford, where she studied politics, philosophy, and economics with an overall interest in international relations. Energetic and adventuresome, before she went to university, Harley spent a year traveling in Asia and the Middle East—“on $1 a day,” frequently sleeping on railway platforms—and began establishing her extensive network of friends around the world.

After Oxford came a year as a Rotary Foundation Scholar, attached to an Israeli Rotary Club and sent to study Arabic at the leading Palestinian University on the West Bank.

Back in the U.K., Harley worked for the City and Guilds of London Institute developing certification programs for vocational education, then retrained for a teaching position, and taught at a big inner city high school located right next to Westminster Abbey, finishing her career there on the middle management team of the school.

When she moved with her husband to Minnesota, she obtained a law degree, but “only lasted 30 days” as a corporate lawyer before realizing that her heart did indeed lie in alternative dispute resolution. Harley became

an adjunct at the law school, designing courses in family mediation and restorative justice, and serving as an expert on an EU-funded project to promote the use of commercial mediation in the Middle East. As an adjunct professor at the University of Denver, she taught courses two days a week in restorative justice and reconciliation in international affairs. The rest of the time she was a “fulltime mom” to 3-year old Benjamin.

As a couple, Ahlburg and Harley are warm, open, approachable, and informal— they prefer to be addressed as Dennis and Penelope. Both are keenly interested in international affairs and look to London’s Financial Times and The New York Times, respectively, to keep abreast of world news.

Both share a deep commitment to young people. Says Harley, “My deepest interests first and foremost are the education and development of young people.” Both are interested in building community and both embrace “diversity in all its forms.” As “late in life parents,” both enjoy spending most of their free time together as a family with their young son and are thrilled at the prospect of raising Benjamin in San Antonio. Both are eager to engage with the campus and the city, and each made several visits to meet campus constituents prior to his assuming the presidency. Harley, the more extroverted of the two, loves meeting people, noting with her 100-watt smile, “Dennis told me I’m the only woman he ever met who could strike up a conversation with a lamp post.”

Her gregarious personality is both genuine and sincere. “If I could be a professional friend, I’d be rich,” she laughs. Ahlburg, who, like Harley, maintains friendships around the world, is a bit more contemplative. An avid reader—“I always have a book in my hand”—he collects first edition mysteries primarily from the U.S., the U.K., and Australia and owns more than 3,000 of them.

Going forward at Trinity, Ahlburg foresees a continued emphasis on excellence but with more of a public face on local, national, and international levels. For starters, he is eager to meet the other college presidents in the area. “Our missions may be different,” he says, “but there is no reason why we can’t complement each other and work together for the betterment of the city.” As the old song says, this could be the start of something big.

Mary Denny

JANUARY 2010 5

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COLLABORATION’S THE NAME OF THE GAME

Biomathematics Minor Designed for New Breed of Scientist Believe it or not, mathematicians are not always able to solve math problems. At times, scientists from other disciplines—including physics, chemistry, and geosciences—step in to provide insights and share divergent views that lead to answers, or at the very least, insightful followup questions.

The same is true for the sciences, which can benefit from adapting a few math principles into their respective fields. Biology, viewed as the “last frontier” of science collaboration, is now forging interdisciplinary partnerships at Trinity.

This trend started when Trinity received two grants earlier this decade totaling $2.5 million from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. This summer, the University received a $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to continue developing a program of integrated research in biomathematics, which will begin in the fall of 2010 as an academic minor and involve 13 professors from the mathematics, biology, and engineering science departments—more than half of the faculty members who teach math and biology.

“We are trying to create a new type of sci-

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entist for the 21st century,” says Saber Elaydi, professor of mathematics and driving force behind the concept of undergraduate mathematics. The new breed of biomathematicians will be able to interpret what Elaydi calls “huge amounts of data” in meaningful ways.

Among the areas to be studied in the program are ecology, genetics, probability, statistics, neuroscience, and data modeling.

Teams of students and professors from both math and biology already have been tackling research questions under the guidance of the HHMI grant, he says, adding, “We’re not starting from scratch.” Emphasis to date has been on ecology and genetics. For example, a true biomathematician would be able to produce mathematical models for a genetics problem and yet know enough biology to use such models effectively to study populations, Elaydi says.

As part of the curriculum, professors and students from both disciplines would crosstrain each other, working to become “fluent” in the language of the other science. Kevin Livingstone, assistant professor of biology who will chair the minor in biomathematics, put it this way, “We talk biology—organelles and genetics—and they talk math—the language of X’s and O’s.” But when working on the same problem, the idea is to “blur the lines between biology and math,” he says. As a result, students and professors will change the way they think about science, according to Elaydi and Livingstone.

For the first time, math classes will have

labs. In addition, seminar classes in biomathematics will have outside speakers and students will be able to present findings at research conferences. Elaydi and David Ribble, professor and chair of biology, are writing a textbook with a working title of “Math Models in Life Sciences.” Elaydi says Trinity professors feel as if they are “pioneers in the biomath track.”

Blending math with biology will help students develop specific analytical skills as they “answer big questions, staying at the forefront of the research curve,” Livingstone says.

“This minor will be good preparation for students. It will prepare them for grad school or to go on to careers in the sciences, broadly speaking.” Part of the grant funds will cover summer research stipends for students to devote more time to this emerging field. The grant also meets a mandate by NSF for universities to promote careers in science, technology, mathematics, and related fields.

“We have developed a program that is forward thinking,” Livingstone says.

Adds Elaydi, “With this training, you can get an edge on everybody else.”

Susie P. Gonzalez

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

A Boon for Scientists Yu Zhang, assistant professor of computer science, is the first to admit that artificial intelligence can be very exciting in the movies,

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especially in films such as The Matrix. But what makes it attractive to her is how scientists are using computers and artificial intelligence to simulate and study real world social trends.

Zhang researches topics related to artificial intelligence, including agent-based modeling.

“Basically an agent could be any entity in the world that can observe the environment and perform an action based on what it observes,” she explains. An agent could be a human, a robot, or a software program.

Working with software agents, Zhang develops computer programs that can respond with actions based on rules a programmer develops. The software agents can remember actions and make decisions based on information it receives. Anyone with a Netflix account, for example, can thank a software agent program for making film recommendations based on previous choices.

Using agent-based modeling and multiagent systems, scientists can set up computer models that will simulate social situations which could take years to complete in real life, but which can be completed at a fraction of the time and cost. “Artificial intelligence is the best technology for this purpose,” says Zhang.

Recently, Zhang began studying viral marketing, a new area of computer science.

Previously, companies that conducted mass marketing gave samples to as many people as they could reach and let them test it, a very expensive and time consuming process.

Based on the technology of social networking, viral marketing uses the influence of a select group of people who can influence others through blog posts and other related media.

Zhang believes now is a great time for students to be interested in computer science because it is a fast growing field with wide applications. This is especially true in the areas of artificial intelligence, which includes biocomputing and bioengineering, and networking. “I think Trinity students have a very bright future if they consider computer science as a major, a minor, or as a second major, which is a new option we provide,” she says. It gives them a tremendous opportunity to learn the dynamics of the world.

Russell Guerrero ’83 EDITOR’S NOTE: Yu Zhang teaches Principles of

Algorithm Design, Artificial Intelligence, Multi-Agent Systems, and Professional/Ethical/Design Seminar.

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Mackenzie Kelly '10 (right) explains her research to Dennis Ugolini, assistant professor of physics and astronomy. Combining her interest in eating disorder research with neuroscience, Kelly analyzed cortisol, a stress hormone, and its relationship to eating disorders.

Growing Research Program Spans Disciplines Educating successive generations of critical thinking problem solvers depends upon dedicated faculty committed to introducing students to and guiding them in significant research. At Trinity, the practice began years ago primarily in the chemistry department and with only a few students. With the arrival in 1984 of Michael P. Doyle, the first D. R. Semmes Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, the concept began to flourish, attracting talented students, substantial grants from federal and private agencies and foundations, and new faculty who, says Doyle, “had the drive and ambition to be engaged with undergraduate students in research.”

Although Doyle left Trinity in 1997—he now heads the Doyle Group and teaches at the University of Arizona—the summer research program he jump-started has become a burgeoning and interdisciplinary annual tradition.

What began with 10 students gathered in chemistry laboratories with seven or eight faculty members has grown to 105 students from 19 different disciplines under the guidance of 43 professors as of 2009.

Support for the program has grown as well.

Within five years of Doyle’s arrival, the chemistry department landed a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for Research Experiences at Undergraduate Institutions that was renewed through 2000, making it the longest running REU in Texas at the time. Subse-

quently, the NSF also supported mathematics REU program at Trinity from 1997 to 2008 and launched a similar program in computer science in 2008.

Other foundations stepped in to award support, including, among others, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the U.S. Department of Education through the McNair Scholars Program, the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund, and the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation. Trinity also contributes by offering tuition credit to students and waiving summer housing fees.

According to Steven Bachrach, who holds the current Semmes Distinguished professorship, the summer research program is now the keystone to the chemistry curriculum. “We believe that the best way to learn chemistry is to engage hands-on with the science. What sets our program apart from others is two-fold: the very large size of the program involved in original research and the involvement of students very early in their undergraduate careers. Typically a quarter of the students in the summer program have completed just their first year at Trinity.”

Bachrach is proud of the fact that many students have come to Trinity because of the opportunity to participate in the research program and notes that every chemistry student who has gone on to graduate school—between 5-10 a year—has been a member of the summer research program.

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New Science, Engineering Facilities Underway Plans are well underway for the development and construction of new science and engineering facilities that will enhance teaching and learning in the departments of biology, chemistry, psychology, engineering science, and computer science.

Developed by the Boston firm of Einhorn Yaffee Prescott Architecture and Engineering, PC (EYP) with assistance from a steering committee composed of Trinity faculty and staff members, the new facilities are currently proposed to be constructed in four phases with an estimated total project cost of $100 million.

Phase one, completed last summer, saw

Chapman Auditorium converted into a multi-use facility to replace the Science Lecture Hall, which has been shuttered, and a portion of Storch Memorial Building was renovated as the new home for the department of sociology and anthropology.

In addition, a classroom has been created in Parker Chapel.

Phase two of the project, slated to begin in early June, includes construction of a 60,000 square foot science facility that will connect to Cowles Life Science building.

This new facility will include updated chemistry and biology labs and the creation of classrooms and other areas more conducive to interdisciplinary teaching and research.

Scheduled for completion in December 2011, the building will be built to meet rigorous LEED sustainability criteria and will include enhanced safety features.

Phases three and four will include a complete renovation of the Cowles building and demolition of the Moody Engineering

building with construction of a replacement facility. EYP architects say the project plans are the result of a “powerful vision from the Trinity faculty� that will provide science and engineering with new and improved teaching and research space and make the sciences more visible on campus.

Architectural renderings of west elevation (above) and east elevation and main entrance (top) of the planned science and engineering facility.

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new permanent faculty position.

He is part of the fresh focus on recruiting prospective teachers in the STEM fields, even working with two elementary schools in the San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD), where many teachers shy away from science and math. The reason, he says, usually—and incorrectly—involves a view of math and science as a set of right and wrong answers.

To combat the misperception, Nordine presents the concept of building an argument and posing a sequence of questions and answers rather than memorizing a collection of facts an approach that promotes critical thinking skills and fits with how students learn.

NUMBER 1 AND HOLDING Penny McCool MAT ‘06 demonstrates a Smart Board to U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith in Trinity’s new technology teaching laboratory. Smith was instrumental in obtaining the government grant that created the facility that will enhance area teachers’ use of technology.

NATIONAL NEED ADDRESSED

New Faculty, Programs Strengthen Teaching of Math and Science Math and science are in need of reputation repair. Just ask Penny Whetstone McCool ’05, ’06, a physics whiz who is teaching in San Antonio’s Lee High School and who was challenged by a student positing that Newton’s laws weren’t true. Stunned at having to defend something so basic to physics, the question caused her to dig deeper into subject matter she knows well in order to impart the knowledge to her students.

Now in her fourth year as a physics teacher, McCool returned to the Trinity campus in early November to encourage current students to consider careers in math or science education. She says there is a difference between knowing a field of study and educating other people to know it just as well. The reward comes in seeing “light bulbs” go off in the minds of students.

To reinforce the plea for more qualified math and science teachers, Roberto HasfuraBuenaga, associate professor of mathematics, disputes what he calls “the misperception of teaching as a second rate career.” He says there can be “no higher calling” than pre-

senting difficult material to young people in ways they will grasp it. Chemistry professor Nancy Mills adds that “teaching science is empowering,” because people think it’s hard.

Good teachers can give students the right tools of discovery, along with the sense that they can do it, “Then you think, ‘If I can understand chemistry, there’s nothing I can’t do.’”

Building on several grants and programs, the education department is buckling down in its quest to send prepared math and science teachers into K-12 classrooms. This quest mirrors national trends that identify shortages of qualified teachers in areas known as STEM fields: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

“This is a major area of need across the nation,” says Jeff Nordine ’97, ’98, assistant professor of education, who specializes in preparing teachers of science in middle and high school. He earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and a master’s in teaching at Trinity before receiving a doctorate. His position is being funded for three years by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and is a

For the 18th consecutive year Trinity University received a No. 1 ranking in U.S. News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” issue. Trinity was tops in the category of institutions that offer a full range of undergraduate programs as well as select master’s programs in the Western part of the United States.

Trinity also received a No. 1 ranking in the publication’s best value category, “Great Schools, Great Prices.” In addition, U.S. News & World Report ranked the University’s engineering science program No. 19 among the nation’s best schools whose highest degree is a bachelor’s or master’s. A new section in the magazine’s 2010 college guide listed schools with a strong commitment to teaching. In this category of only 80 schools, the college guide named Trinity in a second place tie with Abilene Christian University and Santa Clara University among institutions that offer master’s programs in the Western part of the United States. Rankings were based on several factors, including academic reputation (assessed by academic peers: presidents, provosts, and deans of admission), graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, student/faculty ratio, student selectivity, financial resources, and alumni giving. Trinity also was recognized as a Best Buy in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2010 and identified as one of the country’s best institutions for undergraduate education in the 2010 edition of The Princeton Review’s The Best 371 Colleges.

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STRENGTH IN NUMBERS

Unprecedented Number of New Faculty Includes Two Endowed Professors While many colleges were announcing hiring freezes or layoffs for the 20092010 academic year, President John R. Brazil welcomed an unprecedented number of new faculty members—some of whom replaced retiring professors and some who filled new positions—at the opening faculty assembly in August.

The 33-member cohort, which includes two endowed professors and seven visiting professors, exemplifies what Brazil called “strategic investments” in the academy. Filling the endowed professorships are Deli Yang, the Richard M. Burr and Donald N. Clark Professor of International Business, and David Macpherson, the E.M. Stevens Professor of Economics.

Yang comes from Bradford University in England, where she taught for 18 years. At Trinity she is teaching courses about the global business culture and intellectual property in international business and later plans to develop the University’s connection to Chinese businesses, possibly organizing a

student trip there. She will begin by inviting Chinese executives to visit San Antonio.

Yang also will continue her association with the United Nations. An adviser to the U.N. since 2006, she has been the lead consultant for a benchmarking project of the World Intellectual Property Organization.

The international team includes members from Italy and Kenya and is establishing measurements of intellectual property systems in an effort to standardize worldwide practices. She also is a founding editorial board member of the International Journal of Intellectual Property Management.

A prolific author, she has published more than 30 papers and articles, including two

Deli Yang, center visits with Richard Burr, left, and Don Clark, the Trinity professors for whom her endowed professorship is named.

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David Macpherson is the new E.M. Stevens Professor of Economics

sole-authored research monographs and two co-edited books. Although her continued publishing will enhance the University’s international reputation, she emphasizes that her priority is teaching. “Quality is the key.

You want to transfer knowledge with quality.”

Macpherson is no stranger to Trinity.

While still a grad student at Penn State, he began a two-decade collaborative relationship with Barry Hirsch, the previous Stevens Professor who left last year for a position at Georgia State University. The two have collaborated on numerous economics papers and annually publish the Union Membership and Earnings Data Book, and its accompanying Web site, www.unionstats.com.

At Trinity, he teaches labor economics and principles of microeconomics, having written textbooks for both courses. He researches pensions and is currently writing a journal article on how well people managing their retirement portfolio versus leaving the task to a management firm. Not surprisingly, his findings show that individuals don’t do as well, even though an increasing percentage of them give it a try.

Macpherson tells students not to be shy about seeking out mentors while they are in college. “That’s how I met Barry,” he says.

He also urges students to attend conferences noting that some economists he met years ago became co-authors in studies and were able to provide job recommendations.

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Trinity a Leader in Open Access Movement A

t its October 23, 2009, meeting during International Open Access Week, Trinity faculty members endorsed a measure to allow them to bypass some publication restrictions while sharing their scholarly research with the broader academic community, making the University the first small, primarily undergraduate liberal arts institution to pass such a measure. Known as Open Access, the movement’s goal is to expand the data-base of knowledge freely available on the Web, which is increasingly relied upon for access to high-quality academic research.

In the traditional scholarly model, faculty members submit scholarly articles for publication in peer-reviewed journals. Once an article is accepted, the journals acquire all rights to the body of work, thus forcing campus libraries to purchase subscriptions to access the material to share with students and other scholars.

Because of the expense associated with specialized, scholarly journal subscriptions, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year, only the wealthiest institutions in the wealthiest states and nations have full access

to them. Open Access democratizes and globalizes access to information, increasing the visibility of an author’s work, and by extension, that person’s home institution.

The new policy received high praise from faculty. Erwin F. Cook, T.F. Murchison Professor of Classical Studies, called it “one of the most important educational initiatives in a generation.” Economics professor Jorge Gonzalez, lauded Trinity’s willingness to be a leader in reshaping the industry instead of simply watching it happen, calling the policy “the most dramatic changes since Gutenberg transformed the printing of books.”

To date, the only U.S. universities to implement such policies are Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the University of Kansas.

NEW RELEASES FROM TRINITY UNIVERSITY PRESS

Remedios: The Healing Life of Eva Castellanoz

by Joanne B. Mulcahy This long-awaited biography of a celebrated curandera, artist, and community activist provides an engaging portrait and sheds light on the healing rituals of traditional Mexican medicine.

Chinese Writers on Writing edited by Arthur Sze Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape edited by Barry Lopez and Debra Gwartney This paperback edition of the book hailed by reviewers as a “masterpiece,” is a language-lover’s reference that revitalizes a descriptive language for the American landscape by combining geography, literature, and folklore in one volume.

This fifth volume in the Writers World series features essays along with accompanying poems, prose, and excerpts of interviews by 41 leading Chinese writers from 1917 through 2008.

www.tupress.trinity.edu JANUARY 2010 11

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THIRD EARLY CAREER GRANT IN FOUR YEARS

Prestigious NSF Award Supports Research on Prehistoric Geography Three Trinity faculty in the last several years have received prestigious National Science Foundation Faculty Early CAREER Development awards, given in support of young professors likely to become academic leaders in the 21st century.

Kathleen Surpless

The number is significant because Trinity engages in primarily undergraduate research and competes with top tier and much larger research universities for such awards. Indeed, less than two percent of all CAREER grants are awarded to faculty at predominantly undergraduate institutions.

The most recent recipient, Kathleen Surpless, assistant professor of geosciences, received the award in the summer of 2009 and will use her five-year $402,985 grant to continue her research—which will involve as many as 10 Trinity students—on erosion and tectonic activity in an effort to compose a complete picture of prehistoric geography.

Surpluss also received the University’s junior faculty research and distinguished teaching award last May.

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Surpless’ passion is solving puzzles. Not just any puzzles, but those comprised of rocks—once covered by oceans—but now exposed to the atmospheric elements after having been “sliced and diced” by Earth movements for millions of years.

The puzzle pieces are scattered about basins she explores in California, Oregon, Washington, and southern British Columbia.

Adding challenge to the puzzles she tackles is the absence of complete pictures, like ones on a jigsaw box, showing what the finished product is supposed to look like. “For me, that’s where the fun is,” Surpless says.

She is trying to take what erosion and tectonic activity have left behind to compose a complete picture of prehistoric geography— where the mountains were, what minerals they contained, and related questions to what happened 70 million to 100 million years ago. “The history is important to the present,” she explains.

So fascinating is her work that she has co-authored six articles in scholarly journals and given numerous conference presentations.

She has received grants from the American Chemical Society’s Petroleum Research Fund and the National Science Foundation (NSF), among others. She also serves on the editorial board of the journal Geology and is a geosciences councilor for the National Council on Undergraduate Research.

Earlier Trinity recipients of the CAREER awards include chemistry professors Adam Urbach, whose $564,500, five-year award in 2008 supports his work on the design of molecules that recognize and label specific peptides in aqueous solutions, and Bert D. Chandler, whose five-year $415,000 award in 2005 is advancing his research on catalytic technologies involving bimetallic nanoparticles.

Barbara Ras, left, and poet Katie Ford enjoyed tea with a rug merchant in Kairouan, Tunisia, who then posed hospitably for this photo.

North African Experience a Wow S

he knew she wasn’t in Texas anymore when she witnessed a young boy delivering bread via donkey drop a loaf on the ground, pick it up, kiss it, and place it carefully on a shelf for sale. But the display of frugality, gratefulness, and complete faith in Allah— that might have sparked revulsion and incurred health department fines in the U.S.—was just one of many scenes that fascinated Trinity University Press director Barbara Ras during a two-week trip to Tunisia and Morocco last spring.

Ras was in North Africa as one of a fivemember American delegation sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, a branch of the U.S. State Department, invited to participate under the aegis of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. The trip afforded her many opportunities to meet students of literature from two Muslim countries and participate in a symposium with a host of

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writers from places as culturally diverse as Japan, Lebanon, Slovakia, and Argentina.

Like many first-time visitors to the region, Ras was in for some surprises: the distinct differences between the countries, specifically the high degree of development in Tunisia versus the more extensive poverty in Morocco; the warmth and friendliness with which the group was received; the pervasive sense of serenity and safety; not to mention the high degree of erudition especially among the women.

Meeting with a group of students in Casablanca, Ras felt humbled by how well prepared and attentive they were. At a book fair in Tunis, she was amazed to find the participants so hungry for contact with international writers and the women so surprisingly outspoken and assertive in their opinions on English and American authors.

The symposium in Fez, “a magical place,” brought 12 international writers together to present papers on various aspects of “The City.”

After hearing the various contributions, writers revised their papers, all of which can be accessed online at http://iwp.uiowa.edu/ projects/SoukUkaz/index.html The trip was not without social and cultural aspects. Among the highlights were visits to artisan’s workshops, side trips to Sufi sites, the ancient Kairouan mosque in Tunis—seven pilgrimages there are deemed equivalent to one hajj to Mecca—the stunningly beautiful seaside Hassan II mosque in Casablanca, and a reception hosted by the American ambassador to Tunisia. Ras’ takeaway impression: “The welcome we got was so generous and so open and friendly it made me feel overwhelmed by how poorly many Americans stereotype the region and the people.”

Mary Denny

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Faculty and Staff Focus Art and Art History Trish Simonite’s exhibition at the Grace Museum in Abilene, Texas, “Texas Photographers from the Alice and Bill Wright Photography Collection,” opened in September 2009 and ran through January 23,

Heroics in the Odyssey” article was reprinted in Oxford Readings in the ‘Odyssey’ (February 2009) and lauded as one of the most influential articles on Homer in the last 30 years.

Conferences and Special Programs Ann Knoebel received the 2009 Malsbury Award during the University’s annual Service Awards ceremony.

English

Trish Simonite 2010.www.thegracemuseum.org/ exhibits/exhibits_events.html/. Another collection of her photographs was included in an exhibit at the Rockport Center for the Arts in September 2009.

Biology Jim Shinkle serves on the editorial board of Photobiological Sciences Online (www.photobiology.info), which won the highest rating for a Web site on biology from Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News.

An invited article by Bates Hoffer (emeritus), “Intercultural Nonverbal Communication Competence,” appeared in the inaugural issue of Intercultural Communication Research, which was published in China by the Higher Education Press.

Mathematics Saber Elaydi was the principal editor of Advances in Discrete Dynamical Systems, which contains proceedings from the 11th Inter-

Classical Studies Erwin Cook’s article “On the ‘Importance’ of Iliad Book 8” appeared in Classical Philology April 2009. His “Active and Passive

Modern Languages & Literatures Nina Ekstein’s article “The Conversion of Polyeucte’s Félix: the Problem of Religion and Theater” was published in the French Forum.

Music Diane Persellin’s article “Brainbased Education in Music: A New Science or Science-Fiction?” was published in The Orff Echo. Her jointly authored articles, “A Comparative Study on the Effectiveness of Two Song-Teaching Methods” with Laura Kerr Bateman (MAT ’05)

Campus Security Paul Chapa was named Outstanding Crime Prevention Manager of the Year for the state from the Texas Crime Prevention Association in Austin. He previously won a regional award from the same group.

at Trinity University.” Thirteen faculty from mathematics, biology and engineering science are involved in this project. Peter Olofsson’s paper “Can telomere shortening explain sigmoidal growth curves?” was published in the Journal of Biological Dynamics. Additional articles by Olofsson accepted for publication include “A stochastic model of cell cycle desynchronization,” with Thomas O. McDonald ’09, in Mathematical Biosciences and “Size-biased branching population measures and the multi-type xlogx condition” in Bernoulli.

William Trench (emeritus) published “Properties of Multilevel Block Circulants” in the October issue of Linear Algebra and its Applications and “On nonautonomous linear systems of linear differential and difference equations with Rsymmetric coefficient matrices” in the November issue of the same publication. Trench also has been named honorary president of IEEMS, the International Electronic Engineering Mathematical Society.

Saber Elaydi national Conference on Difference Equations and Applications (ICDEA 2006). As P.I. on a joint project between the departments of mathematics and biology, Elaydi helped secure a $1 million 5-year grant from the National Science Foundation for “UBM Institutional: Integrated Research in Biomathematics

Diane Persellin

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and “Beethoven, Redux” with Robert Persellin, were published in the British journal Early Child Development and Care and Chamber Music, respectively.

Philosophy Andrew Kania’s book Memento has been published in Routledge’s

Andrew Kania series, Philosophers on Film. It is a collection of new essays by various authors on philosophical aspects of the neo-noir film.

among the authors of Understanding American Politics and Government, Longman, 2009. Katsuo Nishikawa’s article “Interviewing the Interviewers: Journalistic Norms and Racial Diversity in the Newsroom,” appeared in the Howard Journal of Communication, July 2009.

Nishikawa received a $50,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Program on Strengthening U.S. Democracy, to study election campaigns and the civic incorporation of Mexican immigrants and a $35,000 grant from the Russell Sage Foundation, Presidential Authority Award, for a project titled “Election Campaigns and the Political Incorporation of Mexican Immigrants.” Mary Ann Tetreault was among a national group of scholars who received a $575,000 grant from the National

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Middle East, third edition. Hj Yoo’s article “Is a Strategic Alignment Possible for South Korea and China?” appeared in Asia Pacific Bulletin, 2009.

Sandra Castañeda received the University’s September 2009 Helen Heare McKinley award.

Psychology Carolyn Becker, along with Delta Delta Delta, a national sorority,

Carolyn Becker

Mary Ann Tetreault

David Crockett Historical Context,” appeared in Presidential Studies Quarterly, (December 2008). He also contributed the “Executive Privilege,” chapter in The Constitutional Presidency, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009, and nine entries for Encyclopedia of American Government and Civics (Facts on File) 2009. Tucker Gibson co-authored Politics in America: Texas Edition, 8th edition (2009), with Thomas R. Dye, Bartholomew H. Sparrow, and Clay Robison. Gibson and Crockett were

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Science Foundation for the study of human and social dynamics titled, “The Repression/Dissent Nexus.”

Additionally, her article “Women in International Relations: Sediment, Trends, and Agency,” appeared in Politics & Gender, March 2008. She was first author of World Politics as if People Mattered, (Rowman and Littlefield, second edition), March 2009, as well as the following articles and book chapters: “The Day After “Victory:” Kuwait’s 2009 Election and the Contentious Present,” in Middle East Reports Online, 8 July 2009, www.merip.org/ mero/mero070809.html; “Women’s Rights in the Middle East: A Longitudinal Study of Kuwait,” International Political Sociology, 2009; and “International Relations,” and “The Political Economy of Oil,” in Understanding the Contemporary

Brooks Hill’s article “The Future of Cross Cultural Communication: Perspectives from 20 Years of

Physical Plant

Political Science David Crockett’s article “An Excess of Refinement: Lame Duck Presidents in Constitutional and

Speech and Drama

received the first-ever ResearchPractice Partnership Award from the Academy for Eating Disorders for Tri Delta’s body image education and eating disorders prevention program, Reflections, and Fat Talk Free Week, a nationwide activism campaign she co-developed first with Trinity sororities. Becker also received the Lori Irving Award for Excellence in Eating Disorders Prevention and Awareness from the National Eating Disorders Association.

Brooks Hill IAICS.” was e-published in Japanese in 2008 in Intercultural Communication for Interdependent Societies and also in the first issue of the Chinese publication Intercultural Communication Research in 2009. At its conference in Kumamoto, Japan in Sept. 2009 Hill assumed the presidency of IAICS for 2009 to 2011.

With Bernd Kupka and others, he published “The Intercultural Communication Motivation Scale: An Instrument to Assess Motivational Training Needs of Candidates for International Assignments,” in the Sept. 2009 issue of Human Resource Management.

Trinity University Press Barbara Ras was invited to membership in the Texas Institute of Letters for her promotion and recognition of the role of literature in the culture and beauty of Texas.

Religion University Communications An article by William O. Walker Jr. (emeritus) titled “The ‘Paulinization’ of Peter in the Book of Acts” appears in the May-June 2009 issue of The Fourth R: An Advocate For Religious Literacy. Another article, “Martha and Mary in the Third and Fourth Gospels: An Exercise in Source Criticism,” was published in Resourcing New Testament Studies: Literary, Historical, And Theological Essays in Honor of David L. Dungan.

Venetia DuBose received a CASE Circle of Excellence bronze medal in the individual in-house publications category for her poster, “The Foul and the Fair: Aesthetic Disgust.”

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Paul Baker

Rosalind Phillips

Paul Baker ’32, professor emeritus of

Rosalind Phillips, professor emerita of music, died

speech and drama and the founding artistic director of the Dallas Theater Center, died Oct. 25, 2009 at the age of 98. Mr. Baker attended Trinity University’s Waxahachie campus, earning a B.A. in drama and later an M.A. in drama from Yale University.

While teaching at Baylor University, he traveled to England, Germany, Russia, and Japan to observe theater. Among the many new ideas he brought back was the plan for an innovative theater that featured swivel chairs so audiences could follow the action across six stages. During World War II, Mr. Baker joined the U.S. Army, serving as a Special Services Entertainment Officer in Iceland and Paris. He returned to Trinity in 1963 where he published Integration of Abilities: Exercises for Creative Growth, which articulated his theory of using all the senses in creative work. Many of his former students credit his classes and his book as having a profound and positive influence on their lives and careers. Mr. Baker retired from Trinity in 1976, then founded the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in Dallas.

He received numerous honors during his long career including three Rockefeller Foundation grants, the first Rodgers and Hammerstein Award for outstanding contribution to theater in the Southwest and, in 2007, the Texas Medal of Arts for his contributions to arts education. He also received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Trinity in 1978. Mr. Baker is survived by his wife, Kitty, and three daughters.

Monday, Oct. 26, 2009, in San Antonio at the age of 89. Ms. Phillips, who taught voice at Trinity from 1961 until she retired in 1989, is remembered as a gifted vocalist who performed in concert, opera, and on television, and for being a teacher who challenged her students in their approach to learning and performing. As a performer, she appeared in productions by the Metropolitan Opera and the NBC Opera and sang with the symphony orchestras of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

She was a soloist at Radio City Music Hall and the Roxie Theater appearing in revues starring Ray Bolger, Sonia Henie, and Mario Lanza. She also sang in Broadway shows, performing in Three to Make Ready and Arabian Nights. Ms. Phillips received a bachelor’s from the Arthur Jordan Conservatory of Music in 1942, a master’s from Columbia University, and a fellowship from Juilliard Graduate School. She also studied privately with acclaimed French baritone Pierre Bernac and toured with French composer Francis Poulenc. In 2007, Amy Becker ’89, a former student, established the annual Rosalind Phillips Vocal Excellence Competition in her honor. “Her commitment to assisting young singers in developing their craft stretched far beyond outstanding vocal technique,” wrote Ms. Becker in the program for the competition. “Miss Phillips was a gifted and passionate teacher.”

Pat Hess

Pat Hess, who retired from her position as director of purchasing at Trinity University in December 2000, died August 7, 2009. Ms. Hess began her career at Trinity in 1976 as executive secretary in the Continuing Education Office.

She advanced to the position of administrative assistant then moved to the office of Trinity president Bruce Thomas in 1978. In 1979, she assumed the contract position as assistant to the vice president for fiscal affairs. In 1985 she became assistant director of purchasing prior to assuming the directorship of that office in 1995. While in purchasing, Ms. Hess was instrumental in planning the current campus post office and streamlining the work routine of the then campus print shop. In the various roles she held, she proved to be an exemplary employee because of her abilities and her self-confident approach to challenging tasks. Known for her loyalty, kindness, generosity, sense of humor, wide reading, and attention to detail, Ms. Hess also was celebrated for her “calming aura” as well as her hearty laugh, which always illustrated her zest for life, even its absurdities. She is survived by her daughter, Shannon Hess Terlop; her much beloved granddaughter, Sarah Nicole Terlop, whose attending Trinity University some day was one of Pat’s fondest dreams, and three step-grandchildren.

Submitted by Coleen Grissom, professor of English, and one of Pat’s many friends and admirers.

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LIVING AND LEARNING

MAS Summer Internship Program in Madrid Draws Rave Reviews The accolades ran on and on.

“I learned in this trip more than in any trip in my life.”

“I think it was amazing that [important people] were willing to see us in such a casual and welcoming way which shows a lot about the ‘public figure’ concept in Spain and maybe Europe.”

“I made many great friends and had an amazing internship experience. I do wish it would have been longer.”

The comments reflect the experiences of ten Trinity students who spent an action-packed six weeks last summer gaining first hand knowledge through internships with a variety of firms and organizations in Madrid in a program sponsored by Trinity’s MAS (Mexico, the Americas, and Spain) Center. In addition to the internship component, the four-year old summer program, led by Trinity professors Jorge Gonzalez and Richard Burr and designed to provide students a powerful academic, professional, and personal experience, included visits to Spanish economic drivers such as Cervecería Mahou, Spain’s largest brewery, political entities such the European Union’s parliament in Madrid, and a private meeting with Spain’s former President José María Aznar. Students in the program also took a class—in Spanish—about the Spanish economy and the European Union taught by Gonzalez.

One highlight of the trip was an afternoon with Trinity alumnus David Stein ’70, who came from Barcelona to visit

David Stein ’70, president of Stein Group International based in Barcelona, met with Trinity students in Madrid to share his views on international business.

Students visited a variety of commercial ventures while in Spain, including this vineyard.

the group and share his views on ethics in the business world. Stein also arranged for the group to have lunch and a private meeting with Spain’s best-known judge, Baltasar Garzón, who is revered around the world by the Human Rights community for his efforts in bringing human rights abusers to justice. Another notable meeting was with Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who has worked for many years on behalf of human rights issues around the world.

In keeping with the liberal arts tradition, the program included a wide variety of cultural events, including an opera, a film, theater performances, a bullfight, and a guided tour of the Prado museum. Three one-day trips to Segovia, Toledo, and El Escorial further enhanced the students’ understanding of Spanish history and culture.

According to Gonzalez, the Trinity students, three of whom were able to participate thanks to gifts from the Kohler Estate and the Hollingsworth family, impressed their supervisors, host families, and others with their excellent job performance, superior Spanish language skills, and general exemplary behavior. Based on the program’s record of positive outcomes and enthusiastic evaluations from students, Gonzalez and Burr are making plans to expand the program. A recent gift from Mr. and Mrs. Carlos Alvarez will help open the doors of this program to even more Trinity students in the future.

For more information about the Summer Internship in Madrid Program, visit www.trinity.edu/jgonzal1/Madrid.htm

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MOFFETT TO DIRECT CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT Glacial exploration in Alaska was one of many memorable experiences for Sheryl Tynes’ and Don Van Eynde’s students.

New Course Offers Lessons in Leadership KEEPING IT REAL

Bear bells, pepper spray, and a .357 magnum pistol are not the usual accouterments for Sheryl Tynes, associate vice president for academic affairs, when she teaches a class.

But when that class happens to be in the Alaskan wilderness, this Montana native, who knows a thing or two about grizzlies, came prepared.

Last summer Tynes and Don Van Eynde, professor of business administration, took nine students on a weeklong trip to the Kenai Peninsula. Inspired by Van Eynde’s numerous vacations in the “Last Frontier,” the trip was the culmination of a new course he and Tynes co-developed called “Leadership and Group Dynamics.” After a semester-long class that included reading and research on leadership and group dynamics as well as Alaskan history, geography, economics and politics, the trip provided an opportunity to

put theory into practice and give practical meaning to the word “teamwork.”

Each day, different students took charge of planning and directing the day’s activities, which included fishing for salmon and halibut, visiting an Anchorage Street Fair and art galleries, and completing a stunningly beautiful 13-mile hike. Fortunately, while in the wilderness, Tynes’ precautionary bear bells precluded the need for her more potent ursine repellants.

By all accounts, the trip exceeded expectations. As senior Virgil Yanta summed it up: “We found out just what types of leaders and team members we fundamentally were.

We gained valuable and realistic character skills through readings and Socratic end-ofday evaluations that enabled us to apply these skills in unfamiliar, albeit spectacular settings.

In a nutshell, we became better leaders, better peers, and better people.” And then with a grin, “Plus we got to see Sarah Palin.”

Raphael Moffett joined the staff as director of Campus and Community Involvement last July, bringing substantial leadership experience related to student engagement and success.

In this position, Moffett will oversee student leadership and organizations, diversity education, Greek life, campus publications, the Coates University Center, new student orientation, and the mail center.

In his prior positions—director of Student Life at Morehouse College and student adviser in the Office of African American Student Services and Programs at Georgia State University—Moffett established a stellar reputation as a strong student advocate, educator, and practitioner.

Moffett holds an undergraduate degree in English from Washington State University and a doctorate degree in educational leadership from Clark Atlanta University. He has a passion for international travel and has participated in cultural immersion programs in Egypt and Brazil.

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Campus Informed, Prepared for H1N1 O

n June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the worldwide pandemic alert level to Phase 6, signaling that a global influenza pandemic was under way. However, it’s important to note the alert reflected the geographic spread of the H1N1 virus, not its severity.

Nevertheless, Trinity’s Crisis Management Team (CMT) has monitored the situation closely through information from WHO, the Center for Disease Control (CDC), and other sources and issued bulletins to the campus community detailing symptoms, preventive measures, and appropriate

responses in the case of illness. Because the symptoms, severity, and treatment of H1N1 and seasonal flu are similar, the University does not differentiate between them, which is consistent with CDC protocols.

At press time, there have been 170 cases of flu or flu-like illness reported on campus, none of which required hospitalization.

For more information on H1N1 and Trinity’s response, visit www.trinity.edu and click on Emergency Preparedness. More information is available at www.cdc.gov/flu.

YOU CAN’T KEEP A GOOD MAN DOWN

Flu No Match for Quick-Thinking Professor W

hen religion professor Mackenzie Brown was felled by the flu early in the fall semester, he dutifully stayed home to avoid spreading the virus. But he did not cancel his classes.

In a display of academic dedication and innovative thinking aided by technology, Brown created a PowerPoint presentation, used the microphone from his wife’s Rosetta Stone language program to add sound, and conducted his class over T-Learn, Trinity’s online learning resource.

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Student Engineers Honored as Water Savers

F

our senior engineering science students were honored last June with San Antonio Water System (SAWS) WaterSaver Partner of the Year awards for their work to help a local hotel capture and reuse water from air conditioning systems.

Under the direction of Diana Glawe, associate professor of engineering science, the students designed a condensate water recycling system to be installed at the Drury Hotel near the San Antonio International Airport. Representatives from the hotel chain and the water system also guided the student project.

SAWS officials noted that the normal, daily operation of air conditioning equipment produces large amounts of high-quality water known as condensate that can be reused in cooling towers, as landscape irrigation, or for other industrial purposes. The students’ model for collecting the condensate will be used to analyze data that will enhance knowledge about the volume of water produced from air conditioning equipment.

Students in the capstone design project were John Curran of Windsor, Ontario; Andrea Lopez of Ecuador; Aaron Sims of Corsicana, Texas; and Patrick Spence of Abilene, Texas. All graduated from Trinity University in May with degrees in engineering science.

Also receiving recognition as WaterSavers were USAA, CPS Energy, and two Marriott Hotel properties, among many others. Collectively, the honorees saved an estimated 100 million gallons of water, according to SAWS. For a complete list of award winners, visit www.saws.org.

C A M P U S

L I F E

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

Recycling Efforts Recognized at State Level A

mong 27 Texas colleges and universities that took part in the 2009 RecycleMania competition, Trinity won first-place awards in two categories that encourage colleges to limit food waste and to collect plastic bottles and aluminum cans. Trinity placed second in the category of cardboard recycling and took a third-place finish in the waste minimization category.

The awards reflect a collaborative spirit toward recycling by students in Trinity’s 16 residence halls as well as faculty members and staff working in academic and administrative buildings. The competition required following strict standards and included all campus buildings.

Libby Day ’12, an urban studies major from Scottsdale, Ariz., served as the student organizer for the campaign. Statistics for the 27 Texas schools taking part in RecycleMania were announced by the State of Texas Alliance for Recycling during a recycling summit in Galveston.

In the national RecycleMania competition, organizers said a total of 69.4 million pounds of material was recycled or composted by 510 schools from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada.

Across the nation, the effort involved 4.7 million students and 1.1 million faculty and staff. The competition took place during a 10week period earlier this year.

Continuing its commitment to recycling and waste minimization, Trinity will participate in the 2010 RecycleMania.

WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE? KEATON DAVIS, a sophomore Trinity student from Hockessin, Delaware, produced a chuckle-inducing video that won a national Roommate of the Year competition and aired on The CBS Early Show last fall. Check it out at roommateoftheyear.shycast.com/

International Student Numbers Up T

ASTRONAUT AND AEROSPACE ENGINEER MICHAEL FOREMAN, a Trinity parent, visited professor Bob Blystone’s biology lab on October 12, 2009 to share details of his NASA excursions, including a recent mission to the International Space Station, and answer questions about anatomy and physiology issues related to weightlessness and prolonged periods in outer space.

his year, 57 students from more than 40 countries, including China, India, Bulgaria, and Columbia, arrived on campus comprising nine percent of the Class of 2013. Overall, the international student population has risen in the last year to almost seven percent of the entire student body. These 173 international students enrich the campus community by sharing their cultures and offering multiple perspectives on issues of global concern.

Eric Maloof, director of international admissions, attributes the increase to several factors. In addition to Trinity’s excellent academic reputation, small classes, and urban setting—factors that attract U.S. students as well—the International Programs Office provides a strong support system, helping international students keep up with the required government paperwork and offering an orientation program and other services to ease the cultural transition and make international students feel comfortable.

Also at play are the relationships Maloof is building with international school counselors around the world and the fact that international students already attending Trinity are recommending the University to family and friends back home, making Trinity an increasingly desired academic destination.

JANUARY 2010 19

S P O R T S

Butch Newman ’65 | Director of Tennis

IT’S ALL IN THE GAME

Alumni Athletes Bring Unique Perspective to Coaching Staff If it feels like “old home week” at the William H. Bell Center these days, it’s due in large part to the presence of 15 alumni who serve in coaching positions for the Tigers’ 18 intercollegiate sports.

Four are head coaches, 10 are assistants, and one coached two teams before assuming a specially created position. While some have prior experience, for many it is their first professional position. Regardless, all share the common bond of having competed as a Tiger along with a deep understanding of the University’s mission.

Bob King, Trinity’s director of athletics since 1993, prefers to hire Trinity alumni whenever possible, believing they bring a unique perspective to the teams, and he appreciates their contributions as athletes.

“It’s hard to get into this profession,” King says, “and I want to give our alumni a start in coaching. No one knows Trinity athletics like former athletes.” King also points out that when it comes to recruiting, “they can sell the University better than anyone else.”

Longest serving former Tiger athlete is Butch Newman ’65, who assumed the new

20 Trinity

Nicole Dickson Smith ’00 | Softball

position of director of tennis this year. Newman played a major role in creating the Tiger tennis legacy, as both a player and coach. He was a two-time men’s tennis All-American in 1963 and 1965, and his 53-2 singles record is the best in Tiger history. Inducted into the Trinity University Athletic Hall of Fame in 2005, Newman coached the Tiger men from 1986 to 2009 and the women from 1991 to 2008. His crowning achievement occurred in 2000, when both teams captured the NCAA Division III Team Championships, a first in NCAA Division III history.

In his new role as director of tennis, Newman is responsible for fund-raising and development of the Tiger tennis program and facilities. He shares King’s philosophy about the benefits of hiring of alumni. “Trinity has been wise to hire as many alumni coaches as it has,” Newman says. “They have an immediate understanding of what Trinity is about. There is less adjustment in the transition, and there is a deeper sense of commitment.

Plus, there is a broader connection to the alumni base, which is extremely important to a truly successful program.”

Accordingly, when Newman assumed his new position, two former tennis players took the reins of the Tiger teams.

Ryan Takao ’96 became the women’s tennis coach in the fall of 2008, after 13 years as the assistant coach. As a player on the men’s team, Takao was a four-year letter winner and led the Tigers to four NCAA postseason appearances. As coach, Takao has guided his players to the NCAA singles and doubles tournaments.

Taking over this season as men’s tennis coach after seven seasons as assistant coach is Russell McMindes ’02. McMindes, who earned three All-SCAC honors as a men’s player, was named the 2009 West Region Assistant Coach of the Year. “It’s nice to work in a setting I’m familiar with,” he says. “I was able to continue working with people I had bonded with and who shared a common vision.”

Lance Key ’00, the Tiger women’s soccer head coach, has similar sentiments. Key was a three-time All-American on Trinity’s men’s soccer team from 1996 to 1999 and went on to play professionally. Now in his sixth season as women’s head coach, he has taken the team as far as the NCAA Division III quarterfinals. Because he has “walked the paths from the dorms to the classrooms, slept in

S P O R T S

the beds, eaten the food, and, in some cases, been instructed by the professors who now instruct the players,” Key says he is in the uniquely advantageous position of being able to relate to the demands and experiences of the athletes.

Head softball coach Nicole Dickson Smith ’00 is in her fourth season with the Tigers. A former standout infielder from 1997 to 2000, who earned All-Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference and All-Region honors, she has guided the Tigers to an SCAC Championship and to the NCAA playoffs.

“I think there is a greater sense of pride in coaching at your alma mater,” Smith says.

“You want the program to be successful, not simply because it is your job, but because of your personal interest in the program and the University.”

The Tiger assistant coaches are crucial to the success of the program. They work directly with the players, and assist with team administration, logistics, and travel.

As former athletes, they enjoy giving back to the programs they benefited from as students. Alumni serving in those postions include: Kelly Altman ’07, men’s soccer; Ross Burt ’06, men’s basketball; Joseph Macrini ’08, track and field; Zach Fregosi ’08, along with volunteers J.C. Bunch ’00 and David Smith ’02, baseball; Craig McCon-

Ryan Takao ’96 | Women’s Tennis

Lance Key ’00 | Women’s Soccer

nell ’07, golf; Brant McAdams ’06, football; Leta Gatton ’08 and Ryan DeSantis ’08, swimming.

Swelling the alumni presence at the Bell Center even further are athletics staff members Sylvia Finch ’98, business manager; Justin Parker ’99, assistant director of athletics/ sports information; Emily Loeffler ’09, coordinator of marketing and promotions; and James Hill ’76, assistant to the director of athletics and Voice of the Tigers.

James Hill ’76

LADY TIGERS SCORE FALL SEASON’S HIGHLIGHTS Trinity’s women’s soccer team, led by sixth-year head coach Lance Key, advanced to the NCAA Division III quarterfinals for the fifth time. Trinity was edged 4-2 in overtime penalty kicks by Lynchburg, in a game played at home. The Tigers, who sported a perfect regular-season record of 16-0-0, finished the campaign with an 18-0-1 mark.

For a complete update on all fall sports, please visit www.trinitytigers.com

JANUARY 2010 21

Bottom line

by John F. Kerr illustrations by Michelle Wilby ’77

thinking about

heal+h care reform

W

hen President Obama announced in late July plans to reform America’s health care system by the end of the year, Ed Schumacher, associate professor in Trinity’s health care administration department, says he was “scared to death.”

More than most people, Schumacher, a health economist, has looked deeply into our health care system and knows its complexities, inequities, inefficiencies, trade-offs, and triumphs. He has studied the options being discussed to change it and is acutely aware of how much we do not know about U.S. health care. He feels strongly that the system cannot be fixed in one sweeping legislative act. There is just too much experimentation yet to do.

But he does favor reform. Americans pay more for their health care than any people on earth, yet rank 50th in life expectancy, just ahead of Albania, and 44th in infant mortality rates. At the same time, the U.S. leads the world in medical research and technology, an achievement Schumacher does not want to see diminished.

The main reason why so many organizations and people are demanding reform is the current and rising cost of America’s health care system,

JANUARY 2010 23

Ed Schumacher

which is driving the country ever deeper into debt and depriving tens of millions of Americans of basic health insurance. The high cost of insurance is making American goods less competitive in the global market place, exacerbating our huge trade deficit. Employers are finding it more and more difficult to provide health benefits for their workers, and this is particularly difficult for small employers who do not have the bargaining power or large risk pool that larger firms do.

Professor Schumacher recently took time to provide an economist’s view of the situation. He points out that all countries are experiencing rapidly rising health care costs and for a good reason: health care is getting much better.

“A few decades ago, if you had a heart attack, you died,” says Schumacher. “And that was cheap. Today you can be kept alive through complex surgical procedures and medications. These are expensive, but worth it.” He also points to the fact that the U.S. receives disproportionately more Nobel prizes in medicine and produces disproportionately more medical innovations than other countries, thus part of what we’re paying for is leadership in this market. “We’re out on the cutting edge, we’re trying different things, we’re innovating, and a lot of other countries are seeing what we do, waiting until we get it right, and then copying that technology. I think we need to encourage that.”

While admitting that a single payer system would dramatically reduce the administra-

24 Trinity

tive costs of health care, he is leery of what it could do to the health care market. “If they’re giving bread away free on the corner, it’s hard to go buy it at the store,” he says. There would be a tendency for firms to stop contributing to health insurance and instead dump their workers in the government’s lap.

And what about rationing? It is unavoidable, Schumacher says, because there is only so much health care available. At present, the market rations health care the way it rations high quality education and legal services: those who can pay more, get more. The alternative is for a bureaucracy to make the decisions, something he feels most Americans probably would not like.

Schumacher stresses that better medical care is only partly responsible for medical inflation. Some of that increase is due to “perverse and misaligned incentives,” and some due to lack of competition among insurance companies. He believes that if those were corrected, health care costs would drop and be more affordable.

“Being an economist, I tend to believe in markets and competition,” he says. “And I worry about squashing innovation.”

The overarching “perverse incentive” is the basic nature of our system: our primary focus on treating the sick and injured rather

The choice is between higher taxes and sharply reduced benefits. But everybody wants good health coverage, so higher taxes are unavoidable. than on keeping people from getting sick and hurt in the first place. “Our heroes are the surgeons who do quadruple bypasses, not the trainers and nutritionists who keep us fit and healthy,” he notes.

Another is the use of technology. Schumacher distinguishes between demand-driven technology, which delivers services the patient wants and needs, and supply-driven technology. Since it is not legal for hospitals to pay physicians to refer patients, they have to use other enticements. One of them is advanced technology, which doctors like but patients may not need. This jacks up costs that then get folded back into ever higher insurance premiums.

A good example is the treatment of early-

stage prostate cancer. There are at least five different treatments for this slow-growing tumor. The cheapest and simplest is watchful waiting; most patients die of something else before the cancer becomes problematic.

More radical and invasive treatments include surgical removal of the prostate and radiation.

A new technique, proton radiation therapy, requires a football-sized proton accelerator.

No therapy has proved best. Watchful waiting, which involves regular testing, costs a few thousand dollars. Surgery costs about $23,000. Basic radiation therapy runs about $50,000 and proton radiation therapy can exceed $100,000. Because fee-for-service plans pay hospitals and doctors for the quantity rather than quality of care they provide, the trend is towards more expensive treatments that are not medically justified. This adds billions of dollars to the nation’s health care bill for this one disease alone.

Schumacher believes in insurance.

“It helps us live with risks,” he says. But he agrees that the insurance industry carries their share of blame. Certainly they have the most to lose from health care reform. Right now there is more than $500 billion on the table and the insurance industry is largely non-competitive. Literally thousands of health care system lobbyists are besieging Congress to keep it that way.

So how can we reform health care in a rational way?

Schumacher would like to see financial incentives correctly aligned and more competition in the insurance industry. He sees promise in several approaches currently being studied by the government that do just that.

One is “bundled payments.” This would allot a set amount of money per health episode which would be divided between the hospital and the physician according to a contract they would negotiate. Since they get no more money for unnecessary or prolonged treatment, they have powerful incentives to get the patient well quickly, unlike the current fee-for-service model.

Another is “medical homes,” which Schumacher says are basically health maintenance organizations with a new name. “HMOs got a bad rap,” says Schumacher. “But they did exactly what we wanted them to do. They provided the same level of care as traditional insurance but at substantially lower costs.”

Schumacher thinks insurance companies are not competitive because they have too

much power in the market place. Contracts with employers tend to be complex and laborious to negotiate and thus hard to change.

Most Americans get health insurance through their employer. And most employers offer only one plan.

people are forced “to have some skin in the game,” a point favored by conservatives pushing personal responsibility. Again, this is like automobile drivers who have an incentive to drive carefully to avoid accidents that would increase their insurance premiums.

Each state has its own insurance regulations, which further stifle competition by making it difficult for smaller insurance firms to compete across state lines. Schumacher would like to see state regulations loosened.

Above all, Schumacher would like to see health exchanges that would function like a

But even with correctly aligned incentives and managed competition, Schumacher believes we’re going to have to pay more for the improved care we are receiving. “The choice is between higher taxes and sharply reduced benefits. But everybody wants good health coverage, so higher taxes are unavoidable.”

Tax-free health benefits began during World War II, when wages were frozen and employers were looking for ways to attract workers. The IRS decided at that time not to tax health benefits, and people have gotten used to that. But it has been estimated that counting at least part of employer health benefits as taxable income for those earning more than $50,000 annually would pay for most of our health care bill. “Taxing benefits is logical,” says Schumacher, “but I’m not sure if it’s politically possible right now.” He adds, “Among the unfortunate realities of our policies during the past decade are the opportunity costs incurred, the things we might have done with our tax dollars instead of the things we did do. If we had applied the money we’ve spent in Iraq to health care, we could have solved the problem of the uninsured. An important lesson as we move forward is to make sure that as a nation we are on the same page with our priorities.”

The health economist is not optimistic about easy or quick reform. He is dismayed that the debate has been dominated by ideology and is struck by the distance between the major players. “What the hospitals want, what the doctors want, what insurance companies want, what the employers want, and what the taxpayers want are not at all the same. Multiply that by the Democrat/Republican divide and add those who will not vote for a bill without a public option and those who will not vote for one that has it, plus those that will not vote for a bill that allows payments for abortions, and the problem is just about unsolvable, at least in the short run.”

He believes that some sort of bill will pass because of the political stakes involved, but feels it will be a “dumbed down” bill. Still, it could be the beginning of a national conversation on health care that he believes is long overdue.

Whatever happens, Shumacher sees no

If we had applied the money we’ve spent in Iraq to health care, we could have solved the problem of the uninsured.

An important lesson as we move forward is to make sure that as a nation we are on the same page with our priorities. farmers’ market. Each company would bring its plan or plans to the market and buyers could shop around. He finds interesting a recent proposal that would prohibit employers from offering health care. Instead, they could offer extra pay as a benefit. Employees would then be required to choose their own plan at an insurance exchange. Because of “adverse selection”—the tendency of people with greater needs to choose more insurance— a government regulator would step in and adjust premiums to make the system work.

“Managed competition brings the efficiency of market based systems, forcing insurance companies to compete via exchanges. So there’s competition, and now we have the incentive to innovate and develop new products and procedures and financial arrangements.

Yet it’s being regulated and everyone is forced to participate.”

Schumacher acknowledges that “mandated” has a coercive sound to it; nobody likes the idea of being forced to do something. But requiring everyone to get insurance—as automobile drivers do—avoids the problems of adverse selection. The government could help the small portion who really could not afford to pay the full price of premiums. And by requiring some payment or co-payments,

shortage of things to study. “Health care is a playground for economists,” he says. “There’s so much that goes wrong.”

FOR FURTHER READING: As a one-stop source of documents and opinions, Ed Schumacher recommends the online guide to the health care debate pulled together by Slate, an Internet magazine (www. slate.com/id/2220222/). The site provides links to government, lobby, and academic web sites, plus many blogs. He encourages readers to explore the site, but also has a short list for those whose time is limited.

Among the academics listed he recommends Ewe Rinehardt and Jonathon Gruber. Among the bloggers, he recommends the Health Affairs blog, Health Care Reform 2009 (the blog of the New England Journal of Medicine), and the blog of Robert Reich, with the proviso that Reich’s positions are very much on the left.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ed Schumacher teaches “Eco-

nomic Aspects of Health Care Administration.”

His research interests include health care labor markets, empirical analysis of unions, the labor market for workers with disabilities, and hospital competition and technology investment.

JANUARY 2010 25

the art of cinematography I

by Patrick Keating

watch the Academy Awards every year.

For me, the high point usually arrives about halfway through the ceremony, when they announce my favorite award: Best Cinematography. Of course, I then will stick around for minor awards like Best Picture, but the suspense is often over. Ever since I was a child, I have always loved the pictorial aspects of the cinema, and the film with the best cinematography is often the film that best fulfills the cinema’s potential as a pictorial art form.

For my favorite category, the Oscars usually reward splashy, spectacular films like Memoirs of a Geisha or The Aviator. However, most cinematographers insist that the art of cinematography is not necessarily an art of spectacle. In fact, if you ask a group of cinematographers (also known as DPs, or directors of photography) to describe their work, the typical response will sound like this: “When people tell me they thought the film was beautiful, then I know that I failed.

Good cinematography is invisible.” Such a response might suggest that cinematographers are paragons of modesty, but they are actually a very confident group, quick to cite Rembrandt and Caravaggio as the distinguished forebears of their craft. So what is it that makes cinematography an art?

Decades ago, Hollywood cinematographers

defined the art of cinematography as an art of storytelling. Rather than distract the audience with spectacle, the cinematographer’s job is to keep the audience’s attention rapt on the unfolding narrative. This does not mean that style should be neutral. Quite the contrary: the key to the art form is modulation. All stories are about change; as the stories change, the style should change. A well-photographed film is a film that shifts smoothly from comedy to drama, action to romance, always keeping the mood of the cinematography in accord with the fluctuating arc of the story. When no one notices the cinematography, it is because the images have set the right tone for the story, no matter how many moods the story may present.

The tools of cinematography may have changed over the years, especially with the wide adoption of digital techniques, but most Hollywood cinematographers still adhere to the basic principles practiced during the Studio era.

For instance, consider the 2007 film Atonement, photographed by Northern Ireland’s Seamus McGarvey. The film was nominated for Best Cinematography, largely on the strength of a single spectacular shot depicting the evacuation of Dunkirk. While the shot is certainly masterful, McGarvey’s

artistry can also be found in the film’s subtle details. The story presents events from three different time periods, and each period has a distinctive look. For the first period, set in 1935, McGarvey did something that sounds a little strange: he placed a Christian Dior stocking behind the camera lens. Because the stocking is completely out of focus, it does not turn the image into a blurred abstraction. Rather, the fashionable French hosiery enhances the image by giving it a soft, hazy glow. When the film shifts to the second period (1940), McGarvey takes the stocking out, and uses a filter to produce a subtler soft-focus effect. For the end of the film, set several decades later, McGarvey eliminated the filtration to produce a cleaner, harder look. The audience is not supposed to notice these shifts—it would be very distracting if we were all thinking about the stocking behind the lens!—but the patterned modulation in visual style heightens the story’s shifts in theme and tone.

When it comes to modifying the image, cinematographers have many variables to consider, including the choice of film stocks, the control of lighting, and the manipulation of the image in post-production. Steven Spielberg’s cinematographer of more than a decade, Janusz Kaminski, is famous for experi-

JANUARY 2010 27

Getty Images

Lighting in the first two Godfather films, which cast dark shadows, was a turning point in the art of cinematography.

menting with different film stocks. Their 2005 film Munich was set in several different countries, and Kaminski varied the look of the film by using five different film stocks, each one differing from the others in terms of color, contrast, and grain. During the classical studio period, cinematographers only had a handful of stocks to choose from. Now, cinematographers like Kaminski can choose among dozens of options—or they could choose to shoot the film in high-definition digital video, which further expands the choices available to these painters of light.

Last year’s Oscar winner, Slumdog Millionaire, combined traditional 35mm film shooting with hours of footage shot on handheld digital video cameras, a combination that results in the film’s distinctively kinetic collage style.

Going in the other direction, Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster The Dark Knight, mixes 35mm footage with an even larger film

28 Trinity

format—Imax—to heighten the grandeur of the film’s action scenes, most notably in the exhilarating sequences of Batman swooping into an illuminated Hong Kong skyline.

In addition to supervising the camera crew, the DP is in charge of dozens of members of the lighting crew (including gaffers, best boys, and electricians). In fact, many cinematographers believe that lighting is their most important task, and it happens before an image is ever captured by a lens or the director shouts, “Action.” During the classic studio period, glamorous lighting was the norm, as evidenced by the iconic faces of the great silver screen divas, such as Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich, and Greta Garbo.

But contemporary films are much more likely to sacrifice the artifice of glamour in the name of realism. Many cinematographers cite Gordon Willis’s work in the first two Godfather movies as a turning point for

this transition. Instead of softening the actors’ features with bright frontal lights, Willis lit them from above, casting dark shadows over their eyes and bringing out the wrinkles on their brows. Ironically, though Willis’s work has proven to be among the most important contributions in the “look” of contemporary American cinema, he was not even nominated for an Academy Award in 1972—though the Academy recently redressed that oversight by giving Willis an honorary Oscar for his lifetime of achievement. Another important innovator in the move toward realism over glamour was Conrad Hall, who won three Academy Awards over the course of a long career, including a posthumous award for The Road to Perdition.

In addition to using the somber shadows that had long been associated with the gangster pic, Hall developed a carefully calibrated color design for Perdition, as when the domi-

Getty Images

nant palette of desaturated grays shifts to garish reds and blues in order to create a seedy atmosphere for a crucial murder scene.

The transition is as striking as the moment when Dorothy steps out of black-and-white Kansas into Technicolor Oz. Once the negative is exposed, the film gets sent to the laboratory for processing. For the last one hundred years, cinematographers have exerted control of a film’s final image with careful post-production manipulations.

In the silent era, DPs consulted with lab personnel to determine how much to “push” or “pull” the negative, thereby substantially lightening or darkening the overall effect.

Digital technology has revolutionized a cinematographer's ability to secure a desired look. For proof, look only to Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, shot by Andrew Lesnie. Although the film is best known for its eye-catching special effects (such as the computer generated images of Gollum), Jackson and Lesnie also use the new tools to extend a much older tradition—the tradition of modulating cinematic style in various ways to fit the ever-changing mood of the story.

Using digital color correction tools, the pair chose vibrant hues for the pastoral Shire, a desaturated palette for the somber kingdom of Rohan, and bold oranges and blacks for Mordor. In achieving a cohesive look for Middle Earth across this epic nine-hour film, one might be surprised to learn that Lesnie and Jackson shot much of the film on standard 35mm film stock, using digital technologies to enhance the image and amplify the moods.

Having trained as a cinematographer myself, I remain endlessly fascinated by cinematographers’ ability to solve complicated technical problems. As a film historian, I am equally interested in film as a major form of cultural expression. In my film studies courses, we study how the smallest aspects of film style can have a large impact on the meanings of the works, just as a scholar of literature might study meter and rhyme in order to grasp the significance of a poem.

For film scholars and cinephiles the world over, thanks to a parade of Oscar-vying titles, dreary December and January remain the brightest months of the movie-going year. I have come to accept that critical buzz magnetically attaches to arresting performances and daring directors. However, my love for the movies, both professionally and personally, rests in watching the skilled artisans behind the camera achieve success in what for many remains an overlooked art.

The Road to Perdition earned an Academy Award for cinematography.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Patrick Keating, assistant professor of communication,

teaches courses in film studies and video production and chairs the interdisciplinary minor in film studies. He earned a B.A. (Film Studies) from Yale University, a M.F.A. (Film Production) from the University of Southern California, and a Ph.D. (Communication Arts) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His recent book, Hollywood Lighting From the Silent Era to Film Noir, was published in 2009 by Columbia University Press in the Film and Culture Series. Among many, his two favorite movies are The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960) and The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949).

JANUARY 2010 29

HE KNOWS WHEREOF HE SPEAKS

World Travels Inform Professor’s Trinity political science professor, Peter O’Brien, traces both his teaching emphasis and research passion to an observation in his host German family’s home during his 1980 junior-year study abroad.

30 Trinity

“It seems so ordinary, an almost mundane insight, but I was struck then at how my host family locked their telephone when we never did back home,” explains O’Brien, who later earned his doctorate in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with emphasis on comparative politics (Europe), immigration, and religion. “His “aha moment” came when he learned that the reason for the lock was that phone calls in Germany were vastly more expensive than in America.

Noticing this simple routine act and subsequently understanding the reason behind it opened the eyes of the budding young scholar from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Then for his senior

Teachings, Writings thesis at Kalamazoo College, a professor suggested O’Brien study the impact of massive Muslim migration to Europe since the ’60s. “I was hooked,” says O’Brien, who added Middle Eastern studies to his European political science doctorate courses, thus beginning his life-long study toward understanding differing cultural viewpoints and subsequent conviction that understanding may lead to empathy.

“There is a very intimate relationship between higher education and empathy,” O’Brien insists, “because empathy can foster critical thinking and enable one to get outside one’s self, literally view one’s self through another person’s point of view.”

Indeed, the search to understand cultural differences led O’Brien on Fulbright

Fellowships to Germany (he’d learned German in college) and Turkey (where he assiduously studied Turkish) as well as travels throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Central America—with resulting scholarly papers, lectures, and his second book in 2009.

“During my travels and studies it occurred to me over and over again that we ought to give people who appear different from us the benefit of the doubt— rather than condemn, let’s listen—that people who are made to appear like enemies often, if given the chance to express themselves under fair conditions, wind up having sound reasons for their views and actions.”

For example, O’Brien was asked to present a series of talks and papers in 2008-9 about the current Muslim headscarf issue in Europe. The starting point of the talks was France, where in 2004 the government banned the wearing of “conspicuous religious symbols” in public schools, which the press dubbed the “French headscarf law.”

Instead of saying the Muslim women are wrong about wearing their headscarves, O’Brien urges audiences at universities throughout the United States and in Europe to look at the reasons behind their belief. “The secularists and feminists look at headscarves as a forced veiling, a violation of women’s autonomy and self determination,” he notes. “But if you examine studies about why many Muslim women prefer the scarf, they report that it’s an outward sign that they don’t intend to conform to what they see as an overly materialist western society. They actually view the scarf as a sign of being independent against the pressures of mass conformity.”

O’Brien, who has taught at Trinity for 19 years, speaks from personal experience.

Over the course on his entire career he has received 24 research stipends between 1982 and 2009 and either studied in or visited every country in Europe—except Lichtenstein and Luxembourg—plus, spent a year researching and writing in Turkey once and Germany twice. He has observed first-hand the politics of Egypt, Turkey, Greece, Syria, Spain, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Israel, and Palestine with a particular interest in visiting the ancient Muslim mosques and walled cities, and between 2004 and 2006 he visited Russia, Japan, and China. “I have a rule,” he explains, “to teach about the politics of only those countries that I have visited.”

In his research O’Brien learned that European elites say Americans are deeply anti-intellectual and ignore the lessons of history. In his latest book he quotes several renowned America observers: Alexis de Tocqueville, for instance, wrote: “In no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United States.” According to Bismarck, “God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.” George Bernard Shaw declared “the hundred percent American to be ninety-nine percent idiots.” He further contrasts the remark of German poet Novalis—“Nothing perishes which history sanctified,” with the exclamation of the popular American automaker, Henry Ford, that “history is bunk.”

Today, O’Brien says, in the eyes of Europeans, these inveterate attributes of the American character manifest themselves in the United States’ not heeding the limitations of a war in Afghanistan, especially in view of the defeat of the Soviets during the ’80s in a country considered one of the world’s most difficult terrains in which to fight. He also observes that Middle Easterners do not hate Americans personally, rather it’s the policies of their government, in particular regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that are the source of difficult relations.

A firm believer in the value of exposure to other cultures, O’Brien says if he had his way, every student at Trinity would spend a semester abroad as he did. “One can learn a great deal about one’s self from the ‘other.’ As you better understand the ‘other,’ you better understand yourself.”

RESCUE EFFORTS SPAN THREE CONTINENTS

Professors Aid in Release of Jailed Journalist While immersed in research at Humbolt University of Berlin in June 2009, Trinity political science professor Peter O’Brien was in the right place at the right time to become embroiled in an international incident.

The drama began when Iason Athanasiadis, a renowned freelance journalist who holds both British and Greek citizenships, was arrested in Tehran just before boarding a plane. He was accused of “illegal activities” while freelancing for the Washington Times during demonstrations that were taking place in Tehran and other cities following the allegedly rigged elections of June 2009.

As fate would have it, father and stepmother, both scholars and long-time friends of O’Brien, had just arrived in Berlin for a visit when they heard of their son’s arrest and imprisonment.

Fortunately, “Iason was quick thinking enough to drop to the floor and yell to fellow passengers, ‘I’m a Greek journalist being arrested,’” O’Brien recalls, “otherwise, without word reaching his newspaper, he might have disappeared in prison for who knows how long.” Downplaying his British citizenship due to anti-British and anti-American sentiment in Iran, his parents called on the Greek ambassador to work through discreet diplomatic channels. That’s when O’Brien found himself in the midst of intense negotiations for Athanasiadis’ release.

“I was in daily contact with Trinity’s chair of political science, Sussan Siavoshi, an Iranian, who read and translated what was being covered in the Iranian press. She kept us up to date day by day, a lifeline not available to us in Berlin.” It took a week for the Greek ambassador in Tehran to gain an audience with Athanasiadis, who was being held in solitary in Evin Prison, and another 10 fearfilled days before he was finally released.

The fact that the authorities would arrest a respected journalist who has a real love for Islam and the Middle East and even learned Farsi while studying in Iran for his master’s degree in 2004 impressed upon O’Brien how deeply frayed the relationships are between Iran and the West. Of the experience, O’Brien says, “This reinforced my belief, and thus my teaching, about how we must try harder to understand other cultures and avoid mutual recriminations about other people’s points of view.”

Mary Lance EDITOR’S NOTE:

Peter O’Brien’s latest book, European Perceptions of Islam and America from Saladin to George W. Bush: Europe’s Fragile Ego Uncovered (New York: Palgrave, 2009) was researched and written over a 10-year period. Read reviews at www. amazon.com/ European-Perceptions-America-Saladin George/dp/0230613055/

Read a firsthand account of Athanasiadis’s time in an Iranian prison on the Web. Keywords: “Accused of Spying: journalist Iason Athansiadis was held in Iran’s feared Evin prison, accused of spying for Britain. Now for the first time he can tell his story.”

JANUARY 2010 31

D R E A M .

I N S P I R E .

A C H I E V E .

ACHIEVED!

We Did It! Campaign Exceeds Goal, Raises $205,953,000

President John R. Brazil and Trustees John Korbell and Tim Hixon celebrated the campaign’s successful conclusion at the President’s Dinner on September 24.

Greeted by the enthusiastic applause of 65 Trinity students representing all aspects of academic and student life, donors entered a festively-decorated ballroom in downtown San Antonio to celebrate a landmark in Trinity’s history: the successful conclusion of Dream. Inspire. Achieve. The Campaign for Trinity University.

donors, and almost $93 million came from donors outside of Texas.

“The campaign helps define Trinity’s possibilities and creates conditions that will allow it to accelerate its goal of providing the quality of educational experience that will ensure our graduates are ready to live successful lives, be contributing citizens of great integrity and character, equipped to lead, and poised to shape the future,” said Trinity president John R. Brazil.

Thanks to the generosity of thousands of Trinity supporters, the campaign is already having an impact on campus.

A total of 118 new endowments were established during the campaign, including 75 for student scholarships, aiding in the University’s quest to recruit the best and brightest students, regardless of their financial circumstances.

Marc Raney, vice president for University Advancement, said reaching and exceeding the campaign goal has been a vote of confidence by supporters and friends of Trinity. “The real importance of the campaign is the positive impact it will have on Trinity students for generations to come.”

In addition to scholarships, campaign gifts have made possible the creation of new endowed faculty positions and have advanced the offerings of innovative academic programs that capitalize on the University’s strengths and meet the demands of a global society in which Trinity graduates must thrive.

Enhancements to the technology learning resources and improvements to and the addition of new facilities are also visible outcomes of the campaign.

The success of the campaign was made even more remarkable against the backdrop of the extraordinary economic recession. The campaign was bookended by external circum-

Achieved!

was the theme of the Sept. 24 President’s Dinner where the final campaign total, $205,953,000, was announced.

It is an unprecedented sum for Trinity, and the largest campaign raised from private sources in the South Texas region. The campaign, which was publicly launched in 2005, attracted more than 19,000 donors, of which over 9,000 were new donors to Trinity. Alumni, including alumni trustees, gave nearly 25 percent of the total raised, almost $49 million. Over $87 million was raised from San Antonio

32 Trinity

The Acabellas entertained guests at the President’s Dinner.

D R E A M .

I N S P I R E .

A C H I E V E .

Distinguished Scholar Program Provides Full-Tuition Scholarships

Beginning this fall, as many as three stellar

Trustee Walter Huntley addresses the guests during the President’s Dinner celebrating the end of the campaign.

stances that ranged from the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, prompting the campaign to be postponed, to the dramatic drop in the stock market in the fall of 2008 and early 2009. The regional economy was delivered an accompanying blow when Hurricane Ike struck Houston in September 2008, crippling the geographic area where thousands of Trinity alumni live and work.

Trinity also benefited from the campaign in ways that are not measured by a dollar figure as literally thousands of alumni, friends, corporations, and foundations coalesced around a shared vision of building on the University’s strengths and stepped forward to say that Trinity is a strong, successful institution worth investing in, even in difficult economic times. This allegiance reveals a proud past and a promising future where students, alumni, faculty, and staff can continue to dream, inspire, and achieve.

Sharon Jones Schweitzer ’75 For a complete report on The Campaign for Trinity University and its impact, visit www.achieved.trinity.edu.

high school seniors will attend Trinity on full-tuition scholarships, the first such awards that will be made under Dream. Inspire.

Achieve. The Campaign for Trinity University.

In addition to covering tuition costs, the Distinguished Scholar awards will include $5,000 for a research stipend, professional travel, materials, and supplies as added incentives to attract students with exceptional academic performance and potential.

Chris Ellertson, dean of admissions and financial aid, says, in addition to academic acheivement, applicants also should demonstrate an enthusiasm and curiosity for learning, have an interest in research, and desire to better society through their work. The goal is to enroll one Distinguished Scholar and two Semmes Distinguished Scholars in Science who plan to study biology, chemistry, computer science, engineering science, geosciences, mathematics, neuroscience, or physics.

Scholarships are renewable for eight semesters and recipients must maintain a 3.0 GPA. The money may be applied to the study abroad program.

Ellertson says applicants should start early in the academic year—completing the application for admission by Dec. 1 and the scholarship application by Jan.1—and will be notified

by Feb. 1 if they are a finalist. Finalists will be invited for an expense-paid campus visit in March that will include interviews with faculty in their areas of interest. Recipients will be notified by April 1.

Funding for the two programs is provided by The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston and Semmes Foundation, Inc., of San Antonio.

For more information visit www.trinity. edu/departments/admissions/mz3/ DistinguishedScholarApp.shtml, or www.trinity.edu/departments/ admissions/mz3/SemmesScholarshipApp.shtml

CAMPAIGN PLEDGE SUPPORTS KRTU

James Blakemore ’77 pledged $100,000 to the Dream. Inspire. Achieve. Capital Campaign to establish an endowment for KRTU radio. The endowment will help support the station’s operating costs and help insure its longevity.

Blakemore helped found KRTU while a radio/television/film student at Trinity and has a “fond place in my heart for KRTU, because it was such a valuable part of my student experience 30 years ago.” He chose to make this endowment gift because of his desire to see the station survive and grow over the years and is challenging others to join him in supporting KRTU. His gift follows an earlier gift of $20,000 that helped KRTU convert to high definition broadcasting.

Blakemore’s father, William B. Blakemore II, was a long-time member of Trinity’s Board of Trustees.

MILLION DOLLAR GIFT SUPPORTS ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

An anonymous $1 million gift to Dream.

Inspire. Achieve. The Campaign for Trinity University will support Trinity’s environmental studies program by providing scholarships and research stipends for students who want to protect and improve the local, regional, and global environment.

The program is an interdisciplinary study of the Earth’s environment and human interaction with it.

Students take courses that address environmental issues from natural science, economic, and socio-cultural perspectives. The gift will help attract students who have a passion for the environment and allow them to conduct research.

JANUARY 2010 33

P R O F I L E

Jackie Pontello ’84 Justice For All

J

ackie Pontello is praying that the body found in a Houston field this morning isn’t one of her clients, reported missing by a worried family just days before. She and her staff are making phone calls, trying to find out the identity of the woman, hoping against hope that this latest find doesn’t turn out to be one of the approximately 70 people killed in domestic violence incidents in Harris County every year, most of them women. Their worst fears are soon confirmed.

“She was ours,” says Pontello sadly.

As executive director of Aid to Victims of Domestic Abuse (avda-tx.org)—and the first attorney to hold that top spot—Pontello is no stranger to bad news, but it hit especially hard this week. First, AVDA hadn't lost a current client in 26 years, a statistic that Pontello finds “remarkable, especially when you realize we’ve represented about 60,000 people, many of those trying to get away from their abusers so that things like this don’t happen.”

Then, Pontello had been in trial all week, “sitting with the family of a murder victim from two years ago.” Although the victim had not been in the AVDA system—which includes a safety plan for low-income residents currently living in abusive situations —Pontello and her staff of attorneys are frequently brought into what are euphemistically called post-fatality cases. “We often end up representing the surviving family of murdered victims in domestic violence cases,” she explains, “helping them understand things like legal standing for grandparents, child support, and termination of visitation rights.” She pauses. “It’s difficult enough for people to co-parent after a divorce. Try it after one parent has murdered the other.”

Bottom line: “It can be very ugly work.”

A day at the office can include fighting to get in front of judges—some of whom are less than sympathetic to domestic violence victims—arguing with prosecutors over delays, getting protective orders, dealing with sentencing, bonding, autopsy photos, and a myriad of other disturbing subjects that sensational headlines only hint at.

AVDA litigated 1,806 cases to completion last year. With court appearances up to five times a day, Pontello counts on her staff to strike a delicate but important balance: “Abusive people hire abusive lawyers. I need attorneys who can be barracudas in the courtroom and cry in the hallways with the victims.”

Pontello herself has shed her share of private tears, many of them over children caught in the middle of these horrendous disputes. Her office—like all of her attorneys’ and the agency’s waiting room—is littered with toys and games to keep little

Law Center at age 39. The latter was born out of frustration at being on the outside looking in on important political issues. “I wanted a place at the table,” she says.

She got that and more, but nothing compared to what she brought to underserved victims languishing in abusive situations, often with nowhere to turn. Pontello wasted no time after taking the helm of AVDA in 2004, announcing at her first board meeting, “This place needs to be retooled.” That included replacing contract work with the current staff attorney model, using her legendary fundraising expertise to reduce

ones occupied while mom recounts the horrors of Life with Father, or at least Significant Other. With piles of paper, stacks of folders, and books and more books, her office looks much like any attorney’s domain.

Well, almost. There’s the life-size easel-backed silhouette used in an Austin vigil commemorating a woman shot 14 times by her husband (Pontello represented the victim’s mother, shot nine times and left for dead), and the famous domestic violence poster of a flower-draped coffin: “Hit 52 times, sent flowers only once.”

Looking at the view of Houston’s light rail from her high-rise downtown office, Pontello, 47, recalls the circuitous path she took from Trinity journalism major to 12 years as editor of Southwest Art, to food bank public relations (after visiting the San Antonio Food Bank with Trinity sociology professor OZ White), to entering Houston

dependency on government funding, organizing the Home Safe Home annual fundraising gala, and making AVDA an emergency provider. “You walk in that door and within 24 hours you know whether you have an attorney, and you will have a protective order if you need one.”

In her precious little downtime, Pontello works out, shares a passion for wine collecting with her cancer surgeon boyfriend, watches “goofy” movies, and gets regular therapeutic massages “to get the knots out of my neck and shoulders.” She admits to anger and disgust at what people do to each other, but says fear is never a factor. “Abusers are bullies. They don’t scare me.” She lives for the day when they don’t scare anybody.

Ever again.

Julie Catalano

JANUARY 2010 35

P R O F I L E

Jodie “Jay” Conyers ’95 On the Cutting Edge

W

ith all the talk about health care reform, it’s comforting to know there is one person on the front lines of medical innovation and health care delivery with a Trinity University connection. Jodie “Jay” Conyers ’95 presents himself as a scientist that, politics aside, has the brains and the business savvy to develop a myriad of products and medical procedures that any doctor could use to benefit any patient.

Sounds like a tall order, but Conyers is a convincing would-be super hero who certainly seems to have the energy, ideas, and desire to find ways of moving useful devices and techniques from the conceptual design stage to the market where they can make a difference in people’s lives. He has worked with the military to develop life-saving technologies for injured soldiers being transported by ambulance and collaborated with multiple institutions of higher learning to form partnerships of the best and brightest minds that can improve treatments—and possibly find cures—for both chronic illnesses like cancer as well as acute, traumatic injuries such as hemorrhagic shock. He’s also been to the Pentagon to discuss advances in disaster medicine, primarily disaster response and disaster preparedness, and has spent time on Capitol Hill discussing the need for increased funding for biomedical research with senators and congressmen.

Conyers admits he has moved away from his first love—chemistry—after earning his bachelor’s degree at Trinity. After graduation, he went on to earn a doctorate in physical and analytical chemistry at the University of Utah, but he’s never stopped in the quest for knowledge. His first research job took him into the world of biology and set him on a new course of applying his electrochemical background to DNA multiplexing. Conyers has continued to reinvent himself and is now a faculty member at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, located in the heart of the Texas Medical Center. He wears at least three different hats at the UT medical school, as deputy director of the Center for Translational Injury Research, assistant professor in the department of surgery, and director of the Office

of Biotechnology. Conyers believes biotechnology is the next research boon, and he is eager to see new companies bring jobs to Texas, including jobs that will focus on discovering new strategies for combating cancer, cardiovascular disease, and trauma.

He is associated with two new buzz words in science: “technology transfer” and “translational research,” which means he is not only searching for innovations in health products or services, but he is also looking for the right combination of marketing skills for the commodities to reach people who

need them. “I’m helping our university find ways to make it easier for our scientists to translate their research ideas out of the lab and into the hands of doctors; in essence, the concept of “bench to bedside.” I want to do something different, something big and innovative. Being here in the Texas Medical Center, where the world’s largest concentration of clinical facilities, basic research, and translational medicine all come together, I can clearly see the potential for huge changes in healthcare.”

This zeal has sparked another interest in intellectual property development. In his spare time, he is pursuing an executive MBA at the Houston campus of Tulane University and has completed nearly half of the coursework for a law degree. He also remains a senior research scientist in the Vulnerable Plaque Laboratory of the Texas Heart Institute and is one of the core Houston faculty members of the newly-formed department of biomedical engineering at the University

of Texas at Austin.

Amid all this, he tackled another new project: helping to launch the Alliance for NanoHealth. He and colleagues began thinking, “We’re in Houston. What do we do well?”

Since the UT medical school is located next door to the birthplace of nanotechnology, Rice University, he and his mentor, Dr. Ward Casscells, who at the time was the UTHSCH chief of cardiology and recently completed a two-year congressional appointment as assistant secretary of defense for health affairs at the Pentagon, decided to approach Dr. Richard Smalley, the nanotechnology pioneer who taught chemistry at Rice and won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996. The encounter ultimately resulted in the NanoHealth organization.

There, Conyers has encouraged clinicians to focus on finding way to utilize nanotechnology to treat patients and has organized workshops for scientists and clinicians from the UT medical school, Rice, the University of Houston, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine, and other area institutions.

He also has secured dozens of grants that will allow NanoHealth researchers to focus on four major areas: cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and trauma.

This love for research was grounded in his time at Trinity while working in the chemistry labs of professors Christopher Pursell and John Burke. “Trinity’s research program is second to none,” Conyers says. “I got such a strong experience in undergraduate research at Trinity. Few institutions provide undergraduates the opportunity to do hands-on scientific research; Trinity is the exception.” To return the compliment, the chemistry faculty invited Conyers last spring to be the featured speaker at the department’s McGavock Symposium. Now he is exploring a program to allow Trinity students to conduct summer research in his Houston lab.

When Conyers is not in a research lab, studying for his next degree, or lobbying for grant funds, he enjoys spending time with his two children, Isaac, 8, and Josie, 5.

Susie P. Gonzalez JANUARY 2010 37

P R O F I L E

John McBryde ’75 Sweet Smell of Success

Photos by Oscar Williams ’76

I

t’s early morning at Prairie Thunder Baking Company in Oklahoma City, with the sun’s first rays bathing the cafe in a golden glow. Customers wait their turn at a counter, trying to decide among the mouth-watering goodies on display, while nearby diners sip from steaming cups of cappuccino between bites of quiche. One woman mutters: “If I worked here I would weigh 500 pounds…” and others chuckle in agreement. The comforting aroma of freshly-baked bread hangs in the air as customers carry out bags of sourdough loaves, crusty baguettes, and other creations of yeasty wonderfulness.

It’s a scene that Prairie Thunder owner John McBryde could not have imagined himself just a few short years ago. Or could he? “If you knew me at all, it wouldn’t surprise you,” says McBryde. “I’m just a person who does stuff.”

Some of that stuff includes two degrees from Trinity—television and film in 1975, and geology a year later—plus a master’s from UT Austin. When geology offered more job prospects than journalism, McBryde followed his family into the oil business. He worked first at Mobil and then as an independent geologist for more than 30 years, including joint projects with his petroleum engineer father, Oliver.

The story could have easily ended here, with McBryde, 56, planning for a quiet retirement with wife and fellow Trinity alumna Marla Peterson ’75 in their Oklahoma City historic home after raising their two sons, Patrick and Michael ’05.

But like undiscovered oil—or maybe a bowl of resting bread dough—something was bubbling below the surface, fed by a growing sense of professional discontent juxtaposed with fond teenage memories of baking with his mother, Betty. The oil business, though lucrative, left him hungry for something different. “I wanted to get out and see people,” he explains, “and I’ve always enjoyed working with my hands.” At home, he was regularly turning out loaves in his newly-remodeled kitchen; on the road he found himself drawn to bakeries. After a visit to San Francisco’s famed Boudin with

their signature sourdough, McBryde’s curiosity led him to Internet research, reading books on breadmaking, and lots of practice, practice, practice.

One spring day in 2005, McBryde—while making bread, of course—quietly decided to leave the oil business and take the leap from crude to food. “It wasn't earth shattering,” he recalls. “It became one of those things I thought more and more about. Things just kind of all came together.”

Except for Marla, who was “kind of dumbfounded,” he says. “My decision was unsettling

to her at first, and I had to honor that.” Still, McBryde forged ahead with research (“People told me that there was no market here for artisan breads”) and conversations with an online bakery consultant, culminating in a three-day seminar in Vermont with Jeffrey Hamelman of King Arthur Flour. “He is one of the true elite bakers on the planet,” says McBryde. “I hired him as my bakery consultant and could not have done this without him.

He’s become a good friend and mentor as well.”

He also needed an oven. And not just any oven, but a French-made Fringand: an 18,000-pound masterpiece that only two people on earth know how to assemble. McBryde and the Austrian expert spent three weeks of 12-hour days building the oven, measuring more than 10 feet wide, 12 feet deep, and 8 feet high. McBryde also designed and built all of the woodwork and cabinetry with son Patrick.

On April 21, 2008, Prairie Thunder Baking Company (prairiethunderbaking.com) opened for business. After almost two years

McBryde admits that the restaurant business is not always a picnic. He had never managed people or worked such long hours before, handling everything from carrying 50-lb flour sacks to a thousand unforeseen details. Trinity’s liberal arts education, he says, “gave me a good grounding in decisionmaking, and the ability to shift gears at a moment’s notice,” along with an accounting class in his senior year “that my father insisted on.” Now open six days a week for breakfast and lunch, about half the business is wholesale, supplying several restaurants

and stores in the area.

Decadent desserts aside, it is the “miracle of bread,” that gives McBryde his greatest simple pleasure, the process remaining a perpetual source of awe. “You take these living things, the wheat, the yeast, and add water and salt and treat it well, and the result is something special.” It also reassures him of his life-changing decision. “Almost every day, something happens that tells me this is where I need to be. I know I made the right call.” As if on cue, a young boy runs up and says, “Hi, Baker John!” and McBryde grins back. And Marla? The relief on his face is obvious as the grin gets even bigger: “She is extremely proud of it all.”

Julie Catalano EDITOR’S NOTE: McBryde’s son, Michael ’05, works for the Denim Group, a San Antonio company also founded by Trinity alumni.

JANUARY 2010 39

P R O F I L E

Theresa Holden ’69 The Artist’s Way

T

wo days after theater pioneer Paul Baker passed away at age 98, Theresa Ripley Holden is reminiscing about her days studying under the legendary professor, saying she chose Trinity “because of its fine theater program.

Paul Baker really grounded us, talking to us about having a landscape of who you are and where you come from, and that you’re supposed to reach into that and see how that helps you become a better person and therefore a better artist.”

In the ensuing years Holden has not only reached, but dug deep into that landscape to help make an entire society better, using the arts to enlighten a populace that she feels still has a long way to go in terms of racial oppression. Racism, she says, “is such a deeply-ingrained ailment that our country still has to figure out a way to deal with it and grow past it.”

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves— easy to do when talking with someone whose resume describes her as theater artist, teacher, performing arts manager, organizer, consultant, and co-director of Holden & Arts Associates (holdenarts.org), a booking and management company serving both national and international performing artists and their presenters. And that’s just the first sentence. Talking to Holden in her charming, airy office—a 1920s-style bungalow in the Settlement area of Austin—you understand why she has a giant wall calendar that can probably be seen from space, its pink/purple/ green squares color-coded to keep track of a dizzying array of activities this dynamo engages in on a daily basis.

Holden and her husband, Michael, who is also her business partner, a director, and actor, met in graduate school at Ohio University in 1973. They founded their management company 26 years ago after working together in various professional theaters, arts organizations, and teaching in college.

While working at the Western States Arts Federation in Santa Fe, a nonprofit NEAsupported arts service organization, they observed that “great theater and dance companies in the western and southern part of

the U.S. were not being well served by management companies on the east or west coasts.”

Within a year, their business grew to include companies far beyond the southwest: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Seattle Repertory Theater, Montana Repertory Theater, and NYC’s The Acting Company, among others.

The Holdens were determined that their

title comes from W.E.B. Dubois’ quote: ‘the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.’ We wanted not only people’s memories but also their ideas of how the movement has affected the present,” explains Holden. Collecting and archiving the plays, songs, and projects “illuminated the role of racism in this country and how incredibly institutionalized it has become. It reinforced how much work we still have to do.”

For their efforts, Holden and O’Neal won the 2002 Ford Foundation Leadership for a Changing World Award. Holden also became a fellow at New York University in 2007, working with its Research Center for Leadership and Action and publishing Better Together: Peer-led Fundraising Workshops Theresa Holden worked in New Orleans with her Junebug Productions colleagues Jim Randels, Curtis Muhammad, and John O'Neal, left to right. She also founded the Artist & Community roster would represent the artistic and culConnection that helps performing compatural diversity of America. “We always had nies hold workshops in the communities these great iconic repertory companies,” she where they tour. says, “but next to them would be a small Holden is comfortable with her many African American, or Pan Asian, or Latino hats—ncluding mother to grown children company bringing to light these incredible Anne and William—and sharing both life cultures. It was all about excellent theater, and career with a husband who also enjoys and that’s what we were looking for.” “kicking back on our land near Mason. We That philosophy led Holden to a fateful fish, we camp, we hike, we love anything encounter and one that forever altered her outdoors.” But talk never strays too far from future work. One early client was New her primary passion. She lights up when Orleans-based Junebug Productions, headed describing how—coming full circle—they by actor, author, and artistic director John are working with Robyn Baker Flatt, artistic O’Neal, who had also co-founded the Free director of the Dallas Children’s Theater Southern Theater in 1963, the theater arm of and daughter of Holden’s Trinity mentor. the civil rights movement. Holden can’t say “An entire part of our artist roster is dedicated enough about O’Neal's “huge influence on to those incredible companies that offer permy life, how I work, and how I think about formances specifically for young people. Our work. His theatrical focus on oppressed peoorganization works in collaboration with ple, struggling for rights, showed me the these companies to bring powerful and pospower that theater has for creating healthy itive stories and models through theater into and equitable communities.” the lives of families and youth. And one of The duo collaborated on the Color Line these great companies is right here in our Project, a gathering of memories of the civil state.” Holden’s late professor would be proud. rights movement using storytelling circles in various cities such as Flint, Cincinnati, West Julie Catalano Palm Beach, and Jackson, Mississippi. “The

JANUARY 2010 41

A L U M N E W S

Educator to Receive Distinguished Alumnus Award in February Where there’s a will there’s a way. And there is no better example of the accuracy of the old adage than Leo Sayavedra ’60, who will be honored in February as the 2010 Trinity University Distinguished Alumnus.

Leo Sayavedra

42 Trinity

As the son of migrant workers in the Texas Valley, Sayavedra spent his earliest years working farms and ranches with his family. He was 12 years old when a truant officer informed his father that the law required his son to go to school. Blessed with an unquenchable desire to learn and no stranger to hard work, Sayavedra dutifully enrolled in first grade, graduating from high school six years later. That was the beginning of a meteoric academic career that included a B.S. in math from Trinity, an M.Ed. from North Texas State University (now University of North Texas), and culminated in a Ph.D. from the University of Texas, Austin, and ultimately, the vice chancellorship for academic and student affairs at the Texas A&M System.

Over the course of Sayavedra’s decades-long career, he taught and even coached at the high school and university levels, served as vice president for academic affairs at Laredo State University, where he oversaw its successful transfer into the Texas A&M University system, managed the design, construction, and opening of the Texas A&M International University in Laredo—becoming the only university president within the State of Texas in the last 36 years to build a new campus from the ground up—and rose to become the highest-ranking Hispanic in public higher education in the State of Texas.

The Board of Regents of the Texas A&M System appointed Sayavedra as point person to lay the groundwork for the new

Texas A&M University-San Antonio. Initiated after the Texas Legislature authorized $40 million in bonds in 2006 to start construction, the new campus on the Southside of San Antonio is expected to enroll 25,000 students by 2030.

Throughout his entire career, Sayavedra has worked tirelessly to bring educational opportunity to underserved populations and in so doing has directly and indirectly made a positive, empowering impact on the lives of thousands of students from public school through the Ph.D. level.

Influential in educational policy and programs at the state, national, and international levels, Sayavedra is the force behind the P-16 Initiatives, Closing the Gaps, and Pathways to Graduate Studies programs, among others. He serves or has served on more than 20 boards or committees, including the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU); Texas International Education Consortium; Texas Association of Colleges and Universities; College Station Medical Center; Mexican American Task Force on Higher Education; the Select Committee on Higher Education; and the Laredo Chamber of Commerce.

His achievements have not gone unnoticed. Sayavedra has been honored as Distinguished Alumnus of the University of North Texas and San Antonio Community College. He is listed in Who’s Who Worldwide and was named one of five “Citizens of the Year” in 1995 by The Laredo Morning Times.

Mary Denny

THAT’S THE SPIRIT

Alumna Honored for Service to the Community F

or her reputation for compassion, empathy, candor, and wisdom, her successful career with a nonprofit organization, and her solid record of volunteer service, a true gem from the Gem State will receive the 2009-10 Spirit of Trinity award from the Trinity University Alumni Association.

Currently vice president of training and development for Healthwise, a Boise, Idaho-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to help people make better health decisions, Carol Casler ’67 conceived, built, and led a team that is the corner stone of the organization’s success. Working with the human relations department, she has taken the lead on organizing and presenting quarterly management training programs and retooling the company’s performance management system, “making a difference very day,” according to her nominator.

In recognition of her many talents, her uncompromising commitment to quality, fairness, and innovation, Carol has been awarded the Healthwise Award of Excellence a record three times and received the company’s highest honor, the President’s Cup of Excellence, for her steady upward progress

A L U M N E W S

OUTSTANDING IN HIS FIELD

Young Alumnus Focused on Educating Underserved Community A

Carol Casler

within the organization.

But Healthwise is not the only place Casler is making a difference. A passionate conservationist, she has devoted time and energy to the Idaho Conservation Board for several years and was president for four years. One of the most active volunteers in this statewide conservation organization, she was active at the grass roots level including making phone calls, and testifying at hearings. She lobbied for environmental reform for mining companies, sought passage of the clean water act, and was instrumental in the preservation of 3.2 million acres of wilderness in Idaho—the largest contiguous area in the lower 48 states— and has been active in the Idaho League of Conservation Voters on the state, regional and national levels.

Utilizing her talents and skills honed at Healthwise, Casler has made a difference at Planned Parenthood of Idaho and the Snake River Alliance among other organizations.

Additionally, she serves as chair of the fundraising committee for Terry Reilly Health Services, the primary provider of health care to migrant workers and indigent people and the only federally licensed community health center in southern Idaho. She also has volunteered with La Leche League, Boise Art Museum, and the Idaho Fish and Game M.K. Nature Center. She is active in politics and works on “get out the vote” efforts.

Casler will receive her award during the annual dinner in the Great Hall that honors both the Distinguished Alumnus and the Spirit of Trinity awardees.

triple-degreed Trinity alumnus is changing the face of education in San Antonio, one KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program) school at a time. For his passion and dedication to preparing and motivating the educationally underserved of the community for a successful college career, Mark Larson received the Trinity University Alumni Association’s 2009 Outstanding Young Alumnus award.

Larson, who earned a B.S. in math in 1997, a Master of Arts in teaching in 1998, and a Master of Education in School Administration in 2002, began his career as a math teacher at the International School of the Americas in San Antonio. In 2002, he received a Fisher Fellowship for aspiring school leaders at Berkeley’s Hass School of Business and trained under principals at high performing middle schools around the country. He spent his fellowship year designing KIPP Aspire Academy, a 5-8 middle school that opened its doors in 2003.

Within six years, Larson’s KIPP Aspire Academy boasted outstanding state and national scores, the highest attendance rates in the city, and waiting lists at each grade level. In 2009 he was appointed CEO of KIPP San Antonio, a growing network of innercity college preparatory public schools that includes two middle schools and a high school.

Noted for 10-hour school days, Saturday school, plus a mandatory three weeks of summer school, KIPP Aspire gets results. Its second class of graduating eighth-graders shattered stereotypes, earning more than $500,000 in scholarships to elite private high schools, including exclusive east coast institutions as well as the most competitive magnet high schools in the city.

Larson, an increasingly high-profile voice for education reform, is spearheading a plan to expand KIPP to 10 schools—four elementary, four middle, and two high schools by 2017, all serving primarily disadvantaged kids.

Trinity is not the only entity to notice.

Larson, who was a member of Leadership San Antonio 31, was named a “Forty Under 40” leader in 2005 by the San Antonio Busi-

ness Journal, recognized by State Representative Mike Villarreal as an “Innovator in Education,” and named “Outstanding Young San Antonian” by the Downtown Rotary Club of San Antonio.

Larson received the Outstanding Young Alumnus Award at a luncheon in his honor November 19, 2009 in the Great Hall.

Mark Larson EDITOR’S NOTE:

KIPP began in 1994 when two Houston teachers launched a fifth-grade public school program after completing their commitment to Teach for America. The growing network, which now includes 82 KIPP public schools in 19 states and the District of Columbia, enrolls approximately 20,000 mostly African-American and Hispanic/Latino students. In 2000, the cofounders of Gap, Inc. established the nonprofit KIPP Foundation that focuses on recruiting, training, and supporting outstanding leaders to open new, locally run KIPP schools in high-need communities.

For more information visit www.aspire academy.org/html_english/about.html or www.kipp.org .

JANUARY 2010 43

A L U M N E W S

Into the Jet Blue Yonder Brendan Ross ’06 loves to fly and it shows.

In one month last fall, he flew enough miles to circle the globe three times.

The adventure began when he became intrigued by a JetBlue promotion offering an unlimited 30-day flight pass for $599.

With time on his hands while awaiting his security clearance to become an air traffic controller in Seattle, Ross half-seriously placed an ad on Craig’s List offering to fly all over the country if someone would buy him the pass and give him a $20 per diem for expenses. In return, he offered to be a courier, spy on a girlfriend, or bottle and bring back fresh ocean air.

The ad caught the attention of Wired magazine, which published an article about Ross, wondering if he would get any takers. A few days later, the editors at Wired admitted they couldn’t resist his offer. They purchased the pass and hired Ross to blog and Twitter about his experiences. There were some conditions attached. For the entire 30-day period, Ross was required to fly every day and stay in airports when not flying.

Dubbed “Terminal Man” by the magazine, he was allowed a few carry-on items including a change of clothes, a camera, and a laptop.

“The whole thing happened so quickly, from the time the ad went up to when I received Wired’s offer to when I needed to be ready to get moving. It was a little overwhelming,” says Ross. “Plus, the first my wife heard about the this was when Wired made their offer, so it was an even bigger surprise for her!”

Ross’s odyssey began with a flight from his home in Austin to Long Beach, Calif., and almost immediately he became a highflying celebrity. When airline officials learned of the adventure, they distributed Ross’s

44 Trinity

photo across the country, inspiring JetBlue employees to begin a sort of “Where’s Waldo” game trying to spot Terminal Man. By the end, at almost every city they were waiting for him on the jet way, taking pictures and wanting to shake his hand. “And all these other passengers would be deplaning, trying to figure out who I was,” Ross chuckles.

Celebrity, however, didn’t always ensure VIP treatment. Ross spent his first night in a dirty baggage claim area in Oakland, trying to sleep in a wheelchair. During other overnight stays he fought with mice in Boston’s Logan airport and was robbed in La Guardia.

Still his sense of adventure rarely lagged.

Followers of his blog read his accounts of going on a training exercise with bomb sniffing dogs, trying his flying skills on a flight simulator, and visiting an airport lost and found department. Strangest item lost?

An urn with Uncle Bob’s ashes. His most popular post told of a bizarre seatmate who traveled with a Chihuahua in her purse and demanded that Ross entertain her since the plane’s television was broken.

He met many people during his travels, including the CEO of a major record com-

pany and a government official who helped the president formulate policy for Afghanistan. During a stop in New Orleans, he ran into a Trinity alumna who is helping with post-Katrina relief. But the people he really connected with were airline employees, who treated him as “one of their own.” Some even improvised sleeping areas for him in unused closet spaces. “It was all on a personal level,” he says. “JetBlue didn’t ask employees to do it for me. It was all their own initiative.”

By the final days of his adventure, close to four thousand people were following his exploits on Twitter, with several times that number reading his Wired Brendan Ross blog for updates on his arrivals and departures as well as critiques of different airport terminals.

Thirty-one days, 41 cities, and 72 flights later, Ross’s jet-setting life came to an abrupt end. After his last flight back home to Austin, he was promptly grounded for a week by a case of swine flu.

Fortunately, Ross’s days of being a professional flyer may not be over. The Seoul Tourism Board has contacted him about a “Sell Your Seoul” campaign. When that takes off, he will spend a few days traveling and blogging about the offbeat things there are to do there. Not a bad job for someone with jet fuel in his veins.

Russell Guerrero ’83

Sardar Biglari ’99, center, chairman and CEO of Steak n Shake, and his wife Rosa ’99 rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on August 13, 2009. At Biglari’s left is Prassel Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and vice chairman Phil Cooley. Biglari and Cooley are also chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of Western Sizzlin Corporation. While in New York for a board meeting, they opened the NYSE and closed the NASDAQ, the first time the same individuals had opened one market and closed another on the same day.

A L U M N E W S

Where Are They Now?

Russ Gossage enjoys meeting and greeting Trinity students when he visits the campus.

RUSS GOSSAGE

J

oining the Trinity staff in 1963, Russ Gossage devoted his professional career to the University until he retired in 1992. Over the years he served in a number of leadership roles including director of admissions, director of alumni relations, and senior development officer. After officially retiring, Gossage served seven additional years as a part-time special assistant to President Ron Calgaard, helping with fund raising and event planning. Noted for his outgoing personality, boundless energy, and sense of humor, he was always an enthusiastic supporter of Trinity in whatever capacity he served. Gossage brought high school counselors from various sections of the country to visit San Antonio and encouraged them to recommend well-qualified students to attend Trinity. In recognition of his outstanding work in the field of admissions, he was elected president of the National Association of College Admission Counselors and held offices in other related service organizations.

For a number of years he and his wife, Doris, lived in the White Elephant (now the Holt Center) where they hosted campus guests and visitors. They later moved to a ranch home in Boerne, Texas, where he was active in civic affairs and both he and his wife enjoyed horseback riding and trail riding events.

For the past three years Gossage has been on dialysis, traveling three times a week to

Professor emeritus R. Douglas Brackenridge visits with former faculty members.

San Antonio for treatment. After a long illness, Doris passed away in November 2009.

Despite his recent loss and continuing health issues, Gossage maintains a positive attitude about life. He enjoys interacting with his five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren and keeps in touch with Trinity alumni and former colleagues as well as a network of friends in the San Antonio area. When in town, he frequently visits The Bombay Bicycle Club to chat with longtime patrons. On campus he stops to talk and shake hands with old friends and to engage current students and staff in animated conversations. Senior Kevin Wilkes, (pictured with Gossage) one of Gossage’s recent contacts, was impressed by his interest in students and his knowledge of Trinity.

Russ Gossage welcomes calls at 830-9818173 (evenings best time). He wants people to know that “I’m still crazy and still have a sense of humor.” His mailing address is 160 Ranch Drive, Boerne, Texas 78015.

Jean Chittenden says physical exercise is a key to staying active.

JEAN CHITTENDEN

After completing her Ph.D. in 1963 at the University of Texas at Austin, Jean Chittenden joined the Trinity faculty the following year as an assistant professor in the department of foreign languages (now modern languages and literatures). Over the years she taught a variety of Spanish courses at all levels, rose to

the rank of full professor, and served several terms as department chair. When first appointed chair, she was the only woman on the Trinity faculty at that time to hold such a position. Spurred by a Trinitonian article dealing with discrimination against women in higher education, she became an advocate for women and other minorities on the campus. At faculty meetings she advocated the use of non-sexist language and encouraged the employment of qualified female scholars.

In addition to her academic responsibilities, Chittenden served as a sponsor of the Chi Beta Epsilon and Spurs sororities.

Following her retirement in 1998, Chittenden traveled extensively. Fulfilling a long-held desire to visit South America, she toured a number of countries including Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. Other travels took her to Europe where she visited Spain, England, Ireland, and Scotland, the latter country on a Trinity-sponsored tour. In the United States, she participated in a number of Elderhostel tours along with some of her many local friends. In recent years, she has devoted considerable time as a volunteer at the Assistance League, a national organization devoted to helping needy families with young children. At a local thrift shop, Chittenden sorts, prices, and sells items donated

by San Antonio residents. Revenue provides clothing and other items for infants in underprivileged families and school supplies and clothing to older children. Chittenden has also made presentations at local schools to warn young children of the dangers of speaking to strangers, a program coordinated by the Assistance League that provides literature and videos to reinforce the message. Beyond these activities, she regularly plays bridge with friends and participates in several reading and discussion groups. Although limited in her range of activities due to rheumatoid arthritis, Chittenden attends exercise programs at the Jewish Community Center in order to reduce the effects of her condition.

Her advice to people of all ages, but especially to retirees, is to establish and maintain a routine of physical exercise to avoid being housebound. Mentally alert and interested in current events, she exudes the same charisma as she did when teaching at Trinity.

Jean Chittenden can be reached by e-mail at jchitten@trinity.edu, by phone at 210-3447102, or by mail at 10502 Sunflower Lane, San Antonio, Tx 78213.

JANUARY 2010 45

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Chapter and Network Activities Atlanta More than 20 alumni gathered in June at Taco Cabana on Piedmont for cocktails where they enjoyed the opportunity to make new connections and re-connect with old friends. On a warm Sunday in September, about 30 people including alumni and their families met at the home of Nicole Allen ‘94 for "burgers and bocce." Even though there were a few rain clouds and some light showers, the kids had great fun playing in the back yard, and the grown-ups reminisced about the good ol' days at Trinity.

For the second year, area alumni came back to the home of Beth Fenger ’95 in November for a “blind” wine tasting.

Austin Austin-area alumni got a strong start on their 2009-2010 event calendar by holding a very popular wine tasting and pub night on August 28 at The Dig Pub in nearby Cedar Park. Nearly 30 alumni as well as plenty of spouses and friends filled the pub with greetings, laugh-

ter, cheerful conversation, and plenty of clinking glassware. Later in September, the chapter held its happy hour targeted to alumni who graduated within the last 15 years. More than 50 alumni ranging from the classes of 1998 to 2009 attended, and they had a blast.

Bay Area The chapter held a wine tasting and tour of the historic vineyard of the Palmaz family in Napa Valley on July 11. Florencia '98, Christian '06, and Jessica '06 Palmaz of Palmaz Vineyards personally escorted the participants through their family’s historic vineyard and unique gravityflow winery. Following the tour, alumni and guests joined the Palmazes in a tasting of three of their winery-only white wines and of the estate cabernet sauvignon. On November 5, the chapter held a pre-holiday happy hour at a press club in San Francisco.

Chicago On September 12, alumni and their guests, ranging from the class of

Alumni in the Rio Grande Valley met at Buffalo Wings & Rings in Weslaco for a summer mixer and to share their Trinity connection.

1964 to the class of 2007, enjoyed a beautiful fall day at Wrigley Field to cheer on the Cubs. Later in the month, the chapter held a reception and book signing in September in Chicago with Jennifer Mathews, associate professor of anthropology, to hear her experiences in researching and writing her new book, Chicle.

Mathews gave a highly engaging talk and visual presentation, which was followed by further discussion over a dinner at a restaurant. The chapter-area alumni gathered over lunch at their favorite Uncle Julio’s Hacienda for a holiday kick-off party.

Colorado Denver and Colorado Springs alumni and parents gathered on September 20 at Stewart Field to cheer on the Trinity men's soccer team as they defeated Colorado College 1-0 in over time to move their season record to 6-1. Alumni and parents had the opportunity to visit with the student athletes and coaching staff after the match and to wish the team luck with its remaining schedule. On November 12, Jorge Gonzalez, professor of economics, delivered a presentation to a gathering of alumni, parents, and prospective students at an event held at the Denver Athletic Club. His presentation, titled "The Perfect Storm: Mexico Today," focused on the challenges created for the Mexican economy by the confluence of several recent events including the H1N1 flu, the war against drug traffickers, and the financial crisis. He concluded by thanking the alumni in attendance for their participation and by encouraging them to continue their active involvement with Trinity.

Dallas

Fort Worth-area alumni and students gathered at the home of Jim Bohnsack ’97 for Making Connections.

46 Trinity

On July 9, over 30 Trinity alumni from recent and past graduate classes descended on the Gingerman pub in Dallas for the chapter’s “Welcome to DFW" happy hour.

It was great to catch up with past friends and meet new alumni.

Alumni from both Dallas and Fort Worth chapters enjoyed the Trinity

A L U M N E W S

night at the Rangers on September 19 cheering on the Texas Rangers as they went on to beat the Angels. Alumni and their guests attended the first meeting between the Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets for the 2009 regular season.They all enjoyed their pre-game cocktails and hors d'oeuvres at the Boardroom. The Dallas Mavericks came from behind to win this game in the second half with the score of 121-103. Most of the alumni went home happy and said that they would be back for the next Trinity night out at the Dallas Mavericks vs. the San Antonio Spurs scheduled for April 14, 2010.

Fort Worth On June 25, 2009 the chapter hosted an event at The Covey Brew Pub and Restaurant. Attendees representing five decades joined Trinity alumnus Jamie Fulton '03 for a tour of his brewery and restaurant. Fulton opened The Covey in April 2006 at the age of 24, and in just two years, won two awards in a world and national competition for his Vienna Lager. On October 17, the area-alumni took a brewery tour of the Rahr Brewery. They enjoyed tasting several selections of fresh beer and a barbeque lunch with live music.

Kansas City

New York

Alumni in the Kansas City area met on October 29 for drinks and hors d’oeuvres at Van Brock Jewelers in Mission Farms. It was a great opportunity to make new friends and to renew old friendships. The gettogether was a great kick off event to create some momentum toward more alumni events in the future.

On October 21, alumni ranging from the classes of 1974 through 2009 gathered in midtown Manhattan at The Volstead for food and drinks following a busy Wednesday at work. They mingled and munched while re-connecting with former classmates. The New York chapter also welcomed alumni new to the New York metro area. A great time was had by all!

National Capitol Area A strong showing of alumni fresh out of Trinity joined other alumni in July for a downtown D.C. happy hour at Chef Geoff's to enjoy food, drink, and conversation. Alumni ranging from the classes of 1978 to 2009 met on August 15 to enjoy a beautiful D.C. day atop a Cleveland Park restaurant. Alumni shared memories over food and drink and board members planned the coming year’s events.

St. Louis Incoming first-year students and parents watched a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game and enjoyed delicious food in a private box donated by Michael Neidorff '65.

San Antonio On Wednesday, June 17, a total of 136 Trinity alumni and guests

tially of two 1982 Trinity graduates, provided live entertainment throughout the night. Although the event formally ended at 7 pm, alumni continued to mix and mingle well into the evening. On September 16, the chapter, in conjunction with Trinity University Offices of Alumni Relations and Career Services, hosted the eleventh annual Making Connections event. The event was one of the most successful in the recent past with a total attendance of 207 including 86 alumni and 97 students.

Also in attendance were recruiters from local businesses and Trinity University Business Affiliates. Attendees also participated in career interest group breakout sessions, each facilitated by a member of the chapter board. Finally, attendees had the opportunity to listen to Charlie Lutz ’73, director/COO for Intercontinental Consultants LLC, discuss the effects of networking

Houston More than 60 alumni including guests occupied the reserved section to watch the Astros play the Washington Nationals on July 12.

All enjoyed the event which included a pre-game happy hour. Alumni in the area appreciated the opportunity to be at the Reliant Complex for the final Texans practice of the preseason on August 6 using the complimentary tickets arranged by the chapter. Alumni said adios to summer at the September 19 wine tasting and bienvenidos to fall while sampling Spanish wines just outside of downtown Houston at 13 Celsius. Local wine distributor Matthew McLaughlin was there to share his insight on a variety of Spanish wines.

Bay Area alumni and guests enjoyed a wine tasting and tour of the Palmaz Vineyards in Napa Valley.

New England The chapter held an outing on September 19 to experience WaterFire in Providence, RI. WaterFire ran along the Providence Riverfront for just over one half mile from Providence Place to the Crawford Street Bridge.

attended a night at the Majestic to experience the highly celebrated show Wicked. It was a fantastic evening full of friends, family, champagne, song, and flying monkeys.

The chapter kicked off its 2009-2010 event year with a bang at Tycoon Flats on September 10. More than 60 alumni spanning five decades were in attendance. The local cover band Hogg Shedd, comprised par-

on his career. The event concluded with an informal gathering at Trinity's Tiger's Den to cap off a great evening. On October 2, alumni from diverse classes mingled at the annual theater night pre-performance reception. Alumni met the director and enjoyed a funny, well-acted (continued on next page)

JANUARY 2010 47

A L U M N E W S

Arizona David Diaz '87 dediaz@hotmail.com Atlanta Kristi Hubbard '94 kristi.hubbard@alumni.trinity.edu Austin Jeannie Ricketts '90 jeanniericketts@aol.com Bay Area Tommie Wilson '98 tommie.pollard@stanfordalumni.org Chicago Erin Baker '99 erinmbaker@yahoo.com Kansas City-area alumni and guests enjoyed a get-together at Van Brock Jewelers on October 29.

Colorado John Lozano ’93 john.lozano@usbank.com

Stacy Olds ’04 and Loretta Kerner ’07 received guests at an alumni happy hour at Tycoon Flats in San Antonio.

Los Angeles Monte Tomerlin '75 monte.tomerlin@gmail.com

performance of The Real Inspector Hound. On October 24, the chapter held its third annual soccer appreciation night. It was a great turnout as about 60 people, consisting of alumni and their families, gathered in the Meadows Pavilion for the beautiful weather and exciting soccer matches against Southwestern University. The evening was a great success!

to the highest resolution. For more specific requirements, contact Vee DuBose at vdubose@trinity.edu

Dallas Kathleen Kerr '94 kathleenlkerr@hotmail.com

There’s a chapter near you!

If you would like to be involved in chapter activities or serve on the Board, contact these respective chapter presidents. Or check out the chapter pages at https://alumni. trinity.edu

Florida * Jody Tompson ’87 jtompson@ut.edu

When sending pictures We love to include your pictures, but if they are of low resolution, we cannot enlarge them sufficiently for use in a print publication. When taking pictures for the magazine, please make sure your camera is set

* Chapter in formation stage

Houston Kristan Doerfler ‘01 kristandoerfler@gmail.com

New York Candice Comeaux '01 candice_comeaux@hotmail.com

Kansas City * Travis Holt ’06 tholt@alum.trinity.edu

Oklahoma City * Alain Quiambao '89 alexander-quiambao@ouhsc.edu

Albuquerque * Dathan Weem '98 dathanw@gmail.com

Fort Worth Amy Chambers '89 amychambers@alumni.trinity.edu

National Capitol Area * Griffin LeNoir ‘07 glenoir@gmail.com New England (includes New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut)

Paul Fleck '92 fleckpaul@hotmail.com

Portland (Oregon) * Jonathan Logan '84 loganjonathan@comcast.net San Antonio Mike Zuber ‘74 mike.zuber@plantoroe.com San Diego Sophis Mena ’99 sophia.mena@gmail.com Seattle Heather Richardson ‘06 heatherita@gmail.com St Louis Mike Henges '78 mhenges@aol.com

San Antonio alumni and students attended the Making Connections event in the Chapman Center.

48 Trinity

Tulsa * Mike McBride '89 mike.mcbride@crowedunelevy.com

C L A S S

A C T S

For the Record

Class Acts 1 9 4 6

M a r r i a g e s

Jacqueline Collier McCarty Howell and Charlotte Collier Grizzle ’48 are roommates again as they share a two bedroom apartment in a Fort Worth retirement community. They enjoy the freedom from cooking and maintenance and are sharing the good things in life.

1 9 5 0 Mary Parramore Bauer was an alumna volunteer who took part in the Battle of Flowers Parade. She helped keep the big balloon going “where it was supposed to be. Those ‘kids’ who were there too were not sure that an eighty-year-old could do that. Ha! I fooled them.” Joe J. Bernal was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) at the 25th annual awards gala.

1 9 5 2 Joe Jimenez (deceased) and Francis Meyer were among the fourteen representing various sports who were admitted to the San Antonio Hall of Fame. Other alumni who were honored are: Rick Mahler ’73 (deceased), Mickey Mahler ’74, Tim Derk ’79, and Christyn Schumann ’06.

1 9 6 4 The Rev. Paul Anderson was honored on the 40th anniversary of his pastorate at Oaklands Presbyterian Church in Laurel, Md. The congregation that began in a farmhouse with a handful of members has grown with a number of changes through the years as most members work for the government and there has also been an influx of immigrant families.

1 9 6 5 Diane Stanley author and illustrator of Rumpelstiltskin’s Daughter was one of the featured writers participating at the San Antonio Express-News Book & Author Celebration in October. She and her husband reside in Santa Fe, N.M.

1 9 6 6 A. Bates Butler III was named a Super Lawyer

by The Best Lawyers in America organization.

Butler resides and practices law in Tucson, Ariz.

1 9 6 7 Melinda Atkins Loomis is an adjunct professor of voice at Multnomah Bible College,

Patty Riddle ’69 warms up at the Colorado Springs velodrome where masters nationals were held this August.

Portland, Ore. She also teaches voice to younger students at NW Children’s Theater along with Pam Robison Redman ’79. Camilla Adell Ritchey received the MBA in the University of Texas San Antonio Executive MBA program in May.

1 9 6 8 Eric Lacy is the director of the Marine Biomedicine and Environmental Sciences Center of the University of South Carolina in Charleston.

More than 100 scientists are involved in research in areas of drugs from the sea, marine mammal health, coral health and disease.

Stephen Jennings is retiring as president of the University of Evansville (Indiana) effective May 2010. He has been included in the last 15 editions of Who’s Who in America, and in addition to receiving the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Trinity, he has been honored by the School of Education at the University of Georgia, and received the Alumni Achievement Award from The College of Education at Miami University and the University of Evansville Samuel Orr Honorary Alumnus Award. He and Sally have two children and six grandchildren. J. Stephen Schiavo received the Missouri Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching from Missouri Southern University.

1 9 6 9 Polly Jackson was contacted by a Spanish online magazine and the result can be viewed at http://www.yareah.com/magazine/ index.php/arts-arte. Craig Johnson is retiring after 39 years in the Yankton, S.D. School District. He said, “I have been eating school lunch since 1955 when Rosa Parks got in trouble on the bus. My first six graders are now in their 50s.” He will travel in retirement as he has already been to 48 states and 55 countries. His goal is to reach 75 countries.

Marjorie McLane Maxfield is a national wedding etiquette and personal stationery expert. She published her first book, The Write Stuff: A Modern Guide to Personal Stationery & Weddings, in June, and it has gone into a second printing. She was interviewed on ABC and CBS television. She is a professional speaker at seminars and events, has a column in Brilliant magazine, and owns a shop in Houston.

1 9 7 0 Amy Jo Baker has retired as director of social studies for the San Antonio Independent School District after 40 years of teaching. She was honored in the State of Texas Senate with a presentation of a Resolution on May 15, 2009.

Carole “Dee” Rushing Lay has been pro-

Kimberly Rhoad to Larry Gonzalez ‘83 on April 11, 2009 Peter Martin to Diqui LaPenta ‘88 on July 18, 2009 Mi-Sook Jo to Jeff Kyle ‘90 on May 9, 2009 Jennifer Lynn Chandler to Rafael Rivera ‘90 on June 20, 2009 Brad Hartson to Amanda Moranville ‘94 on May 30, 2009 William Proctor Jenn Jr. to Shannon Leigh Boyle ‘98 on June 13, 2009 Cydney Allysen Wells to John Justice ‘99 on September 12, 2009 Elizabeth McDonald to Nicholas Karam ‘00 on October 25, 2008 Erika Lyn Burke to Evans Louis Roberts III ‘00 on July 19, 2009 Erick E. Estrada to Karen Booker ‘02 on June 27, 2009 Emily Anne Irish to Michael S. Kohler ‘00 on May 23, 2009 Jocelyn Renner to Benjamin Passty ‘02 on November 1, 2008 Courtney Kathleen Sieloff to Lucas Whitney Peterson ‘02 on September 12, 2009 John Alexander Riola ’02 to Julia Diane Rumisek ‘02 on June 6, 2009 Tom Hoffer to Shana Weaver ‘03 on March 28, 2009 Eric South to Leslie Shaffer ‘04 on August 22, 2009 Kelly D. Altman ’05 to Ashley M. Bush ‘05 on May 16, 2009 Christopher Brown ’05 to Kara Daugherty ‘05 on June 20, 2009 John Madrid to Lauren Thompson ‘05 on March 28, 2009 Matthew Edward Breen to Lauren Elizabeth Wright ‘05 on Aug-ust 15, 2009 Nick Borrelli ’06 to Elizabeth Cox ‘06 on May 30, 2009 Danny Hosein ’07 to Suzi Kilgore ‘08 on May 23, 2009

B i r t h s Caroline Joelle “Carly” to Jason and Shelli Finnegan Wakefield ‘88 on February 26, 2009 Henry Hill to Melinda and Davis H. Bradley ‘89 on August 26, 2009 Eamon Derek to Derek and Kristen Kobierowski Flynn ‘91 on April 27, 2009 Silas Evan Bates-Leoni to David Bates and Melissa Leoni ‘92 on April 14, 2009 Abby Laine to Trey and Delise Addicks Jung ‘92 on February 12, 2009 Lilly Rose to Caitlin and Ian MacDonald ‘93 on July 18, 2009 Shelby to Leslie and Trey Moeller ‘93 on August 13, 2009 Benjamin John to Holly and Matt Sieger ‘93 on September 30, 2009 Suzanna Maria and Enrique Jose to Enrique and Monette Ayala Elizalde ‘95 on December 5, 2006 and October 15, 2008

JANUARY 2010 49

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For the Record B i r t h s Daphne Elektra to John and Kelly Donegan Masegian ‘95 on June 2, 2009 Sydney Ann to Gina and Mark Montalbano ‘95 on July 9, 2009 Charles Elliott to Kyle and Elizabeth Field O’Rear ‘95 on April 6, 2009 Jacob Joseph to Aaron Segal and Stephanie House Segal ‘95 on July 21, 2009 Alejandro J. “AJ” to Juan and Michelle Chandler Diaz ‘96 on May 20, 2008 William Kerr to Chad and Suzie Kerr Forsberg ‘96 on April 2, 2009 Noe Miguel to Carlos and Jennifer Huerta Montes ‘96 on February 3, 2009 Eliza Wren to Capulet ’96 and Sarah Quainton Poehner ‘96 on September 12, 2009 Caroline Elizabeth to Laura and Jeff Colvin ‘97 on July 9, 2009 Mary Elizabeth to Robert and Kristi Engelman Francisco ‘97 on March 12, 2009 Lucinda Pearl to Joe ’97 and Julie Deets Cormane ‘97 on April 30, 2009 Lillian Claire to Chris and Paige Medlen Schulz ‘97 on August 6, 2009 Jane Elizabeth to Nate and Stacy Murrow Bunck ‘98 on July 15, 2009 Lex Mardis to Jason and Anouk Rognon Davis ‘98 on July 7, 2009 Porter Hayes to Mark and Shannon Retrum Ferguson ‘98 on April 23, 2009 Mary Melissa to Stephen and Mary Ruth Miller Simonson ‘99 on February 16, 2009 Lillian Marie to Matt and Kathleen Chamberlain Yarbro ‘99 on March 2, 2009 Olivia Clair to Marco and Amy Webb-Cabrera ‘99 on January 12, 2009 Lyla Jean to Daniel and Rachel Petrich Cook ‘00 on June 26, 2009 Jack and Alex to Paul and Elizabeth Merritt Dougan ‘00 on February 22, 2009 Kaitlyn Brooke to Paul and Courtney Robertson Rawlins ‘00 on April 21, 2009 Zach Chase to Scott and Stephanie Tice Steiger ‘00 on July 23, 2009 Alyssa Lourdes to Brian and Aileen Simborio Van Pelt ‘00 on May 21, 2009 Jordan Paige to Michael ’00 and Kendall Dennis Slutzky ‘01 on March 18, 2009 Connor James to Roland ’00 and Laura Brown Hall ‘01 on May 14, 2009 Paul Daniel to Matt ’03 and Eve Ford Nelson ‘01 on March 26, 2009 Juliette Cadence to Jarrett ’01 and Fendy Wu Price ‘01 on June 19, 2009 Elijah Baker Alan to Hallie and Logan Ramirez ‘01 on April 27, 2009 Jackson Thomas to Paul and Sara Hatton Bauman ‘02 on August 12, 2009

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moted from part-time adjunct professor at Webster University, Thailand, to permanent part-time professor. Carole teaches English as a foreign language to students from around the world. Barbara Pelphrey Morse has had her first book, Things Your Mama Meant to Teach you But Never Got Around To, published. The target audience is people going out on their own for the first time. The book can be reviewed at www.claygreenpublishing.com. C. W. Von Bergen has served as a

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Business Leader of the Year for Jacksonville and has been placed in the University of North Florida College Business Hall of Fame.

Mary Chester Newton, Maureen Bocella Waldie, Sandy Ragan, Hazel Rosenbaum Allen, Carol Tagge Adams, and Dianne Lozano Hall are Chi Betas who meet in an interesting place every five years. This year they were in Yosemite National Park to talk of old times and enjoyed a great vacation.

be staged at San Antonio’s Woodlawn Theater in January to March 2010. The musical production is directed by Tim Hedgepeth ’79, Tom Masinter composed the music, Mark Leonard ’75 wrote the script and lyrics, Robin Crews ’75 is lighting designer, Sam Carter Gilliam ’75 is the costume designer and her husband, Steve Gilliam of the Trinity theater department is the set designer. Susan Riley ’69 will be a Cajun woman singing in the ensemble. Tom has also been honored with the Arts and Letters Award by the Friends of the San Antonio Public Library for his contributions to the community, “by giving his talents to enrich the cultural and spiritual life of San Antonio.” Belle Wheelan addressed approximately 500 graduates at Tuskegee University’s commencement exercises in May. She also delivered the keynote address during commencement ceremonies at Cleveland State Community College in May. Wheelan serves as president of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

1 9 7 3 Joel T. Allison received the Earl M. Collier Award for Distinguished Health Care Administration from the Texas Hospital Association and was honored in the House of Representatives of the 81st Texas Legislature with a resolution of recognition. Allison is president and CEO of Baylor Health Care System in Dallas. Cecily Hine Gallagher has assumed a new role as corporate actuary and chief risk officer at Texas Mutual Insurance Company.

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Mary Chester Newton, Maureen Bocella Waldie, Sandy Ragan, Hazel Rosenbaum Allen, Carol Tagge Adams, and Dianne Hall, left to right, are all Chi Betas from the Class of 1971. They meet every 5 years— this time in Yosemite National Park—to catch up on old times and enjoy a great vacation. Dianne’s husband, Bruce Hall ‘69, stands behind the Chi Betas.

John Massey Endowed Chair and professor of management in the John Massey School of Business at Southeastern Oklahoma State University since 1997. He will begin a sabbatical in February at the Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand.

1 9 7 1 William C. Mason, president emeritus of Baptist Health System, Jacksonville, Fla., has been named the 2009 Osborne Distinguished

1 9 7 2 Tom Masinter was one of two San Antonians to receive the 2009 Arts and Letters Award, presented annually since 1972 by the Friends of the San Antonio Public Library to a person or persons who have contributed to the community by giving of their talents to enrich the cultural and spiritual life of San Antonio.

Masinter and friends started the production company, Alegro Stage Co. in order to produce “Fire On The Bayou.” The musical will

Arthur Gonzalez has been named CEO of the Hennepin County Medical Center, a comprehensive academic medical center and public teaching hospital with 465 beds in downtown Minneapolis. Brett Hall is living in Montgomery, Ala., working on the Tim James for Governor campaign. James P. Houser was named interim chief executive officer for the Covenant System in Lubbock, Texas. Dick Layton has been named a managing director at Baird Finance. The firm has opened two new offices in Atlanta and Winston-Salem. Layton was a managing director at Wachovia for 20 years and had formerly served as commissioner of budget and planning for the City of Atlanta. Bruce Story was chosen as one of the world’s top 250 leading intellectual property strategists by Intellectual Asset Management magazine.

Teresa “Terry” Wilkinson has an MBA from New York University, is a registered nurse, and partner at Ben-Mar Partners in Midland, Texas. She serves on a number of boards and is past chair of the Aging and Disability Ser-

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The Trinity University Athletic Hall of Fame Class of 2009 was inducted during Alumni Weekend. The seven honorees were (SEATED LEFT TO RIGHT) Clyde Glosson (men’s track & field and football, ‘66-’68); JoAnne Russell (women’s tennis, ‘73-’75); the late Rick Mahler (baseball, ‘71-’74), who was represented by his son, Mickey, pictured; and (STANDING LEFT TO RIGHT) Brian Gottfried (men’s tennis, ‘69-’72); the late Pete Murphy ‘50 and ‘76 (men’s basketball player and coach from 1972-1986), who was represented by his widow, Patsy Murphy, and his son, Bobby Murphy ’75, pictured; and Mike Scott ‘74 (football). music having performed with Opera San Jose in over 200 performances. With Ballet San Jose School, she recorded the soprano voices of several productions. Serge Derbez is looking for a “complete change in life.” Since the children are grown and out of the home,

he is free to go anyplace in the world. Brian David McGanity lives in Atlanta where he does legal work for Perot. He and his wife have two successful sons and McGanity would like to hear from those “who were responsible for placing the alligator in the pond at the Bates farm.” Oscar Williams was honored when The Greater Chamber of Commerce of San Antonio chose his photographic collection of “El Corazon de San Antonio” to be featured at Fotoseptiembre, an international photography festival, in September.

1 9 7 7 John Perkowski is a proud father and grandfather. His granddaughter was born in June 2008 and his son was born in November.

1 9 7 8 Mario Bosquez was honored at a signature event at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in October. Dinner With Mario was part of the 2009 Teatro Fest that included an exclusive preview performance of Mario’s play Los Duendes in the historic Guadalupe Theater.

Raul E. Hinojosa is a consultant working with actor-producer Brandon Olmos to make

vices Council. Gov. Rick Perry has appointed her to the Health and Human Services Council to serve until February 2015. Shannon Wynne has opened the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium on Lake Ray Hubbard in Garland, Texas, offering 200 beers and 80 on tap.

The establishment is part of a chain with pubs throughout the South. Mary Spankus Young and Fred ’75 celebrated 36 years of marriage and are very proud of the musical accomplishments of their daughter, Sarah Young Shrode ’03.

Nita Lou Ellis Bryant was named the winner of the Mozelle Memoir Contest sponsored

by The Writers’ League of Texas. Her entry, “Seventeen Snowsuits,” can be read online at http://writersleague.org/contests/memoir.html.

Ronald Johnson is a partner in the law firm of Touchstone, Bernays, Johnston, Beall, Smith and Stollenweck in Dallas. In May he was named one of the top business-defense lawyers in the DFW Metroplex by the Dallas Business Journal. Ron and his wife, Sharon Worthington Johnson, reside in Dallas and send news of their Trinity alumni daughters.

1 9 7 6 Marilyn Chea Thompson Berger and her husband, Ed Berger ’74, live in San Jose, Calif. and recently celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary. Marilyn has continued her

Photo by Susan Masinter Riley ’69

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When the musical Fire on the Bayou opens January 29 at the Woodlawn theater in San Antonio, it will showcase Trinity talent. Alumni and faculty involved include (left to right) J. Cameron Beesley ’02, tech director; Sam Carter Gilliam ’75, costume designer, faculty; Steve Gilliam, set designer, faculty; Tom Masinter ’72, ’76, producer, music director, music composer; Sara Pruneda ’08, stage manager; Robin Crews ’75, lighting designer; and Tim Hedgepeth ’79, producer, stage director. Others not pictured include Mark Leonard ’75, book and lyric writer; Susan Riley ’69, actress; and Fred Masinter ’71, violinist. The production runs through February 28.

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For the Record B i r t h s Nathan Thomas to Thomas ’01 and Elizabeth Lookadoo DeVries ‘02 on July 23, 2009 Emily Joan to Chuck ’02 and Mary Falgout Divin ‘02 on February 11, 2009 Kellan Patrick to Ryan ’02 and Jenni Kopp Tobin ‘03 on October 2, 2009 Katelyn Rose to Daniel and Gretchen Burger Vera ‘03 on August 21, 2009 Rebekah Elizabeth to Steven Mann and Megan Werner ‘03 on November 5, 2008 Elliana to Ryan and Sandy Hagee Parker ‘04 on August 24, 2009 Teagle Constantine to Eden and Jake Walker ‘05 on June 30, 2009 Chelsea Adair to Matthew ’04 and Jennifer Canfield Brodie ‘06 on June 22, 2009 Evan Riley to Christian and Amy Fowler Tellinghuisen ‘09 on September 4, 2009

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Frank Whitehead ‘35 on September 1, 2009 Cecil Harrison Hale ‘38 on August 31, 2009 Margaret Carnes Spence ‘38 on May 6, 2009 Mary Ann Teal Copeland ‘41 on June 13, 2009 Jimmie Jewell Alexander ‘43 on April 10, 2009 Frances Jane Cornwell Tudor ‘43 on July 19, 2009 Robert Giles ‘44 on April 21, 2009 James William “Jay” Ward ‘46 on April 22, 2009 Barbara Ann Ellis Frombaugh ‘47 on April 25, 2009 Rosamunde Vincius Thro ‘47 on July 16, 2009 Morris H. Lampert ‘49 on July 13, 2009 Richard E. Williams ‘49 on September 8, 2009 Frances Lucille McMurtray ‘53 on May 6, 2009 Newman M. Walker ‘53 on February 1, 2009 Marion Sue Steinman McCord ‘55 on June 24, 2009 Nelda Kinsey Bourland ‘57 on August 2, 2009 Jane Bodine Hernandez ‘57 on April 29, 2009 Stanley James Brehmer ‘58 on September 12, 2009 Eugene Hall ‘59 on April 24, 2009 Michael Ann Lehman Budd ‘61 on May 15, 2009 Katherine Marsh ‘61 on May 31, 2009 Roy E. Wallace ‘61 on May 6, 2009 Ronald John Molnar ‘63 on February 16, 2009 Janet J. Bondurant ‘65 on July 27, 2009 Dale Robert Greenlief ‘74 on May 23, 2009 Marie Frank Swartz ‘74 on August 23, 2009 John Grant Craig ‘77 on September 20, 2009 W. T. Bondurant Jr. ‘78 on June 12, 2009 Joyce Christine Rathman Sesters ‘83 on September 7, 2009 David S. Tomkewitz ‘88 on November 15, 2008 Roy Key ‘94 on August 28, 2009

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Thom Hulme ’78 a documentary on the Coast Guard. Thomas Hulme is on the Board of Trustees for the Coppell Independent School District, which serves 10,000 students in the North Texas Region. He also serves as chairman of the board for the Coppell Chamber of Commerce and is chairman of the Coppell Development Foundation that provides scholarship money.

Peter Martinez was named principal of Driscoll Middle School, N.E.I.S.D., San Antonio.

1 9 7 9 Dr. Mark Kline, an internationally recognized leader in pediatric HIV/AIDS, has been named

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chair of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and physician-in-chief at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. Charles Olmsted is working toward a master’s degree in Asian studies at Sejong University, Seoul, South Korea. His paper titled “The Korean War and Tourism” was published as part of the 2009 Asia Pacific Forum for Graduate Students Research in Tourism conference. Michael V. Opelka is the executive director for a daily syndicated radio show “Montel Across America” with Montel Williams. The three-hour program will originate from New York City and regularly visit cities across the country.

Chris Mest is an ISA certified arborist in the Chicago area. He has recently started an organization called “Friends of Arbor Day,” found online at http://friendsoad.ning.com.

Donna R. Stoneham received her doctorate in humanities with a concentration in learning and change in human systems from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. She will present her research at the International Transformative Learning Conference in Bermuda in November. Her work is featured in the International Journal of Coaching in Organizations. She resides with her family in Point Richmond, Calif.

1 9 8 0 Linda Foster was honored by The University of Texas San Antonio Alumni Association as Alumna of The Year. Foster received her bachelor’s degree from UTSA and her master’s

from Trinity. She is principal of Alamo Heights High School. Linda Weisbaker Mosley graduated from the Lutheran Seminary Program in the Southwest, Austin, in May. She was ordained as a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church at St. Paul in August.

1 9 8 1 Vicki Bixler Gill is the owner of Gallery Six in Dallas, a “to the design trade” showroom.

She is offering access to Trinity alumni to visit via www.gallerysix.net. Beth Dunn Plummer and some XBE friends gathered in June to up-date their various activities. In addition to Plummer, the group included Elizabeth Brown ’81, Jolyn Bowling Greer ’81, Cindy Solliday Wood ’79, Becky Roof ’77, Susie Cunningham Davis ’83, Amy Dunn Taylor ’78, Vaughan Huge Clark ’81, Jereann Hall Chaney ’79, and Cindy Cunningham Duffey ’79. John Roberts and his wife traveled to Iquitos, Peru, “to view the Amazon River” and many tourist sites in the area.

Quentin F. Urquhart Jr received a L.L.M. in energy and environmental law, with distinction, from Tulane University School of Law in July. He was also selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2010.

1 9 8 2 Dorian Martin sent the news that Jackie Pontello ’84 received the 2009 Hannah G. Solomon Award from the National Council of

Amy Dunn Taylor, Vaughan Huge Clark, Jereann Hall Chaney, and Cindy Cunningham Duffey (front row, left to right) and Beth Dunn Plummer ‘81, Elizabeth Brown, Jolyn Bowling Greer, Cindy Solliday Wood, Becky Roof, and Susie Cunningham Davis (back row, left to right) gathered for a visit in June 2009.

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Jewish Women, Greater Houston Section.

The award is presented to outstanding individuals who have worked to bring about social change and whose impact has been recognized on the local, national or international level. Jackie received the award for her work with Advocates for Victims of Domestic Abuse (AVDA), for which she serves as executive director. (See profile page 35.) Karen Nickell lives in Knoxville, Tenn. and continues to perform throughout the United States.

She sang in the Lincoln Center production of La Tragedie de Carmen and a number of productions with Knoxville Opera.

Mason, Texas. Vicki McCall lives in Anchorage, Alaska, and is an elementary school library teacher. She received a national board certification in library media services/early childhood to young adult. She is also active in the Ladies’ Oriental Shrine of America, which supports Shriners’ Hospitals. Wendy Wolfe Rodrigue has started a personal blog in an effort to answer the questions regarding her life with her husband, George Rodrigue.

Britt Salvesen has been named department head and curator of the Wallis Annenberg department of photography and the department head and curator of prints and drawings at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

1 9 8 3 Tom Fleener has been appointed senior vice president and chief financial officer of Midwest Research Institute. He will serve as an officer of MRI and staff the audit and finance/ investment committees of MRI’s Board of Directors. Kristina Rios de Lumbreras has started a new company, FANDANGO Properties Services, providing green cleaning and green rehab services in the Houston area.

Ansen Seale installed “the corn crib” which is a site-specific photographic installation located on the property of the Land Heritage Institute, near the Medina River, a Fotoseptiembre USA Signature Exhibit. He also had an exhibition of his work at the MAC on McKinney Ave. in Dallas in November. He received the Bernard Lifshutz Award for the Visual Arts from the Artist Foundation here in San Antonio. The award money will go toward research into printing photographs on glass for a work of public art.

1 9 9 0 Justin Glass ‘91, Greg Morris ‘93, and Marci Auld Glass ‘91 participated in a 5-K race in Boise that benefitted CATCH (Charitable Assistance To the Community’s Homeless). Greg is the CATCH program manager.

Pepper has a patent pending on a process to make documents, websites, forms, etc. accessible to the blind, in 200 languages, covering approximately 6.34 billion people.

The American Foundation for the Blind is testing it now. Royce Renfrew is one of the ISS flight directors for STS 127/ISS2JA shuttle mission. This is the first station assembly mission he has worked on as a flight director since being selected in 2008. He will then travel to Tskuba, Japan, the Japanese Aerospace

1 9 8 5 Lowell Keig has been appointed by Governor Rick Perry to the Board of the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs for a term expiring January 31, 2013. James

1 9 8 6 Mark Dunn has been appointed director, Internal Consulting Group, at the American Kennel Club. Karl Travis is senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Fort Worth, Texas.

He presented the baccalaureate sermon for the 310 graduating seniors of Austin College Class of 2009 and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree.

1 9 8 7 Tom Fewell has been named CEO at Scenic Mountain Medical Center, Big Spring, Texas.

1 9 8 4 William G. “Pepy” Biddy is currently chair of the department of music and theatre at Mississippi University for Women where he has been awarded the Kossen Faculty Excellence Award, Mississippi Legislature’s HEADWAE Award, and Columbus Educator of the Year Award. He most recently directed Guttenberg!

The Musical for the Jackson New Stage Theater.

Carol Villarreal Bush is county judge in Ellis County, Texas, and was the featured speaker at the Ellis County Republican Women’s organization in September. Olive Elaine Hinnant teaches at the College of Santa Fe and tutors young people in writing skills and occasionally writes for various religious commentaries. She is parenting a two-year old son, Carlos, who is originally from Guatemala.

tor of media publishing including documentary and photo archive projects.

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Lowell Keig ’85 Exploration Agency, to be the on-site NASA flight director for the HTV-1 mission, which will be the launch and operation of Japan’s HII transfer vehicle. Marcy Rothman lives in Houston. She has survived cancer and is a partner in the law firm of Brown McCarroll, LLP. Julie West has moved from Santa Fe to Denton, Texas, and hopes to find work in the DFW area. She is a freelance director and edi-

Michael Ashton has published his first book Maestro, My Ass: How We Got into This Mess.

The book is a response to a similarly titled book that did homage to Alan Greenspan before a couple of bubbles damaged his reputation. The book was written in 2003-2004 and anticipated the current crisis. Jeff Kyle and his bride had receptions in San Antonio and Los Angeles. After their two-week honeymoon in New Zealand, there was a third reception in Busan, South Korea. Priscilla Lambert is the co-leader of a $312,000 National Science Collaborative Grant project to examine how gender provisions in national constitutions contribute to women’s political and economic standing. Lambert is assistant professor of political science at Western Michigan University’s Soga Japan Center.

Daniel Lubetzky is the subject of a New York Times article describing the five years of promoting his dried fruit and nut bar and the success of finally getting his KIND bars accepted for sale at Starbucks. Rush Olson is in Dallas recording with his band, Loda Dimes. The debut album is “Ten Cent Instant Rebate.”

Kathy Gregoire Galvan traveled to Costa Rica to be with Diqui LaPenta on her wedding day. Susan Pedley and her associates have launched a new Web site devoted to motor sports. The site, www.racintoday.com, is staffed by award-winning journalists and focused on coverage of all major racing series.

Bill Schoolfield traveled to Switzerland in September, visiting Zurich, Saint Moritz, Lugano, Zermatt, Geneva, and Lucerne.

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David Doggett has written that although it was a bad year to start a law firm, he is pleased that they have done well. Scott Haupert is pictured with his business partner and their winemaker in a feature article in the September issue of Texas Highways describing their vineyard, Sandstone Cellars, and other places of interest in and around

Caryn Carson is a finalist in the 2009 American Way magazine’s Road Warrior contest.

Melissa Leoni is the senior policy coordinator for the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board. Joe D. Pearson has been promoted to senior vice president at Hendrick Health System, Abilene, Texas. James Resendez is interim CEO of South Texas Regional Medical

Molly McGill Fries and family are living in a small city an hour away from Budapest, where her husband was transferred. She is working remotely for the Colorado Bar Association and trying to learn Hungarian.

Kate Monkus and family have moved to Washington, D.C., where she works as a fundraiser for the American Red Cross.

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Laurie Ramos Castillo ’93 and husband Shawn Patrick Castillo spent two weeks on a Bohemian Rhapsody tour, visiting Prague (above), Vienna, Budapest, Munich, and Salzburg.

Center. He was formerly CEO of Arizona Heart Hospital. Dina Kruckenberg Toland is learning Spanish with her six-year old son who is in a dual language program in the San Antonio ISD. Dina was named Brauchle Elementary’s Teacher of the Year 2009.

Kershner has accepted a call to Black Mountain Presbyterian Church in Black Mountain, N.C., 15 miles from Asheville. She will serve as pastor and head of staff. Robert McCollum appeared in The Receptionist by Adam Bock at the Watertower Theatre at the Addison Theater Center during the month of June.

1 9 9 3 1 9 9 5 Laurie Ramos Castillo and her husband spent two weeks on a Bohemian rhapsody tour, visiting Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Munich, and Salzburg. The Rev. Richard Kannwischer accepted a call to the St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, Calif. Robert Montoya is a senior attorney in the law office of Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP in Houston. Greg Morris is program manager for Charitable Assistance To The Community’s Homeless (CATCH). Justin Glass ’91 and Marci Auld Glass ’91 participated in a 5K race in Boise, Idaho, to benefit CATCH. Geoffrey R. Unger has joined the firm of King & Spalding, a leader in international law. His practice is focused on complex commercial litigation. He is located in Austin.

Daniel J. Nevrivy was interviewed by the Biotechnology Industry Organization for a video about neuroblastoma. The video was presented at the annual BIO International Convention in Atlanta and will be used to raise awareness in Congress about the need for funding for patent protection. Greg Rice is in Dallas and recruiting lady soccer players for co-ed teams. Denise M. Turgeon has published Return to the Little Red Schoolhouse.

In the book, she confronts the increasing problems educators, students, parents, and concerned community members face daily in our public schools. Her website www.redschoolhouseunlimited.com is an educational forum for those interested in discussing problems and solutions besetting schools.

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Hartsville, S.C. It is a “feed and seed” store and they are having fun working to give it an “old country store feel.” Moira McMahon has been promoted from assistant researcher on Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice to director of medical research for the ABC television programs. Kaselehlia Sielken was interested to hear of the Alternative Spring Break trip to the Dominican Republic. As a freshman, she participated in an Alternative Spring Break to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. In her senior year she was co-leader to Monterrey, Mexico, with Natasha Jacobson. With 12 students they worked with Caritas de Monterrey, a social service agency.

Justin D. Stalls is an associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Lathan & Watkins. In June he was a featured speaker on “The Knowledge Group/The Knowledge” Congress’ live Web cast series.

1 9 9 7 Jeff Colvin has accepted a position with Champion Energy Services in Dallas.

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Chris Gunnin and Nancy Hunnicutt Gunnin have moved to Fort Worth. Chris is the Head of Upper School at Trinity Valley School.

Kathryn Miller Haines has completed the third mystery in the Rosie Winter series.

Harper Collins has published Winter in June.

Matthew P. Harper has joined the global law firm of Thompson & Knight LLP in the intellectual property practice group in the Dallas office. The Rev. Shannon Johnson

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Diane Kelly Bone and family live in Raleigh, N.C., and would like to see friends traveling that way. Michelle Chandler Diaz has accepted a position of clinical assistant professor in the department of accounting at Texas A & M University. Glynnis Robbins Farmwalk and her husband have bought the oldest independently-owned business in

Lorie Burch has been named one of the Top Ten Business Women of the Year by the American Business Women’s Association.

Lorie is the owner and attorney of the Law Office of Lorie L. Burch, PC in Dallas. She serves as the political co-chair of the DFW Human Rights Campaign Steering Committee, is on the board of the North Texas GLBT Chamber, director of the Business Exchange Network II and is the president-elect of the

ABWA’s Express Network of Dallas. Jim Geist has been named CEO of the Mountain View Regional Medical Center in Las Cruces, N.M. Jeff Gottfried was honored when the Greeley, Colo., Stampede Committee selected his bronze sculpture, “Battle of Wills,” to represent this year’s Greeley Stampede Art Show.

Shannon Boyle Jenn had her Trinity classmate Carol Coley as her maid of honor and Alyson Johnston Henbest as one of her bridesmaids at her June wedding in Wimberley, Texas. Shannon and her husband are both employed by the North East ISD in San Antonio. Ashley Maranich has returned to San Antonio after completing her fellowship in pediatric infectious disease in Washington, D.C. Manuel “Manny” Pelaez has left Toyota Manufacturing and Engineering and joined Goldman, Pennebaker & Phipps to focus on employment law, government relations, and litigation. Sujey Romero completed an Ed.M. in education policy and management at Harvard University and is director of admissions and family services for Cristo Rey Jesuit in Houston.

1 9 9 9 Angela Barrese is celebrating her fifth year in the yoga business in Dallas. Ulrico Izaguirre received an MPA with honors from Arizona State University. He works for Harrah’s Entertainment in their department of political affairs and regional communications. John Justice was pleased to have many Trinity friends at his wedding, especially his groomsmen, Phil Stork ’99, Mike Watson ’99, Layne Loessin ’01, and Arastu Janagbin ’01.

John and his bride are living in uptown Dallas.

Kerri Resing is owner of The Little Gym of Northeast San Antonio and received the bronze level President’s Circle Award. The franchised gym is renowned for the children’s motor skill development program for ages infancy to age 12. Kelly Gleason Waud and her husband have moved to Vienna, Austria, where her husband works for a UN Agency.

They are studying German and hope some traveling friends will stop by.

2 0 0 0 Krista Brinly Hensel and family live in Minneapolis. She is the director for national accounts products at United Healthcare. Recently she received the designation of fellow from the American College of Healthcare Executives. Ashley Weeter O’Hara has moved back to Dayton, Ohio, while her Air Force husband works toward a Ph.D. Megan Gaiefsky Sherod has accepted a tenuretrack position as an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Montevallo in Montevallo, Ala. She continues her private practice with Grayson & Associates and her

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Cristina Miranda has been an associate producer on the Emmy Award-winning Cristina’s Court. position as section chief of psychiatry at Brookwood Medical Center. Michael Slutzky works as an internal IT auditor for CoBank.

Kendall Dennis Slutzky works for Colorado Joint Replacement at Porter Hospital as director of clinical research. They live in Littleton.

2 0 0 1 Jim Bell has left Jones Lang LaSalle in Houston and Washington, D.C., to become an associate director at Studley’s Houston office dealing in commercial real estate. Renee Chosed is a visiting assistant professor in Trinity’s biology department. Patricia Keel has been appointed executive vice president and chief financial officer at Good Shepherd Health System in Longview, Texas.

Blake Allison has been named executive director of outpatient services for Baptist Health System within the Birmingham, Ala., metropolitan service area. He will be identifying areas of growth and implementing a strategic plan. Becky Brott received her M.D. from the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. She is moving to Atlanta to pursue an internal medicine residency at Emory University. Sarah Young Shrode has released her first CD. She wrote eight of the songs and her husband, Daron Shrode ’02, and her friend Laura Smith ’03, were part of the production. They are involved in the music activities on the praise and worship team at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio. Alyson Rose-Wood graduated in June with a master of science in global health and population and a concentration in infectious disease epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health.

In August she began a two-year Presidential Management Fellowship at the National Cancer Institute at NIH in Bethesda, Md. Also, she will be leading some river trips with the NIH White Water Rafting Club.

2 0 0 4 Matt Glazer has been appointed to the Democratic National Committee’s Youth Council. He has joined two friends from the University of Texas to start a new company, GNI Strategies, focused on new media and online organizing. Leslie Shaffer South is back in Knoxville after a year serving as a judi-

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cial clerk in Memphis. She was so happy that a number of her Sigma alumnae attended her wedding and that Laura Dissen ’04, and Alissa Hansen ’05 were bridesmaids.

Allison Wooley is currently teaching senior English and is the junior varsity girls’ basketball coach at Westlake High School in Austin.

2 0 0 5 Shaina Adams is a study abroad adviser at the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Philadelphia. Kelly Altman is the head soccer coach at Central Catholic High School in San Antonio and has been named the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools 5A Coach of the Year. He is also the assistant coach for the Trinity University men’s soccer program. Joe Brown has played baseball with the Quebec Capitales, the Winnipeg Goldeyes and a couple of other teams, and is now the Toros’ closer. He has taken a fulltime job, as auditor, with the Ham & Brezina accounting firm in Houston when he’s not pitching for the Toros. Mary Christensen received a juris doctor from Yale Law School and has joined the firm of Debevoise & Plimpton in New York. Pamela M. Deaver is moving to Boston and hopes to join the New England Alumni Chapter. Sara Metz has received a master of science in information science from The University of Texas at Austin. Katelyn Werner graduated with honors from the University of Richmond School of Law. She is a civil litigator in Denver.

2 0 0 2 Liz Bolduc Boswell and her husband have left Hawaii and are living in North Carolina.

Laura Cumming has moved to Las Vegas and has a teaching job. Chuck and Mary Falgout Divin are in Ann Arbor, Mich., where both are pursuing research at the University of Michigan. Lauren Johnson Eastburn received a master’s in school administration from the University of North Texas in May. Karen Booker Estrada was happy to have Devon McGlasson ’03 and Edith Hernandez ’03 at her wedding in New Brunswick, N.J., in June. Karen is teaching ninth and tenth grade English in Dumont, N.J. Dylan Harrison has been named head women’s soccer coach at Nicholls State College, Thibodaux, La. Valerie Moore is teaching fifth grade math at St. Peter’s School, just off Broadway in San Antonio. Benjamin Passty completed his doctoral degree in economics from Northwestern University and is living in Cincinnati, where he directs the Applied Economics Research Institute at University of Cincinnati.

2 0 0 6 Tim Jo continues to pursue his acting career.

He played the role of Omar in the feature film Bandslam and more recently finished work on a vampire action film playing the part of Jeff in Immortal. Ragan W. Updegraff has been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student scholarship to Turkey in international relations.

Bertram Roberts, a nephrologist, and his wife, a psychiatrist, own the South Texas Outpatient Program for Substance Abuse located near Loop 410 and Crossroads in San Antonio. They have also launched a not-for-profit group to educate people about substance abuse. He teaches in both the nephrology program at the University of Texas Health Science Center and the UT School of Public Health. His work was the subject of an article in the publication My SA. To stay busy while awaiting his security clearance to begin his job as an air traffic controller, Brendan Ross posted an ad on Craigslist asking that someone buy him a $599 pass to fly JetBlue for a month. Wired magazine took the offer and added $30 a day for airport food. (See story page 44).

2 0 0 7 Susan Marie Abernathy has received a master of science from the Graduate School of Louisiana State University, which marks two years of a five-year doctoral program in mathematics. Erin Mulvey received a master of science in sport and exercise psychology from Georgia Southern University in May and has accepted a position with Hilton Head Health, a leading weight loss and health resort.

2 0 0 8 Alicia Hunt has been named public relations coordinator at Benchmade Knife Co., in Oregon City, Ore. Cristina Miranda has been an associate producer on the FOX Emmy Award-winning Cristina’s Court, which won a second Emmy.

2 0 0 9

Alyssa Loy ’09, pictured with professor Sammye Johnson, right, won first place in the 2009 Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication Student Magazine contest. The competition was judged by consumer magazine editors and publishers. Loy’s article, written for readers of Women’s Health, was about hyperhidrosis (excess sweating of the hands and feet) and was praised as a “clear, thoughtful, inspiring, and engaging explanation of a sensitive topic that’s underreported.” Johnson teaches the only magazine writing class offered in Trinity’s communication department.

Emily Loeffler is on a two-year internship developing marketing and promotions strategies for all of Trinity’s 18 intercollegiate sports. The position is an NCAA Division III ethnic minority and women’s internship.

Emily was a Trinity All-American in women’s cross country and track and field. Kathryn Lookadoo and Bene Petty presented papers at the National Association for Journalism and Mass Communication convention in Boston. The papers were judged in the same pool as faculty and graduate student papers.

It was an outstanding accomplishment that these papers were accepted for presentation.

JANUARY 2010 55

C O M M E N T A R Y

GOING BACK AND GIVING BACK

Discovering New Ways to Stay Connected With Trinity

by David Holmes ’82

San Antonio native David Holmes shares thoughts about his serial involvement with Trinity and how the concept of “giving back” can have a different meaning for everyone.

Two years ago I found myself anticipating the Trinity Class of 1982’s 25-year reunion. It turned out to be a fun event and a great time to reflect on the last quarter century. It was hard to believe that it had been that long, but it was an important time to think about how I have changed, what Trinity has become, and how my relationship with my alma mater has evolved over the years.

As the event approached I spent a great deal of time remembering what life was like in 1982 and the things that are most memorable about my time at Trinity. We all remember the campus and the friends, but I was looking for something more. I realized then that my college experience had forever changed my outlook on things, and I was determined to identify why. I remember graduating with a different sense about who I was and what I wanted to do, so I set about to identify all the things that influenced me, good or bad.

There was one key theme that emerged as I thought about it and later as I reflected with my fellow alumni. One of the many things that made time at Trinity unique was the fact that a number of key undergraduate classes were taught by

56 Trinity

adjunct professors: those real life practitioners who mixed the classroom and the workplace in such a way that we were given a unique perspective on the business world, which was where I planned to spend my career. They were all the same. They worked by day and did their lecture notes and test prep in their spare time, and it usually showed.

Their classes were usually in the evenings, and they would always show up in their work clothes, looking worn and disheveled. But the best part was when they stepped back from a subject and told you how things really worked, the war stories, that rare view-behind-the-scenes look that naïve college students rarely see. The tales were always interesting and usually a bit embellished, but always memorable. It is a rare skill to bring a subject like corporate taxation or auditing to life, but time after time these people pulled it off, and it is one of my fondest memories of my time at Trinity.

It was those memories that were my call to action years after I graduated. I found myself in a much-planned career transition that followed living my own set of war stories in the corporate world. I was given the great gift of being able to think about how I really wanted to spend my creative energy, without having the burden of making money as my chief concern.

So I set about to try my hand at teaching, and a few months later I found myself as that adjunct professor in front of a graduate level finance class telling those tales to a group of wide-eyed seniors. Turns out, it is significantly more difficult than it looked. Trinity students are a lot smarter than I remembered and the world is more complicated than it was in 1982. But it is by far the most rewarding thing I have ever done.

EDITOR’S NOTE:

David Holmes is a CPA who spent 21 years at USAA where he was a senior vice president and treasurer of their mutual fund company and CFO of three of their divisions. He taught one evening class during three recent semesters. He is currently working on another project but hopes to return to the evening class in 2010.

Alumni are invited to submit articles for consideration for Commentary. Articles may be on any topic, and should not exceed 850 words. Photos may be included if space permits.

Send submissions to mdenny@trinity.edu or Mary Denny, Editor, Trinity University, Office of University Communications, One Trinity Place, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200.

[ déjà view ] Trinity’s Forgotten Traditions: Founders Day Like fashions, some traditions have only a fleeting existence. Others, such as commencement ceremonies and presidential inaugurations, exhibit exceptional staying power. Still others, prominent for many years, quietly disappear from the scene. One of the latter traditions, the annual celebration of Founders Day, April 20, 1869, the date on which the Texas legislature approved Trinity’s charter, combined historical reflections and fun-filled activities.

The genesis of Founders Day dates back to 1929, the first time the event appeared in the University calendar. In that year, Trinity celebrated its 60th anniversary in conjunction with a million dollar endowment campaign.

Trinity faculty voted to suspend classes to accommodate what Waxahachie newspapers termed a “mammoth day-long celebration.”

Events for the April festivities included a morning chapel service emphasizing Trinity’s educational heritage, a broadcast by Dallas radio station WRR of a speech by President Burma and music by the Trinity Male Quartet, afternoon intramural track and field day events, and an evening banquet for students, faculty, and alumni. The format of chapel service, field day events, and evening banquet continued to be followed during most of the remaining years in Waxahachie. On several occasions, Trinity students and faculty made an all-school trek to Tehuacana, the original campus, for anniversary commemorations, and once a presidential inauguration (1937) was held on Founders Day. The Founders Day tradition carried over to San Antonio in 1942 when Trinity moved to the Woodlawn campus. Initially the usual elaborate celebrations were limited to a barbeque dinner during wartime “for patriotic reasons,” but after hostilities ceased Founders TOP: One of the last Founders Day events occurred during Trinity’s centennial celebration in 1968-1969. CENTER GROUP: 1950s-era

Founders Day events included beard growing and ugly man contests and a country-western dance.

Day regained its former prominence.

During the 1950s, distinguished Trinity graduates were invited to speak at the Wednesday morning chapel service. Later in the day, student council candidates made their initial campaign speeches and cheerleader candidates tried out for positions before the student body. Other new flourishes included carnival booths, a beard growing competition for men based on “thickness, length, color, design, and over-all appearance,” and a contest in which women vied for the bestdressed “Gal in Calico” designation at a country-western dance. In the 1960s, however, enthusiasm for Founders Day began to wane.

It was no longer included in the list of Trinity traditions in the Student Handbook and the University Catalogue now referred only to Founders Day Chapel. Growing interest in civic celebrations such as San Jacinto Day and Fiesta Week added to an already crowded spring social calendar. Moreover, students of the 1960s and 1970s displayed little zeal for traditional observances, and Trinity faculty were not inclined to support celebrations that interrupted class routines.

In 1968, however, Founders Day had its final moment of high visibility. Trinity began a year-long centennial celebration marking Trinity’s first 100 years as an institution of higher education. At ceremonies held on the lawn outside of Northrup Hall, new Student Council members were sworn in and Trinity R.O.T.C. students raised the Centennial Flag accompanied by a rifle salute. President James W. Laurie and student council president Art Sundstrom delivered major addresses. The ceremony concluded with a release of 1,000 helium-filled balloons and an all-school-picnic on the lawn.

Subsequent efforts to extend the tradition’s longevity by combining it with Honors Day or Parents Weekend were unsuccessful. After 1975 Founders Day had no place in the University calendar and gradually faded from Trinity’s institutional consciousness.

R. Douglas Brackenridge Professor emeritus, Department of Religion

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PERVEZ MUSHARRAF | Former President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf delivered the first 2009-2010 Trinity University Distinguished Lecture to a packed auditorium on September 17, 2009.

The dispute in Palestine has been festering for six decades. 9/11 occurred perhaps because of the Palestinian dispute, and the presence of Al-Qaida may also have resulted from the Palestinian dispute.

In the past three decades we have seen

genocide in Kosovo, upheaval in Chechnya, and the blunder in Iraq. This is all happening in the Muslim world. This is the root cause of radicalism and extremism in the Muslim world. This leads to interfaith disharmony. that Islam is extremism. This is false.

There is a perception

With what has happened in Kashmir and

Afghanistan, Pakistan’s social fabric was torn apart. Pakistan is a victim of circumstance over the past 30 years, not a perpetrator.

Al-Qaida are products of anger

and despair within their own society. Taliban are the products of poverty and illiteracy.

The Taliban are [composed of] all different groups. There is no central

command. They are in the minority. Out of 170 million people in Pakistan, Taliban are only 0.3 percent.

Regarding the economic inequities in the world, there is a

two-fold problem: [inequity] within and between states. If these are not addressed equally, the islands of prosperity will be drowned in an ocean of poverty.

UPCOMING LECTURES

Trinity University Distinguished Lecture

will be delivered by:

The Flora Cameron Lecture on Politics and Public Affairs

will be delivered by: All lectures will begin at 7:30 pm in Laurie Auditorium. insert FSC logo here

Thomas Freidman author and columnist, THE NEW YORK TIMES Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Condoleeza Rice former United States Secretary of State Wednesday, April 7, 2010

The Trinity University Distinguished Lectures are made possible by Mr. and Mrs. Walter F. Brown of San Antonio.

The Flora Cameron Lecture in Politics and Public Affairs is made possible by Mrs. Flora Crichton of San Antonio.

For a complete list of lectures and other events, please visit www.trinity.edu.