62 minute read
An Oxford Education
An Oxford Education
The birthplace of public higher education in America meets the world’s oldest English-speaking university.
written by aaron hale ma ’16 photographs by dorothy kozlowski bla ’06, abj ’10
Even for the jetlagged, the first look at city centre in Oxford, England, is an eye-opening and jaw-dropping experience.
As you stroll block by block, architecture spanning Saxon, Gothic, Neoclassical, and Victorian periods rises overhead. Chapels, towers, libraries, and halls built for the oldest of the University of Oxford’s 39 colleges compete for grandeur. The resulting cityscape inspired the Victorian poet Matthew Arnold to call Oxford the city of “dreaming spires.” With a mixture of awe and exhaustion, 17 newly arrived University of Georgia students tour these streets on a balmy June afternoon. They haven’t yet recovered from their eight-hour overnight flight from Atlanta. But their lively tour guide, Oxford townie Debbie Gerrans, is determined to hold their attention. She manages admirably, taking them on an hour’s jaunt to get familiar with their home for the coming weeks. The sites and stories she weaves certainly help. She shows them where J.R.R. Tolkien boarded as a student, C.S. Lewis went for a pint, and filmmakers shot parts of the Harry Potter series.
As the tour draws to a close, Gerrans offers a piece of advice. Noting all the skyward craftsmanship and artwork on building exteriors and vaulted dome interiors, which relentlessly surprise and delight, she tells them, “Don’t forget to look up.”
It’s good advice for any visitor to Oxford but perhaps especially for UGA students, who will spend much of their time with their heads down. With courses taught by a mixture of UGA and Oxford faculty, the academic workload here pushes even the most capable students. Those who embrace the challenge return stateside sharper and more confident.
Katie Beard, a UGA history and international affairs major, walks to her tutorial at Christ Church College with Rowena E. Archer, a medieval historian at Oxford University. Beard came to Oxford with a fascination for British history. She came away with skills from tutorial sessions sure to serve her for years. “It’s definitely made me more comfortable with public speaking and thinking on the fly,” she says.
a personalized way to learn
Beneath the blank stare of an armored helmet, Katie Beard, a history and international studies major, finds a cushioned armchair in a charmingly cluttered office. Books and medieval artifacts abound. Beside her, a sheathed knightly sword leans near an electric kettle. A window overlooks the vast Tom Quad at Christ Church College, founded by Henry VIII just before his death nearly 500 years ago. Beard, however, is focused on another time and another place.
A silver-haired medieval historian, Rowena E. Archer, takes a seat next to Beard for their tutorial to begin. It’s time for Beard to show what she knows.
Though UGA at Oxford offers several shorter summer programs, its signature offerings are 12-week semester-long programs in which students take one-on-one tutorial courses with Oxford faculty.
Tutorials are a style of instruction unique to Oxford and its sister university, Cambridge. They consist of weekly meetings with an esteemed faculty member and usually only one or two students. Students, not tutors, do all of the preparation. They show up ready to read aloud a 2,000word essay or deliver an in-depth presentation based on assigned readings.
In this tutorial, Beard reads her essay about the medieval poet Christine de Pizan, known as the only professional woman writer of her time. And for the rest of the class, her tutor probes Beard’s ideas and arguments.
At this point late in the semester, Beard is ready to defend her positions and articulate what she’s learned. And when she doesn’t know an answer to a question, Beard doesn’t improvise or offer an excuse; she asks for the answer or where she can find it for herself.
Tutorials are universally intimidating for students, at least until they get the hang of them. Students prepare every class to be put on the spot and must be ready for any mistakes to be pointed out. No excuses. No weeks off, or the tutors will know.
“They tend to be kind of brutally honest as a style of teaching to make sure you’re able to defend anything you say, and you don’t make any baseless claims,” says Nicholas Kreitz, a student in the 2022 spring semester program.
That’s enough motivation for students to work arduously and efficiently to make the most of the opportunity.
the story of uga at oxford
Over the years, Oxford has hosted thousands of Georgia students. It all started with one UGA English professor in the 1980s.
Judy Shaw was a mid-career academic when she began to rethink how students could connect with literature. She reached out to the University of Oxford, which agreed to let Shaw bring 13 students over in the summer of 1989.
That summer program turned into a semester-long program as students began attending courses at the same time as Oxford students. Over the years, Shaw built an invaluable partnership with David Bradshaw, a fellow at Oxford’s Worcester College. Bradshaw recruited other Oxford faculty to the program to expand the range of disciplines available for study.
Eventually, the program opened to students of all UGA’s schools and colleges. University of Georgia students garnered a reputation among Oxford faculty for their enthusiasm and hard work. Shaw went on to become UGA’s associate provost for international education before retiring in 2009. Her legacy remains in Oxford.
To this day, the University of Georgia provides a rare opportunity for students to engage with this prestigious university. While many other institutions bring their students to Oxford, UGA is one of only three American institutions—and the only public— to provide Oxford faculty-led tutorials. Stanford University and Williams College are the other two.
These days, Jamie McClung MA ’01, PhD ’09 (below) runs the program. With dark eyebrows and a clean-shaven head, McClung has become a recognizable face around Oxford over the years. Whether he’s walking into a dining hall or down a street in the city centre, it’s likely that someone will recognize the mellow, gregarious Yank and strike up a conversation.
McClung first visited Oxford as an English literature grad student at UGA and fell in love. After completing his doctorate, McClung embarked on the traditional academic career path to become a professor when the program started looking for an associate director.
“I thought, ‘Heck, the job market is tough in English literature, and maybe I can have a bigger effect on an institution beyond teaching classes by helping develop programs,’” McClung says.
McClung does that and more. He’s a student recruiter, travel agent, relationship builder, tour guide, and fixer when issues inevitably arise.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, McClung ensured students made it home safely.
And then things went silent.
The UGA at Oxford Centre sat nearly empty for almost a year and a half. Each semester, McClung and the program staff in Athens would prepare for possible participants, but a spike in cases or the introduction of a new variant kept the program closed.
Finally in fall 2021, the program welcomed students again.
“It was really nice to have them back,” says McClung, who was so busy making contingency plans that he never stopped to consider how quiet the UGA Centre in Oxford had become. “It really hit all of us when we finally had a group of students back over again.”
Jamie McClung, above, with UGA students at the Convocation House in Oxford University’s Divinity School.
UGA students enjoy a Saturday brunch at the Keble Hall, surrounded by portraits of Keble College alumni.
live, work, play
As COVID protocols receded, students gained greater access to all Oxford offers, including its stunning study spaces.
When it’s time to research, read, and write, students can take their pick of favored spots to work.
Historic or modern, ornate or sterile, dead silent or chatty with the occasional screech of a café milk steamer, the University of Oxford offers more than 100 libraries to find materials and get work done. There’s even a website that points scholars to their ideal atmosphere and amenities.
For spectacular ambiance, there’s the Bodleian Old Library, one of Europe’s earliest, or the Radcliffe Camera, a stunning circular-domed building with plenty of windows to let in natural light. Both libraries enforce a strict policy of silence.
Katie Beard usually skips the beauty and heads down to the Gladstone Link, a tunnel connecting the Bodleian and Radcliffe Camera and houses history texts. Nicknamed “the Glink,” it’s basically a bunker for history buffs.
For a more relaxed setting, students have the UGA at Oxford Centre, where most also live during their stay. The 19th-century Victorian mansion has its own library, seminar room, computer facilities, living areas,
and a lush garden, perfect for reading or writing on temperate days. The UGA Foundation purchased the house, which accommodates up to 42 students, in 2006. The facility makes UGA one of only a handful of American universities with a permanent presence in Oxford, and the only public that runs year-round programming through it.
When students are hungry, the house has two kitchens, but students also have access to the dining halls at Keble College or Trinity College. The food is good, though it doesn’t hold a candle to UGA’s dining halls. However, Keble Hall’s atmosphere is impressive in its own right, with long lamp-lit tables, raised ceilings, stained glass windows, and paintings of distinguished alumni.
Dining out is always an option too. Contrary to the stereotype, England has plenty to offer foodies beyond fish and chips and savory pies (although those are pretty good here too). Whether it’s traditional pub food at the White Horse Tavern, red curry at Chiang Mai Kitchen Thai restaurant, or some other variety of international cuisine, it’s easy to find a good meal around town.
And even with a hefty workload, students still make time to take in their surroundings and explore. The program offers a variety of excursions, from seeing a play in London’s West End to exploring Roman ruins and Jane Austen attractions in Bath or taking in incredible views at the Jurassic Coast. Some students even use a weekend here and there to catch a train to Paris or a flight to Barcelona, Prague, or Rome.
Junemester 2022 students pose in front of London’s Big Ben. UGA students go “punting” on a river. Instead of oars, the punter propels the boat by pushing off the shallow river bottom with a pole. It’s a lot harder than it looks.
An Oxford Primer
Teaching in Oxford dates back to the 11th century, making it the oldest English-speaking university in the world. Some of its graduates and faculty (Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas More, William Penn, and Adam Smith) left their mark on Western civilization. Some of the greatest English-language writers (John Donne, Jonathan Swift, Lewis Carroll, and J.R.R. Tolkien, to name a few) have studied and found inspiration here. The university also claims 55 Nobel Prize winners.
The University of Oxford has 39 colleges. Unlike the typical American university, these colleges don’t necessarily center around disciplines or subject matter (think Terry College of Business or the College of Pharmacy). Instead, they’re some combination of dormitory, Greek organization, and Hogwart’s house. Each college has a campus with a quad, a dining hall, a chapel, classroom space, and a library.
Oxford students apply for colleges based on academic honors, city location, dining hall quality, or social reputation. Magdalene (pronounced ‘Maudlen’) College is known for being “posh.” Merton College has a reputation for serious students. Typically ranked as one of the best academically, it’s often called the college “where fun goes to die.” Keble College has a reputation for inclusiveness and friendliness, and it has an outstanding rugby team.
UGA has close ties with Trinity College and Keble College.
breadth of program
The UGA at Oxford program is popular with English, history, and religion majors, who can study in a place where so much of their subject matter originated. But the program also welcomes students studying psychology, business, Spanish, biology, computer science, and more.
Semester program students learn in the tutorial format after a few weeks of getting to know Oxford and preparing for what’s coming. Every course, from medieval history and Romantic literature to math and cognitive science, requires students to go beyond surface familiarity with the material. They must put it in their own words, express their own opinions about it, and defend their stances. That’s tough if you’re learning for the first time about, let’s say, complex neurodegenerative brain diseases.
For some students, it’s an opportunity to think about their subject matter in a new light.
Nicholas Kreitz, a fourth-year data science major, has been acquiring the necessary skills at UGA to be successful in his field. In addition to his coursework, he’s interned with startups and companies through UGA’s Innovation District. He’s thinking about starting his own company someday.
In Oxford, Kreitz got a chance to step back and think about the bigger picture of his chosen field when he took a tutorial on computing ethics. The course explored technology’s impacts on society and developers’ responsibilities to avoid the worst of them.
“I would basically have an hour-long philosophical discussion,” Kreitz says. “And it was very difficult at first because, in data science, I’m very math based.”
Tutorials challenged him to exercise a different part of his brain, which complemented his UGA coursework. “I think studying abroad impacted my relationship with my studies, how I approach classes in general, like taking a lot more ownership.”
That mindset makes him more confident in becoming an entrepreneur.
“I think what’s special about the Oxford program is that it truly is a difficult program. And in the term ‘study abroad,’ they really put the emphasis on ‘studying’ abroad. But it’s really rewarding too; I feel this sense of honor to be able to study at the University of Oxford.” —nicholas kreitz
One of the most sought after study areas in Oxford is the Radcliffe Camera, an iconic library built in the 1700s.
Nicholas Kreitz (right), a UGA data science major, strolls Queen’s Lane near All Souls College with Trudi Sundberg (left) and Isabella Wilson.
finding inspiration
For Eliza White (below), tutorials, and the whole Oxford experience, were just the kind of learning experience she needed.
Before her study abroad experience, White, a cognitive science and psychology major, was in a rut.
The pandemic hit near the end of her first year of college, while she was finishing some of her early requirements in large seminar classes. As she dealt with online courses and increased social isolation, White found it more and more challenging to connect with the material, her classmates, and even faculty. She knew she needed something to jumpstart her passion for science.
White is bright and charming, but she can be hard on herself and sometimes struggles to communicate what she knows.
“I knew I was a horrible writer,” she says. “And the content you produce (in tutorials) has to be clear.”
At Oxford, White put herself on the spot. She had to produce. She had to work through issues she perceived as weaknesses.
“There’s no place to hide when your tutorial is one-on-one,” she says. “That’s what I wanted. I needed individual attention.”
The experience was never easy. At times, she says, she struggled to keep up with the rigorous demands of her Oxford coursework. But her tutors adjusted just enough for her to catch up.
White dove into other opportunities too.
To meet Oxford students, she signed up for a couple of clubs: including a caving club that sent her spelunking in caves around England. White was putting herself in tight spots, daring herself to move forward.
She pushed herself well beyond her comfort zone, and she doesn’t regret a thing.
“It’s probably going to help me for the rest of my life,” she says. “And I think I probably will venture out to other places because this was very eye opening about what the world has to offer and how much I was missing out.” GM
A Year of Programs
The UGA at Oxford Centre (shown below) runs year-round and is open to every major.
• The 12-week semester programs offered in the fall and spring give students the complete Oxford experience. In the first four weeks, students take two seminars with
UGA and Oxford faculty and then two eight-week tutorials with
Oxford faculty. • The Oxford and Cortona partnership allows students to get a taste of England and UGA’s campus in Italy. • UGA’s first-year Foundation
Fellows get to enjoy Maymester in Oxford. • The shortest program is a twoand-a-half week Junemester program, where students take courses and explore England with
UGA and Oxford faculty. • A six-week summer program for students is offered through the Franklin College of Arts and
Sciences, the Grady College of Journalism and Mass
Communication, and the
Terry College of Business.
All programs feature UGA course credit and UGA tuition, meaning Zell Miller, HOPE, and other scholarships still apply to help offset costs.
Commit to providing world-class study abroad opportunities for students in England through scholarship support at OXFORD.UGA.EDU/FUNDING
house warming
written by ireland hayes
chamberlain smith chamberlain smith chamberlain smith
harold alonza black mary blackwell diallo kerry rushin miller
UGA Dedicates New Residence Hall Honoring the University’s First Black Freshmen
Black-Diallo-Miller Hall is the first new residence hall to open at UGA since 2013. Construction of the six-story building began in December 2020, and features large windows, an exterior courtyard, and modern study and lounge areas.
peter frey peter frey
Aweek before the excitement of freshman move-in at the University of Georgia, a ceremony was held to dedicate the newest addition to the university’s on-campus housing and celebrate the groundbreaking alumni behind it.
The newly constructed Black-Diallo-Miller Hall is named for Harold Alonza Black BBA ’66, Mary Blackwell Diallo AB ’66, MA ’73, and Kerry Rushin Miller BS ’66, who were the first African American students to enroll as freshmen and complete their undergraduate degrees at the University of Georgia.
All three honorees, as well as many friends and family members, attended the dedication and ribbon cutting ceremony on Aug. 5. President Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 and other senior administrators were there to welcome them.
Each honoree made history with their attendance, with Black as the first African American male graduate of the Terry College of Business, Diallo as the first African American student from Athens to enroll at the university, and Miller as the first African American to earn a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from UGA. Each honoree thanked their families and friends for supporting them throughout their academic journey and beyond.
Located on Baxter Street, the hall houses 525 first-year students and resident assistants in double-occupancy rooms. The first class of students moved in this August, which also marked the 60th anniversary of the year Black, Diallo, and Miller enrolled as freshmen.
“It’s going to be almost 60 years to the day that I walked into Reed Hall as a freshman that freshmen will enter this building. I can guarantee you one thing: The atmosphere will be a lot warmer, a lot more welcoming than it was 60 years ago,” Black said during the event. “It was an interesting time, an interesting experience, and I want to thank everyone past and present who helped make that possible.”
chamberlain smith
The lobby features three portraits of the alumni painted by artist Richard Wilson, which serve as reminders of their important place in UGA history. The alumni and their families saw their portraits for the first time at the Aug. 5 dedication
Don’t Miss Out!
GAME-WATCHING PARTIES
Join 80+ alumni chapters around the world as they host weekly game-watching parties for local alumni, friends, and fans.
alumni.uga.edu/gamewatching
BEAT WEEK VS. AUBURN
October 3-8 The rules are simple: The university with the most gifts raised during the week leading up to the game wins. See if we topped Auburn for the third year in a row. auvuga.com See these events & more @ alumni.uga.edu/calendar
BLACK ALUMNI HOMECOMING TAILGATE
October 15 Join the UGA Black Alumni affinity group for its annual homecoming tailgate on Myers Quad. alumni.uga.edu/football
HERITAGE SOCIETY TAILGATE
November 5 | UGA Campus Heritage Society members are invited to an invite-only tailgate ahead of the Tennessee football game as a thank you for supporting the university through a planned gift. Interested in establishing your own legacy at UGA? Visit give.uga.edu/legacy.
COOKIES & COCOA WITH HAIRY DAWG
Nov. 13 | Atlanta Women of UGA will host Bulldog families for a holiday gathering with Hairy Dawg and other UGA special guests.
alumni.uga.edu/calendar
40 Bulldogs Leading the Pack
They’re change-makers, culture-shapers, and pioneers. They’re caring and committed. And they’re Georgia Bulldogs. We’re talking about UGA’s 40 Under 40 Class of 2022. Check out who made this year’s list on pages 10-11 or online at alumni.
uga.edu/40u40.
Chapter Spotlight
MILWAUKEE ALUMNI CHAPTER
All Wisconsin residents are invited to participate in Milwaukee Alumni Chapter events. Chapter President:
Takiyah Ball BS ’99, BS ’01, MS ’06 Number of Alumni in the Area: 572 Despite the Milwaukee Chapter being just four years old, it’s hosting numerous events and programs that are building a strong local Bulldog community in the area. Events such as trivia with other alumni organizations in town, Humane Society drives, wine-tasting events, park clean-ups, and game-watching parties are connecting Bulldgs who are eager for a taste of Athens in Wisconsin. Find your chapter @ alumni.uga.edu/chapters
In May, UGA raised funds for initiatives on campus that are dedicated to animal and pet well-being, such as Vets for Pets and People. The campaign included a social media search for UGA’s most spirited pets— and not just the four-legged kind. Following the UGA community’s vote, Henrietta, a barred Wyandotte hen owned by UGA’s own poultry farms came out on top. Henrietta has a keen eye for picking the winning team during football season, enjoys foraging for crawling treats year-round, and waits by the door each morning in hopes of a treat. This is one plucky Bulldog fan!
Bulldogs Never Bark Alone!
This football season, whether we’re vexing the Volunteers, terrifying the Tigers, or whipping the Wildcats, Bulldogs Never Bark Alone! Check out your local alumni chapter’s gamewatching parties for the most spirited gameday experience outside of Sanford Stadium.
alumni.uga.edu/gamewatching
New UGA Alumni Board Members
The following alumni joined the UGA Alumni Board of Directors July 1. Please join us in thanking them for their service.
Alumni Board of Directors
Rodney L. Brooks MS ’03, Leesburg, GA
Danelle Faust BBA ’95, Deerfield, IL
Eddie Garrett BSA ’06, MBA ’08, Chicago, IL
Selby Hill ABJ ’14, Atlanta, GA
Chuck Kinnebrew BSEd ’75, Smyrna, GA Christy Plott BBA ’02, Griffin, GA Ameet Shetty BBA ’96, Knoxville, TN Brian Stone BSFR ’99, MFR ’01, Macon, GA Scott Williams AB ’86, Ellenwood, GA
Each affinity group leadership council also added new members. See the full list of those alumni volunteers at alumni.uga. edu/2022volunteers.
Stay Connected!
YEAR-ROUND, WORLDWIDE, AND LIFELONG.
Check out what's going on for alumni and update your email or mailing address with UGA.
class notes
Compiled by Ireland Hayes, Rachel Cooper, and Kendal Cano BSFCS ’22
ALUMNI PROFILE
It’s Showtime
Like a skilled big man making moves in the post, Solomon Hughes’ career has been all about a well-timed pivot.
Hughes PhD ’13 has gone from playing collegiate hoops at the University of California, Berkeley, to pro-baller and member of the Harlem Globetrotters to earning a doctorate and working in academia at Stanford and Duke before scoring the acting role of a lifetime in the Emmy-nominated HBO series Winning Time.
The series, which premiered in the spring, dramatizes the story of the Showtime-era Los Angeles Lakers. In his acting debut, Hughes portrays the iconic Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (foreground), one of basketball’s all-time greats whose activism on racial equality and social justice issues helped earn him a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The 6-foot-11 Hughes nails Abdul-Jabbar’s look (especially with the goggles on), but then he fleshes out the character with intelligence, melancholy, tenderness, and natural charisma.
To play the hoops legend convincingly, Hughes had to shake off some basketball cobwebs—he’d been away from the game for a decade—and start working on his skyhook. And in addition to building up his acting skills, Hughes says intellectual curiosity and doctorallevel research skills, which he honed at UGA’s Louise McBee Institute for Higher Education, helped him get into the character.
You could say that Hughes’ whole career had been building up to such a moment.
While serving as a captain on the California Golden Bears basketball team and leading the Pac-10 in field-goal percentage in 2001 (62.9%), Hughes earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology and then a master’s in education. He played professionally in the United States
1960-1964 Ed Nichols ABJ ’62 published We’ll Talk Some More: A Collection of Southern Short Stories in March. June Johnson BSHE ’63 has returned to Athens and taken the position of house director at the Zeta Tau Alpha Sorority. 1965-1969 Jerry Swain Jr. BSEd ’68 is the space mission training facility manager for NASA in Houston.
1970-1974 David Crippen BS ’71 is a professor emeritus in the Departments of Neurocritical Care and Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Cliff McCurry BBA ’71, an emeritus trustee of the UGA Foundation and Terry College of Business, is the director of community development for Sterling Seacrest Pritchard and received the 2022 Legacy Leadership Award at the inaugural Southeast Leadership Forum held in Savannah. William Self BBA ’71, JD ’74 received the Judge William W. Treat Award of Excellence from the National College of Probate Judges in November. He retired in May but will continue to serve as a senior judge of the probate courts of Georgia and as a registered probate mediator.
warrick page/hbo
Baseball League and American Basketball Association and in Mexico before suiting up as a Harlem Globetrotter. But when Hughes became disillusioned with basketball, he returned to academia. “I was really interested in looking at higher education and what goes on behind the scenes regarding policies around athletics and higher education,” he says.
He talked with faculty members at Stanford, who steered him toward UGA.
“With Georgia, you’re talking about an institution that has historically been one of the premier places for exceptional athletics,” he says. “And then the Institute of Higher Education’s reputation in terms of how much they’re publishing and how influential their work has been in studying higher ed—all of those things factored in.”
Once in Athens, Hughes dove into the work. James C. Hearn, associate director of the institute and Hughes’ major professor, describes him as a “thoughtful, creative, and insightful” student.
“When he said something, people tended to pay attention,” Hearn says.
Hughes focused his research on how college athletes chose their schools. Hughes also worked directly with students as an academic counselor at UGA’s Rankin M. Smith Sr. Student-Athlete Academic Center. He came away feeling that UGA’s athletics administrators had “legitimate care and concern” for student-athletes.
“I got an inside look at how you support the student-athlete experience, really from the ground floor,” Hughes says. “While on the Solomon Hughes PhD ’13
other side of campus at the institute, I was considering it from a policy level.”
While finishing his dissertation, Hughes went to work at Stanford in administrative and teaching roles. And then an intriguing opportunity popped up: a casting call looking for someone to play Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a TV pilot.
Hughes never had formal acting training or even starred in a high school theater production, but as a child raised in Southern California, acting was always intriguing.
Plus, Hughes grew up watching the Magic and Kareem-era Lakers. His father was an admirer of Abdul-Jabbar’s game and activism, and Abdul-Jabbar’s autobiography Giant Steps was one of the first books Hughes read.
He was excited just to get an audition, and then he got the role. Working on the set of Winning Time, alongside Academy Award-winning actors (like Adrien Brody and Sally Field) and crew, was a transcendent experience for the rookie actor.
“I will always be astonished at how welcoming everybody in the cast and the crew was,” he says.
Over the summer, HBO announced it would pick up the series for another season, and Hughes says he’s “all-in” on the acting career now. But he sees this new profession as a natural continuation of his career.
“I feel like this is a form of education to have the opportunity to be part of telling stories,” he says. “It’s a classroom outside the traditional setting.”
written by aaron hale MA ’16
1975-1979 Marc Bruce AB ’75, JD ’78 is opening the law firm of Bruce, Mathews & Lavoie, with Matt Mathews and Andrew Lavoie in Statesboro. Debbie Day AB ’75 is the CEO of Special Needs Cobb and the 2021 Jack Vaughan Jr. Human Services Award Recipient for Excellence in Leadership. Richard Harris BSEd ’75 and twin brother Ronald Harris BSEd ’75 were coaches on America’s Next Top Model as the Aswirl Twins. Richard is a member of the Emmaus House Advisory Board and the project facilitator and performing arts program director at the Barack and Michelle Obama Academy in Atlanta. Judy Fales ABJ ’76 retired from her position as the director of Burrage Library at Olivet College in Olivet, MI, in May. Rick Cameron ABJ ’77 was appointed senior associate athletic director for communications at Mercer University in May. Jeff Lewis AB ’78, JD ’82 was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp BSA ’87 to serve on the Georgia Film, Music, and Digital Entertainment Commission in February. Reece Ritter BBA ’79, MA ’81 retired from Cox Communications where she finished a 38-year career in marketing research and now volunteers with nonprofits.
1980-1984 Constance Brossa ABJ ’83 was reelected to the board of directors of ACES: The Society for Editing. Chris Gnann BBA ’84 was appointed vice president, sales and marketing for Climax Molybdenum Company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Freeport-McMoRan in Phoenix, in March.
1985-1989 Kim AsKew BMus ’88 has been an educator for 34 years. Linda Hurtado Bond ABJ ’89 released her fourth novel, the thriller All the Broken Girls, in August.
1990-1994 Patrick Ballard BSFCS ’91 is the co-founder and CEO of Apex OmniSource in Athens. Jennifer Phinney BSEd ’91 is the dual enrollment program specialist for the Georgia Department of Education. Arlene Feddo BSA ’93, MA ’05 is the philanthropy training and coaching lead for the global office of The Nature Conservancy in Arlington, VA. Jennifer Prins ABJ ’94 was named to Cambria’s 2021
A Higher Calling
Verda Colvin JD ’90
peter frey
Becoming a justice on the Supreme Court of Georgia wasn’t part of the plan for Verda Colvin.
She was a defense attorney, a representative for the people.
“I thought I would never work for ‘The Man’ because I wanted to be on the side of ensuring rights were secured and justice was done,” says Colvin JD ’90. “But when I accepted the offer from my [UGA] mock trial coach, Ken Mauldin JD ’80, to work with him in the solicitor’s office, I found out that I could do so much more as a prosecutor than I ever could as a defense attorney.
“I had the chance at the beginning of the process to ensure that things were fair, that people were treated with respect, and that while there were consequences for actions, people could move on with their lives.”
Prosecution was where she was meant to be, Colvin thought. She worked her way up from assistant solicitor in the Athens-Clarke County Solicitor’s Office to Assistant United States Attorney in the Middle District of Georgia. And that’s where she thought she’d stay until she retired.
“I had it all mapped out, but in walked Michael Moore,” Colvin recalls. Moore was the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District at the time, and he wanted to nominate her for Superior Court. She had previously been asked to consider the upcoming opening by her supervisor, Sharon Ratley.
Colvin thought about saying no. She was at the top of her game, toward the latter part of her career with one kid about to go to college and another in Catholic school. Superior judges are elected, and if she took this on, she’d leave the job security of her prosecution days behind.
“I thought about something that I told my Sunday School kids. I told them faith and fear can’t reside at the same place, at the same time, at the same level. You’ve always got to choose one,” she says.
Colvin accepted the nomination, becoming the first Black woman to serve on the Macon Judicial Circuit Superior Court.
About a year after taking the bench in 2015, Colvin was approached by Capt. Ellis Sinclair of the Bibb County Sherriff’s Office about a new program he was starting for at-risk youth. Consider the Consequences shows young people how their poor choices could lead to jail or even death.
Colvin signed on, ready to help young people she feared were “being discarded.”
“Adults have become so intertwined with their desires, their wants, and the secular things of the world that I don’t think a lot of times kids are getting all they need, primarily love—that no matter who you are, what you’ve done, I love you. So I would tell the kids that.
“I said, ‘I don’t have to know you intimately or personally. You don’t have to be mine biologically for me to love you because you’re a part of me. When you all don’t succeed, I don’t succeed, and I feel like I failed. I don’t want to fail.”
That commitment to young people and making a difference in the lives of others led Colvin down the path that culminated in Gov. Brian Kemp BSA ’86 appointing her to the Supreme Court of Georgia in July 2021.
The significance of being a Black woman on the state’s highest court is not lost on her.
“Having me on this court shows children who don’t look like the majority that they have value, that they matter, that what they say can count, and that they have the intellect and ability to serve at our highest level,” Colvin says. “That’s why I think my service is important. It is not about me. It’s about what it can do to inspire, to encourage, and to help us think more broadly.”
President’s Circle. Chris Youmans ABJ ’94 released two songs, Time Waits for No Plan and At Rest, in April.
1995-1999 Jody Smith BS ’96, PharmD ’03 was named the director of pharmacy at Floyd Medical Center in Rome. Daul Shin BBA ’97 is the director of the artificial intelligence data strategy team at the National Information Society Agency in the Republic of Korea. Tasha Allen BBA ’99 was named Georgia Chamber of Commerce vice president of talent management and diversity in November 2021. Joy Mullane AB ’99 is a healthcare policy analyst at the Defense Health Agency and graduated with a master’s in health care innovation from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in May.
2000-2004 William Ward BSFCS ’00 is the vice president and general manager in charge of sales and marketing at Madison Chemical Company. Kyle Hitchcock BSEd ’01 began a new educational award for seniors in Baldwin County who have scored higher than their peers on the ACT test. The award is locally funded from businesses and families in the community. Kimbrell Smith AB ’03 is the head of school at Atlanta Girls’ School. Sheridan Watson ABJ ’01 was named deputy public information officer for the Supreme Court of the United States in May. Sarah Boehnlein BSFCS ’04 is a real estate agent with HomeSmart CSRA in Grovetown.
2005-2009 Taylor Dibbert AB ’05 was elected to the board of the Takoma Foundation in Takoma Park, MD. Andrew Lavoie AB ’06, AB ’06, JD ’09 is opening the law firm of Bruce, Mathews & Lavoie, with Marc Bruce and Matt Mathews in Statesboro. Josh Stancil AB ’07 is the vice president of marketing for Logical Design Solutions based in New Jersey. Adair Vilella ABJ ’07 is an account manager at Software Guidance & Assistance in Atlanta. Herb Cranford AB ’08 is the district attorney of the Coweta Judicial Circuit, the treasurer of the District Attorney’s Association of Georgia, state representative to the National District Attorney’s Association, and in 2020, was appointed by the Georgia Supreme Court to serve on the State Bar of Georgia’s Disciplinary Board.
2010-2014 Matthew Lewis BS ’10 and his wife Kassidy Lewis BS ’12 practice dentistry and own Smile Blue Ridge in Blue Ridge. Allison Shepard AB ’10 is an art teacher at North Atlanta High School. Sarah Ward BSHP ’10 published her first children’s book, Our NICU Journey, through her family-owned publishing company
Horse Sense
Dan Pride AB ’91
tim webb
Horses have taken Dan Pride to some interesting places where he has met some interesting people. Sure, he started his career at the very bottom— shoveling stables. But now he works for the ruler of Dubai and had even met the late Queen Elizabeth II; they discussed one of their shared lifelong passions—horses.
But the royal meet-and-greet circuit is not the reason Pride AB ’91 has spent the last 23 years in the horse racing business.
“It’s a massive cross-section of people who are drawn to this sport—their backgrounds, the socioeconomic status,” says Pride, the COO of Godolphin USA, the North American branch of the largest thoroughbred racing and breeding operation in the world.
“I was drawn to the horse first and the sport second,” he continues. “The horse is what keeps you in it.”
And there is no shortage of horses at Godolphin, where Pride is based at Jonabell Farms. The collection of farms sits on 6,000 acres outside Lexington, Kentucky; it houses about 600 horses and employs more than 150 people. Godolphin USA is part of the wider Godolphin universe, which spans four continents and was founded by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of Dubai. Godolphin is actually two different divisions—one for breeding and one for racing. Pride splits his time between them. The breeding side alone is a $50 million a year business.
Pride manages personnel, client relationships, and talent identification. Talented horses, to be specific.
“You can look at a horse physically. Sometimes he looks different than everybody else, and he moves differently,” Pride says. “Horses are herd animals, and they have that competitive spirit. There is going to be a hierarchy, but you never really know until they run in a race.”
Pride grew up around horses in Nashville, where he got his first pony when he was 4.
He came to UGA to play football. A defensive back, Pride walked on his freshman year. He was a starter on the JV team, and while he suited up in silver britches for the varsity on a couple of occasions, he never took the field.
Pride’s college football career ended his sophomore year, and he devoted his time to his studies. He also acquired a horse, which he boarded at the farm of sociology professor Harold Nix.
After graduating with a history degree, both Pride and his wife, Beth AB ’90, MEd ’92, worked as teachers and coaches in South Carolina. Pride’s interest in horses and racing didn’t subside, though. One summer, he even worked at Delaware Park outside Wilmington.
In 1999, they decided to make a go of it in the horse business and moved to Lexington. Pride started at the very bottom as a groom. The tools of his trade included a brush (for the horses) and a shovel.
Godolphin’s predecessor, Darley, hired Pride in 2002 to manage their stallions. By 2006, he was named CEO of U.S. operations. “I have this theory that if you are trustworthy, and you work hard, and you have basic people skills, you can go a long way,” Pride says.
Godolphin experienced its biggest success in 2021, when its horse Essential Quality (below) won the Belmont Stakes, the third jewel of the Triple Crown. It was the culmination of a lot of hard work, and while Godolphin did not have a horse run in any Triple Crown races in 2022, Essential Quality is now retired and back in Lexington hoping to sire the next generation of champions.
tim webb
Supporting Goals
isiphotos.com
After failing to qualify in 2017 and then weathering the uncertainties of the pandemic, the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team (USMNT) has punched its ticket for the upcoming Men’s World Cup. One of the leaders in the effort to make sure everyone is healthy is Ron Shinault, the team’s head athletic trainer.
“It’s a real honor to represent the United States. It’s a dream job,” says Shinault BSEd ’01.
Still, even a dream job comes with its challenges. This year’s USMNT roster has 27 players who represent clubs in 12 or more different countries. Only working with athletes in person a handful of times a year makes Shinault’s current athletic training job non-traditional to say the least.
Fortunately, his time at UGA prepared him for the unconventional.
Shinault’s professional journey began in a student sports medicine society meeting his freshman year. After hearing about an internship and interviewing with thenDirector of Sports Medicine Ron Courson, Shinault was hooked.
“I introduced myself to the student leading the meeting, Harris Patel,” Shinault says. “He told me there were volunteer and internship opportunities in the athletic department, and I said that’s exactly what I’m interested in doing.”
Shinault’s internship with UGA Athletics took him to the 1998 Peach Bowl, a summer internship with the New England Patriots in 1999, and the 2000 NCAA Women’s Tennis National Championship tournament that UGA won. He completed coursework in the mornings and conducted hands-on sports medicine training with UGA athletes in the afternoons.
“It was a bit of an atypical student experience, but it was great sports medicine experience,” Shinault says. “A lot of the people I worked with, I’m still connected with to this day.”
After graduating from UGA, Shinault earned a master’s degree in sports administration at Florida State University, then worked in athletic training at several universities and at the professional level. Working with the University of San Francisco’s men’s soccer team in 2006 is when the sport and its unique rehabilitation needs captured Shinault’s interest. His move to Major League Soccer’s San Jose Earthquakes in 2015 brought that further into focus. Ron Shinault BSEd ’01
With professional soccer’s five-substitutes rule, injury prevention and complete return to pre-injury levels of ability is essential. That makes Shinault’s role even more important.
“In basketball, you can play three minutes of the game or you can play 40 minutes. In football, you can play 3 downs or 45 downs through open substitutions rules,” says Shinault. “But in soccer, most of your starters need to be able to play the whole game, so players returning from injury have to be healthy and 90 minutes fit.”
By the time Shinault began working with the USMNT in 2019, he knew soccer well. But the global scope of the national team was new.
A few times a year, the USMNT calls in players from around the world to represent the national team in games against other nations. The athletes leave their clubs to practice and compete in a challenging new environment with less-familiar teammates and coaches. One of Shinault’s goals is making the transition as smooth as possible.
“I’m always staying in touch with players and their professional teams, tracking to see how they’re playing, if they had an injury, supporting them if they do have an injury, and working with their professional team,” Shinault says.
He credits Courson, now UGA’s senior associate athletic director, for teaching him how to support his athletes—even from thousands of miles away.
“He said it really well: ‘People want to know how much you care before they care about how much you know,’” Shinault recalls.
That means getting to know the players— who they are on and off the field. Only once the players trust their athletic trainers will they listen to how to best rehabilitate their injuries and maintain their health and safety, he says.
Headed into the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Shinault will support players at their biggest tournament in almost a decade. And he won’t be the only Bulldog on the sidelines. Harris Patel BSEd ’97, the senior Shinault met at his first sports medicine meeting, is also on the USMNT athletic training staff and will join Shinault in Qatar.
Black Hills Golden
Heather Huffman AB ’06
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Heather Huffman AB ’06 has been interacting with an intriguing variety of people since she was old enough to stand behind the counter at the Grand Ole’ Creamery, her family’s ice cream shop in St. Paul, Minnesota.
For instance, in 2014, Huffman’s father, Gary, once took a call from President Barack Obama’s staff, who asked for the store to be cleared out for a visit. Believing it to be a joke, Gary ended the call with a laugh.
“Of course,” he said. “And I want a million dollars.”
An hour later, the Leader of the Free World dropped by for a bowl of Black Hills Gold (caramel ice cream with Oreos and pralines). Hoffman remembers the president reminiscing about his first job, which happened to be scooping ice cream. The interaction reinforced a powerful lesson that had already shaped much of Huffman’s life: Where you start has a decisive impact on where you end up. As an economist, Huffman understands the impact someone’s first job has on their life.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re making pizza or scooping ice cream,” she says. “Being able to put a job on your resume is so important in terms of being able to move up in any career.”
Huffman’s mother, Dawn, started the Grand Ole Creamery in 1984 because she had a craving for a chocolate malt with real banana. As a fifth-generation entrepreneur, it’s hardly surprising that Huffman, a lobbyist, professor, doctoral candidate in economics, and (since 2019) the CFO of the Grand Ole Creamery, has spent her entire professional career advocating for entrepreneurship and small business growth. She may wear many different hats professionally, but one thing she does every day is advocate for small business owners and entrepreneurs.
“Growing up in an entrepreneurial family and working in the family business is what inspired me to pursue a doctorate in economics,” she says.
Huffman was born in St. Paul but moved to Duluth, Georgia, when she was two. After graduating at the top of her high school class in 2002, Huffman was excited to see the world. She was unsure at first about attending a university close to her home, but one visit to UGA was enough to change her mind. Huffman was charmed by the campus, especially the music scene, from rocking out at live Widespread Panic shows to meeting musician Ben Harper.
“His mother and I are actually friends now,” Huffman says. “She runs a folk music store nearby. I got to see him play live in Athens as a student, and it’s crazy how things have come full circle.”
Huffman graduated magna cum laude from UGA with a double major in Spanish and classics. It was a study abroad trip to Costa Rica that opened her eyes to the realities of economics. Observing the daily lives
special
of her host family, Heather learned what it meant to experience entrepreneurship out of necessity. “When there aren’t jobs readily available, people get innovative,” she says.
From running family restaurants to providing cosmetology services, Huffman met people who had to get creative for the sake of their families, their livelihoods, and their dreams. That experience stuck with her. Today, she advocates for small business owners and entrepreneurs, especially within the international community.
It turns out that her Spanish degree came in handy in other ways as well. She also uses what she learned to teach economics to Spanishspeaking students. “We take for granted how many textbooks only come in English.”
For Huffman, her Athens experience continues to drive her work.
“One thing that made Athens so special is downtown. It’s an entrepreneurial ecosystem with local businesses you won’t find anywhere else. I often cite it in my research and presentations,” she says. “Where we are located, on Grand Avenue in St. Paul, is another example of the nation’s top 10 entrepreneurial ecosystems.”
R E A L E S T A T E S o u t h e r n S t y l e
BONNIE DUNN
(706) 614-7360
LISA M. LANGFORD
(706) 340-2242
UGA Terry College of Business Graduates | UGA Redcoat Auxiliary Alumni Over 60+ Years of Real Estate & Financial Experience
Little Ward Books, in November 2021. Adam Wynn AB ’10, BSEd ’10 published his first novel, Black Star, in February. Mil Sanghvi BBA ’11 has business holdings in residential real estate, property management companies, and commercial real estate across three states. Travis Voyles BSES ’11 was appointed the Virginia Deputy Secretary of Natural and Historic Resources in Richmond, VA in February. Amber Seymour AB ’12 joined HunterMaclean as an associate in the firm’s real estate group in April. Ciara White BSFCS ’12 was promoted to technical facilitator for in-flight services at Delta Air Lines. Elizabeth Cox BBA ’13, BBA ’13 graduated from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University with triple majors in strategy, economics, and managing organizations in June 2021. She started a new position as a consultant at Bain & Company in Atlanta in August 2021. Emily Fountain AB ’13, ABJ ’13 is an associate at Bass, Berry & Sims in Nashville, TN. Mamie Shepherd ABJ ’13 is the program manager for Seacrest Studios at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville, TN. Melissa Smith BSFCS ’13, MSW ’15 is a senior care coordinator at Wellstar Douglas Hospital.
2015-2020 Rita Virtanen BSA ’15 is a PhD student at the University of Helsinki in the Klefström research group and co-scientific coordinator of CancerIO. She is also vice chairperson of the nonprofit, The Science Basement, in Helsinki, Finland. Stephanie Mobley BSW ’16 is a bilingual mental health school-based therapist in Riverdale, MD. Amanda DeLaPerriere AB ’17, AB ’17 is an associate at Blank Rome in Washington, DC. Corey Knapp ABJ ’17 is the social media coordinator for the Atlanta Hawks.
our georgia commitment
pro dawgs give back through scholarship support
On the golf course, the University of Georgia is leading the way, fielding the most professional golfers on the PGA Tour of any school and dominating tournament leaderboards week in and week out. Away from the links, these UGA alumni are doing their part to create opportunities for the next generation of Bulldogs.
Nearly a dozen former Georgia men’s golfers who compete professionally are supporting the UGA Alumni PGA Tour Professionals Georgia Commitment Scholarship to give back to students in need. Bonney Shuman BBA ’80, a St. Simons Island resident and member of the UGA Foundation Board of Trustees, has been instrumental in setting up the fund.
Shuman says it was a logical step to deepen the bond and connection with former UGA golfers, many of whom are her fellow Golden Isles residents. Each fall, several of them participate in the RSM Classic, one of the most beloved events on the Tour’s fall circuit, which draws a large crowd to Sea Island Golf Club.
UGA has long had a strong presence at the tournament. The event’s executive director is Todd Thompson BSEd ‘94, a former Bulldog golfer and the father of Davis Thompson BSEd ’21, who earned All-American honors during his time in Athens before moving on to the Korn Ferry Tour, a feeder for the PGA Tour.
UGA sponsors The Dawg House between the 17th and 18th holes at Sea Island’s Seaside course. The space allows alumni and guests to ensure the world’s best golfers get a glimpse of Bulldog Nation—it also sparked the idea to enlist the golfers to rally around giving back to their alma mater.
“The RSM Classic is important to our community, and it brings together a lot of folks to volunteer and support it,” Shuman says. “The tournament team had this idea to get the Georgia golfers, because there are so many of them, and see if there was a way to get them further plugged in to what UGA is doing.”
Since the fundraising initiative began,
From left to right: Brothers Richard BBA ‘84 and Ed Stamper ABJ ‘83 with PGA golfer Brian Harman BBA ‘11 and Billy Shuman M ‘80 outside of The Dawg House during the RSM Classic at Sea Island Golf Club.
At right, Sepp Straka BBA ‘15 with Uga X, an annual visitor to The Dawg House during the RSM Classic.
courtesy of bonney shuman
Shuman and this group of Georgia golfers have raised more than $50,000 for the fund, which provides a $3,500 annual scholarship to an undergraduate student in need. Recipients are determined by the Office of Student Financial Aid.
Shuman sees this as just the beginning of what these dedicated alumni intend to do for UGA.
“We want there to be a next,” Shuman says. “We don’t know what that next is, but we want to build on this program and ensure the golfers’ impact continues to grow. And they do too because they’re really proud of UGA, and they’re really proud of what they’ve done with this scholarship.”
GIVE.UGA.EDU Scholarships support Bulldogs today and for generations to come. You, too, can establish a generous legacy by giving back today.
courtesy of bonney shuman
Harris English BSFCS ’11 Brian Harman BBA ’11 Russell Henley BSFCS ’11 Chris Kirk BSEd ’08 Kevin Kisner BBA ’06 Keith Mitchell BBA ’14 Sepp Straka BBA ’15 Hudson Swafford BSFCS ’11 Brendon Todd BBA ’07 Bonney and Billy Shuman (on behalf of Davis Thompson BSEd ’21)
Homegrown
Stuart Cofer BBA ’81
peter frey
When Stuart Cofer BBA ’81 drives around his hometown of Athens, there are two things he can point out: the flowers purchased from his family’s plant nursery and all the changes that have been made since he was a kid.
Cofer, an Athens native who graduated from UGA with a degree in small business management, followed in his family’s footsteps, which is a popular thing to do in the Cofer household. Cofer, his father, and his brother all graduated from UGA—with his son closing the circle as a senior in the Terry College of Business.
Beyond sharing the Georgia genes, the Cofer family is widely known locally for their plant nursery, Cofer’s Home & Garden, founded in 1922 by Stuart’s grandfather as a seed and feed supply store in downtown Athens. The flagship store is now on Mitchell Bridge Road on the city’s west side. They sell unique plants, shrubbery, and outdoor furniture. The focus is on yards and gardens rather than catering to what was then an agricultural economy.
“From a young age, my brother and I had an interest in coming to the family business. That’s where our hearts always were,” Cofer says.
Although he spent a few years after college in Los Angeles, working his way up the chain at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Cofer always knew he’d return to Athens.
This year marks the family’s 100th in business. “It’s surreal,” says Cofer, president and self-proclaimed inventory control manager. “It’s quite a milestone.”
By some estimates, only 13% of family-owned businesses make it to the third generation, with the exceedingly rare 4% surviving to the fourth. Cofer’s Home & Garden, currently sitting at the third-generation level, will be that exception: Cofer’s son, Stephen, will begin easing into the job in the years that follow his UGA graduation.
As the Cofer family business has been around for a century, it’s not surprising that they have a bit of Athens’ history in their roots. The warehouse on Spring Street, where Cofer spent his childhood running around with his brother and cousins, is now UGA’s Delta Innovation Hub.
“It’s neat to know that this warehouse is now a hub for entrepreneurs and startups,” Cofer says. “That’s what my grandfather was, and here we are 100 years later and that building is still being used for entrepreneurs.”
Cofer credits a few key things to the business’s success: responding to the needs of the local economy, for instance. “If my grandfather was to walk in the store today, he would have no clue that this was the business he started in 1922,” he jokes.
Although he never pressured his kids into joining the business, Cofer enjoys bringing his 7-year-old granddaughter to the store and showing her the importance of hard work.
“There’s a lot of stress involved in owning your own business, but you take great pride in what you’re able to create, what you’re able to grow, and how you position yourself and your business in the community,” he says. “People recognize you for that. There’s a lot of pride in being able to accomplish those things.”
Elizabeth Milano AB ’18 is a digital video producer with Access Hollywood in New York City. Josh Clifford AB ’19, AB ’19, BS ’19 is a product writer for the Esri Field Apps team and started the Esri podcast Field Notes with a coworker in June 2021. Honor Garrett BSFCS ’19 has been promoted to account executive at McNeely Brockman Public Relations, a Nashville-based communications and PR agency. Avalon Kandrac BSBE ’19 is an assistant project manager with Choate Construction in Nashville, TN. Natashya Santosa BBA ’19 is a global equity, compensation, and mobility business process consultant at The Coca-Cola Company. Katie Kim AB ’20 is a part of TEGNA’s Producer-in-Residence program and is currently serving as a race and culture producer at KXTV in Sacramento. Caroline Worthy BSCE ’20 is a civil engineer in the ports and marine sector with AECOM in Savannah.
2021-2022 Taylor Bell BBA ’21 is a financial services representative at Capstone Financial in Atlanta. Godswill Nwankwo BBA ’21 owns Mygrate, a blockchain startup, and is a program manager at Google in Atlanta. David Sever BBA ’21, BBA ’21 is a supply chain consultant for Protiviti in Charlotte, NC. Eva Bauer BBA ’22, BBA ’22 is a financial management analyst in the CFO group at Bank of America in Charlotte, NC. Anna Bowen BBA ’22, BBA ’22 is an underwriter for Utica National Insurance Group in Atlanta. Carley Cronic AB ’22 is a product marketing analyst with NCR in Atlanta. Brooke Fitzgerald BS ’22 will be returning to UGA for graduate school to earn an accelerated master’s in applied behavioral analysis. Austin Grant AB ’22 is a project manager for Epic, a health care software company. Ben Grisham BBA ’22 is a summer intern with Ernst & Young and plans to return to UGA in the fall to pursue a master’s of accounting degree. Khurtasha Hutchinson BSW ’22 will return to UGA in the fall as part of the Master’s of Social Work Advanced Standing program on the combined specialization track. She will also pursue her certificate in nonprofit management and leadership. Miller Lantis BS ’22, BSFCS ’22 will be attending Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. Rebecca Merriken AB ’22, AB ’22 is returning to UGA in the fall to earn her master’s in public administration. Brooke Rogers AB ’22, AB ’22 teaches dance for Atlanta Dance Central and Creative Movement
ALUMNI PROFILE
Field of Dreams
C. Trent Rosecrans ABJ ’98
emilee chinn/cincinnati reds
The Moleskine notebook C. Trent Rosecrans keeps on the bookshelf of his home office in Cincinnati has a lot of mileage. It’s within arm’s reach of his computer at all times.
The notes, numbers, and observations he scribbles in it date back to 2015, the first year he voted for the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
That was a big year.
Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez were elected in their first year of eligibility—and the statistical case for their election is right there in those well-worn pages.
Rosecrans ABJ ’98 has nearly 25 years of experience as a sports journalist, and he has covered the Cincinnati Reds since 2007 for a variety of publications, including The Athletic, the online sports site he joined in January 2018.
In 2021, he reached a pinnacle of his profession, serving as president of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), the 700-plus member body that votes for the Hall of Fame every year. As past-president, he remains on its board this year.
With a 162-game regular season, plus Spring Training and post-season games, the baseball beat is generally viewed as sportswriting’s most strenuous gig, and Rosecrans is not alone in relishing the challenge.
“You can always tell aviators by the way they walk,” says Rosecrans, who grew up on military bases around the world. His father was a nurse in the U.S. Navy. Rosecrans says the same is true for how baseball writers talk, developing a lingo that sets them apart from—and in their opinion above—other sportswriters.
“We are so egoistical that we call ourselves ‘ball writers,’ as if none of the other sports have balls,” he says.
As a UGA journalism student, Rosecrans joined the staff of The Red and Black, which was putting together a veritable mid-90s AllStar team of its own. He was encouraged to join the paper by Carrie Gibson ABJ ’98 (a critically acclaimed author). And his first sports editor was Mark Schlabach ABJ ’96, who wrote college sports at The michael anderson/cincinnati reds
Atlanta Journal-Constitution before becoming one of ESPN’s most well-known NCAA reporters.
Rosecrans’ work was noticed off campus. During his senior year, the Athens Banner-Herald hired him part-time, and he stayed on full time after graduation until 2003.
Rosecrans joined the staff of the Cincinnati Post in 2004. In 2007, he finally got the baseball beat he coveted. After the Post folded, he bounced around the Cincinnati media landscape a few years before he took over the Reds beat for the Cincinnati Enquirer in 2013. He kept the beat when he moved to The Athletic.
Rosecrans’ role with the Post started his clock for the BBWAA, which requires 10 years of experience for membership. With his 2014 acceptance came the honor—and responsibility—of filling out a Hall of Fame ballot.
That’s when he got the notebook.
In addition to keeping copious notes on Hall-eligible players, when voting time rolls around, Rosecrans talks to players, executives, managers, scouts, and other writers discussing the merits of each player. These types of conversations are not new.
“I remember having those debates with my dad as a kid. At the time, he was the expert. Mickey Mantle was his favorite player. Then I was the expert. He passed away in February,” Rosecrans says, pausing slightly.
“Even when he was having trouble talking, we still talked about my Hall of Fame ballot. He’d always ask, ‘Why? Why did you vote for this guy and not that guy?’ It was never a judgment. It was really just a question to see how someone else is thinking.”
That perspective about transparency is why Rosecrans releases his Hall of Fame ballot for public view. (It’s not required.) While other writers refuse to discuss their choices, Rosecrans freely discusses his on podcasts, in columns for The Athletic, and in other forums.
and Dance in Atlanta. Quinn Shelt AB ’22 is Miss Augusta and promotes Alzheimer’s disease support and research.
grad notes
agricultural & environmental sciences
Bek Amatov MS ’15 is a vice president of wholesale risk advanced analytics at Bank of America in Charlotte.
arts & sciences
Joseph Hester PhD ’73 serves on the editorial board for the Journal of ValuesBased Leadership, the international journal published by Valparaiso University’s College of Business. He also published “A Leadership Role: Creating an Ethics of Diversity” in the journal in January. Juanita Karpf MM ’86, DMA ’92 published her book Performing Racial Uplift: E. Azalia Hackley and African American Activism in the Post-Bellum to Pre-Harlem Era, in January.
business
Tiffane Davis MBA ’07 and her husband launched a men’s accessories boutique, A Polished Man, in Greenville, SC. Jessica Vash MBA ’21 is an associate broker at KW Commercial in Atlanta.
education
Nancy Hensel EdD ’73 published her book Undergraduate Research at Community Colleges: Equity, Discovery, and Innovation in October 2021. She is also the co-editor of Undergraduate Research in Online, Virtual, and Hybrid Courses: Proactive Practices for Distant Students, published in February. Carolyn Fore MEd ’74 published a collection of memoirs, The Place Light Gets In, in collaboration with eight other authors in February 2022. Janice Hogle PhD ’99 has partnered with her brother to create a business called Dad’s Ashes, an alternative to the traditional burial of loved ones. Carol McNulty PhD ’01 was appointed the associate provost for undergraduate education and faculty affairs at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in April. She has served as interim for the role since July 2021. Lora Smothers MEd ’11 is the founder and director of the Joy Village School in Athens. Ansley Howze MBT ’22 was promoted to executive director of the American Heart Association in the CSRA and Southern Coast in October.
environment & design
Russell Oliver MEPD ’15 received the 2022 Community Collections Grant from the Library of Congress. Beginning in March, he will work to complete research documenting the stories, agricultural traditions and culture of specialty coffee farmers in Puerto Rico, and his work will be included in the library’s various permanent collections.
forestry & natural resources
Pooja Gupta PhD ’20 started her position as a bioinformatician at the Utah State Public Health Laboratory in Salt Lake City in August 2021.
journalism & mass communication
Rachel Balducci MA ’97 published her book No Such Thing as Ordinary in May. Stephenie Magister MA ’13 is an editor for USA Today best-selling and award-winning books. She owns the website Stephenie Edits and runs the Medium columns “Dear Cisters and Transgender Soapbox.”
pharmacy
Danielle Donaldson PharmD ’14 is the coowner of Chemist Spirits in Asheville, NC. The distillery was selected as the official gin of the 2022 Daytime Emmy Awards in June.
social work
Ron Scroggy MSW ’85 serves on the board of the Edisto Island Preservation Alliance and is a volunteer with the Edisto Island Loggerhead Turtle Patrol.
law
Tedra Cannella JD ’07, Rob Snyder AB ’99, JD ’08, and Rory Weeks AB ’08, MA ’12, JD ’13 are partners in the law firm Canella Snyder in Decatur. Shalanna Pirtle JD ’07 is the chief talent, diversity, and inclusion officer and a partner at the law firm Parker PoeAdams & Bernstein.
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Martin Kagel
Associate Provost for Global Engagement Office of Global Engagement A.G. Steer Professor in Goethe Studies Franklin College of Arts & Sciences
Anative of Germany, Kagel has spent decades teaching German studies and helping others understand the importance of the humanities and international studies. During his tenure at UGA, Kagel has served as the head of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, as associate dean for humanities and international studies in the Franklin College and now oversees UGA’s Office of Global Engagement.
Kagel’s research has addressed subjects in German literature and culture from the 18th to the 21st century. He is especially interested in German-Jewish and European studies, as well as in uncovering the mechanics of the literary marketplace. Kagel has co-developed several programs at UGA, including student and faculty exchange programs between UGA and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, a minor in transnational European studies, and a dualdegree program in German and engineering that includes a year of study abroad.
What first piqued your interest in German studies?
When I began my studies in Berlin, I was an eager student, hungry for more knowledge about my own country’s history and literature. I wanted to dig deeper, better understand German cultural attitudes and political developments, and studying German literature offered a path to do so, a very enjoyable one at that. Later, when I studied in the U.S. at the University of WisconsinMadison, where I got my Ph.D., I learned to appreciate the American perspective on Germany, a unique outside perspective that opened up new and compelling questions.
Why are humanities courses valuable for students?
Because we are human. There is so much you can learn from study in the humanities. You learn about people’s motivations, how societies function, how to describe your feelings and those of others, about ethical quandaries one can face, and what gives meaning to our lives. And, of course, foreign language and intercultural studies are part of the humanities. No education is complete without extensive study in the humanities.
You currently serve as associate provost for global engagement. How important are students’ international experiences?
In an ideal world, every student at UGA would have the opportunity to study abroad. Why? Because the experience of being in a culture that’s not your own teaches you invaluable lessons about cultural difference, about the diversity of peoples, about economic and educational disparities, how others see us, as Americans, and about how our actions here impact people’s lives in other parts of the world. We want our students to be global citizens. Study abroad plays an essential role in this endeavor.
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