Ursinus Magazine Winter 2014

URSINUS Winter 2014

MAGAZINE

Eye on the Arts

Nancy Berman is president of The Philip and Muriel Berman Founda­tion.

A former Ursi­nus Trustee, she served on the Board from 1995 to 1998.

A Lasting Gift

More than 1,300 new works of art now are part of the permanent collection at Ursinus College. The collection reflects the passion for collecting of the late Philip and Muriel Berman, who established The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art in 1989. The Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation made the gift this fall to honor their memory. During a recent tour of the museum, and after a thorough walk-through of the A to Z exhibit, Nancy Berman said the exhibit was remarkable.

“I loved everything about the exhibit,” says Berman. “I loved the installations, the color, the space, the layout. The quality of the presentation, including the copy written on the plaques, made me feel like I was in a contemporary museum of art. The whole experience for me was deep and valuable. It’s a true testament and tribute to my family.” See story on p. 24

in this issue FEATURES Eye on the Arts

12

With thriving theater, dance, fine art, music and writing departments, the arts are alive at Ursinus. Alumni, faculty and students explain what it means to work and live with an “eye on the arts.” Among those featured are Barbara J. Zucker 1966, who talks about her career as a painter. Her work is being showcased at the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art in an exhibition that runs through March.

This Bengal Earned His Stripes

Alumna Erika Compton Butler 1994 interviews Paul Guenther 1993, who landed his first job in the NFL with the Washington Redskins as an entry level assistant coach. In 2005, he was hired by the Cincinnati Bengals and is now in his ninth season with the team. “It’s obviously a privilege to coach in the NFL,” Guenther says. “Players at this level want to know how you can help them improve. You have to find different ways to motivate them.”

Editor's note: At time of publication the Bengals announced that Guenther was promoted to defensive coordinator for the Bengals, replacing Mike Zimmer, who was hired as the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings.

26

Go, Bears, Go!

29

Homecoming brought out Ursinus pride in everyone this fall, including Ursus, who belongs to Bobby and Suzanne Fong. See more photos from this special day for alumni and the whole College community.

Field Notes

Mark Ellison, Associate Professor and Chair of Chemistry, studies the chemistry of carbon nanotubes for applications in energy and medicine. He talks about his collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology that was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation and explains his fascination with the new field of carbon nanotube research.

CAMPUS NEWS

3

We are the Champions! The Ursinus Women's field hockey team wins their ninth Centennial Conference title since 2002.

CLASS NOTES

30

Samantha Lyons 2004 earned her law degree at Villanova Law School in 2010. She now works for the Philadelphia firm of Tiagha and Associates.

40

letter from the

president

Dear Friends, Ursinus educates students not only to make a living but to make lives of purpose.

Students are asked to think long and hard about what is meant by success, and what they truly value.

Personal vision is central in the arts, whether one is a creator, collector, or connoisseur. In a recent President’s Perspective column, I wrote that a campus art museum should not only enrich arts education on campus, but also enrich education through the arts.

This fall saw a major Berman Museum of Art exhibition, A to Z: Highlighting the Berman Collection, which celebrated a major gift of art from the Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation and Nancy Berman, who is interviewed in this issue of Ursinus Magazine. Nancy said of her parents, “Art proved for them to be a means of self-education, community engagement, cultural expression, and even social justice through making art public, accessible, and ever present...[T]he arts are the basis for the kind of creativity [important] not only for the arts, but for all sorts of problem solving in what seems distant disciplines as science or business.”

It is fitting that an exhibition opening this month at the Berman Museum showcases the work of one of our own alumnae, Barbara J. Zucker 1966, who is featured as well in this issue. Our alumni who work in the arts provide some of the best examples of how Ursinus graduates combine their vocations and avocations. The alumni in this issue have embraced the arts in myriad ways. Caitlin Quinn 2008 created some of the illustrations for this feature. Davis Jameson Howley 2011 is an aspiring singer and songwriter and Blaine McEvoy 2007 writes for Rolling Stone Magazine. Meghan Brodie Gualtieri 2000 pursued her Ph.D. in theater, and actor Drew Petersen 2006 and dancers Wynton Rice 2009 and Roger Lee 2010 share their views on careers in the arts.

Beyond the arts, Cincinnati Bengals linebackers coach Paul Guenther 1994 discusses the challenges and rewards of coaching in the NFL. You can also read about the establishment of U-Imagine! The Center for Integrative and Entrepreneurial Studies. Together with the Center for Science and the Common Good, the U-Imagine! Center fulfills the strategic plan goal to create nexuses for interdisciplinary and applied education that contribute to the liberal arts plus preparation of our students.

Also enjoy the photo spread from this fall’s Homecoming. Connecting alumni with one another allows you to reflect on how the Ursinus experience has shaped your own sense of purpose and success.

There is another important opportunity to reconnect with each other this spring. I hope to meet many more of you at Alumni Weekend, which is scheduled for April 24, 25 and 26. The new earlier spring date offers an opportunity to meet and engage with current students, especially at the Celebration of Student Achievement (CoSA) on April 24.

Go, Bears!

Bobby Fong, President PAGE 2 URSINUS MAGAZINE

URSINUS MAGAZINE V O L U M E C X I V, N O . 1 W I N T E R 2 0 1 4

Third class postage paid at Lansdale, Pa. Ursinus Magazine is published seasonally three times a year.

Copyright 2014 by Ursinus College.

Editorial correspondence and submissions: Ursinus Magazine, P.O. Box 1000, Collegeville, PA 19426-1000.

(610) 409-3300 or e-mail: ucmag@ursinus.edu

Editor Kathryn Campbell kcampbell@ursinus.edu Director of Communications Wendy Greenberg wgreenberg@ursinus.edu Senior Writer Ellen Cosgrove Labrecque 1995 elabrecque@ursinus.edu Class Notes Editor Jennifer Meininger Wolfe jwolfe1@ursinus.edu Contributing to this Issue Steve Falk, Jim Roese, Joshua Walsh 2013, Art Hower, Brian Garfinkle, Erica Lamberg, Erika Compton Butler 1994, Briana Mullan 2016, Charlie Stainback, Erin Hovey 1996, Meredith Goldsmith, Associate Professor of English and Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs and the Ursinus College Archives Design Jeffrey Morgan JDM Creative Advertising, LLC www.jdmcreative.com Chair, Board of Trustees Alan P. Novak 1971 President Dr. Bobby Fong Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College Dr. Lucien (Terry) Winegar Senior Vice President for Advancement Jill A. Leauber Marsteller 1978 Vice President for Enrollment Richard DiFeliciantonio Vice President for Finance and Administration Jonathan C. Ivec Vice President for Student Affairs Deborah Nolan The mission of Ursinus College is to enable students to become independent, responsible, and thoughtful individuals through a program of liberal education. That education prepares them to live creatively and usefully, and to provide leadership for their society in an interdependent world.

gateway the

URSINUS CAMPUS NEWS

Sustainable Living Myrin Library Modernizes The W. R. Crigler Institute Field Hockey Champs UC Students Fighting Hunger New Berman Curator

A Formal Step Toward Sustainable Living In order to work toward becoming carbon neutral and achieving sustainable living, Ursinus College announced its first Climate and Sustainability Action Plan (CSAP) which was signed by President Bobby Fong. Ursinus was required to write this plan after signing the American College and University’s President’s Climate Commitment in 2007. Shannon Spencer, Campus Sustainability Planner in the Office of Sustainability, separated the plan into sections by work area. By doing this, she hoped that students and employees in each area would more easily find prospective actions. Each department was given specific goals toward becoming more sustainable.

The plan comprises 32 chapters for various campus areas and appendices that include guides for green living, green purchasing, green office and eco-driving, says Spencer. The document, aimed largely at faculty and staff, but also at students, is over 500 pages long.

“All members of the Ursinus community have a role to play, and that is also one of the things that I think is great about this plan in how it really brings everyone into the fold,” Spencer says. This longrange planning document is where a reader can find suggestions of things that could be initiated and completed. Although some of these suggestions are looking ahead 30 years, the CSAP is what is known as a living document, which will be updated over the years in order to maintain relevancy and top efficiency.

President Fong expressed a hopeful and excited attitude toward the CSAP. The CSAP leaders want to maintain continuous strides toward the different goals of the plan, says Fong, regardless of when those goals are able to be fully reached.

“I think that what the commitment that we have to make in our Sustainability Action Plan is saying is that these are some of the steps that we can take as a community to reduce our impact on the environment around us. It might be large things like going away from coal fire gas and natural gas, or small things, like turning off our computers at the end of the day,” Fong says. Fong stressed the importance of every small effort toward sustainability and awareness.

“We are talking about changing lifestyles and habits,” he says. “Getting students behind it is more a matter of creating a culture of sustainability where turning off a light when you leave a room becomes second nature, and that is not necessarily the case for a lot of people.”

The plan was written specifically for Ursinus and is the product of two years of collaborative work between Spencer in the Office of Sustainability and faculty and staff across the College. It includes goals that are believed to be realistically obtainable at Ursinus. “I think that (the CSAP) is Ursinus’ way of living out the meanings to be a good corporate citizen in the world and, in turn, an essential part of the Ursinus education to learn to live in accordance with the environment,” Fong says. “One of our three perennial questions is ‘What is nature and our place in it?’ and this is a very practical way that we are trying to answer it.” n By Briana Mullan 2016 Mullan is a Media & Communication Studies major and this article originally appeared in the Ursinus student newspaper The Grizzly.

Find the Ursinus CSAP here: www.ursinus.edu/netcommunity/csap

SPRING 2014 2013 PAGE 3 WINTER

More Than Books | Myrin Library Moves to Modernize

What makes a library more than a building full of books? Last fall and spring, the Library of the Future Committee, chaired by Meredith Goldsmith, Associate Professor of English and Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs, decided to find out. Initiated by a visit from Elliott Shore, former head of the Library at Bryn Mawr College and currently director of the American Association of Research Libraries, the committee set out to learn how small liberal arts college libraries are embracing the transition into the 21st century.

With resources more limited than those of their counterparts at research universities, liberal arts college libraries are seeking ways to enhance their collections, spruce up their facilities, and recast themselves as inviting spaces for student learning. Conducting a year’s worth of research, Goldsmith and her fellow committee members surveyed Ursinus students to better understand their experience of Myrin Library. The committee also interviewed librarians at Occidental, Goucher, and Washington Colleges and researched how libraries are working together to pool resources in the age of the Internet. They explored how liberal arts libraries could become state-of-the-art spaces for collaboration and learning.

“What we learned,” Goldsmith says, “is that Ursinus students really respect and appreciate the librarians at Myrin. They make every effort to help students get the resources that they need.” However, she says, they learned that the working spaces in the library needed to be more comfortable, especially the chairs. If you can’t sit, you can’t work. The group’s first course of action was replacing the oldest chairs in the library with sleek Herman Miller products, now found on Myrin’s second floor. They also replaced the furniture in the former Jazzman’s with new, more comfortable lounge furniture.

“We aim to make the lounge a place where students will want to congregate,” says Goldsmith. But it wasn’t just the facilities to which the group turned its attention. Librarians at Myrin, as at many other libraries across the country, have been working to determine how to address the changing nature of collections. With only a finite amount of space, librarians at small liberal arts colleges across the country have had to reconsider the lesser-used parts of their print collections. At Myrin, these include bound journals now duplicated by electronic versions, and government documents the library has historically needed to acquire.

Kerry Gibson, periodicals specialist at the Library, worked this summer with interim Chief Information Officer Gene Spencer to develop a collection review policy. Over the next two years, faculty will be responsible for combing the shelves, under librarians’ supervision, to determine which pieces of the print collection should be retained and which should be de-accessioned. Bibliophiles should not panic, though. Even as the librarians make plans to deaccession books that have rarely circulated in twenty years, they are researching consortia like the Hathi Trust, a group of research libraries that can make over 8 million sources available for download to those libraries that contribute a just few thousand dollars per year.

Finally, the Library of the Future, like so many other things nowadays, will be going virtual. The Library of the Future Committee aims to improve information literacy across campus by giving students further instruction in how to navigate the ever-expanding wealth of electronic resources available. The committee is also exploring the development of a digital repository to host faculty and student publications. "Developing a policy on Open Access allows Ursinus to be a leader in the broader public conversation on this issue and its ramifications on information access,” says Akshaye Dhawan, Assistant Professor in Mathematics and Computer Science. “Establishing a digital repository will also allow us to showcase student and faculty scholarship.” Many small colleges are embracing the open access movement, which brings down the cost of excessively expensive scholarly journals. Ursinus will emphasize student publications. Faculty authors will still be able to publish their work in any print venue they like, but they will also be encouraged to post the work after publication for the public to view.

PAGE 4 URSINUS MAGAZINE

“Ursinus will be out in front with a cohort of elite colleges who are also exploring this issue,” Goldsmith says. “More importantly, it affirms our commitment as faculty to the advancement of scholarly conversations, both with our students and in the profession more broadly.” With the support of President Bobby Fong and the Campus Planning and Priorities Committee, Goldsmith and the Library of the Future Committee moved into active collaboration with Spencer and began implementing their recommendations. A year’s worth of programming, developed in collaboration between the committee and the library staff, is in the works to welcome students, faculty, staff, and community into a re-invigorated Library. Soon, patrons of the Library will even see a new sculpture as they enter, as the Bear-Keeper has been replaced by a piece from the Lynn Chadwick statues that currently reside in the Berman Museum.

Spencer also convened a group of librarians and technical staff, including Director of the Library, Charles Jamison, during the summer of 2013 (the Library of the Future Action Team, hence LOFAT) to work together to make the Library of the Future group’s dreams a reality.

“The Myrin Library continues to serve the Ursinus College community in many important ways,” says Jamison. “Guided by the Library of the Future Report, the Library's collections, programs and facilities continue to develop and evolve, respecting our mission to preserve the past while eagerly and enthusiastically planning for the future.” n Meredith Goldsmith, Associate Professor of English and Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs, contributed to this article

One Program Changing Many Lives During Homecoming 2013 Ursinus celebrated the 25th Anniversary of The W. R. Crigler Institute, named for the first African-American graduate of Ursinus. Previously called the Summer Bridge Program, it is designed to bring students from diverse backgrounds together and to provide academic, leadership and social development opportunities.

W. R. “Bob” Crigler, Ph.D. (who graduated in 1956), was in attendance. “I have been honored and privileged. There is no metric in the human experience to express how privileged I am,” Crigler told the audience of over 100 people. He was a psychology major and a student athlete at Ursinus and has distinguished himself in the field of psychology and helping troubled youth. Much of his career was spent as the executive director of the Chaparral Treatment Center in Colton, Calif., where he directed the management of a therapy and education center for severely emotionally disturbed children. Crigler was the first person from his family and the first African American from his hometown of Orville, Ohio, to attend college. He excelled at Ursinus, lettering in both baseball and football. He received his master’s degree in public administration from Pepperdine University in Los Angeles and his Ph.D. in government from Claremont Graduate School. His work helping troubled families and children led Ursinus to award him the Alumni Association Professional Achievement Award in 1998. He is now retired and lives in California with his wife, Sheila.

Paulette Patton is Director of Multicultural Services at Ursinus and directs The W. R. Crigler Institute. The summer residential program provides an opportunity for students to participate in the rigors of academic excellence, combined with leadership and social consciousness development. In addition to course work, students are given the opportunity to participate Dr. Robert Crigler and his wife, Sheila, on campus this fall to celebrate the in a community service project, connect with Ursinus alumni and attend 25th anniversary of the Crigler Institute during Homecoming. leadership workshops.

“I could not have asked for a better ‘vibe’ of the event,” says Patton. “It felt like a celebration and not a formal program. She praised Crigler, saying “his mere presence (Crigler lives in California) indicates that he is still committed to Ursinus and its students after graduating over five decades ago.”

Other Ursinus students and alumni who took part in the festivities included host Corey Barkers 2013, guest speaker Ara Brown, Ph.D. who graduated in 2000, Roger Lee 2010, who performed at the ceremony, and Mercy Gambrah 2014 who helped plan and execute the event. “Performing in the Crigler Anniversary Celebration was a wonderful opportunity for me,” says Sasha Carvalho, who sang as part of the celebration. “Not only was I able to perform with talented musicians, I had the opportunity to hear stories from numerous alumni of how this program has changed so many lives and how it continues to do so twenty-five years later.”

Patton and Crigler stressed the importance of promoting a diverse culture at Ursinus. “The Crigler Institute has brought a large and diverse group of students into the Ursinus family and given Ursinus the opportunity to engage with diversity,” says Crigler. n By Joshua Walsh 2013

WINTER 2014 PAGE 5

Centennial Conference

Champs!

The Ursinus women’s field hockey team won their ninth Centennial Championship since joining the Conference in 2002. The team upended Franklin and Marshall, 2–0, on November 10 for the title and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament before falling to Wellesley on November 16, 3–0.

They finished the season with a 15–6 record.

“I believe a big key to our success this season was the girls’ ability to play as a team,” says head coach Janelle Benner. “It wasn’t about age or experience, it was about playing selflessly and realizing that a team can only be successful if they come together as one group and battle together. Each player took ownership of their role. It was fun to see this group continue to grow throughout the season.”

Sophomore midfielder Megan Keenan of Sinking Spring, Pa., was named a first-team Division III All-American. Keenan, the Centennial Conference Player of the Year, led the Conference in points (61), assists (13), goals (24) and shots (174). The 174 shots set a new Centennial Conference record. “I could never have achieved any of my accolades without the help of my teammates and the instruction of my coaches,” says Keenan. “These girls are my family.

This season was really a fantastic starting point. But I think all of us returning players are hungry for more. We want that national championship title!” n

Healing on Horseback Tabi Rudzinski worked this fall with her equine friend, Chex, at Sebastian Riding Associates. The private organization is on a mission to improve the quality of life for children and adults with disabilities through equine therapy. “At Sebastian Riding, it is truly believed that contact with these horses has an impact on not only physical abilities, but mental health as well,” says Rudzinski, 20, a Bonner Leader. “It's a great feeling. I'm really glad when some of the volunteers I bring tell me that Fridays are their favorite part of the week because of our trips to Sebastian Riding Associates.”

Rudzinski has been leading the on-campus effort to recruit more Ursinus students to volunteer. “Our work at Sebastian Riding Associates has been going very well,” she says. “Although we are still learning, I think I can speak for all of our volunteers and say that you definitely leave feeling as if you really did help to make a difference.”

About nine Ursinus students traveled to the barn each week, she says, but she hopes more will learn about this rewarding partnership between people and animals. The facility is close to campus, located in nearby Evansburg State Park. No experience with horses is necessary, says Rudzinski, a sophomore from Riverside, N.J. Some of the Ursinus student volunteers prefer helping in the barn and others like working with Sebastian students who are enrolled to learn to ride, groom, tack and care for the 15 horses on site.

There are plenty of jobs around the barn for the Ursinus student volunteers who are trained to properly handle a horse. They help to groom the horses, turn them out or bring them in, and feed them. “We also assist in lessons as side-walkers and it has been really great getting to know some of the students and their parents.

From instructors to volunteers to students, everyone at Sebastian Riding Associates is warm and welcoming and I think that really makes a difference.”

Ursinus students are among more than 100 community volunteers for the program that serves both children and adults with a wide range of physical, mental and emotional disabilities. The focus is a safe, fun and healthy approach to growth and rehabilitation through equine activities and riding. They work to achieve physical development, socialization and learning. n PAGE 6 URSINUS MAGAZINE

Biology major Tabi Rudzinski 2016

Fighting Hunger A

One Meal at a Time

grassroots effort on campus has students packing up and delivering leftover food from the campus to the community each week as part of a program called Wismer on Wheels. Rachel Brown, a junior media and communications major who has minors in French and psychology, got involved with Wismer on Wheels within a month of her first year at Ursinus. Now she’s president of the group. “I tried a dozen of the different community service opportunities,” she says. “I quickly realized that Wismer on Wheels represented the cause that I felt the most passionate about. I started out packaging food a couple times each week and by the end of the year, I was in the Wismer kitchen nearly every day.”

gave us a genuine, welcoming smile. That was the first time I saw directly how our work was affecting people, and I couldn’t have been more proud and inspired.”

It’s a passion that’s shared by other students, including James Checkowski, a sophomore biology major and Bonner leader who coordinated the program in the fall (while Brown was studying abroad) and oversaw the packaging of more than 1,000 lbs. of food. “We have a lot of regular volunteers,” says Checkowski, but new volunteers were still joining the cause late into the fall semester. “It is awesome to see that kind of engagement on campus.”

In the fall, Ursinus was one of 26 schools recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for participating in its Food Recovery Challenge (FRC), a program that encourages colleges, universities and other organizations to donate and divert as much of their excess food as possible.

Volunteers come from Greek organizations, sports teams and other clubs. “It is a really great opportunity for people who are involved in different campus groups to work together when they may not otherwise have had the opportunity to do so,” says Brown.

When it was founded, Wismer on Wheels received much of its support from UCARE, but Brown initiated the process to change it from a branch of UCARE to its own official club. “By becoming a club, Wismer on Wheels now has the capacity to expand its efforts in reducing hunger in our community,” says Brown. The move also made the group eligible for funding from Student Government, giving it the resources to “initiate more projects and get more of the community involved,” says Brown.

While the club was seeking more financial support, one thing it has never lacked is community support. “The Ursinus community has been extraordinarily supportive of the work that Wismer on Wheels does. This is particularly true of the kitchen staff, who go out of their way twice each day to make sure that volunteers have access to all of the food and supplies necessary to keep deliveries headed out the door,” says Brown.

When she helped serve food on a Saturday morning, Brown saw firsthand what the service means to its recipients. “Watching families enjoy warm food from Wismer that would have otherwise been thrown out made each subsequent delivery infinitely more meaningful,” says Brown. “We are dedicated to ensuring that people who live only a few miles from Ursinus’s campus can have their basic needs met each day.”

“We were excited, proud, and thankful to be recognized by the EPA for participating in the Food Recovery Challenge,” says Brandon Hoover, Sustainability Program Coordinator. The College’s food diversion and waste reduction efforts, however, are nothing new. “For many years prior to the existence of the FRC, Ursinus students, faculty, and staff invested time and effort to compost post-consumer food waste, or donate excess eatable food in Wismer,” says Hoover. “Last year alone, Ursinus donated 5,000 lbs. of perfectly good food through Wismer on Wheels, and composted 14 tons of food waste at Arborganic Acres, a local composting business. These programs began years ago as student-led initiatives, and it is significant to see the EPA recognize the hard work of the entire Ursinus community that helps ensure the success of these programs in creating a more environmentally and socially just place to live, learn, work, and play.” n By Jennifer Meininger Wolfe Behind the line in Wismer's kitchen, James Checkowski 2016, Angela Upright 2017 and Libby Lannon 2017 work to pack up food for Mission­aries of Charity, an emergency food and shel­ter service organization in Norristown, Pa.

Making deliveries, all of which go to Missionaries of Charity, an emergency food and shelter service organization in Norristown, Pa, allows the volunteers to experience the program’s impact. “Arriving at the missionary on my first delivery last year,” says Checkowski, “I saw two or three people sitting in a little dining room, and they looked up from eating their food and WINTER 2014 PAGE 7

Alumni: Are you interested in attending an invitation-only scientific conference?

Are we prepared for the next pandemic?

Join us for this interactive conference with leading scientists and policy makers.

Emerging and Persistent Infectious Diseases (EPID):

Focus on Pandemic Preparedness April 11–12, 2014

Ursinus College • Collegeville, Pennsylvania

There is no registration fee to participate in this important community discussion.

Presentations by:

Stephen S. Morse

Prof. of Clinical Epidemiology, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Kasisomayajula “Vish” Viswanath

Assoc. Prof., Dept. of Society, Human Development, & Health, Harvard School of Public Health

George W. Korch

Senior Science Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

The Institute on Science for Global Policy (ISGP), in partnership with Ursinus College, will hold a conference that links scientifically reliable information to the formulation and implementation of sound, effective domestic and international policies.

The distinctive ISGP model emphasizes critical debates and extended caucus discussions among scientists, policy makers and the public to clarify scientific and technical understanding for the non-specialists who are often charged with, or directly influence, local, national, and global policy decisions.

Sponsored by the Center for Science and the Common Good at Ursinus College, and supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the ISGP-Ursinus Conference emphasizes the importance of clear communication among the scientific community, policy makers, and the public.

The ISGP-Ursinus Conference has two parts:

On Friday, April 11, the three internationally recognized scientists will debate their respective policy position papers on issues associated with pandemic preparedness and infectious diseases. The papers will be made available on the Ursinus website by April 1.

Members of the audience will be able to submit written questions that are given to the moderator.

On Saturday, April 12, all conference participants, including audience members who attended the debates on Friday, will join small-group caucuses which will identify areas of consensus and actionable next steps to be considered by governmental and societal leaders. The conference concludes after lunch with a mid-afternoon plenary session that synthesizes the individual caucus conclusions. Summaries of the conclusions and of the Friday debates will be published with the scientists’ policy position papers in a publicly available book.

To learn more about the ISGP-Ursinus College Conference on EPID: Focus on Pandemic Preparedness and how to obtain an invitation, visit www.ursinus.edu/ISGP or contact rdawley@ursinus.edu

PAGE 8 URSINUS MAGAZINE

W

hen Cory Straub, Assistant Professor of Biology, walks out into the fields of rolling alfalfa he notices the smallest things. His footsteps cause certain insects to scatter, among them, the tiny and very destructive Potato Leafhopper (PLH). This movement is significant because the more they hop from plant to plant, the more likely they are to meet up with a predator, says Straub. And that, it turns out, is a good thing because it eventually could mean using fewer pesticides to control the leafhopper. Straub’s research looks at the effects of polyculture (growing multiple plant types together) and naturally occurring predatory insects on the PLH, a serious pest of numerous crops.

His fieldwork in Pennsylvania, and with colleagues abroad, has helped Straub study how planting grasses with alfalfa has the potential to reduce leafhopper abundance and damage to alfalfa. “Leafhoppers find grasses repulsive, and planting repulsive plants with their preferred food (alfalfa) causes them to move – and in doing so encounter predators more often,” Straub says. “The idea is so simple – if you move more as a pest you will get eaten – but it’s relevance for agriculture has not yet been explored.”

This movement-risk hypothesis has been studied in natural ecosystems. For instance, when elk move about to look for food they are more likely to be attacked by a wolf. But the concept has potential value for pest management in agro-ecosystems.

Now Straub will have some extra help to explore the question with his students more thoroughly.

He recently was awarded a $146,445 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to support his research. n by Kathryn Campbell

“There is a definite energy,” says choreographer Karen Clemente about rehearsals for Wonderful Town.

Small, Destructive and Hungry

Cory Straub, Assistant Professor of Biology, recently was awarded a $146,445 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to support his research on polyculture and the Potato Leafhopper.

His students get hands-on research experience working with him in the field and in the lab. Among the things they study are what the Potato Leafhopper likes to eat and what likes to eat the Potato Leafhopper.

Small, but ravenous. The feeding habits of the Potato Leafhopper, Empoasca fabae, can cause extensive damage to crops including alfalfa, potatoes, beans, peanuts, and many types of fruit. These pests, with their piercing-sucking mouthparts that allow them to feed on plant sap, wreak havoc for farmers.

Wonderful Town Ursinus students are rehearsing for a spring musical, Wonderful Town.

The Broadway musical directed by Professor of Theater Beverly Redman, with choreography by Professor of Dance Karen Clemente and musical direction by Professor of Music Holly Hubbs, is the first in which three major departments are collaborating and the first musical to be performed in the Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center. Wonderful Town was a 1953 Tony Award winner with music by Leonard Bernstein. “It encapsulates a quintessential American story of the American Dream,” says Redman. The performance will be part of the Collegeville Economic Development (CEDC) and Ursinus College Dinner and a Show program. For a list of restaurants and more details, see the CEDC website, www.collegevilledevelopment.org (610-454-1050). Performances are Feb. 26 through March 2 at 7:30 p.m. with a Sunday matinee at 2 p.m. Tickets are $5 general admission and $2 for students and senior citizens and can be purchased at the Box Office, at www.ursinus.edu/tickets. (610-409-3030). n

WINTER 2014 PAGE 9

Nurturing An Entrepreneurial Mindset Ursinus College’s second strategic interdisciplinary Center U-Imagine!

The Center for Integrative and Entrepreneurial Studies, will build on the Ursinus culture of creativity and collaboration by connecting the capacity for integrative thinking with an entrepreneurial mindset. The Center embodies the College’s commitment to providing a rigorous liberal education that cultivates sound judgment essential for a satisfying career and a useful life.

The Center will be directed by an interdisciplinary faculty team: Professor Carol Cirka from Business and Economics, Rebecca Jaroff, Assistant Professor of English and April Kontostathis, Associate Professor of Computer Science. The U-Imagine! Center will develop an entrepreneurial spirit that permeates the Ursinus campus culture and fosters entrepreneurial competencies in students regardless of major or post-graduate goals. Several existing entrepreneurial initiatives, including the U-Innovate! competition and the U-Inspire! lecture series, will come under the umbrella of the U-Imagine! Center. All students, faculty and staff should see themselves as potential users of the Center. Look for announcements regarding faculty development opportunities and a student consulting program.

Throughout the Ursinus curriculum, students master the communications skills and achieve the scientific, cultural, and historical literacy that are fundamentals of a liberal education. The mission of the U-Imagine! Center is to extend these competencies, giving students the confidence and the ability to recognize and take full advantage of opportunities to apply their learning. The U-Imagine! Center thus joins the Center for Science and the

Common Good as a second pillar for interdisciplinary study in and beyond the classroom. “We are hopeful that U-Imagine! The Center for Integrative and Entrepreneurial Studies will make Ursinus even more distinctive in the liberal arts marketplace,” says President Bobby Fong.

U-Innovate! launched in September with a logo and slogan competition for students. With over 140 designs and slogans to choose from, competition was tough, but the winning slogan, “Because the Future Can’t Wait!,” earned Kristin McGillis 2016 a $250 prize.

Students attended workshops and speaker events this fall to learn more about entrepreneurial projects in a variety of fields, including business, high tech and the arts. In April students will present their final projects for a group of external judges, and three major prizes will be awarded to the top presentations. The spring competition kicked off on January 29, when the U-Inspire! Speaker Series and U-Innovate! Competition welcomed Anne Bieler, founder of Auntie Anne’s Pretzels, to campus as the keynote speaker at 7 p.m. in the Lenfest Theater. What began as a single farmer’s market stand grew into Auntie Anne’s Inc., the world’s largest hand rolled soft pretzel franchise with over 1,200 locations worldwide.

Ursinus Trustee Will Abele 1961 is excited about developing a spirit of entrepreneurship at his alma mater and building on the creative and collaborative nature inspired by the liberal arts. His financial donation, along with support from the College, will underwrite the competition, including generous prizes for competition winners, for the next three years. Alumni are needed to mentor students working on their competition presentations, to speak to students and/or hold workshops, to participate as judges for the competition and to come out and participate in all of the above events.

Find out more at: www.uinnovatecompetition.com n

Strokes of Greatness

The swim team’s season started off with a bang, says Mark A. Feinberg, head coach of men’s and women’s swimming. “The team has a wonderful balance of seniors, juniors, sophomores, and freshmen with leadership and impact performance from every class. Our captains are doing an outstanding job. Both squads are motivated to make history at our Centennial Conference championships in February,” says Feinberg.

For the men’s team, the greatest challenge was swimming against Gettysburg College just three days after swimming a tough meet and losing to Albright College, says Alexander Pandelidis 2014. “It was a discouraging loss, but the team bounced back and gave the Centennial Conference champs a great meet, even though we lost,” says Pandelidis, who has been swimming competitively since the third grade. The most surprising part of the season, he says, has been the contributions of the freshmen swimmers. “Will Benn and Chase Renninger have both broken backstroke school records and Marcus Wagner has won nearly all the distance events this year,” says Pandelidis. “We get solid contributions from the rest of our freshman class and our depth has really improved because of it. We graduated a talented class last year and the freshmen have stepped up admirably to make up for the losses.”

Malena Lair Ferrari 2014 says some of the women’s team closest meets have come down to the final relay. “We have had two meets until now that have come down to the relays (Gettysburg and McDaniel) and both times the lady Bears have been able to succeed under this pressure,” says Lair Ferrari. “It’s surprising to see how well we have been doing under that pressure and how much the entire team wants nothing more than to be undefeated. This season has been the most exciting one this far and I could not be more proud of the team.” n Freshman Catherine Wilson PAGE 10 URSINUS MAGAZINE

Annenberg Public Policy Center Names Dr. Lynne Edwards Distinguished Research Fellow Professor of Media and Communications Studies Lynne Edwards was named a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania. “I am incredibly honored to be named a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center and I am eager to work with my fellow Fellows as we pursue some exciting collaborative research in social media analysis,” says Edwards. The APPC has been the premier communication policy center in the country since its founding in 1993 with the mission of applying knowledge about communication to improve the well-being of individuals. Its Distinguished Research Fellows work together with APPC scholars to collaborate on analysis of data, conduct jointly funded research projects, and participate in seminar and lecture series.

“I am particularly interested in areas of adolescent identity development, privacy and policy in this digital environment – especially since it builds on our previous work in youth cyber-deviance and cyber-victimization,” Edwards says. “Ultimately, however, I am looking forward to involving Ursinus students in these collaborations, both in class and, I hope, at the Policy Center.”

Edwards is the author of “Slaying in Black and White: Kendra as Tragic Mulatta in Buffy the Vampire Slayer” in Fighting the Forces: Essays on the Meaning of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rhonda Wilcox and David Lavery, editors (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002) and the co-editor of the anthology Buffy Goes Dark: Essays on the Final Two Seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Television, with James South and Elizabeth Rambo (McFarland Publishers, 2008). She also has published youth mediabased research, “Black Like Me: Value Commitment and Television Viewing Preferences of U.S. Black Teenage Girls” in Black Marks: Minority Ethnic Audiences and Media, Karen Ross, editor (Ashgate, 2001), and “Victims, Villains, and Vixens: Teen Girls and Internet Crime” in Girl Wide Web: Girls, the Internet, and the Negotiation of Identity, Sharon Mazzarella, editor. (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2005).

Dr. Lynne Edwards 1988 (right) holds a B.A. from Ursinus, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

Edwards is the co-principal investigator with Dr. April Kontostathis on a three-year $498,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study and prevent cyber-bullying and cyber-predation; she recently co-authored a publication from this work, “ChatCoder: Toward the Tracking and Categorization of Internet Predators” (with Dr. April Kontostathis and Amanda Leatherman, 2009). n

Fostering Engagement With Art The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art welcomed Ginny Kollak as Curator of Exhibitions. She began her new position in November and is working with Director Charlie Stainback on conceptualizing and developing the Museum’s special exhibitions and public programs. “I’m thrilled to be joining the Ursinus community as the new curator of exhibitions for the Berman Museum,” says Kollak. “With the appointment of Charlie Stainback as director earlier this year, the museum has embarked on a journey of reinvention and the possibilities are wide open. I’m honored to have the opportunity to help shape its path moving forward.”

Kollak’s expertise is in contemporary art. Connecting students and staff with new artists, new work, and new ideas are some of her goals. “I often think of artists as ‘canaries in the coal mine,’ ” she says. “They tend to notice things first and then sound the alarm for the rest of us. That’s just one reason why I’m convinced that fostering engagement with the art of today should be a key part of a liberal arts education.” Before arriving at the Berman, Kollak worked as an independent curator, writer, and freelance editor. In 2011 she participated in the Young Curators’ residency program Ginny Kollak is the new Curator at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, Italy. At the Fondazione she co-organized the exhibition of Exhibitions for The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art. Vedere un oggetto, vedere la luce (To see an object, to see the light), which featured contemporary works by 17 Italian artists displayed with natural specimens and antique scientific instruments. Kollak served from 2004 to 2008 as a curatorial assistant at the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. She contributed to more than 30 exhibitions at the Tang. She holds a B.A. in Art History and English from Williams College, and an M.A. from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College.

“I am delighted that Ginny has joined the staff at the Museum,” says Stainback. “In addition to her impressive curatorial and scholarly credentials, she brings a wealth of practical knowledge including experience in the logistics of exhibition planning and execution and in organizing educational initiatives.

Equally important, she has an irrepressible spirit of intellectual play and invention that I believe are central to engaging students—and the general public—with the arts.” n WINTER 2014 PAGE 11

eye Exploring the riches of theater, music, creative writing, fine art and dance at Ursinus and in the lives of its alumni.

on the

By Ellen Labrecque, Kathryn Campbell and Wendy Greenberg

W

hen he first arrived at Ursinus in 1997, Domenick Scudera was joining just one other theater professor. He was hired to take over Dr. Joyce Henry’s responsibilities as she transitioned into retirement.

There was no theater major offered at the time and the performance space was, at best, average. Now 17 years later, the department has flourished and includes the ultramodern Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center which opened its doors in 2005. The performance area includes the 380-seat Lenfest Auditorium, a flexible blackbox studio theater, a rehearsal studio, a scenic workshop, and plenty of additional teaching and art space.

theater To Life

Bringing

“The Kaleidoscope is a state-of-the-art facility,” says Scudera, who teaches acting and directing, and is an active professional theater artist. He also writes for the Huffington Post and performs and directs in the Philadelphia Fringe Festival every summer. “The performing arts offerings on our stages enrich both the campus and local communities. The arts are essential components of a liberal arts education. Our department provides students the opportunity to study and practice these arts and to engage both academically and experientially.”

This November, Scudera directed Ruined, a drama written by Lynn Nottage that won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Scudera directed two of his own students in the play, Brendan Howseman 2014, and Trent Bunyan 2017.

Owen Bigelbach 2017 was the show’s stage manager. The play was put on by The Greater Reading Alliance of Community Theaters and for one of the performances, Nottage, the prize-winning writer, was in the audience.

“Ruined was a great experience for me and, I believe, for the students involved,” Scudera says. “It is a rare occasion that a world-renowned playwright attends a performance of a show produced by a small company in a small city.”

Beverly Redman, Department Chair of Theater and Dance, who joined the Ursinus staff in 2006, is a theater scholar and professional director, as well as the main theater history teacher in the department, which she teaches along with three world drama upper division courses. She also teaches acting regularly, and developed the senior capstone course, which is an advanced acting styles course with accompanying research.

“Given the opportunity to work and teach in a performing arts center of the magnitude of the Kaleidoscope adds a richness and gravitas to our programs that Ursinus never had before,” says Redman. “We could never offer the variety of classes in our curriculum or produce the sophisticated shows we do today without this type of home.” Redman, who is published in the areas of community-based theater, theater pedagogy and Leftist American political theater, also directs professionally. This fall, she directed the musical Spring Awakening for The Steelriver Playhouse in Pottstown, and recently directed the annual Gilbert and Sullivan opera production for the Savoy Company, which will be performed at Longwood Gardens in June 2014.

The Music, Dance, and Theater departments at Ursinus team up for the first time to perform the musical production, Wonderful Town, with music by Leonard Bernstein. Redman will direct this as well. “This is the first time that a live orchestra will play down in the pit,” says Redman, about the play opening in February. “It’s very exciting.”

Chloe Kekovic, a freshman at Ursinus who starred in Bell Book and Candle, a play directed by Redman and put on in the Blackbox theater this past WINTER 2014 PAGE 13

October, grew up in New York City. She turned down offers from other colleges with larger theater programs to attend Ursinus. Kekovic also trains at the Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute, and hopes to be a professional actress. “I wanted to get a holistic education and I knew Ursinus could give that to me,” says Kekovic. “The theater community fosters a culture of support and encouragement.”

The department has helped launch many graduates into successful careers.

Meghan Brodie Gualtieri, 2000 valedictorian, was Ursinus’s first official theater major. Brodie, who dropped her last name professionally, was a student at Ursinus before they broke ground on the Kaleidoscope, but she still directed her own full-length play as a student. She also interned at the People’s Light and Theater Company in Malvern, Pa., and spent a semester studying theater at Oxford University in England.

“Ursinus is such a good home to students who want to study things just outside the curriculum,” says Brodie. “The professors I had were the most influential and imaginative teachers I’ve ever met.” After graduation, Brodie attended Cornell University and completed her Ph.D. in Theater Arts in 2010. Now a professor at the University of Southern Maine, she is directing the English-language world premiere of In the Underworld. Tagged as a darkly comic operetta, In the Underworld was written by French ethnologist Germaine Tillion, who wrote it when she was a prisoner in a concentration camp during World War II. “The play has never been translated into English before,” says Brodie. “It wasn’t even produced until 2007 because Tillion was afraid people wouldn’t understand how comedy could play a part in concentration camp life. It was her way of surviving.”

Brodie also is revising her own manuscript, Lesbian Broadway – American Theatre and Culture, 1920-1945, for publication.

Drew Petersen 2003 is a theater graduate who acted in many plays at Ursinus and now teaches theater. Petersen earned his master’s degree in Educational Theater in 2009 from New York University and is the drama teacher at Blue School as well as the Associate Artistic Director at Trusty Sidekick Theater Company, both in New York City. Blue School is an independent school founded by The Blue Man Group, the artistic organization that produces theatrical shows with experimental music performed by actors in blue makeup. Blue School fosters this same innovative spirit at the school.

“These kids are really getting a taste of a liberal arts education early on,” explains Petersen. “I encourage them to take their imagination in so many different directions.” The Trusty Sidekick, where Petersen is an associate director, creates original theater for young children and performs it in different venues all over New York City. Petersen not only directs, but he also acts in most of the plays. He recently performed in The 7½ Mysteries of Toulouse McLane at the Park Avenue Armory. The immersive play casts the young Abe Woycke 2011 (center) is Managing Director and Director of the Student Theater at The Highwood Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland. He also performs improvisation at the Washington Improv Theater.

“Theater is not an easy place to break into for a career,” says Drew Petersen 2003. “But I love all the diverse things I’m able to do with my degree while continuing to act.”

Petersen is the drama teacher at Blue School as well as the Associate Artistic Director at the Trusty Sidekick Theater Com­pany, both in New York City.

audience as the heroes of the story who have to solve a mystery as the play unfolds. “Theater is not an easy place to break into for a career,” he acknowledges. “But I love all the diverse things I’m able to do with my degree while continuing to act.”

Scott Cocchiaro 2008 and Abe Woycke 2011, both theater majors, are also working in the arts. Cocchiaro is a Master Electrician at the Delaware Theater Company in Wilmington, Del., and Woycke is Managing Director and Director of the Student Theater at Highwood Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland. Woycke also performs improvisation at the Washington Improv Theater.

“I discovered I had a passion for improv when Bobbi Block, Philadelphia’s renowned improv actress, came and taught a workshop at Ursinus,” says Woycke. “She made me want to sink my teeth into this type of acting,” says Woycke, who grew up in Herndon, Va., and earned a minor in economics at Ursinus. At Highwood Theater, in addition to running their children programs, he also helps manage their budget. He always envisioned a long career in arts administration where he would be involved in the creative and business side of theater. But for now, he wants to see how his improv career blossoms.

“If I end up doing improv recreationally the rest of my life, just having fun and meeting people, that is fine,” he says. “If the right somebody sees me performing and thinks I’m really good at it and eventually I end up as a writer for Saturday Night Live, that’s great, too.”

Cocchiaro, who grew up in Holderness, New Hampshire, came to Ursinus with thoughts of becoming a stage actor. And although he acted in at least one show a year while at Ursinus, he discovered he enjoyed the technical aspects of theater more than the acting.

“I was given the opportunity to do a lot of technical and lighting work at Ursinus,” Cocchiaro says. After college, he worked as a professional lighting technician at the Philadelphia Live Art and Fringe Festival and then landed a full-time position at the Delaware Theater. As the master electrician, he coordinates with lighting and sound designers for shows. “I hope to run the entire production of a show one day,” Cocchiaro says. “I’m fascinated by how much goes into bringing theater to life.” n

PAGE 14 URSINUS MAGAZINE

Eduardo Ramos 2006 shrugged off his mother’s friends who told him he should pursue modeling when he was a teenager growing up in East Brunswick, N.J. “I would respond, ‘Whatever, I’m going to hang out with my friends now,’” explains Ramos, who played lacrosse at Ursinus.

Turns out, his mother’s friends were right. As a college sophomore, Ramos walked into a well-known clothing store in a northern New Jersey mall. The store manager asked if he could take a picture of him and send it to the company’s headquarters. A week later, Ramos received a phone call asking if he would appear in a modeling commercial.

“The first shoot I did was actually with a bunch of other guys playing lacrosse,” says Ramos, who majored in business and economics and Spanish at Ursinus. “As soon as they realized I could really play, I was on camera a lot. One thing led to another and I was soon booking a lot of modeling jobs.”

As a model, Ramos has traveled to over 25 different countries. He is represented by Ford Models in New York City and Los Angeles, Caroline Gleason Management in Miami, and D’Management in Milan and can be seen on runways, in magazines, and on TV. Ramos supports himself with his modeling and he gradually has developed a promising acting career. Additionally, Ramos works as a freelance Global Marketing Manager for The Naming Group, a name-branding agency in New York, and is a freelance travel and style writer for Cosmopolitan for Latinas Magazine.

He was named “Best New Actor in a Spanish Language Play” last December for his work in the off-Broadway play, Bodas de Sangre, by The Association of Latin Entertainment Critics of New York. In May he shot a Latin-American laundry detergent commercial starring actress Sofia Vergara. Before his modeling career took off, Ramos originally envisioned a career in music and marketing and even interned at MTV while at Ursinus. And although his career was launched serendipitously, his tenacity, hard work, and discipline are what continue to make it successful.

He returned to campus this September to speak to current students for U-Innovate! Led by faculty members Rebecca Jaroff in English, Carol Cirka in Business and Economics, and April Kontostathis in Math and Computer Science, U-Innovate! is funded by an Ursinus Trustee Will Abele 1961 and aimed at developing an entrepreneurial culture at Ursinus. The goal is to encourage all students to think of themselves as entrepreneurial thinkers, regardless of the career path they choose. The program is open to all students in all majors and helps them connect a liberal arts education to whatever career path they choose, whether business, non-profit, professional or in government.

“We really wanted to make a statement by asking Eddie to come back,” says Cirka, Professor of Business and Economics. “We wanted to point out that entrepreneurial activity isn’t just about starting a manufacturing or a tech company. It is also about people creating their own brand. Everybody can think entrepreneurially and that is what society needs to move forward.”

When Ramos was asked to come back and speak, he was thrilled. His talk “Risk, Hustle and Happiness: Essentials of Creative-based Careers,” covered all these aspects of his own career. “It was great coming back to campus to speak to students about all the opportunities there are,” says Ramos. “I tried to emphasize that they are going to face hurdles. They are also going to face doors that open that they didn’t anticipate. And once they enter those doors, they should put their head down and get to work.” n

Eduardo Ramos was named “Best New Actor in a Spanish Language Play” for his work in the off-Broadway play, Bodas de Sangre, by The Association of Latin Entertainment Critics of New York. In May he shot a Latin-American commercial starring actress Sofia Vergara.

Ramos originally envisioned a career in music and marketing and even interned at MTV while at Ursinus.

WINTER 2014 PAGE 15

Sweet Harmony A Young Songwriter Pursues His Passion D avis Jameson Howley 2011 was an Environmental Studies major and earned a minor in both physics and business management. But it his passion for music that has dictated the latest turns in his career. The 24-yearold started a band called Commonwealth Choir with four friends in Doylestown, Pa. The group now lives in the Fishtown section of Philadelphia and runs a small recording studio in their basement.

“Our sound boils down to a combination of 60’s garage rock and 90’s alternative,” says Howley. Their musical influences range from performers including Elvis Costello and Crosby-Stills-Nash to Third Eye Blind and My Morning Jacket. “Our name, Commonwealth Choir, refers to our love of Pennsylvania and affinity for big harmonies, as well as our overall approach to creating music collectively.”

“I started writing folk songs my freshman year in good old BPS,” says Davis Jameson Howley who released an EP with his band Commonwealth Choir in September.

“Pursuing what inspires you is the only way to live happily - whatever it is.”

Howley started writing folk songs during his freshman year. With each year, he became more serious about writing and sharing those songs. He released his first solo EP in 2009. “I continued to play shows and started a few bands here and there with friends, but it was not until the spring of 2012 that the pieces fell into place for Commonwealth Choir,” he says. “Our debut EP “Shirtless” (released September 2013) was co-produced and engineered by me and the band’s guitarist, Nick Cislak. We’ve been extremely fortunate to have the EP's single "Rest" in rotation on WXPN and other local radio stations.”

As the band's primary songwriter and lead vocalist, Howley is center stage.

But the songs come to life when the band contributes to arranging each

work. Pursuing the art of music means “more to me than I can put into words,” says Howley. “It's something that has no bounds. I wake up every day more passionate and driven than the last knowing, quite simply, that it's okay to be an artist. For a long time, I struggled with the idea that I was not in love with a more traditional career path. The idea of being a doctor or an engineer or an accountant never resonated with me the way I saw in my classmates and friends. Not until recently did I really understand that pursuing what inspires you is the only way to live happily – whatever it is. People can tell you this a million times but I guess the caveat is that you won't know until you try.”

Investing the time in cultivating his craft is a priority. He writes for at least an hour a day ‘to keep my teeth sharp.’ The band rehearses twice a week and performs live about once a month in the Philadelphia area. Plans for this year include touring and recording a full-length album. “I could not be more excited,” says Howley. The grunt work, he says, is advertising for the band which absorbs the most time. “With the speed that media and social networking move today, we have to constantly be aware of opportunities to promote our brand. We spend an outrageous amount of time on things like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram but it's the name of the game.”

For now, all earnings from the band goes right back into operations which include recording, equipment, and travel. The majority of Howley’s financial support is earned through a video production company he co-owns called Secret Assemblies Co. “We shoot commercials, live events, music and videos. I also do some freelance copywriting and producing.” With a chance to reflect on the process of songwriting, Howley says he tends to focus on the theme of isolation. “That may seem comically dramatic and cliché, but it’s an emotion we all experience and understand well,” he says. “As a songwriter, I like to think about why we feel that way, how to fix it, and how to understanding ourselves as pieces of a larger puzzle.” n When in need of inspiration, senior Epiphany Summers looks not inward – but upward. The president of Ursinus College Voices in Praise Gospel Choir, Summers has been a member of the choir since her first year at Ursinus. As a student at Philadelphia High School for Girls, she was the president of the gospel choir and directed the choir at her church. “I have been singing since I was a child,” says Summers, a double major in psychology and sociology with a minor in African American and Africana Studies. “I was the lead singer for my preschool graduation singing group. However, I have dedicated most of my public singing to gospel music.”

“I wake up every day more passionate and driven than the last knowing, quite simply, that it's okay to be an artist.”

- Davis Jameson Howley 2011 PAGE 16 URSINUS MAGAZINE

Founded in 1997, Voices in Praise includes students ranging from freshman to seniors. The singers join voices for up to three-part harmony to sing spiritual, classical, and contemporary gospel music. This fall, their concert was titled Total Praise. “We sang about ten songs and had guest performances ranging from poetry to praise dancing,” says Summers. This year also brought a new director, Kimberlyn Thompson. A lifelong musician and singer, she studied instrumental music (flute), at The High School for the Creative & Performing Arts in Philadelphia and continued to study the flute as a minor in college. “I love singing,” says Thompson. “And I have an insatiable desire to bring out the best vocal potential and ability in others.”

There is also an informal love of music at Ursinus. Math major Kevin Cox sings, writes music and plays guitar and performed on campus with his band this fall. “Music is something that I have found a very strong passion for and it's something that will always be a part of my life,” says Cox. “Music has a special power that regular language can't quite achieve. It has a power to seriously alter a mind set, to invoke emotion, and to provoke thought in a way other activities can't.” n

Founded in 1997, Voices in Praise choir includes student singers who join voices for up to three-part harmony to sing spiritual, classical, and contemporary gospel music.

In addition to Voices in Praise, many student-run groups add to the richness of the musical landscape at Ursinus, including the a cappella vocal groups B’Naturals and the Bearitones. But when John French, Chair of the Music Department, first joined the Ursinus community in 1979, the musical opportunities for students were minimal. “There was a performance of Handel’s Messiah in the fall and a Meistersinger concert in the spring and that was it,” explains French. “And the only classes offered were a basic music history and a basic music theory course.”

Thirty-five years later, the department now thrives with maximum activity and opportunity. Three full-time faculty members, including French, Holly Hubbs, Associate Professor, who directs the wind and jazz ensembles and teaches music history, and Garrett Hope, who directs the string ensemble and teaches music theory and music technology, offer a wide variety of courses to music majors as well as non-majors. Private instrumental lessons are also part of the program.

“A Bachelor of Arts in music is a very liberal arts degree, and I say that in contrast to a conservatory program where a student would be developing their musicianship from a performance aspect,” says Hubbs, a saxophon-

ist who has recorded two CDs. “Our students take a certain component of music history and music theory and the performance aspect is peripheral to the academic curriculum.”

Despite the academic focus, the music department still performs five ensemble programs each semester, plus an organ recital series. The Messiah, performed annually in Bomberger Hall, remains a campus and community favorite. “Bomberger is a fabulous acoustic space for music, especially for the organ recitals and choral programs,” says French.

Bomberger originally opened in 1892 and was last renovated in 2006 to include a fully soundproofed band and choir rehearsal hall, as well as four soundproofed practice rooms with pianos. The 325-seat proscenium arch Lenfest Theater in the Kaleidoscope also offers an additional performance space for the large instrumental ensembles. “We now have two venues to accommodate the variety of ensembles we have,” says French. “But the real highlight for me through the years, is to see so many students fulfill their creative need through a musical experience. Our program has stood the test of time and will only continue to grow.” n

WINTER 2014 PAGE 17

"I truly love working at this fast pace and being on the cusp of popular culture and breaking news," says Blaine McEvoy 2007. He is an Associate Editor at Rolling Stone Magazine.

The Art of Writing I

t’s well-known on campus that the legendary author, J.D. Salinger, attended Ursinus for one semester. Though Salinger may be one of the most renowned, a slew of other Ursinus alumni thrive as creative writers today.

From Rolling Stone editors, to poets, to authors and online bloggers, alumni are using their sharp minds and keen observational skills to make their voices heard in the writing world.

Jon Volkmer, Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Ursinus, says his program encourages students to think broadly and communicate eloquently in a way that prepares them for a successful career whichever way they roam.

“We offer such a wide variety of creative-writing courses now,” says Volkmer. “Students can choose courses ranging from fiction and screen writing, to travel writing, memoirs, and spoken-word poetry.” Volkmer is also the editor of The Lantern, the annual Ursinus College literary magazine that includes the best of student poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction and artwork.

“The entries that we get blow me away,” says Volkmer, a novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet in his own right. “I wish I could write like them.”

Additionally, the creative-writing department brings in a visiting writer each year to teach a class and share his or her gift for language. Poet Anna Maria Hong, who earned her bachelor of arts in philosophy from Yale University and recently was awarded the Frederick Bock Prize by the Poetry Foundation of Chicago, is the writer-in-residence this year. She encourages her students to embrace poetry.

“Teaching at a liberal arts college like Ursinus is so refreshing,” says Hong.

“Students are primed to learn for the sake of learning. I encourage them to see that poetry can be enjoyed in a lot of different ways, and they really embrace this notion.”

Blaine McEvoy 2007 developed his writing skills while at Ursinus. Growing up in East Brunswick, N.J., his parents worked in education as history and English teachers. McEvoy, a double major in English and American Studies, considered becoming a history professor. But, after working as an intern in the publishing industry during the summer months, as well as following the career guidance of former President John Strassburger, he knew he wanted to work in the magazine world.

PAGE 18 URSINUS MAGAZINE

“President Strassburger put me in touch with a friend of his daughter’s, whose husband worked at Maxim Magazine at the time,” says McEvoy. “I landed a job with them just a month after graduation. I’ve been in the business ever since.” McEvoy worked at Maxim for a year, and then went onto Popular Mechanics and Men’s Journal until he was hired as an Associate Editor, at Rolling Stone, this past April.

He is in charge of assigning and editing all the movie, television, and sport stories on Rolling Stone’s website. McEvoy occasionally writes pieces for them as well. This summer, he wrote an investigative piece on the “The Most Out of Control Fraternities in America.” The story received 165,000 page views — an impressive amount of web traffic.

“I tell people my workflow is 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year,” he says. “I’m like Neo from the movie The Matrix: I plug in at work and then at night I unplug and try to relax and read a book for a couple of hours.

I truly love working at this fast pace and being on the cusp of popular culture and breaking news. I learn everyday.”

Raquel Pidal 2002 is one of Volkmer’s former students. As a junior at Ursinus, a memoir piece, Cuban Couch, won the Creager Award for the best submission to The Lantern. As a senior she also won the Dolman Award, given to the senior student most proficient in creative writing. Today, Pidal, who grew up in Bensalem and now lives in Boston, is the Editorial Director and a ghostwriter at Winans Kuenstler Publishing.

“I’m doing exactly what I hoped I’d be able to do someday,” she says.

Pidal’s publishing career began as an internship at the Writers Room of Bucks County when she was a college senior. After graduating, Pidal was hired as the Writers Room Program Director where she ran writing workshops and events. After three years, Pidal moved to Boston to earn her master’s in publishing and writing at Emerson College. Harvard University Press hired her as a publicist while she was still finishing her graduate work. Pidal stayed with Harvard Press for two years until her old boss from the Writers Room, Foster Winans, asked if she would work for the small publishing company he had recently started.

“I wanted to get back into the editorial side of things and Foster was working on a lot of exciting projects,” says Pidal. “It was as if my career was coming full-circle.”

Winans Kuenstler is an independent publishing house that publishes nonfiction books on everything from personal finance and business to biographies. Pidal specializes in memoirs. Most recently she ghostwrote the book, How I Roll: Life, Love, and Work After a Spinal Cord Injury.

“I fell in love with memoir writing while at Ursinus,” says Pidal, whose senior project was a series of short memoir pieces about her relationship with her mother, a Cuban émigré. “I take a great deal of pride in helping people tell their story. I feel so lucky that I am able to continue exploring this passion in my professional career.”

In Chelsea Callahan’s day job, she is a marketing manager for a tennis center in South Jersey.

But, her real passion comes into play as Editor-in-Chief of Fire & Ice, an online pop culture magazine she started while she was in college. The site, named in honor of her favorite Robert Frost poem, includes reviews on books, television shows and music and has two current Ursinus seniors, John Parry and Sabrina McGettigan, writing some of the articles. Callahan hopes to eventually turn this online magazine into a print publication and make it profitable enough to become a full-time endeavor.

“Writing is my passion and I love that I can share it with everybody,” says Callahan, who graduated in 2013 with a degree in English. “I’m working on building my fan base as well as cultivating more writers. Who knows? We hope to compete with Entertainment Weekly someday.”

Greg Fraser 1986 also loves working with words, but he prefers to write and work outside the realm of popular culture. An English professor at the University of West Georgia, Fraser is an accomplished poet who has been published in The Paris Review and The Southern Review.

When he graduated from Ursinus with an English degree, he worked as a copywriter in advertising, but soon realized this wasn’t his calling.

“I started writing poetry at my desk when I had down time,” says Fraser. “Thanks to my liberal arts education, I had a nimble way of thinking that allowed me to begin teaching myself the craft.”

The Last Word

By Greg Fraser

Fraser soon left advertising and earned a Master of Fine Arts in poetry at Columbia University, then a Ph.D. in literature and creative writing at the University of Houston. Before joining the University of West Georgia faculty, he taught at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, and St. John’s University in New York.

Tell it to the windswept streets, to the lindens nakedly clacking, and the dusky haze now crossing the face of the Community Trust.

Growing up in Ardmore, Fraser spent much of his free time on the Haverford College campus, where his father, David, served as the school’s librarian and also taught classes. His mother, Barbara, was a secretary in the local school system where a colleague sang the praises of Ursinus.

Tell it to the slabs of shadow dropped with oiled winches on neighbors’ yards: Tudor, Colonial, Cape Cod. I hear only

“My mom is the one who encouraged me to apply,” explains Fraser, who attended Penn State for a semester before realizing this wasn’t the school for him. “As soon as I stepped on Ursinus’ campus, I felt like I had come home.”

The small college life, as well as his family ties are frequent topics of his poetry. His first collection, Strange Pietà, wrestles with what it was like to grow up with brother Jonathan, who was born with spina bifida and was severely mentally and physically impaired. His second collection, Answering the Ruins, hones in on the working-class roots of his mother’s family.

“One reviewer called me a poet of salt and chalk,” says Fraser. “The salt comes from my mom’s side and the chalky classroom comes from my dad’s.” Fraser was recently promoted to full professor at West Georgia and jokes that when he earned this status, they also fitted him with “cement boots,” because he doesn’t see himself moving on anytime soon.

Boots on or off, though, he’ll continue to write poetry. Northwestern University Press will publish Designed for Flight, his third book, this spring. n

“Poetry casts language at the extreme,” explains Fraser.

“It is a wonderful guard against homogeneity. The more stripped down and uncomplicated you make language, the more dangerous the world gets. Poets are the guards and protectors against this homogenization.”

open chords of wind, strummed across the farmlands’ ribs, the clash of two bird cries.

Holsteins on some far hill twitch and chomp. Speak it to their heavy brows, behind which small raptures thrum.

Sing it to the kites of many suns.

No more will I envy the dispassion of trees along the turnpike, ignoring the rumble and blur. Or chafe at confident line breaks marked by slashes of rain.

Already I sense new hours churned like driftwood, porous and smooth.

You wanted the last word? Have it.

Call its fuss and fever till the wind flags in the streets, the lindens bud.

Till ringing in the ear so loud it drowns our dear, drawn-out quarrel, once and for all.

WINTER 2014 PAGE 19

Nature Is A

Rich Muse

“Nature constantly intrigues me… [It] fills me with a sense of nature’s mystery, power, and beauty,” says Barbara J. (Martin) Zucker 1966 in her studio this fall. Her paintings are in the permanent collections of The Berman Museum of Art, The Reading Public Museum, Woodmere Art Museum, Rosemont College and other public and private collections.

W

hen Barbara J. Zucker went to Ursinus College in the early 1960s, there was no art major, and no studio art. Yet true to her liberal arts education, she has enjoyed a long career as an artist. Zucker started college close to home at the Penn State Ogontz campus in Abington, Pa., but soon transferred to Ursinus to be near family living in Collegeville. She majored in French and had an interest in painting. Both parents painted a little and her sister was an artist.

Brother George Martin had graduated from Ursinus in 1961.

After graduating in 1966, Zucker took some prerequisites for an art major at Beaver College, now Arcadia University, and received her MEd from Tyler School of Art, where she was encouraged by a teacher, Richard Callner, for whom she apprenticed. She has been active in the arts in the region, as President Emerita of Philadelphia Tri State Artists Equity and was Exhibition Chair of that organization from 1993 to 2010. Her paintings are in the permanent collections of The Berman Museum of Art, The Reading Public Museum, Woodmere Art Museum, Rosemont College and other public and private collections.

Zucker’s first show was at Ursinus in a gallery which was in Lower Wismer, and then later in the library, which is now the Berman Museum. She had a solo show at the Berman in 1990, in the Museum’s second year. The campus community knows her moonscapes, which are displayed on some walls, and her topiary works, which adorn the faculty dining room. She was a lecturer and Fine Arts Instructor of Drawing and Painting, and was married to Don Zucker, a Professor of Political Science, author and musician, who died in 2010.

For many years she worked from her studio in a 1750s stone farmhouse in a Schwenksville area known as Stone Hill, and now she works at The Vineyards in Red Hill. She draws her inspiration from photos, taking more of a meditative approach. Zucker’s work is as much about colors and form as it is about the place. “Nature,” says Zucker, “constantly intrigues me… [It] fills me with a sense of nature’s mystery, power, and beauty.”

An exhibition opening at The Berman Museum in January will give a unique opportunity to a student, Bernadette Calderone 2015, from Mountainside, N.J. Calderone is interested in pursuing a career in the art field but is not majoring in art. A classics and English major, she wants to curate classical art and is helping with the curatorial side at Zucker’s exhibition. She says Zucker’s work shows someone “in tune with nature and celebrating women.

I was a little bit star struck,” says Calderone. “It was fascinating to meet her.

She walked these halls and now she has a solo exhibition.”

PAGE 20 URSINUS MAGAZINE

The retrospective exhibition shows changing phases of Zucker’s painting and life, but also highlights the constants: a love of color, form and balance, the persistence of landscape, a reference to the human body – overt or hidden – and a sensual expression of the subject matter.

Zucker’s paintings, grouped by series, vary by style and medium, but consistently illustrate vivid variations of nature’s natural colors, shapes, and textures. She has found that by developing a subject in many ways over time, she is able to experience a place more fully. This helps her to continually discover new variations of shape or texture or color.

“Some of my paintings are formed within the subconscious in the way that dreams are made,” she writes in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition.

“Most are more consciously formed but still derive from a deep visceral and emotional reaction to an idea or place. For me, painting is like keeping a journal, making visual the feelings and experiences that have occurred over a lifetime of work. It is an act of discovery of myself and the outer world.”

The exhibition includes moonscapes, female Goddess images, paintings related to family events, organic forms in a geometric structure, paintings inspired by travels and a topiary series inspired by Longwood Gardens near Philadelphia. More recent are the Stone Hill series depicting the woods and sights of this area of Montgomery County.

There are also paintings of beloved Maine locales, most recently the salt water Mill Pond, “to celebrate its beauty, its peacefulness and its changeability; infinite variations of colors, patterns on the water, shapes of clouds, movements of the grass or times of the tide.” Other favorite Maine places which find their way onto the canvases include the blueberry fields which turn brilliant scarlet in autumn, an island beyond Corea Harbor and the rocks and water on the Schoodic Peninsula, part of Acadia National Park.

“Nature,” she says, “is more rich and varied than our minds can imagine and in looking at the same subject matter over and over, I am always excited by seeing something new.” n Zucker’s 40-year career is being showcased at the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art in an exhibition: Barbara J. Zucker: 40 Years of Painting: A Visual Journal, opening Jan. 27 and running through March 23 in the Main Gallery.

Caitlin Quinn’s lively illustrations are integrated throughout this story. The brightly colored ink drawings were created by hand to capture the article’s themes of the art of theater, writing, music, fine art and dance. Quinn’s freelance design work includes silkscreen, graphic design and invitation design as well as her own line of hand silkscreened home goods.

Her full-time job as a producer for a virtual education company is less creative, but affords her the time to do her own creating on the side, says Quinn, who has had a lifelong passion for crafting. “It’s outside of working hours and beyond the office walls that I’m able flex my creative muscles among fabric scraps and pin-cushions,” says Quinn who lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. As a kid, she kept her hands busy making scrapbooks of celebrity crushes and creating puppet-shows in the living room. Quinn also made coloring books and cross-stitched while watching television.

“With time, busy hands became steadier and as I completed a studio art major at Ursinus, I learned to call my craft ‘art.’ Learning that solid works were supported by meaning and purpose, I strived to transfer emotion to canvas, to paper, to wood, to walls, to any surface that would listen,” says Quinn. “I discovered that my meaning, or purpose, was a love for beautiful functionality,” she says. “I returned to craft. I work mostly with fabric for its feel, its malleability, and its ability to transform into something useful, and simultaneously engaging. I silkscreen my designs on handmade home goods and also have recently co-launched a line of hand-printed quality apparel under the name Antler and Woods.”

Cory Kram 2012 also works in the arts experimenting with many different forms of painting, installation, and film. Her short, abstract films Beatrice (2012) and Sky (2013) were shown at Microscope Gallery in Brooklyn, New York (with original music composed by fellow Ursinus graduate William Molden 2012).

Kram does commission work and also works as a studio assistant for Kate Kaman and Joel Erland, two Philadelphia sculptors who work on large-scale public artwork displayed at libraries, hospitals, and schools. “Community and collaboration inspire me as an artist,” says Kram. “My job as a studio assistant motivates me to continue working on my various independent projects.” n

Fighting Fraud on the FBI’s Art Crime Team Donald Asper graduated from Ursinus with a degree in Biology in 1999. But his work as a Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation seems about as far away from the research lab as one could imagine. “I considered a switch to criminal investigations while I was working as a research analyst at Duke Medical Center’s Center for Human Genetics,” says Asper, who worked on complex genetic diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Multiple Sclerosis.

“I found criminal forensics very appealing as it was a field which was rapidly evolving and helped investigators solve crimes. The fact that FBI agents were on the street and quarterbacked the investigations from the ground level was interesting to me.”

As a member of the FBI’s Art Crime Team, Asper divides his time between Violent Crimes and the Major Theft Task Force in the FBI’s Philadelphia office. Investigating violent crime cases takes up most of his time, but Asper’s “art” work includes tracking those who specialize in the theft and reselling of fine art. “Working as a Special Agent for the FBI is a dream job which has allowed me to work a variety of different cases including violent robberies, organized crimes and white collar crimes,” says Asper. “Each investigation has its twists and turns which makes every day exciting and different. Art crime investigations are particularly fulfilling because not only is our team working to catch and prosecute criminals, we’re also dedicated to safely recover and protect historical and cultural pieces that can never be replaced. In Philadelphia, a city rich in historical artifacts and artwork, I’ve had the unique opportunity to work with artists, museum curators, and historians whose expertise allows me to learn more about art every day.”

Asper is part of the international search for a stolen Norman Rockwell painting from Cherry Hill, N.J., and the search for the missing $500 million dollar paintings and artifacts from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist in Boston. “Growing up, I knew I wanted to do something different, but I wasn’t sure what that would be,” says Asper. “My parents helped me believe I could do anything. Ursinus presented an illustrious learning opportunity, full of life experiences both academically and athletically. These dynamics prepared me in a way that, when I finally figured out what it really was that I wanted to do with my life, I was confident enough to take the risk and swing for the fence.”

Donald Asper 1999 is a

Special Agent for the FBI. His work has included investigating the theft of a rare antique bottle from a museum and providing assistance to a foreign government to return ancient coins and artifacts looted overseas and transported for sale to the United States. The job has led him to places both dangerous and beautiful, including hunting down the thieves who stole an original piece of artwork while it was en route to a museum. He has pursued art thieves who targeted private residences, stealing valuable, original artwork and he helped to recover a manuscript snatched from a library’s rare book collection. “The surprising thing to me is that people are willing to go to such great lengths to steal artwork or present forgeries without considering the consequences of going to jail and paying serious fines,” Asper says. Original artwork is hard to sell in an underground market and brings only a fraction of its value, he says. The FBI works with professionals from the art community, including fine art auctioneers, to identify missing or stolen artwork and record it in the FBI’s National Stolen Art File database. This online resource allows the public to search thousands of pieces of stolen art and provide valuable tips leading to art recoveries and arrests. n WINTER 2014 PAGE 21

The Body as Instrument A

fter graduation, Amanda Blythe 2012 went directly into a marketing internship at Dance Place, a small non-profit theater in Washington, D.C. In just about one year she has been promoted to full-time staff and is now the theater’s box office manager and marketing assistant. “When I first moved here, I wasn’t expecting Washington to provide me with many outlets for dance performance,” says Blythe. “Since then, I have been proven very wrong. While D.C. doesn’t have a robust critical culture that leads to reviews, the city is overflowing with dance of all different styles. I focus on modern dance, but there’s a lot happening here right now.”

When she is not at her day job, she dances with Dance Performance Group, an improvisational performance collective specializing in site-specific work around the city. She is also an apprentice with ClancyWorks Dance Company and has been a guest artist with many other projects, including DancEthos and UpRooted Dance.

From the age of five, Blythe trained strictly in classical ballet technique. “I was rehearsing every day of the week during my last years of high school,” she says. But when she asked the head of her dance school for advice on which colleges she should look into for dance, she was told that she was too tall to be in a ballet company and that she would never be hired as a dancer.

“I thought dance had run its course in my life,” she says. “And while I was very good at it, I had other interests to pursue.” She entered Ursinus planning to study neuroscience. But she held out hope to take part in the dance program, if only as an extra.

ment. “She was probably the first person, other than my mom, who told me that I could make it as a dancer.” With Young’s guidance and the inspiration she gained from the Ursinus dance faculty, she turned her plans on their head and dove headfirst into performance. “I really owe them everything,” she says. “From Chris Aiken, a master of the form, to Duane Lee Holland Jr., who encouraged me to step outside my comfort zone. My senior-year professors Peter DiMuro and Meredith Lyons have since paved the way for my new career. I really can’t over-emphasize how radically the dance program at Ursinus changed the entire course of my life up to this point,” says Blythe. “I’m an office manager, freelance marketer and writer, and part-time professional dancer. Even if it never goes farther than this, I’m so amazed and grateful to have made it this far. I can’t wait to see what comes next.”

Jeanine McCain, Assistant Professor of Dance in the Ursinus Theater and Dance Department says that one of the most exciting aspects of the growing dance program is the level of experience that students receive as part of the Ursinus College Dance Company (UCDC) concerts. “These performances take place every semester and provide a unique opportunity for students to work intensively at a professional level with guest artists and faculty in a collaborative artistic process,” says McCain. This year, the department showcased a strong group of senior dance majors providing leadership for the company, she says, also including many first-year students interested in becoming dance majors and infusing a new energy into the program. “Our students take on exciting independent projects,” says McCain.

PHOTO: PAUL GILLIS PHOTOGRAPHY

Those hands-on experiences helped Wynton Rice 2009 who is now a dancer for the well-regarded Garth Fagan Dance Company in New York City. As Blythe soon met Cathy Young, then Chair of the Theater & Dance Departa full-time dancer with a salary, paid vacation, health care and 401K, Rice feels grateful for the chance to nurture his art and support himself. “Garth works extremely “The dance program at Ursinus changed the entire course of my life,” says Amanda Blythe 2012 who hard to make sure that we have these opportudances in Washington D.C. She also works as a box nities,” says Rice. “I also teach for the company office manager and marketing assistant for Dance and a local public school and that way I am Place in Washington. constantly growing in my profession.” At Ursinus, Rice says he was fortunate to study technique and to incorporate his interest in sports science and meld them into his dance practice.

“Ursinus gave me the opportunity to learn and challenge the art form and artist alike,” he says.

As a member of Garth Fagan Dance Company, the primary focus now for Rice is on the development of his body as an instrument for performance. “Instead of multiple techniques,” says Rice, “I focus on mastering one. We are expected to engage our critical thinking capabilities. We discuss and critique work from our own performance.” Dance is life affirming, says Rice, the son of Ursinus Chaplain Rev. Charles Rice. “The act of learning to control and reside in one’s own body is thrilling,” he says. “The fact that I get to play and learn everyday keeps my mind and spirit focused PAGE 22 URSINUS MAGAZINE

PHOTO: BILL HERBERT 2013

“I hope I can make the world realize that the arts are not just a luxury, but a necessity,” says Roger Lee 2010. “We need more people to demand that arts be treated as a profession. Art saves lives, literally.”

and fresh. But the daily discipline of dance is taxing. Class, rehearsal and learning to work through injury or when you’re sick can be challenging. The act of developing your mental and physical acuity is grueling. This is not a profession for the weak of heart!”

& Communication Studies, Lee went on to earn a master’s degree in Arts Administration from Drexel University. It was an entrepreneurship class at Drexel that gave him the structure and motivation to start a business in the arts.

Dancer and businessman Roger Lee 2010 is something of a renaissance man. He has built a successful business, Roger Lee Dance, offering instruction, entertainment, speaking, and consulting services, concert series, and merchandise. His company was a Top Four Finalist in the KYW and CBS 2013 Small Business Challenge and featured in over 30 media outlets.

“I’ve been blessed with great mentors,” says Lee, who relies on his father’s advice. “He has years of business experience in life insurance. He pushed me the hardest to think about dance as business. He would ask me ‘Why not make this your job? Think of the reasons why you can do it.’ He has helped me push the envelope from a business standpoint.” Lee also credits Diane Sharp-Nachsin, a choreographer and artistic director who took a chance on him. “She saw something in my dancing and nurtured me,” says Lee, spent three seasons with the international-touring SHARP Dance Company.

“It’s kind of magical,” says Lee, soft-spoken and modest. “The KYW Small Business Challenge stands out because I entered on a whim. I didn’t think I would make the first cut. We were competing against strong companies.

Being named a finalist affirmed I was on the right track.” Lee has taught dance technique and choreography since 2003 including work for the venerable Broadway Dance Center, The Rock School for Dance Education Koresh School of Dance, University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, and Philadelphia Performance Art Center for Kids where he also serves as the Assistant Director. Lee knew from a young age that he was artistic. When he was 12, his mom encouraged him to audition for FOX Good Day Philadelphia as a dancer. “I was very nervous back then to be on TV,” says Lee, who made the cut. Today he has become more comfortable in the limelight.

“You have to open yourself up to the process,” says Lee, who overcame an injury while dancing during his sophomore year at Ursinus. “Without that pain, maybe I would have become complacent. It’s all a part of the journey.” After graduating from Ursinus with a degree in Dance Media

As a student at Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts, Lee double-majored in dance and visual art. One teacher, LaDeva M. Davis, told him he “had a tenacious spirit.” And at Ursinus, then dance faculty Chris Aiken and Cathy Young also guided him to study the business angle of dance. “When I came to campus I felt that the arts were this underground thing, and there was almost a negative stigma attached to it, but now I am so happy to see there are so many dance and theater and fine arts majors. It’s a great new direction and the culture seems to be shifting.”

For Lee, much of dance is about trust. “I always say a prayer before we dance, that we as dancers touch the audience. As an artist you can see joy on their face, if you have hit them with a powerful position. The way I look at it, the arts are restorative. I hope I can make the world realize that the arts are not just a luxury, but a necessity. We need more people to demand that arts be treated as a profession. Art saves lives, literally.” n WINTER 2014 PAGE 23

By Erica Lamberg

A LASTING GIFT More than 1,300 new works of art now are part of the permanent collection at Ursinus College. The collection reflects the passion for collecting of the late Philip and Muriel Berman, who established The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art in 1989. The Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation made the gift this fall to honor their memory.

W

hile Nancy Berman studied art history at Wellesley, a private liberal arts college in Massachusetts, there was one artwork she chose to accompany her which hung on her college dorm room wall. The work, Sandwich and Soda, an avant-garde design by Roy Lichtenstein, was a part of her college experience. “It has a special meaning because I took it to college with me and I loved seeing it again as part of the A to Z exhibition this fall,” says Berman.

The exhibition highlights the Foundation’s recent gift of more than 1,300 works which are now part of the permanent collection at Ursinus College.

The collected works reflect the dedication of her parents, the late Philip and Muriel Berman, and their passion for collecting. In 1989, Philip and Muriel loaned to Ursinus College works of art from their collections of contemporary sculpture (the world's largest collection by the sculptor Lynn Chadwick), American paintings, works on paper and folk art. The Museum building was dedicated that same year to house the pieces, joining an existing collection of 18th and 19th Century American and European paintings.

Nancy Berman, now president of The Philip and Muriel Berman Foundation, has continued in her parents' philanthropic footsteps, making gifts to local, non-for-profit institutions, including Ursinus College. A former Ursinus Trustee, she served on the Board from 1995 to 1998. A retired museum director, she served from 1972 to 2002 as the Founding Curator and Director of the Skirball Museum at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of PAGE 24 URSINUS MAGAZINE

Religion in Los Angeles. She helped to create the Skirball Cultural Center, which links Jewish heritage to American democratic ideals and she is the author of The Art of Hanukkah.

It was in the fall of 2010 when the Philip & Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College celebrated its 20th Anniversary with a Gala event at the Museum. Nancy and her husband, Alan Bloch, attended along with family, friends and colleagues to mark the anniversary and the opening of the newest wing of the building, the Henry W. and June Pfeiffer Wing. Bloch fondly remembers the Museum opening. “I was so moved by the interest and excitement of the young people who attended,” Bloch says. “I think that engaging young people in art means so much to this generation.”

The formal decision to donate the objects which previously had been on loan from the Foundation to become part of the permanent collection of Ursinus was a fulfillment of the vision of Philip and Muriel Berman for the College. The diverse collection includes paintings, sculpture, and prints by artists such as Harry Bertoia, William Glackens, Chaim Gross, and James and Jean Pierre Vasarely, as well as works on paper by George Bellows, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, John Sloan, James Whistler, and a wide range of other artists.

The A to Z exhibition is under the direction of the Berman Museum’s new director Charles Stainback, who joined the Museum in April 2013. This

exhibition was organized by Stainback, Ursinus Professor of Art History Matthew Shoaf, and an interdisciplinary mix of Ursinus students. The students drafted the wall texts that accompany each work in the exhibit, with the aim to bring each work to life. Through this effort, students experienced both the visual and intellectual riches of the Berman gift.

“I loved everything about the exhibit,” says Berman. “I loved the installations, the color, the space, the layout. The quality of the presentation, including the copy written on the plaques, made me feel like I was in a contemporary museum of art. The whole experience for me was deep and valuable.

It’s a true testament and tribute to my family.”

The exhibition featured many portraits, including an etching by Rembrandt, early paintings of President George Washington by unknown artists, a lateeighteenth-century portrait of an Irish Chancellor painted by Gilbert Stuart (shortly before he himself began painting his own famous portraits of Washington), an intriguing unfinished picture of two friends by Robert Henri, a bronze self-portrait by Man Ray, a portrait of Benito Mussolini by Albert Adolphe and portraits of Philip and Muriel Berman (the latter painted by Françoise Gilot, who is also well-represented by the Berman Collection).

Pop art is also prominent in A to Z, with prints by Robert Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, and Andy Warhol. The exhibition also offers abstract art, including a print by Ellsworth Kelly.

She said the A to Z exhibit highlighted works that are very special to her.

Françoise Gilot’s Portrait of Muriel Berman with Flowers, 1970, Acrylic; Board, 52 x 39 in., captures Berman’s mother during a trip to Paris. “That portrait of my mother means so very much. I remember when she traveled to Paris so Françoise could paint it from life,” Berman recalls. “My mother was very close friends with her and their friendship was beautifully reflected in this portrait. Many of Françoise’s works have come to Berman Art Museum as a result of not only my parents’ gifting, but also because Françoise has so generously given a treasure trove of drawings and graphics to Ursinus.”

“If the variety is inherent to the concept of ‘A to Z,’ which is appropriate given the wide range of things the Berman gift gives to Ursinus, the kinds of art represented by the exhibition also highlights areas of depth and points of connection on other levels, such as medium, themes of authenticity, selfaware looking, and artistic reputation,” says Matthew G. Shoaf, Ph.D., associate professor of art history and chair, Department of Art and Art History.

This exhibition is the first in a series of new initiatives Stainback is launching to redefine the role of the arts on the Ursinus campus, making the Museum a hub for the exchange of ideas between students and faculty, and enriching the educational experience of students across fields of study.

“It is rare for a small college museum to have a collection featuring the size, range and quality of the Berman Foundation gift,” says Stainback. “The diversity of the artworks reveals the passion that Phil and Muriel Berman brought to collecting. Through our exhibitions and programming at the Berman, we can share and keep alive that same passion.” With the opening of A to Z, Stainback has overseen the refurbishment of the Berman Museum. The improvements to the building have opened up the gallery space and introduced a new color palette to revitalize the interior of the Museum.

During a recent tour of the museum, and after a thorough walk-through of the A to Z exhibit, Nancy Berman said the exhibit was “remarkable, moving and intriguing.

The third work from the A to Z exhibit which was of particular relevance for Berman is Albert Jean Adolphe’s portrait of the young Benito Mussolini.

This American was one of the Bermans’ favorite artists. “This particular painting was in my living room in the house I grew up in and I was completely moved when I saw it again after all these years. It is a brilliant work and I’m so pleased that it can be shared again and again,” says Berman. Adolphe is well-represented in the Berman collection. “He was especially talented in capturing common, every-day scenes in life,” she says. “My father, in particular, was a very loyal fan of his art,” Berman says. “Whenever he found an artist he liked, and along with my mother, they would purchase as much in a collection that they could find. And, Adolphe is representative of that.”

As many novice art collectors, her parents’ collecting evolved as they studied, trained their eye, and widened their experiences, says Berman. “An initial foray into collecting French impressionists in the late 40’s was diverted when my mom invited the then director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art to come see the very tiny Renoir they’d purchased in New York. She had read that he was speaking in Allentown and she invited him to their home and he visited. He mentioned how high the prices for the French impressionists were becoming. They realized that this would not be in their acquisition budget and he suggested they look into the group of American artists called ‘The Eight’ and the early 20th-century realists. This piece of invaluable advice led them into a collecting area that fewer collectors were interested in; and it gave them a great challenge to learn more, acquire American works, and champion its value in the Eurocentric collecting of the time,” she says.

Under the leadership of former Berman Museum director Lisa Hanover, Ursinus added a gallery and teaching space to accommodate the active use of its permanent collection in a series of classrooms added to the current structure. These rooms are active space for students and faculty to use the collection for classes across the curriculum. “A classroom facilitates a collective exchange of ideas between art and other disciplines at Ursinus,” says Berman. “It’s a multi-tiered approach for art appreciation. The way the Museum integrates art beyond traditional art methods is very exciting.”

The A to Z exhibition is under the direction of the Berman Museum’s new director Charles Stainback, who joined the Museum in April 2013. The exhibition featured many portraits, including an etching by Rembrandt, a bronze self-portrait by Man Ray, a portrait of Benito Mussolini by Albert Adolphe and portraits of Philip and Muriel Berman (the latter painted by Françoise Gilot, who is also well-represented by the Berman Collection).

Pop art is also prominent in A to Z, with prints by Robert Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, and Andy Warhol. The exhibition also offers abstract art, including a print by Ellsworth Kelly.

To watch a video about the Philip and Muriel Berman’s legacy at Ursinus go to: www.ursinus.edu/bermanvideo

The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art at Ursinus College is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, and noon to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. The Museum is closed Mondays and college holidays. Admission is free.

WINTER 2014 PAGE 25

This Earned His

By Erika Compton Butler 1994

E

Paul Guenther, linebackers coach for the Cincinnati Bengals, has been coaching football since he graduated from Ursinus.

ach season, the reality sports documentary television series Hard Knocks follows a National Football League team through its training camp, covering in every gritty detail the preparation for the upcoming season. Produced by NFL Films and HBO, Hard Knocks recently featured the Cincinnati Bengals football players and coaches as they worked through training camp. Among those reality NFL stars providing colorful entertainment was former Ursinus football coach Paul Guenther 1993.

Ohio, just outside Cincinnati, with his wife, Patrice, and their sons, Jake, 10, and Duke, 7.

“You’re always on film, you’re always wired,” says Guenther, admitting to letting a few curse words slip as the cameras rolled. “I tried to be myself. I wasn’t going to change who I was because the cameras were there.”

After graduating with a communications major and coaching minor, Guenther went to Western Maryland College (now McDaniel) as a graduate assistant and earned a master’s degree in athletic administration. He returned to Ursinus in 1996 as an assistant coach. That year the team won the Centennial Conference. Momentum was building for Guenther. When head coach Steve Gilbert took a coaching job elsewhere, Guenther was offered the top spot at Ursinus. "Coach Gilbert really helped me with the organization. He showed me how to recruit, he showed me how he did everything," Guenther says. "He was a very organized guy. I fed off that."

Tenacious and passionate about the game, Guenther, the Bengals linebackers coach, has been coaching football since he graduated from Ursinus. His coaching career started in the college ranks, including Ursinus.

But he has worked his way to the NFL, where he hopes to stay. “I enjoy being in the game and at the highest level,” says Guenther, who lives in Indian Hill, PAGE 26 URSINUS MAGAZINE

Guenther realized that he wanted to pursue a career in coaching when he was a student-athlete at Ursinus. “As a player, I really understood the game.

I was an average athlete, but I had a good head for the strategy of the game, which made me a better player,” he says.

“I had just turned 25,” he says. “Was I ready to be a head coach? I’m not sure at that age that anyone is ready to be a head coach.” Accepting the job at that time made him the youngest football coach in Ursinus history. He began recruiting players from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland. “Dean (William) Akin took me under his wing, showed me what to do, not do in certain situations,” he says. "He was someone good to have ideas to bounce off of."

“It’s obviously a privilege to coach in the NFL,” says Guenther who graduated in 1993. “Players at this level want to know how you can help them improve.

You have to find different ways to motivate them.”

But he butted heads with the college administration on the direction of the football team and left Ursinus with a year remaining on his contract.

“If that had not happened,” he says, “I probably would not be where I am now.”

Through various connections in both college and professional football, Guenther landed his first job in the NFL with the Washington Redskins as an entry level assistant coach. In 2005, he was hired by the Bengals; Guenther is now in his ninth season with the team. “It’s obviously a privilege to coach in the NFL,” Guenther says. “Players at this level want to know how you can help them improve. This is their job and you have to give them answers. You have to find different ways to motivate them.”

From mid-July when training camp begins, through February and (hopefully) the Super Bowl, Guenther lives and breathes football. As a coach, his job is to concentrate on opponents as well as teach his players the technical aspects of the game. “Every opposing team poses a little different problem,” he says.

The job is high-pressure and demanding, but Guenther still makes time for his family. His wife tries to make as many of the team’s road games as possible. And he spends a lot of time coaching his kids, who both, of course, play football. He can watch the boys’ Saturday games if the

PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE CINCINNATI BENGALS

Bengals are home that week. Guenther passes his knowledge along to his boys, teaching them how to run routes and plays, playing one-on-one with them in their backyard, where two goalposts stand at each end of the lawn. “We play an NFL season and at the end of the season, we go to Bengals stadium and have a Super Bowl,” Guenther says.

Guenther isn’t the only member of the Class of 1993 to coach at one of the top levels. Dan Mullen is the head coach at Mississippi State University, where Scott Sallach is an assistant coach, advising the tight ends. “It’s pretty cool,” Guenther says. “The guys I played with in my senior class were all into it, we loved playing together. We always talked football away from the game. It’s funny how it all worked out. You’ve got to have people help you grow as a person and coach and teach you how to do things the right way,” he says.

Football is like any job, says Guenther. “If you keep your nose down and keep working hard,” he says, “eventually you’ll move ahead.”

Editor's note: At time of publication the Bengals announced that Guenther was promoted to defensive coordinator for the Bengals, replacing Mike Zimmer, who was hired as the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings.

Erika Compton Butler graduated in 1994 and has been a reporter and editor at the Aegis since October 1994. She lives in Bel Air, Md., with her husband, Chris, and two children, Henry and Emily.

Guenther with his wife, Patrice and sons Jake and Duke.

WINTER 2014 PAGE 27

homecoming

2013

1) Cheering on the team with her ‘Go Bears’ sign is Jessica Long 2014 and beside her is Alex Lowe.

2) Samantha Pritchard 2011, Aarina Eleazer 2013 and Ryan Sullivan 2011. 3) In the middle of her family is volleyball player Mara Berzins 2014 who iced her knees after the game. 4) Phil Brackin 1963 and Bonnie (Fisher) Brackin 1964, with The Griz. 5) Michael Zappichi (far right) greets a friend. 6) Face painting, inflatables and tables covered in candy were a draw for future alumni. 7) On the left is Alaina Geary 2012 with her friend Kathryn Pall 2012. 8) Suzanne Fong and her dog Ursus showed their team spirit for Ursinus athletes.

9) Being hoisted up high by Andrew Fiorentino is Franny Rahill. Franny is the brother of Jerry Rahill 2013 and the cousin of Chris Rahill 2002. “Franny is a big football fan and obviously a big fan of his older brother, Jerry,” says football coach Pete Gallagher. “Many times he would run out on the field with us and spend pre-game in the locker room with the team and his brother. Both Franny and Jerry will be missed!”

1

2

PAGE 28 URSINUS MAGAZINE

4

3 6

5

7 9

8

WINTER 2014 PAGE 29

events 2014 Center for Science and the Common Good Lecture: Dr. Robert M. Simon ’77 | January 28, 2014, 7:30 p.m.

Lenfest Theater, Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center

U-Inspire! Speaker: Anne Beiler, Founder of Auntie Anne’s Pretzels | January 29, 2014, 7 p.m.

Lenfest Theater, Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center Sponsored by the U-Inspire! Lecture Series and the Philadelphia National Council, in conjunction with the U-Innovate! Business Competition.

Job, Internship and Networking Fair

February 12, 2014, 12 p.m.

Floy Lewis Bakes Field House

Southern New Jersey National Council Kick-Off Event

February 20, 2014, 6:30-8:30 p.m.

The Home of Helene (Fennimore) ’83 and Terence Delaney, Haddonfield, NJ Alumni and parents from Southern and Central New Jersey are invited to join UC Advancement staff as we look to recruit volunteers who will plan and program for this region.

Southern California National Council Kick-Off Event

March 7, 2014, 7-9 p.m.

Tannins Restaurant, San Juan Capistrano, CA Alumni and parents from Southern California are invited to join UC Advancement staff as we look to recruit volunteers who will plan and program for this region.

Brownback-Anders Spring Event

March 19, 2014, 5-8 p.m.

Berman Museum The Brownback-Anders Pre-Health Society, known to be the first biology club at Ursinus, will host an inaugural dinner for alumni physicians. Connect with fellow classmates and celebrate a proud Ursinus tradition of pre-medical education.

Ursinus Jazz Ensemble Concert | March 21, 2014, 7:30 p.m.

Lenfest Theater, Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center Conductor: Holly Hubbs Meistersingers Concert | March 29, 2014, 7:30 p.m.

Bomberger Auditorium Conductor: John French

U-Innovate! Final Presentations & Award Ceremony

April 6, 2014 Ursinus Campus Student groups conduct final presentations and the winners of our U-Innovate! Business Competition will be announced. Alumni judges and mentors are invited to campus to celebrate with the teams and enjoy a keynote address.

PAGE 36 URSINUS MAGAZINE

Ursinus Wind Ensemble Concert | April 11, 2014, 7:30 p.m.

Lenfest Theater, Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center Conductor: Holly Hubbs Ursinus String Ensemble Concert | April 12, 2014, 7:30 p.m.

Bomberger Auditorium Conductor: Garrett Hope

Alumni Weekend 2014 | April 24-26, 2014 Ursinus Campus Members from the classes of 1954, 1959 and 1964 are invited back to campus to celebrate their milestone reunion! Events include Alumni Awards Ceremony, class dinners, Red, Old Gold & Black Society Brunch and Town Hall with President Fong.

Celebration of Student Achievement (CoSA)

April 24, 2014, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.

Ursinus Campus CoSA is an all-day campus-wide event that aims to engage the entire campus community in the presentation, discussion and celebration of all forms of intellectual and creative work done by students at all levels of their college careers.

College Choir and Meistersingers Concert | April 27, 2014, 4 p.m.

Bomberger Auditorium Conductor: John French

Summer Send-Offs, sponsored by Regional National Council Chapters

Incoming families to Ursinus will be invited to join current families, UC staff, and alumni and parent volunteers at these informal welcome receptions.

Please save the dates for Summer 2014: San Francisco: Sunday, July 20, 2014 Philadelphia: Sunday, July 27, 2014 D.C.: Sunday, August 3, 2014 Boston: Sunday, August 10, 2014 New York City: Wednesday, August 13, 2014

National Council: Upcoming Regional Events

Spring – Summer 2014 Ursinus College National Council Liaisons will be hosting a variety of events and programs in Boston, D.C., Florida, New York City, Philadelphia and San Francisco this year. A Kick-Off event for Chicago will be taking place in the spring of 2014, as well. For more information on upcoming events and regional activities, please visit: www.ursinus.edu/NationalCouncil

Homecoming 2014 | October 24-25, 2014 Ursinus Campus All alumni will enjoy annual traditions such as Grizzly Gala, athletic games, organizational reunions and special reunion dinners for the classes of 1969, 1974, 1979, 1984, 1989, 1994, 1999, 2004 and 2009.

Events are frequently added to the calendar. Please check the Ursinus website for the most current schedule of events: events.ursinus.edu

Weddings

Matt Simeone 2004 and Sharon Lehm were married on Sept. 22, 2012.

Jessica Zatwarnicki 2010 and Jonathan Col贸n 2009 were married on Sept. 14, 2013.

Ghadir Ishqaidef 2005 and Abdel Dridi were married on June 2, 2013.

WINTER 2014 PAGE 37

Brad Wickersham 2008 and Meredith Davies were married on May 4, 2013.

Danielle Harris 2010 and Julian Wright 2008 were married on August 8, 2013.

Heather Goldberg 2000 and Raymond Hagan were married on Sept. 1, 2013.

Taylor Bell 2011 and Adam Kabacinski 2009 were married on June 29, 2013.

PAGE 38 URSINUS MAGAZINE

Lisa Buckley 2008 and Kier Spigelmyer were married on June 9, 2013.

Brian McEvily 2006 and Emily Malinowski 2007 were married on Aug. 17, 2013.

Melissa Krupa 2010 and Kenneth Komar were married on Sept. 7, 2013.

Angela Sterner 2006 and Mark Iacolucci 2008 were married on Jan. 5, 2013.

Ursinus wedding photos

Ursinus Magazine publishes wedding photos in the magazine as well as online. Please send your favorite wedding memories.

Send photos to Ursinus Magazine, P.O. Box 1000, Collegeville, PA 19426. Digital photos can be e-mailed to ucmag@ursinus.edu.

Ursinus College reserves the right to reject publication of photos which are not of publishable quality. We regret that we are not able to return print photographs. The wedding date must be given and the group photograph should include only Ursinus alumni.

Please sign onto the Ursinus online community: www.ursinus.edu/alumni for full captions including names of the Ursinus alumni pictured in the photo. Questions can be addressed to the Office of Alumni Relations, 610.409.3585, or by e-mailing ucmag@ursinus.edu.

Join us on Facebook where 3,866 friends like the Ursinus page.

www.facebook.com/ursinuscollege Follow us on Twitter where Ursinus has 1,382 followers.

www.twitter.com/ursinuscollege

Our Official Ursinus Social Media Directory can be found on news.ursinus.edu/social or directly here news.ursinus.edu/college-communications/social-directory

WINTER 2014 PAGE 39

field notes The

Carbon Nanotube

10,000 Times Thinner Than A Human Hair, But Stronger Than Steel “The multiplicative effect of training young scientists is probably my most enduring contribution,” says Mark Ellison, Associate Professor and Chair of Chemistry. His research centers on the chemistry of carbon nanotubes for applications in energy and medicine. A new grant from the National Science Foundation will team Ursinus scientists with MIT to discover new properties of carbon nanotubes.

First, what in the world is a carbon nanotube? And tell us about your collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology that was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

A carbon nanotube is a form of carbon in which the carbon atoms are arranged in a repeating hexagonal pattern (think chicken wire) and rolled up into a tiny tube. The field of carbon nanotube research is rather new. They weren’t even discovered until my second year of graduate school.

Carbon nanotubes are fascinating–they are about 10,000 times thinner than a human hair but are stronger than steel. I got into the field in about 2000, when a student in one of my classes researched a paper about carbon nanotubes. He started a research project, and gradually all the projects in my research group developed into nanotube research. Because it’s such a new field, there are still many unexplored avenues and much to be learned.

My newest research direction is the collaboration with Dr. Michael Strano at MIT, funded by the recent National Science Foundation grant. Basically, carbon nanotubes are the smallest possible pipe you can imagine. On a fundamental scientific level, we are interested in how atoms, molecules, and ions move in these pipes. Only a few water molecules can fit side by side in a carbon nanotube, so the flow will be different than what we are used to. All the plumbing pipes in our houses and buildings work because we understand how water flows when the pipe diameter is much, much bigger than the size of water molecules. But how do water molecules flow in a pipe that is not much wider than a few molecules? How do ions flow through such a small pipe? These fundamental questions will increase our scientific knowledge of PAGE 40 URSINUS MAGAZINE

these systems, and the answers can lead to useful applications.

Much of the research in nanoscience spans across multiple disciplines, and ours is no different. One of my research projects at Ursinus, in collaboration with Dr. Tony Lobo in biology, is to use carbon nanotubes to overcome certain mechanisms of antibiotic resistance. We’re also interested in the toxic effects of carbon nanotubes. Carbon nanotubes have made their way into commercial products – Toyota uses carbon nanotubes to strengthen bumpers in some of its cars – but we don’t know what effects these nanotubes might have when they get out into the environment. Dr. Rebecca Kohn in biology is collaborating with me to study the toxic effects of carbon nanotubes on C. elegans, which is a step toward understanding effects that nanotubes might have on small organisms. Working with my colleagues in biology is incredibly invigorating, and together we are addressing important questions. I also have students working on research to use carbon nanotubes to make solar cells more efficient.

So, you start research with scientists at MIT to learn more about carbon nanotubes and their properties.

What questions do you hope to answer? What are the long-term implications of being able to transport small molecules and biologically important ions through single-walled carbon nanotubes?

We would like to increase our fundamental knowledge of how water and ions flow through a pipe that is only a few molecules wide.

Having this knowledge base will let us develop new and useful applications

for nanotubes. For instance, if we can control whether or not certain ions flow through a carbon nanotube, we could devise a way to make an efficient water purification system. If we can keep toxic ions, like lead and mercury, from flowing through, that would be an effective filter for contaminated water. Another application is in biomedicine. A carbon nanotube is the most minimally invasive needle that could probe a living cell. Imagine being able to stick a nanotube needle into a cell and extract a small amount of the cytoplasm for analysis. Then, based on that analysis, you could inject some amino acids, a drug or drug combination, or whatever the situation calls for. We currently don’t have anything close to the specificity or fine control that such a system could offer. These applications might be years or decades away, but the first step is to understand how small molecules and biologically important ions travel through single-walled carbon nanotubes.

Other than the unpredictable nature of research, what is frustrating or challenging about working with nanotubes?

Because the field of carbon nanotubes is relatively new, it has generated lots of excitement, and there are many scientists working in it. That also means I have been competing with scientists at large research institutions. We were working on some of the same problems that research groups at major research institutions were working on. They have graduate students working full-time and more resources, and it’s very hard to compete with that. With this new collaboration with MIT, we can tap in to the expertise and resources of the Strano group, which should help put us at the forefront of this area of research.

In research, you often hit unanticipated difficulties, equipment malfunctions, and other obstacles, and these can be very frustrating. However, they also provide an opportunity to demonstrate to the students the importance of being persistent and dedicated. Usually, a problem can be solved through hard work and perseverance. If you stick with it and don’t let it discourage you, you will solve the problem and get a genuine feeling of accomplishment.

If you had to stop being a professor – and choose another profession – what would it be and why?

I can’t imagine doing anything else. Working with great students and colleagues on a daily basis is a real privilege. Nothing I’ve ever done has ignited my passion like teaching and working with students on research.

I guess if I’m forced to pick, I’d say some line of work that is outdoors. I love to be out in nature, hiking, camping, canoeing, anything active in nature. I think I’d still do something that involved teaching. Maybe I’d be a national park ranger, living and working in the outdoors and teaching visitors about the natural wonders in the park.

What do you think is the most significant contribution you have made to your field so far?

Realistically, I haven’t made any big contributions to my field. Perhaps with this new collaboration with MIT, we will be able to make significant advances. I would say that the research students who have worked with me are an important contribution to science. During my career, over 50 students have worked on research projects with me, and these students have gone on to careers in the chemical industry, medical school, and graduate school. I am tremendously proud of all my research students, current and past. They are all doing their part to work on some of the major issues that face humanity. This multiplicative effect of training young scientists is probably my most enduring contribution. n

What aspect of your research is the most exciting or interesting?

The search for the unknown! The universe is a great mystery, and the chance to unravel some of its secrets is very challenging and rewarding. Working with students is also a great part of my job. Watching them grow, gain confidence and independence, and experience the thrill of discovery themselves is a real pleasure.

WINTER 2014 PAGE 41

URSINUS MAGAZINE

PO Box 1000 Collegeville, PA 19426-1000 ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE

PAID

LANSDALE, PA PERMIT NO.267

Alumni Weekend 2014 New Timing, New Traditions, Same Great Friends

SA • Alumni Awards • Red, Old Gold and Black Society Luncheon • Class Dinners • 1964 • 1959 • 1954 • CIE Class • Lo wn Hall with President Bobby Fong • COSA • Alumni Awards • Red, Old Gold and Black Society Luncheon • Class Din 4 • 1959 • 1954 • CIE Class • Lobster Bake • COSA • COSA • Alumni Awards • Red, Old Gold and Black Society Lunche ss Dinners • 1964 • 1959 • 1954 • CIE Class • Lobster Bake • Town Hall with President Bobby Fong • COSA • Alumni A SA • Alumni Awards • Red, Old Gold and Black Society Luncheon • Class Dinners • 1964 • 1959 • 1954 • CIE Class • Lo wn Hall with President Bobby Fong • COSA • Alumni Awards • Red, Old Gold and Black Society Luncheon • Class Din Class of 1954, 1959Bake and• COSA 1964• COSA | Mark yourAwards calendars, April 24-26, 2014 4 • 1959 • 1954 • CIE Class • Lobster • Alumni • Red, Old Gold and Black Society Lunche Lasting traditions • Reunion Dinners • Red, Old Gold and Black Society Brunch • Lobster Bake • Alumni Awards Ceremony

New programming • Open classes with students and faculty • Dinner and dancing featuring the UC Jazz Band • Celebration of Student Achievement (CoSA) presentations by UC students

The 5th – 45th Class Reunions will be held during Homecoming, scheduled for October 24 & 25, 2014.

www.ursinus.edu/alumniweekend 610.409.3585