ON THE COVER Our cover photo makes the point that YSU alumni are involved in world-changing humanitarian work across the United States and around the world. We found 10 great examples. Read about them, starting on Page 10.
YSU President
Cynthia E. Anderson, ’73
YSU Board of Trustees Chair Sudershan K. Garg Vice Chair John R. Jakubek, ’79 Delores Crawford, ’68 David C. Deibel, ’75 James B. Greene Harry Meshel, ’49 Leonard Schiavone Scott R. Schulick, ’94, ’96 Carole S. Weimer, ’89 Secretary Franklin S. Bennett Jr. Student Trustee Joshua Michael Prest
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Magazine Editor
Cynthia Vinarsky
Director of University Communications
Ron Cole
Executive Director of Marketing & Communications
Mark W. Van Tilburg
Renée Cannon, ’90
Layout Design Artist
Photographer Bruce Palmer Interim Director, Office Jacquelyn LeViseur, ’08 of Alumni and Events Management Assistant Director of Marketing & Communications
Jean Engle, ’86
Sports Contributor
Trevor Parks
Recognize it? Can you identify this campus landmark? Turn to Page 18 to find out where it’s located and to see a collage of 20 mystery photos that will test your familiarity with the YSU campus.
Youngstown State University is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission and is a member of the North Central Association. Youngstown State University – A Magazine for Alumni and Friends (ISSN 2152-3746), Issue 13, Summer 2012, is published quarterly by the YSU Office of Marketing and Communications, One University Plaza, Youngstown, OH 44555. Periodicals Postage Paid at Youngstown, Ohio, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Youngstown State University, Office of Marketing and Communications, One University Plaza, Youngstown, OH 44555. Direct letters to the editor, comments or questions to the address above, call 330-941-3519 or email universitymagazine@ ysu.edu. Youngstown State University is committed to a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of race, color, age, religion, sex, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, or identity as a disabled veteran or veteran of the Vietnam era, in respect to students and/or to applicants for employment, and to organizations providing contractual services to YSU. 8-001
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Around Campus – The latest in campus news and photos. Faculty-Staff Photo Feature – Introducing Barry Jenkins, the first person prospective students, their parents and other visitors meet when they arrive on the YSU campus. Student Success Stories – A regular feature highlighting the achievements of YSU students.
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COVER STORY: YSU Alumni – Working to Change the World. Read about 10 YSU grads who are involved in humanitarian work in some amazing ways.
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Campus Mystery Tour – Unique camera angles create a challenging campus quiz.
Business Development Center – 26 Small Celebrating 25 years, the SBDC serves local businesses, encourages entrepreneurs and provides hands-on learning for students.
Spotlight – Meet Nanette Lepore, ’84 27 Alumni BSBA, a New York fashion designer whose
namesake brand is internationally known and sold in boutiques in the United States, Europe and Asia.
Posthumously Honored – Read about 28 Veteran Leslie Sabo, a YSU student drafted to serve in the Vietnam War, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery.
DEPARTMENTS
ALUMNI
update
2 President’s Message 6 Letters to the Editor 20 University Development 21 YSU Foundation 22 Penguin Sports 24 Alumni News 29 Class Notes
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President’s Message
Alumni World-Changers:
Passing Through Life Doing Good “I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.” -Mahatma Gandhi
Cynthia E. Anderson President
For more than 100 years, Youngstown State University’s main focus has been and will continue to be the success of our students – success academically, professionally and even personally. We want students to leave YSU better equipped to pursue their goals and dreams and to face the rigors of life. But, as an institution of higher learning, we have a broader responsibility. We – students, faculty, staff, administrators, alumni – are called to engage in and advance the lives of those around us, in the city, the nation and the world. Instilling a culture of service across the institution is an important part of our history and vital to our future and the future of the region. This past spring, for the third consecutive year, YSU was named to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, the highest federal recognition a university can receive for its commitment to volunteering, service-learning and civic engagement. Last year alone, YSU students and employees dedicated tens of thousands of hours for various projects in service of the community, from the Shantytown homelessness awareness campaign at the Cafaro House residence hall to free music, acting and dance lessons for underprivileged youths through the YSU Students Motivated by the Arts program. As this honor attests, there are no ivory towers at YSU. We are down in the trenches, engaged with our community. YSU and the community are better off as a result. In this edition of YSU Magazine, we focus on and celebrate alumni who are dedicating themselves to making better the lot of others – at home and halfway around the world. Like Javed Khawaja, who led efforts to rescue 1,000 of his neighbors from the worst floods ever to hit Pakistan. And Daniella “Donna” Lorincz Drader, who collected school supplies for a newly opened school in Uganda and later had a block in the school named in her honor. Or Justin Dunaway, cofounder of Phoenix Rising for Haiti, an organization that leads medical teams to that earthquake-stricken Caribbean country. And there’s Emery BoyleScott, a Teach for America participant who has been working with special education children in the inner-city public schools of Milwaukee since graduating from YSU three years ago. These wonderful alumni are changing the world and making a difference in the lives of people caught in extraordinary circumstances. They are passing through life doing good and showing kindness to others. We congratulate them and admire them for their commitment, and we are proud to have them as part of the YSU family. Sincerely,
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Cynthia E. Anderson, President
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Campus Police Adds Pedal Patrol
University police are pedaling across campus as part of the YSU Police Department’s new Bike Patrol. “We’re always looking for ways to better serve and protect the campus community,” YSU Police Chief John Beshara said. “Putting officers on bicycles will allow us as a police department to be more effective in getting close up and personal with students, employees and visitors to campus.” The YSUPD has purchased three mountain bikes, equipped with siren horns, for the new patrol. The new unit was used for the first time at the YSU Summer Festival of the Arts on July 7 and 8 on campus. The bike patrol will be in addition to car and foot patrols currently in place. Officers will be assigned to the bicycle patrol on a voluntary basis. Officers will be trained by a certified bicycle patrol instructor or will attend an approved basic police bicycle training/instruction course. Beshara said that currently there are no state mandates and/ or uniform training standards for bicycle patrols. Officers will wear official YSUPD Bike Patrol uniforms. The patrol will attempt to operate year round, except during severe or inclement weather. Beshara said other local law enforcement agencies, including the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office, Youngstown Police Department and Mill Creek MetroParks Police, also have bicycle patrols. Chief John Beshara, left, and Sgt. Dennis Godoy.
New Spending Plan Includes State Funding Cuts, Tuition Increase The YSU Board of Trustees has approved a $156.3 million general fund budget for fiscal year 2013, an amount 1.5 percent or $2.4 million less than FY 2012. “In these difficult economic times with continued reductions in state funding, we have carefully developed a spending plan that allows us to live within our means and to continue to invest in high-quality academic programs, faculty and facilities,” YSU President Cynthia E. Anderson said. YSU’s state allocations will drop by $1.1 million in FY 2013, following a $7 million reduction in FY 2012. Ten years ago, state funding made up 50 percent of YSU’s general fund budget – now, state funding provides only 25 percent. The budget also includes a $130-per-semester tuition increase for next academic year. The Board approved tuition at $3,856 a semester for full-time undergraduate students living in Ohio, or $7,712 a year. Even with the increase, YSU’s tuition will remain the lowest among Ohio’s 11 public, comprehensive universities – and is projected to be $2,220 below the average for public, comprehensive universities across the state. “We are committed to ensuring that YSU is the best value among public universities in Ohio,” Anderson said.
School Psychology Degree Program to Aid National Shortage The first group of 12 students in YSU’s new graduate-level school psychology program was introduced this summer during the 2012 School Psychology Summer Audrey Ellenwood Institute on Autism on campus. “It is an honor to introduce such a strong cohort into the new program,” said Audrey Ellenwood, program director. “They are enthusiastic, knowledgeable and ready to start.” The new Educational Specialist Degree in School Psychology is the first Ed.S. degree at YSU and the first program of its kind created in Ohio in more than 40 years. Graduates will earn two degrees: a Master of Education in Intervention Services and an Ed.S. in School Psychology. The new degree was established in response to a continuing shortage of school psychologists regionally, across Ohio and nationally. The National Association of School Psychologists estimates a shortage of nearly 9,000 school psychologists nationwide and predicts that the shortage could increase to nearly 15,000 by 2020.
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Campus Welcomes New Leaders A new trustee, a new dean and a new vice president joined YSU this summer. Gov. John Kasich appointed James B. Greene of Canfield, a retired Compco Industries executive, to a nine-year term on the YSU Board of Trustees. He replaces Millicent S. Counts, whose term on the board has expired. “There are challenges facing the university, but there are also great opportunities,” Greene said. “I want James Greene to listen and learn first, then I’ll be able to contribute to the university.” A past president of the YSU Penguin Club, Greene retired two years ago as chief commercial officer for Compco Industries, based in Columbiana. Charles L. Howell, former associate professor and chair of the Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations at Northern Illinois University, is the new dean of the YSU Beeghly College of Education. “Dr. Howell brings to YSU and to Youngstown Charles Howell wide-ranging experience as an administrator and as an educator who is committed to his faculty, to serving the university and to partnering with the community to improve local school districts,” said Ikram Khawaja, provost and vice president of Academic Affairs. Howell said the Beeghly College of Education “has incredible resources to offer the Mahoning Valley region and beyond: a talented faculty, outstanding teacher, administrator, school psychologist and counselor preparation programs; and a beautiful building with state-of-the-art technology, labs and training facilities.” R. Scott Evans, former vice president for Institutional Advancement at Lake Erie College, is YSU’s new vice president for University Advancement. “Scott R. Scott Evans brings to YSU the knowledge and the hands-on fundraising background to help take our development and alumni activities to the next level,” President Cynthia E. Anderson said. Evans oversees the Office of University Development and the Office of Alumni and Events Management. “President Anderson has great vision, and I look forward to working with the faculty, staff, trustees, alumni and friends of the university to achieve our goals together,” he said.
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Grant Continues Upward Bound YSU’s Upward Bound program, which helps Youngstown city high school students prepare for college, has received $250,000 to continue for another year. The grant from the U.S. Department of Education could be extended an additional four years at $250,000 a year, contingent upon satisfactory progress in the program. “We are pleased that YSU will be able to continue to offer this important program,” said Sherri Harper Woods, YSU Upward Bound director. “For nearly 15 years, Upward Bound has helped students in Youngstown city high schools succeed in the pursuit of their academic and personal goals.” Upward Bound is designed to help low-income and/or first-generation, college-bound high school students enroll and succeed in post-secondary education. Since its start in 1998, the YSU program has served nearly 200 students in Youngstown public high schools. More than 90 percent of the students who complete the program enroll in college, mostly at YSU.
A Bird’s-Eye View at the Covelli Centre YSU’s Pete the Penguin has a prominent new spot on a front window of the Covelli Centre in downtown Youngstown, part of the university’s new strategic partnership with the city’s premier sports and entertainment venue. Renée Cannon, layout design artist in YSU’s Office of Marketing and Communications, designed Pete’s unique window display, as well as the other Pete images exhibited in the food court and elsewhere in the facility. The university name is also on display inside the arena, and the center’s meeting room has been renamed the YSU Community Room.
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What’s On Stage Comedies, dramas, an opera and the musical “Rent” will highlight the 2012-13 University Theater season at YSU, which opens Sept. 6 and continues through May 2013. For more details on each production, including ticket information, visit http://web.ysu.edu/fpa/theater.
2012 Sept. 6, 7, 8, 9. Dark Matters (thriller), Spotlight Arena Theater, Bliss Hall. Oct. 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14. The Cherry Orchard (drama/comedy), Spotlight Arena Theater, Bliss Hall. Nov. 8, 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18. Rent (musical), Ford Theater, Bliss Hall.
2013 Jan. 24, 25, 26, 27. Dog Sees God (comedy), Spotlight Arena Theater, Bliss Hall. Feb. 21, 22, 23, 24, March 1, 2, 3. Broke-Ology (drama), Ford Theater, Bliss Hall. April 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14. Gemini (comedy), Spotlight Arena Theater, Bliss Hall. April 18, 19, 20, 21. Hansel and Gretel (opera), Ford Theater, Bliss Hall. May 2, 3, 4. YSU Dance Ensemble, Ford Theater, Bliss Hall.
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Scholarship Established To Honor Former Dean YSU faculty and staff have established a scholarship fund in memory of Philip Ginnetti, former dean of the Beeghly College of Education, who died June 29 at the Cleveland Clinic of acute myeloid leukemia. He was 61. Ginnetti earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in elementary education from YSU, then completed a doctorate in elementary education curriculum at the University Philip Ginnetti of Akron. He spent 25 years at YSU, serving as chair of the Department of Teacher Education and assistant dean of the Beeghly College before being named dean in 2002. In 2010, he accepted a position as provost and vice president for academic affairs at Edinboro University. The Dr. Philip Ginnetti Memorial Scholarship will benefit students in the Beeghly College of Education. Gifts will be processed through the YSU Office of University Development. Checks may be made payable to “Youngstown State University” with “Ginnetti Memorial Scholarship” in the memo portion; online gifts may be made by visiting www.ysu.edu/givetoysu and typing in “Ginnetti Memorial Scholarship” in the comments box.
Flash Mob Celebrates
Crash Day
YSU President Cynthia E. Anderson and Pete the Penguin joined more than two dozen performers for a “flash mob” dance outside Kilcawley Center during the university’s first Crash Day. More than 400 people from across Ohio and Pennsylvania and as far away as New Jersey and Tennessee attended the daylong event, designed to help introduce or re-introduce prospective students, their parents and friends to YSU. Participants sat in on classes, toured the campus and participated in a variety of activities to learn more about YSU and the college experience. In addition, three students won $1,500 scholarships. After an opening gathering in the WATTS center on campus, participants encountered the flash mob performance outside Kilcawley. A flash mob is a group of people who appear to spontaneously assemble and perform. YSU’s flash mob included students, faculty and staff.
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your Letters.
Leadership Program Created for Business Majors YSU’s Williamson College of Business Administration has created the new Business Leaders Program for students who excel academically and demonstrate a high level of commitment to their professional and leadership development. The program will provide freshmen with a variety of opportunities to increase their knowledge of business, accelerate their involvement with the business community and enhance their professional preparation. Students selected for the program will be admitted directly to their business major of choice and will participate in a variety of academic, leadership and professional development activities throughout their freshman and sophomore years. For more information, contact Leigh Ann Waring, director of WCBA undergraduate student services, at lawaring@ysu.edu or 330-941-3066.
Students Oppose Loan Interest Hikes
YSU students played a role in convincing Congress to delay increasing rates on student loans. Students Cary Dabney and Laura Krcelic and Student Government President Cory Okular joined U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown at a campus news conference in June to lobby against the threatened increase. Later that month, Congress approved legislation delaying the rate increase for one year. Interest rates on federally subsidized Stafford student loans were set to double from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. More than 382,000 students across Ohio – including more than 10,000 in Columbiana, Mahoning and Trumbull counties – would have been affected. The news conference in YSU’s Kilcawley Center was one of several that Brown held across the state about the interest rate issue.
Send your letters to: universitymagazine@ysu.edu or YSU Office of Marketing and Communications, One University Plaza, Youngstown, OH 44555.
Editor: I loved your spring 2012 issue featuring the Department of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences on the cover. “Criminal Justice Grads are Top Cops Here and Abroad” was an excellent story. I graduated Spring 2012 in 1980 from YSU with a BS in law enforcement administration. I took the private route to employment by taking a job with a local discount department store chain as a loss prevention manager trainee. I’ve spent the past 30 plus years in the loss prevention field and rose through the ranks to associate vice president of loss prevention in a specialty chain focused on optical health care. My letter is to indicate that, while there are many great success stories in the public sector, there are many who were very successful in the private sector, too. I see this as an enhancement to the success of the YSU program. Please be proud of them, too; they were missed in the article. I hope some day there is an article on the opportunities for YSU grads with criminal justice degrees in the security management field. Alan Greggo, ’80 Mason, Ohio
Editor: Enjoyed the article, “Criminal Justice Grads Are Top Cops,” It brought back many fond memories from the ’60s at YSU. As a grad of YSU’s Police Science program (’69) and the Criminal Justice program (’73), I also went on to become a “top cop” here in Ohio at the Streetsboro Police Department. I retired in 2011 after 36 years at the department, the last eight as police chief. I owe it all to YSU’s Criminal Justice program.
Richard Taiclet, ’69, ’73
Streetsboro, Ohio
Editor: Reading the spring 2012 University Magazine, I was pleased to see an article on YSU’s Criminal Justice program and some of its grads. Not often do many universities or communities embrace a criminal justice degree. I have retired with over 25 years of service as a special agent investigator with the U.S. Department of Transportation. Thank you for headlining YSU’s commitment to the criminal justice degree and profiling some of the grads and different job opportunities available. This really shows that Penguin Power is out there. Richard Buckalew, ’73
YSU student Cary Dabney speaks at the press conference, flanked by U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and YSU student Laura Krcelic.
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Boise, Idaho
Barry Jenkins PARKING SERVICES
He’s the first person prospective students and their families see when they visit the YSU campus, and his wide grin is one thing that campus visitors are likely to remember. Barry Jenkins is well aware of the impact he has on visitors as the daytime attendant at the university’s main visitors’ parking lot on University Plaza. He takes his position seriously. “I think of this lot as the gateway to the university, and the information center,” he said. “Everybody comes through here – job applicants, new students, employees, the YSU president and the YSU trustees. It’s a people job. Unless you have the right person here, it’s not going to work.” Jenkins joined the university in 1999 as a Parking Services ticket writer, a position that gave him a thorough knowledge of the YSU campus. He began working as a parking attendant in 2002 and has been assigned to the main visitor lot, F-1, for four years. “First impressions are everything, and he has my highest endorsement as our greeter,” said Paul McFadden, president of the YSU Foundation. “If you ever stand by him and watch how he greets our guests, he’s awesome.” Friends who tease about what they call his “cake job” might be surprised to know how busy he is and how many
unique situations and problems he encounters in a workday, Jenkins said. If he does hit a lull, he’s known for his ability to start up a conversation with anyone. The staff in YSU’s Undergraduate Admissions hears frequent comments about Jenkins from students and parents visiting campus for the first time, said Todd Pilipovich, coordinator of Undergraduate Admissions. “Barry plays a crucial part in the recruitment process just by the way he welcomes our guests to campus,” he said. “He’s got a great sense of humor, great knowledge of the campus and never has a bad day at work.” An avid sports lover, Jenkins coached 7 to 13-yearolds in Midget League football in the Youngstown area for 20 years and played a role in the careers of several football standouts, including Brad Smith, a wide receiver with the Buffalo Bills. Now, he spends much of his free time visiting hospital and nursing home patients as a volunteer for his church, and he golfs two or three times a week. He lives in Boardman with his wife of 31 years, Stephanie, a licensed social worker and part-time YSU instructor in the Department of Social Work. Profile by Cynthia Vinarsky
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Highlighting the achievements of exceptional YSU students
S T O R I E S
Students Earn Scholarships to Study in China, Turkey
Jessica Valsi and Rochelle Beiersdorfer are the first YSU students ever to receive the prestigious Critical Language Scholarship from the U.S. Department of State. Both students are traveling overseas for two months this summer. Valsi, a senior political science major, is at the Tomer Institute in Bursa, Turkey, for intensive study of the Turkish language; Beiersdorfer, a YSU junior majoring in philosophy, is studying Mandarin Chinese at Beijing Culture and Language University. The Critical Language Scholarship Program is part of the U.S. government’s effort to expand dramatically the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. Only about 5 percent of applicants are selected to participate. Students spend seven to 10 weeks in intensive language study, living with host families to better immerse themselves in the language and culture. Both YSU students are visiting their countries for the second time. Valsi was in Istanbul, Turkey, during spring semester 2011 as a recipient of the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program. Beiersdorfer was in China in 2009 with her family. Her father is Ray Beiersdorfer, YSU professor of Geological and Environmental Sciences, who often leads study abroad programs to China.
Bryan Zilka
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Rochelle Beiersdorfer, left, and Jessica Valsi
Senior Interning in South Korea
Bryan Zilka is going global this summer with a co-op internship in Seoul, South Korea. An honors student and junior mechanical engineering major in YSU’s College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, Zilka is working for light electric vehicle manufacturer MPS Korea Co. Ltd. MPS is based in Seoul and sells products throughout Asia and North America as the maker of small electric vehicles, such as golf carts, electric manufacturing trucks and other applications. This is the first time the STEM college has been able to send an intern on a foreign assignment in recent memory. Zilka will be staying in Seoul, working on the product line for an MPS industrial truck, and plans to return to YSU in the fall. “Mechanical engineering is a much broader field than I thought it was when I went into my major,” said Zilka. “So I’m working on figuring out all the opportunities available to me before deciding on a career. That’s what this internship will really help me do.” The Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber approached the STEM college in the spring about the internship opportunity with MPS when its staff learned about the company’s need for engineering support for new products. MPS was one of three Asian companies on campus this summer for the YSU Sustainable Energy Forum.
Student Success Brittany Chalfant
Engineering Grad Awarded Prestigious MIT Scholarship
Brittany Chalfant, who graduated this spring with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, has received an offer of full financial support from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the highest-ranked engineering school in the world. A self-professed “small town girl and bookworm,” she is pursuing a master’s degree in chemical engineering practice at MIT, a unique course of study combining standard coursework with intensive industrial experience in place of the typical research thesis. Chalfant, a University Scholar, was awarded the Professional Promise Award by the Pittsburgh Section of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. She spent her last two summers serving internships, first at the University of Pittsburgh where she conducted materials research, and then at the NASA Glenn Research Facility where she researched insulation materials for the next generation of space suits – suits that could one day protect astronauts on a journey to Mars. “The next goal for NASA is to reach Mars where it is significantly colder,” Chalfant said. “I was working with a type of aerogel, which is a good insulator and very heat resistant, but not very flexible. I was working to increase flexibility.”
Goldwater Scholarship Recognizes YSU Junior
Kathleen Smith, a junior chemical engineering major, has earned national recognition as a 2012 Goldwater Scholarship Honorable Mention. The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier undergraduate award of its type designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, natural sciences and engineering. “I love chemistry and math, so I figured this major fused my two loves,” said Smith. “I am pleased to have received honorable mention for this prestigious, national award.” A member of the University Scholars program, she is secretary for the Society of Women Engineers and Junior Class representative for the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. She is also a member of the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honors Society, the National Society of Collegiate Scholars, the Sigma Alpha Lambda Honors Society and the Phi Sigma Rho Sorority for Women in Engineering. Smith spent this summer and last serving internships for General Electric, working as part of a fluorescent lighting team. She expects to graduate in May 2013.
Kathleen Smith
Website Changes Highlight Alumni, Student Achievements
If you like reading YSU Magazine’s Student Success Stories and Alumni Spotlight features, you can now also enjoy them online. Find and share our online profiles of exceptional alumni, under the new title Alumni Success Stories, and our Student Success Stories at the YSU News Center, www.ysunews.com. YSU is also launching a new social media platform this semester, called readabout.me, as another way to showcase and share student successes and activities – from studying abroad to making the Dean’s List to winning a scholarship and many others. YSU creates personalized press releases announcing these achievements, publishes them online at readabout.me and sends them to each student’s hometown newspapers. Students are emailed the release and can then share it with family and friends via Facebook and Twitter. Students also earn an achievement “badge” that is housed on their readabout.me personal profiles. These profiles can act as online portfolios for students, displaying their YSU press releases, honors, work experience and extracurricular activities. To learn more, visit web.ysu.edu/studentsuccessstories.
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YSU ALUMNI:
Working to Change the World From the jungles of Uganda to the inner city schools of Milwaukee, from earthquake-ravished Haiti to the homeless and hungry across the United States, caring YSU graduates are finding ways to transform lives. We profile 10 alumni, all using their unique talents to change the world through humanitarian service.
Daniella Lorincz Drader, ’02: Collecting School Supplies for Uganda Political unrest in Uganda made it impractical for her to deliver the supplies in person, so she shipped the needed materials to Talenga and hoped they’d arrive safely. That was five years ago, but the people in Kaliro didn’t forget. In February, when Drader finally had the opportunity to visit the East African village, she found herself at the center of a joyful celebration naming one of the school’s two buildings in her honor. “My name was already on the sign, and they wanted me to add my handprint in cement,” she said, laughing. “It’s hard to describe – it was humbling, inspiring, joyful. They are a very appreciative culture. They want to honor you, and they want to teach their children that sharing any kind of resources is valuable.” Drader and a friend who traveled with her brought more supplies for the school in Kaliro and other schools in the region, including Frisbees and a solar-powered laptop computer. They taught the children to throw Frisbees and planted two mango trees on the school grounds during their three-week visit. Drader’s career path has often reflected her adventurous spirit and love for the outdoors. Born in Romania, she came to the U.S. as a small child, grew up in Boardman and attended YSU, earning a bachelor’s degree in communication studies. Now living in Seattle, Wash., she has a master’s degree in natural Daniella “Donna” Lorincz Drader resource sciences from Washington State University and previously earned a wildfire fighting certification and a Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician certification. She has worked as a fire prevention educator on Native American reservations in Oregon and Idaho. Now, she contracts as a challenge course facilitator for Washington State University and is a training and development contributor for the nonprofit Natural Leaders Network, an initiative of the Children & Nature Network, promoting the benefits of outdoor activities. But Drader said she hasn’t forgotten the Cleveland School, and the lessons it taught her. “I’ve learned that, if you have the opportunity to help somebody, you should take it.” Students at the Cleveland School in Kaliro, Uganda.
Daniella “Donna” Lorincz Drader never thought about what kinds of school supplies a child would need in an African wilderness. Not until she formed a friendship with a teacher from Uganda. The 2002 YSU alumna was working as a field instructor for the Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Education Center near Cleveland when she met Aggrey Talenga, who was visiting the United States on a work exchange program. They kept in touch after his return to Uganda, and when he announced plans to open a school in his tiny, rural village of Kaliro, Drader decided to help. She acquired a $1,000 grant to purchase supplies for the school her friend had named the Cleveland School, then carefully selected and created learning materials that would last. Besides paper, pens, pencils and textbooks, she bought solar-powered calculators, soccer balls for a gym program, and worked with a college professor to create laminated maps of Uganda, the United States and the world. “I was very frugal,” she said, “and I was always negotiating to get things donated.”
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Brandi Hess, ’12: Serving the Poor in El Salvador
Just five years ago, Brandi Hess was 19, a YSU freshman battling a rare and very aggressive form of breast cancer. She survived, and the experience UGANDA has given her a new sense of urgency to live out her dreams. “I guess having cancer renewed that sense of how short life is,” she said. Brandi Hess,dreams ’12: Serving All of Hess’s involve helping others, and the poor in El she’s spending most Salvador of this summer living and working with the poorest of the poor in Santa Ana, the third largest city in El Salvador. Serving as an intern under the supervision of two missionaries, she teaches English, computer classes and crafts, gives haircuts, serves meals to the hungry. Also a trained paramedic, she serves as the community “doctor,” treating wounds, dispensing medication and visiting the sick in their homes. And there’s building to do. “People live in whatever they can scrap together – sheet metal wrapped in plastic tarps, with dirt floors. They’re like ovens,” she explained. “We built 14 new wooden houses for families who had been living like that, and we reconstructed 10 more.” She’ll earn college credit for her two and a half months in El Salvador. The experience will count as an international study class and as an internship to meet the final requirements for a YSU baccalaureate in geography, which she’ll receive this summer – she already completed her associate degree in allied health in May. “I wanted to utilize my Spanish and finish my schooling outside the classroom,” she said. Brandi Hess with children in Santa Ana, El Salvador. Hess grew up in Mineral Ridge, Ohio, and attended YSU as a University Scholar. Her career goal is to serve full-time as a missionary in El Salvador or in another Latin American country. Hess talked about the extreme poverty, the gang violence and the lack of medical care she’s seen this summer, but she loves the people and she wants to go back. “They have so very little. Workers here do hard labor all day for just $6 a day. Kids don’t have shoes, combs, toothbrushes or running water,” she said. “And yet, they are happy. Kids are out playing, laughing, smiling and craving love. I can’t bear the thought of leaving these people. They have blessed me as much as I have tried to bless them.”
Javed Khawaja, ’85: Building a New Life for Flood Victims When the worst flooding in decades inundated his homeland of Pakistan in 2010, most of Javed Khawaja’s 750-acre mango and sugarcane farm was underwater. The family home and the land around it stayed dry though – they were just high enough to escape the floods – and soon hundreds of desperate families had set up camp there. Khawaja, who earned a BA in economJaved Khawaja
ics from YSU in 1985, felt a responsibility to rescue the villagers whose homes, schools and businesses had been washed away – many were friends or farm employees. He created a tent city for about 1,000 on his family’s property and provided tons of food, water, clothing and health care, in a dramatic display of kindness that was featured in a National Public Radio report on the flooding disaster. But over time, as the water receded, it became clear that the flood-damaged village was beyond repair. The Pakistani government,
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Homes under construction, and at right, tent city in Punjab Province, Pakistan.
grappling with an estimated $9.7 billion in flood-related losses, was not likely to intervene, and international aid was stretched thin. Khawaja decided to replace the tent city with permanent homes, financing and coordinating construction of 130 new, concrete houses for his village neighbors. “We basically told them, ‘We’ll take care of you,’” he said. He and his family were able to demonstrate such extravagant generosity because Khawaja has access to a charitable foundation that his grandfather established years ago. “As a family, we were lucky. My grandfather was a very successful farmer, and he was able to create a large foundation,” he said. “We had to think about how many people we could help with that foundation, and we decided that we could help 1,000 people.”
Becky Miller, ’05: Feeding the Hungry in NE Ohio Becky Miller didn’t know a lot about hunger when she signed on at the Second Harvest Food Bank of the Mahoning Valley seven years ago. But working for the agency that feeds 13,000 hungry households every week has been eye opening and life changing for the 2005 grad. “I’ve learned that the face of hunger doesn’t fit any stereotype,” she said. “It’s seniors, it’s families, and it’s children.” She’s taken calls from senior citizens facing financial crises, forced to swallow their pride and ask for help for the first time in their lives. Miller also meets one-on-one with unemployed workers as a member of the Trumbull County Rapid Response Team, set up to help people cope with joblessness when employers move or shut down. “Meeting with the workers is very sad, very difficult. You see the worry on their faces,” she said. “We let them know that help is available if they need it.” A native of Pulaski, Pa., Miller studied human resource management at YSU and decided to pursue the additional 12
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Born and raised in southern Pakistan, Khawaja came to YSU after high school at the invitation of his uncle, Ikram Khawaja, a longtime YSU administrator who is now YSU provost and vice president of Academic Affairs. He earned his undergraduate degree in economics and thought about staying to earn a graduate degree, but his father asked him to come home to take over managing the family farm. Since then, he said, his business and financial training at YSU have served him well in spearheading an extensive modernization process on the farm. He shares ownership of the property with his sister, an attorney, and brother, a cardiologist, and employs as many as 180 at the peak of sugarcane harvest. Long before the flood, the family foundation was funding schools, a community health center and university scholarships. “My grandfather was a complete gentleman, and he always treated the people well,” he said. “I feel it is almost a responsibility, certainly a tradition, to do what we can.”
coursework to earn a Certificate in Nonprofit Leadership. After graduating with a BSBA she was hired as special events coordinator for Second Harvest, based on Youngstown’s West Side. Now, two promotions later, she is resource development manager, responsible for public relations, media relations, coordinating volunteers and special events. “I feel like I’m making a difference, working quietly in the background, even though I don’t get to work with families directly every day,” she said. The Mahoning Valley office is one of hundreds of Second Harvest Food Banks nationwide that serve as the charitable arm of the grocery store industry. The Second Harvest staff is constantly seeking grant money to buy fresh produce – the Mahoning Valley office gives out 2.3 million pounds of fruits and vegetables a year – and to establish other programs to meet the community’s Becky Miller needs. And those needs keep growing. In 2010, the Mahoning Valley agency distributed 8.3 million pounds of food; the number rose to more than 9 million pounds in 2011 and is expected to increase further in 2012.
Dr. Darrell Lynn Grace, ’75, ’87: Giving Medical Care to the Homeless
When Dr. Darrell Lynn Grace attends a medical conference in one of America’s great cities, she seeks out the homeless. A Youngstown-based internist, she’s organized health fairs for homeless people in cities such as Las Vegas, San Francisco and New Orleans, all in conjunction with the National Osteopathic Medical Association’s annual conference. She’s already planning another event in October for San Diego, the site of this year’s NOMA gathering. As the community outreach chair for NOMA, Grace recruits doctors, medical students and nursing students to work with her, conducting health Dr. Darrell Lynn Grace in Haiti. screenings for homeless adults and children who haven’t seen a doctor in years. It’s not unusual, first-hand how the poor and uninsured suffered from inadequate she said, to have lines of people stretching down the street and health care. She decided to go to medical school with the goal of around the block. reaching out to the underserved. “Somebody’s got to be there for In every city, she makes arrangements for a local physician the people who don’t have,” she said. to follow up with the homeless patients. “We’re not going to She earned a BS in health sciences at YSU and a medical tell somebody they have diabetes or high blood pressure and degree at Michigan State University’s College of Osteopathic then just walk away,” she said. “We want to provide them with Medicine, returning home to practice medicine in 1992. Curthe care they need to deal with that diagnosis.” rently, she is a hospitalist, a physician specializing in hospital Volunteers also distribute toiletries, socks, backpacks and patient care, employed by an Akron company and working at other practical items, and they provide a lunch. “To see how St. Elizabeth’s Hospital and Northside Medical Center, both in excited they are about sitting down to put on a pair of socks, Youngstown. it touches your heart. It’s something we take for granted,” she Grace also serves on the board of Heart to Heart Internasaid. “And we pass out hotdogs. Nothing fancy, but you’re givtional, a nonprofit that has been recognized by Forbes Magazine ing them something that is clean, that is their own, and they’re as one of the top 20 most efficient charities. As a Heart to Heart not eating out of the trash.” volunteer, she served with medical teams in New Orleans in Grace likes to say that she grew up on the YSU Penguins’ 2007 after Hurricane Katrina and on two trips to Haiti after the 50 yard line – she was in nursing school at YSU when the 2010 earthquakes there. home she grew up in was sold and razed to make way for “I was brought up by a strong grandma, and my mom Stambaugh Stadium. is a giver, too. I was brought up to help others,” she said. She earned an associate degree in nursing in 1975 and “That’s why I chose nursing, and that’s why I went into worked for 13 years as an emergency room nurse, seeing medicine. It’s my passion.”
Emery Boyle-Scott, ’09: Teaching in Milwaukee’s Inner-City Schools
Emery Boyle-Scott
It’s funny sometimes how life’s twists and turns can lead to a passion you never recognized in yourself. Take Emery Boyle-Scott. A country girl at heart, Boyle-Scott grew up on a farm in rural Mahoning County, was home-schooled and attended her hometown college – YSU – to pursue her dream to someday work as a reporter for the New York Times. But after earning a bachelor’s degree in political science and journalism in 2009, her career path changed course when she was accepted into Teach for America, a national non-profit program that sends new college graduates off for two-year teaching stints in some of the nation’s most disadvantaged public school classrooms. So, for the past three years, Boyle-Scott has worked tirelessly, teaching special education students in low income, crime-ridden, inner-city neighborhoods of Milwaukee. And she loves it. “It was difficult getting to this point, but now I really enjoy teaching,” she said. “And it’s
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more than that. It’s about these kids. They really need somebody to help them. I know I could be someplace else, but I think I can make the most impact right here.” After getting her diploma and with no background in teaching, Boyle-Scott went to Chicago for Teach for America’s intensive fiveweek teacher training program. That fall, she was assigned to teach third-, fourth- and fifthgrade special education students at a 300-student public elementary school in Milwaukee where 98 percent of the students are from low-income families. “It was really overwhelming,” she said about those first few weeks with a teaching load of 30 special education students. With the support of her mother, also a special education teacher, Boyle-Scott persevered. By the end of the school year, all her students had met or exceeded their academic goals. “The patience paid off,” she said. In her second year, she won a grant to purchase a SMART Board for her classroom, and her students again exceeded expectations. After the 2010-11 school year, with her Teach for America commitment ended, BoyleScott chose to stay in Milwaukee and accepted a position teaching special education students at Mary McLeod Bethune Academy public school. For three months, she had no classroom and was forced to teach in the hallways. For the last half of the school year, she was assigned a small space – a “closet,” she calls it. “One thing I’ve learned is that teachers and administrators work very hard and are very dedicated to their students,” said BoyleScott, who along the way earned a master’s degree in education from Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee. “But there are just so many forces working against them – lack of funding, lack of resources, violence in the neighborhoods.” This summer, she’s back in Chicago, this time as an advisor to the latest group of college graduates entering Teach for America. In the fall, she’ll return to Milwaukee to teach special education students at MacDowell Montessori School. She said she plans to stay in Milwaukee, at least for the short term, but eventually would like to become a school administrator or serve on a school board. Regardless, this country girl is forever changed. “It’s not easy,” she said. “But sometimes, I see a student who seems to be progressing, and that’s when I really feel like I am making a difference.” 14
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Justin Dunaway, ’06, ’09: Leading Medical Teams to Haiti In earthquake-ravished Haiti, it’s not unusual for a patient to lose a limb just because a small wound on their hand or foot became infected and went untreated. Medical care is in short supply, especially since an earthquake destroyed most of the poor country’s capital city of Port-au-Prince in January 2010. YSU grad Justin Dunaway is part of a medical team that has saved countless patients from amputation of arms and legs just by providing early treatment and education. For many others, the team has provided custom-designed prosthetic limbs that let them live normal lives. Dunaway is a co-founder, vice president and director of physical therapy services for Phoenix Rising for Haiti, a non-profit that organizes teams of medical volunteers for twice-annual visits to one of Haiti’s poorest regions. They’ve seen patients starve themselves for days to pay for a taxi just so they could get the medical attention they so desperately need. “There is poverty like you wouldn’t believe. People die from injuries that would be nothing over here,” Dunaway said. “On the other hand, even living in huts in the jungle, these are such happy and strong and passionate people. Their quality of life and sense of well-being is hard for us to understand.” Dunaway earned two degrees at YSU – a BS in exercise science in 2006 and a doctorate in physical therapy in 2009 – and is employed as a senior physical therapist in Mesa, Ariz. He’d been in Mesa only a few months when he heard about a medical team heading for Haiti. “I’d never been out of the country. I didn’t even have a passport,” he said, “but I was looking for some kind of volunteer work, a way to give back.” Inspired by that first trip in the summer of 2010, Dunaway teamed up with four other medical professionals to establish Phoenix Rising for Haiti as a non-political, nonsectarian nonprofit to provide aid for some of the island country’s poorest people. He said 75 volunteers have participated in the five trips the group Ed James
Ed James, ’69: Helping Families Achieve Home Ownership Ed James has always been a whiz at managing money. These days, he’s using that talent to build a strong and stable financial structure for Habitat for Humanity of Mahoning County. Not that he doesn’t enjoy pounding a hammer or driving a truck – he’s done plenty of both for Habitat, an agency that partners with low-income families to build homes they can afford. But Monica Craven, executive director, likes
has organized so far, treating 1,400 patients. Teams typically include prosthetists, physical therapists, wound care experts, orthotists, orthopedic technicians and some non-medical volunteers to handle paperwork and other details. Team members work together to treat a multitude of health issues, he said, and they treat hundreds of patients in each one- or two-week visit. All volunteers pay their own expenses – generally between $1,500 and $1,800 per trip – and donations to Phoenix Rising for Haiti are used exclusively for necessary equipment, materials and clinic costs. The nonprofit began leasing a house this summer in the small, centrally-located Haitian port town of Port-de-Paix where volunteers have created a permanent clinical and prosthetic lab and a dormitory. They also purchased three tons of equipment and supplies for the new headquarters. The team’s long-term goal, said Dunaway, is to partner with a university in Haiti to create a training program for Haitians that will eventually allow them to operate the clinic year-round, providing basic health care and creating jobs for the people. “Our main goal is to get to the point where we’ve educated the locals so they can run the clinic with limited input from us, then to move to another town and do it again,” he said. “We expect to be working in Haiti for a long, long time.”
Justin Dunaway, right, in Haiti.
to joke that James is best at “the boring financial stuff.” “We were in a bad place three years ago. We had a hard time paying the bills,” she said. “When I see where we are now because of Ed, I just think it’s awesome. It’s not a flashy job, but he does it because he loves the organization.” James earned his BSBA in accounting in 1969 and worked in YSU’s budget and accounting offices for 26 years – he retired in 1995 as director of General Accounting, and then returned for a two-year stint as interim executive director of Budget and Finance. He and his wife, Sandra, along with his sister and brother-in-law, also operated a marine supply retail store in Niles for 18 years. He got involved with Habitat in 2006 when Steve
Visit www.ysumagazine.org for video on Phoenix Rising for Haiti.
Hanzely, a YSU professor emeritus and also an active Habitat volunteer, asked him to create a budget for a new project called ReStore. It was a proven concept – 700 other Habitat chapters around the country were already operating ReStore discount home improvement and supply stores to help fund their operations. Drawing on his work experience at YSU, as well as his retail background as a storeowner, James designed a budget for ReStore and worked with other volunteers to renovate the building and to collect furniture, building materials, appliances and household goods to sell at the store. “For two years I was part of a three-person crew, picking up donations from homes. That was the best part,” he said. “We got to meet some of the greatest people.” Craven said ReStore is providing 75 percent of the agency’s operating dollars this year, and the number is
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expected to reach 100 percent by 2013. James spends 12 to 16 hours a week working for Habitat, and he’s become an avid supporter of what he calls “the cause,” getting families out of the rent-cycle and allowing them to experience the privilege and stability of affordable home ownership. The houses are sold to families at their appraised value or the cost to build, whichever is lower, with a Habitat-financed no-interest loan. James admits that sometimes he’d
rather be working on construction crews than balancing the books. “If we had our preference, we’d all be out building houses,” he said. “But there’s no way that I can provide more to Habitat than Habitat does for me. The idea of being useful, of being able to use your experience to help somebody else, there’s a lot of satisfaction in that.”
Joree Jacobs, ’09: Making Her Passion a Profession
Joree Jacobs has always wanted to make a difference. The ’09 grad put volunteerism high on her priority list during her undergraduate career in YSU’s University Scholars Program – an organization that holds service as one of its pillars – and dedicated more than 60 hours of community service each year to Relay for Life, Second Harvest Food Bank and other local nonprofits. But after college, Jacobs wasn’t sure how to translate her volunteerism – along Joree Jacobs with her bachelor’s degree in professional writing and editing – into a full-time job. “Late in college, I started to get a feeling pulling me toward the nonprofit sector for a career. I knew my skills, but I didn’t know where they would best fit,” admitted Jacobs. It wasn’t until a trip her senior year to Washington, D.C. for a Habitat for Humanity effort that Jacobs found the calling she’d been craving in AmeriCorps. “AmeriCorps is essentially a ‘domestic Peace Corps’ focused on strengthening communities in our country,” explained Jacobs. “It was a great career starter, the perfect place to learn my passion and give back in a great way.” Jacobs applied for the AmeriCorps VISTA program to serve one year at a nonprofit organization dedicated to domestic poverty relief. In return, she received a monthly stipend – but not the kind most college grads have their sights on. “The stipend is set at the poverty level so that members serving can be fully integrated into the communities of the people they’re trying to help,” Jacobs said. She spent her AmeriCorps year at the AkronCanton Regional Foodbank training social workers, social service agencies and volunteers from eight Ohio counties on how to connect low-income clients with work-support and free tax-filing programs. “It’s something you don’t realize,” said Jacobs. “Foodbanks distribute food directly, but they also 16
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try to connect people to other organizations that help them stretch their income.” In her role as community trainer, Jacobs was responsible for teaching Foodbank volunteers and employees how to use The Ohio Benefit Bank, an online tool that houses a network of nonprofit organizations, and recruiting organizations to join the bank. While she enjoyed learning about the foodbank industry and traveling across Ohio to help communities, Jacobs said she also loved putting her degree to use, designing publications and writing grant proposals for the Akron-Canton organization. “I learned I had more skills than I realized,” said Jacobs about her professional development at AmeriCorps. After her year at AmeriCorps, Jacobs was able to secure an entry-level position as a support coordinator for the Ohio Association of Foodbanks in Columbus, assisting in Ohio’s largest charitable response to hunger and representing 12 Feeding America foodbanks on a statewide basis. A year and a half later, she is now the association’s director of communications and grants management, with a budget of nearly $20 million to oversee. “Working for the state, you’re another level removed from the cause, but I still interact with clients as much as possible. You try to remind yourself you’re making the ground-level work possible,” said Jacobs.
Erin Satterlee ’09: Micro-Finance in Uganda If there are people to help, towns to rebuild or problems to be solved in faraway places, that’s where you’re likely to find Erin Satterlee. Since earning an MBA from YSU in 2009, Satterlee has served in the Peace Corps in Uganda, worked for the Belgian Development Agency in Uganda and is now in Cairo, Egypt, studying the Arabic language. Next up? Erin Satterlee Possibly South Sudan. “I think most people expect that the biggest challenges working overseas are physical in nature – the lack of amenities or familiar foods,” he said. “Really though, the biggest challenge is more selforiented in nature. Trying to rewrite all of your preconceived societal notions is something I think you have to fight daily. Every day I am confronted with something I just don’t understand, but people are incredibly forgiving. If you don’t mind being laughed at a bit, it can be really eye opening.” A native of Liberty Township and a 2002 graduate of Ursuline High School in Youngstown, Satterlee earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and political science from Union College in Kentucky in 2007. He then returned to the Mahoning Valley and the YSU Williamson College of Business Administration. “I suppose upon entering the MBA program, I already knew that I was going to pursue the Peace Corps; it has been something that I have been deeply drawn to for many years,” he said. To prepare for his humanitarian work, Satterlee volunteered extensively with the Ursuline Sisters’ HIV/AIDS Ministry, particularly with a program called Casa Madre, which focuses on area youth infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.
In August 2009, the Peace Corps sent him to Uganda. “Much to my surprise, they were far more interested in my MBA than any experience I had in HIV/AIDS,” he said. Satterlee was partnered with the Foundation for Urban and Rural Advancement in Kasese district, southwest Uganda, bordering the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Kasese district is really unique as most of it is national park land, possessing Africa’s highest mountain range,” he said. “In one district, you have the equator a few miles from snow-capped mountains and an incredibly hot savanna grassland complete with lions, elephants, hippos and everything else. Then on the land that is not national park you have 730,000 rural residents, most without access to electricity or running water.” Satterlee’s job was to help establish rural micro-credit groups. “Many people in developing countries do not have access to any sort of banking infrastructure and therefore have nowhere to park their money or to access loans,” he said. “What we did is simply organize groups of people together who would then buy shares in their local groups. From this collective money, people were able to take small loans and even earn interest on their money.” Over two years, Satterlee helped start 300 micro-credit groups comprising about 9,000 people. In October 2011, he left Uganda for Cairo, where he is studying Arabic. “It has been a interesting time to live in Cairo during the revolution,” he said. “I loved Uganda,” he added. “People tell me the first country you live in for a significant time always holds a place in your heart, and for me this is definitely true. Work can be challenging, but these same challenges really open the door toward creative solutions, which is something I really enjoy.” At press time, Satterlee was looking for his next job opportunity, with an eye on an Arabic speaking country, particularly South Sudan.
Alumni profiles by Andrea Armeni, Ron Cole and Cynthia Vinarsky.
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A Campus Mystery Tour We challenged university photographer Bruce Palmer to roam the YSU campus and create a collage of mystery images. Test your skills at identifying these 20 locations on campus. (Answers are on the adjacent page.)
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1. The Block “Y� on the front of the WATTS. 2. The fountain outside Kilcawley Center. 3. A rear view of the McDonough Museum of Art. 4. The roof of Ward Beecher Hall. 5. A rear view of the Butler Institute of American Art. 6. The sculpture located in front of Moser Hall. 7. One of the towers on Jones Hall. 8. Iron gate behind Bliss Hall. 9. Ford Theater box office inside Bliss Hall. 10. Steps leading to Maag Library. 11. Windows on DeBartolo Hall. 12. Exterior of DeBartolo Stadium Club. 13. Sundial located outside the Ward Beecher Planetarium. 14. Sculpture near exterior stairwell, Kilcawley Center. 15. Seats in Stambaugh Stadium. 16. The Rock outside Kilcawley Center. 17. Hanging sculpture in the Williamson College of Business Administration building. 18. The meditation room tower on the Andrews Student Recreation and Wellness Center. 19. The putting green at the WATTS. 20. The feet of Howard Jones statue, just outside Tod Hall.
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University Development
YSU Calling … Any
Penguins In the House?
This year’s eight-week Phon-A-Thon raised more than $87,000, exceeding its goals and setting new records for the individual groups that make fundraising calls to YSU’s alumni and friends. Callers included volunteer students, faculty, staff and a dedicated group of paid student callers. They raised funds for academic departments, programs, athletic teams and other areas. The following caller groups were singled out for special recognition: • ROTC – for having such dedicated and effective alumni volunteer callers. • Men’s and Women’s Track and Field teams – for participating in the Phon-A-Thon every year for the past 10 years. • YSU Foundation University Scholars Program – for being the lead group each year and for raising a record amount during the first week of the campaign. • Penguin Football – for achieving the highest pledge made by an individual and for tying a record previously held by ROTC for the most money raised in a single night.
Student callers working at YSU’s Phon-A-Thon included, from left, criminal justice major Tawni McClendon and communications/ journalism major Rose Bonilla.
Wine Tasting Event Raises Scholarship Funds
Splendor in the Glass, a wine tasting event honoring the memory of the late restaurateur Richard Alberini, is set for 5 to 8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 30, at Alberini’s Restaurant in Niles. Members of the Youngstown Air Reserve Base Community Council (YARBCC) scholarship fund committee initiated the biennial event to honor Alberini by offering scholarships to members of the armed forces, or their family members, who are stationed at the Air Reserve Base in Vienna. The former proprietor of Alberini’s Restaurant in Niles and one of the region’s best-known wine connoisseurs, Alberini was also an advocate for the Youngstown Air Reserve Base. Splendor in the Glass features live entertainment, vintners, wine distributors, hors d’oeuvres, desserts and wines. Proceeds go to the YARBCC Scholarship in Memory of Richard Alberini at YSU. Attendees can participate in the silent auction and raffle, which features high-end items donated by local businesses and several unique offerings. Tickets for the 2012 event are $100 per person, $175 per couple, and are tax-deductible. For more information or to be added to the invitation mailing list, contact Jacci Johnson, YSU Annual Giving Coordinator, 330-941-2329 or jmdaniel@ysu.edu.
Engineering Grad Honors Favorite More than three decades ago, YSU engineering professor Jack D. Bakos Jr. made a lasting impression on one civil engineering student. That student, now a top executive in a major corporation, has created a scholarship endowment to honor his favorite professor. Raymond Napolitan Jr. and his wife, Jody, both YSU alumni, have established the Dr. Jack D. Bakos Scholarship in Civil (Structural) Engineering. Their $25,000 endowment will fund scholarships every year in Bakos’ name – the first 20
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awarded this summer to Marco Fox, a junior civil engineering student from Volant, Pa. “Throughout his tenure at YSU, Dr. Bakos was an outstanding role model and mentor,” said Napolitan. “He had a major positive impact in preparing his students to excel and make solid future contributions in business and industry.” Bakos, now a professor emeritus of civil, environmental and chemical engineering living in Boardman, retired in 2000 after 35 years at YSU. During his tenure as a professor he also
YSU Foundation
Scholarship Endowment to Benefit Newton Falls Students
A long-time Newton Falls resident will be remembered for years to come because of the scholarship endowment she created for students in her adopted hometown who make YSU their college choice. Betty Robinson included a $130,000 endowment for YSU in her estate in 2002, creating The Robinson Family Scholarship. She was 88 when she died last summer, and the first scholarships funded by the endowment will be awarded in the fall of 2013. “Mrs Robinson valued education, and she wanted to be remembered as someone who helped make college more
affordable for some students in her community,” said Heather Chunn, a senior development officer in YSU’s Office of University Development who worked with Robinson to establish the scholarship fund. At Robinson’s request, Newton Falls residents and Newton Falls High School graduates will be given first preference for the scholarships. Applicants must also have at least a 2.70 grade point average. A native of Ashtabula, Robinson came to Newton Falls as an adult and was active in the VFW 3332 Ladies Auxiliary, the Newton Falls Bowling League, the Newton Falls Hobby Club and several dart leagues. She was a graduate of the Warren Business School. Her husband, two daughters and a grandson preceded her in death. The Robinson Family Scholarship is housed at the YSU Foundation. For more information, contact Paul McFadden or Elinor Zedaker, 330-941-3211.
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100% PHILANTHROPY
Student Faces at the YSU Foundation
Four students working and gaining hands-on experience at the YSU Foundation offices this summer are, from left: Marco Comichista, intern, a junior majoring in finance; Stacy Quinones, intern, a senior religious studies major with a minor in nonprofit leadership; Kayla Boye, student employee, a senior professional writing and editing major with a minor in nonprofit leadership; and Dennis Hawkins, student employee, a graduate student pursuing a Master’s of Music in conducting and a certificate in nonprofit leadership.
In establishing the YSU Foundation in 1966, President Howard Jones provided a sufficient endowment to cover all operating costs of the Foundation. Due to his vision, endowments held at the YSU Foundation are not charged any fees; therefore, 100% of your generosity is used to provide for students.
Professor with Scholarship served as chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and was advisor to the YSU student chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers from 1972 through 1987. Napolitan, who earned his baccalaureate in civil engineering in 1979, is president of Nucor Corporation’s Vulcraft/Verco Group, a leading manufacturer of steel joists, joist girders and steel decking, and vice president of Nucor, based in Charlotte, N.C. His wife, Jody Napolitan, earned her
BS in education from YSU in 1978. The scholarships will be awarded to students in the College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, with preference given to civil engineering majors. Applicants must be full-time students with at least a 3.0 GPA and in their sophomore, junior or senior year. For more information, contact Heather Chunn in University Development, hrchunn@ysu.edu or 330-941-1363.
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PENGUIN
sports news
Dynamic Duo Leads Penguins to New Season
Kurt Hess The dynamic duo of junior quarterback Kurt Hess and senior tailback Jamaine Cook will be looking to lead Youngstown State back to the playoffs this fall for the first time since 2006. Cook and Hess were named to this year’s Walter Payton Award Watch List, and both players were first-team All-Missouri Valley Football Conference selections last year as YSU came within moments of reaching the postseason under head coach Eric Wolford. Cook, who was recently tabbed a third-team preseason All-America by the Sports Network, rushed for 1,386 yards on 271 carries and scored 13 touchdowns last season. He was seventh in the FCS in rushing and 14th in all-purpose yards per contest. Hess passed for 2,468 yards while Jamaine Cook completing 187 out of 288 attempts in a breakout campaign during the 2011 season. He averaged 245.8 yards passing per contest, his 164.9 passing efficiency rating was fourth best in the FCS, and he set several school records. In 2011, the Penguins finished 6-5, with the season highlighted by a 27-24 victory over top-ranked and eventual FCS National Champion North Dakota State. YSU was one win shy of advancing to the postseason for the first time under Wolford, who will be in his third season in 2012. YSU returns every starter on the offensive side of the ball after a record-setting campaign in 2011. The Guins established an impressive 19 team game and season school records last year and had 27 passing touchdowns and 26 rushing touchdowns. With the firepower on offense, and a new defensive coordinator to improve that side of the ball, Youngstown State is positioned to be in the top 20 to start the season. For tickets, call 330-941-1978 or visit the Athletic Ticket Office in Stambaugh Stadium.
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YOUNGSTOWN STATE UNIVERSITY
Penguin Club Adds Payment Plan
The YSU Penguin Club is accepting membership renewals for 2012-13 and looking for new members to be involved in the university’s primary Athletics fund-raising organization. Members can take advantage of a new, recurring payment plan for 2012-13, which automatically deducts membership dues from the member’s checking or savings account over a period of months. For example, a $75 membership can be spread out over a five- to seven-month period for a payment of about $12-15 each month, saving time and postage. Members also retain the option of paying for membership in a single payment.
Penguin Sports News
Two Penguins Named Academic All-Americans
Track and Field Team is Horizon League Champ
YSU’s baseball and softball programs each had players selected as Capital One Academic All-Americans by the College Sports Information Directors of America for their performances on the field and in the Drew Dosch classroom in 2012. Sophomore third baseman Drew Dosch of Canal Winchester, Ohio, was a second-team pick for the baseball program while junior catcher Vicky Rumph was a third-team pick for the YSU softball team. Dosch was named First-Team All-Horizon League this past season while maintaining a 4.0 GPA in social studies education. At the end of the Horizon League Tournament, Dosch Vicky Rumph ranked third in the Horizon League in batting average (.353), fourth in slugging percentage and ninth in on-base percentage. Rumph, a second team all-league pick, posted a .340 batting average this year with 53 hits, 28 runs scored, 13 doubles, four home runs and a .975 fielding percentage. One of just three Penguins to start all 51 games this year, she carries a 3.85 GPA as a chemistry major.
YSU’s women’s track and field program celebrated its ninth Horizon League Championship and sixth outdoor crown with an impressive performance May 6 at the KraussMiller-Lutz Outdoor Athletics Ciara Jarrett Complex in Wauwatosa, Wis. The Penguins finished with 172 points to easily outdistance Milwaukee, which tallied just 129 points. YSU picked up its first league title since winning the outdoor championship in 2009. Earning victories for the Penguins were Jessica Parham (javelin), Samantha Hamilton (steeplechase), Ciara Jarrett (100m and 200m), Katrina Rettburg (high jump), Alison Roth Alison Roth (discus and shot put) and Kaitlyn Griffith (hammer throw). Roth was named the Outstanding Field Performer, Jarrett was named the Outstanding Runner and Makayla Martin was named the Field Newcomer. Head Coach Brian Gorby was named the Women’s Coach of the Year.
Alumni Athletes, Contributor Named to Athletics Hall of Fame Six highly-decorated former student-athletes and one dedicated contributor will be inducted to the YSU Athletics Hall of Fame at the 28th annual Hall of Fame Breakfast, set for Saturday, Oct. 20, at Kilcawley Center. New inductees will also be introduced at halftime of the YSU-Southern Illinois football game that same day. The class of 2012 includes: Elliott Giles (football), Brandi Goettsch (swimming and diving), P.J. Mays (football), Chris Notareschi (softball), Becky Rudzik (women’s
cross country/track and field), and Herb Williams (football). The contributor being honored, Ed Strauss, served as the head softball coach from 1985-95 and is the program’s winningest coach with 207 victories. He also served as the football video coordinator on a volunteer basis for many years and continues to assist with press box operations during home football games. Dennis and Janet Haines For information on tickets for the breakfast, contact YSU Athletics, 330-941-7208.
Gillispie to Lead Baseball Program
Steve Gillispie, an experienced recruiter and instructor who spent the past 11 seasons helping to build a powerhouse in the Ohio Valley Conference, has been named head baseball coach at YSU. As Jacksonville State’s hitting coach and recruiting coordinator, Gillispie helped lead the Gamecocks to nine 30-win seasons in an 11-year period from 2002–2012. Overall, Gillispie has 25 total years of baseball experience at the NCAA, Major League and junior college levels. “We are incredibly excited to have someone with Steve’s success and experience lead our baseball program,” said Ron Strollo, YSU’s director of Intercollegiate Athletics. Originally from Beatrice, Neb., Gillispie played collegiately at Northwest Missouri State and Fort Hays State. In 2010, the Alabama Baseball Coach Association named him Four-Year College Assistant Coach of the Year. Steve Gillispie
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Alumni News Having a Ball in the State Capitol Alumni living in the Columbus area met for an afternoon of lunch and bowling this summer at AMF Sawmill Lanes. Other events are being planned. Those attending included, from left, front row: Eric Boldan (’94, ’01) of Dublin; Christine Hoso; Joyce Kasiara; Jason Hostetter (’00) of Lewis Center; Kevin Stanton; Mollie Hartup and Isaiah Matney. Second row: Molly Bilchak (’00) of New Albany; Michele Johnson (’97, ’98) of Lewis Center; Stephanie Fulmer (’10) and Anna Fulmer (’79), both of Galloway; Bill Kasiara (’74) of Hilliard; Tim Stanton (’94) of Worthington; Kim Hight (’93) of Columbus; Kenny Hight and Stephanie Whatley. (If you are a YSU graduate living in or near Columbus and didn’t receive an invitation to the bowling event, visit alumni.ysu.edu/info to update your contact information. Be sure to include an email address, as some invitations are being sent digitally. ) 7
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Atlanta-Area Alums Reconnect YSU alumni in the greater Atlanta area gathered at the Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant for a reunion in May. YSU alumnus Rick Duff, ’73, of Canton, Ga. led the effort to organize the event. In photo below, left, alumni attending included, from left, Duff, Ralph Carson (’79) of Fayetteville, Ga., Deborah Young, Paulette and David Novak (’71) of Kennesaw, Ga., and Tom McKinney (’67) of Atlanta. Also attending, in photo on right, from left, Neelam Ghiya (’02) of Atlanta, Steve Stanislaus (’04), his daughter Amelia Stanislaus and wife Teresa Selee (’02). The Stanislaus/Selee family resides in Marietta, Ga.
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YSU ALUMNI:
41 Alpharetta ville Lawrence 25 Atlanta 171
G e o rg ia
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There are 796 YSU graduates living in Georgia, but they aren’t concentrated in a few big cities – they’re all over the state. We’ve listed the Georgia cities with the greatest number of Penguins.
Alumni News
Save ate! D
Lecture Series Captivates Crowd
the
Among those attending an Alumni Lecture Series reception in July are, from left, Maria Selak (’72), Michael Krakora, Anka Krakora (’76, ’90) and Paul Milligan (’70,’74). The lecture featured Fred Viehe, YSU professor of Urban History, discussing the development and ramifications of organized crime.
Sept. 8, 15, 22; Oct. 20; Nov. 3, 17 – Terrace Dinners, indoor tailgating before each home football game, Stambaugh Stadium. Sept. 20 – Alumni Lecture Series, College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Speaker, Peyman Givi, (’80), “X-Planes and Hypersonic Transport.” Lecture 6 p.m., reception to follow, Moser Hall Room 2400. Sept. 29 – Youngstown Day Colorado, luncheon program at 1 p.m. for YSU alumni and friends, Lone Tree Golf Club & Hotel, Lone Tree, Col.
Beeghly College Honors Exceptional Educators Ten exceptional educators and alumni of the Beeghly College of Education were honored at the college’s 10th Annual Outstanding Alumni Awards Dinner in April. This year’s honorees were: • Howard Friend, ’73, ’79, of Lisbon, Administrator, superintendent of Sebring Local Schools. • Cynthia Marchese, ’82, ’89, of Poland, Educator, Springfield Local Schools. • Don P. Dailey, ’67, ’71, of Boardman, Lifetime Educational Service, former superintendent of Boardman Local Schools. • Jamie Carney, ’85, ’87, of Auburn, Alabama, Counselor, professor at Auburn University. • Germaine Bennett, ’83, of Youngstown, Diversity Award, former Youngstown City Schools.
• Marcia Matanin, ’87, of Hubbard, Dean’s Excellence, faculty in the YSU Department of Human Performance and Exercise Science. • Joseph Edwards, ’65, of Poland, Dean’s Appreciation, special associate to the dean, Beeghly College of Education. • Ernest Federico, ’70, ’79 of Poland, Outstanding University Supervisor. • Jennifer Unger, ’05, ’09, of New Castle, Outstanding New Teacher, Mars Home for Youth-Longmore Academy. • Philip Ginnetti, ’74, ’78, Special Award for excellence and innovation, former dean of the Beeghly College at YSU. (Dr. Ginnetti died June 29. See Page 5.)
Oct. 24 – Alumni Lecture Series, Bitonte College of Health and Human Services. Speaker, William E. Brown, Jr. (’77), “Public Protection: The Role of Certification and Licensure from a National Perspective in Emergency Medical Services,” reception 5:30 p.m., lecture 6:30 p.m., Tod Hall Lobby. Nov. 3 – YSU Homecoming parade and game; 1962 and Terrace Dinner honoring Class of 1962. Nov. 4 – Half Century Club 50-Year Reunion Luncheon, 11:30 a.m., DeBartolo Stadium Club.
New Grads Get Pinned YSU alumna Amanda Shina–Cutright, ’05, right, places a YSU Alumni pin on the honor stole of Joyce Cutright, her mother and a May graduate. It is tradition for Alumni Society board members to attend all YSU commencement ceremonies to ensure that every new graduate receives a pin.
Oct. 11 – Alumni Lecture Series, Williamson College of Business Administration. Panel Discussion, “Competing in the Global Market: Opportunities for Regional Businesses,” lecture at 6 p.m., reception to follow, WCBA Conference Center.
Nov. 16-17 – Veterans & ROTC Reunion. Friday, Nov. 16, 6 p.m. reception; Saturday, Nov. 17, noon tailgate, 2 p.m. game, YSU vs. Indiana State. (For more information, visit www.ysu. edu/alumni or call 330-941-3497.)
ALUMNI SOCIETY
Sign Up for Membership Online
Alumni Connections
More than 200 YSU alumni in 15 cities gathered for the second National Networking Day on June 28. The goal was for YSU graduates to connect in their respective cities. Alumni in the following cities participated: Akron, Charlotte, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas/Fort Worth, Las Vegas, New York City, Orlando, Research Triangle, N.C., San Francisco, South Florida, Sydney (Australia), Tampa and Youngstown. Contact Mollie Hartup at mahartup@ysu.edu or 330-941-3086 for assistance in planning an alumni event near you.
You can now join the YSU Alumni Society online by visiting alumni.ysu.edu. Not sure if you’re a member? Call 330-941-3497 to find out.
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Celebrating a Quarter-Century
SBDC: Practical Assistance for Business, Real World Training for Students When a small Mahoning County packaging company outgrew its space and needed help to find financing for a new facility, it turned to the Ohio Small Business Development Center at YSU. Another business owner wanted to sell products outside the United States but didn’t know where to start. He called on the SBDC and the company came away with detailed information on prospective export targets. Now headquartered in YSU’s Williamson College of Business Administration, the SBDC is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year – a quarter-century of providing assistance to small and medium-sized local companies in Mahoning, Trumbull and Ashtabula counties. And for YSU, having the center on campus creates frequent opportunities for students to gain valuable, hands-on learning experience, working side-by-side with SBDC business consultants to assist local companies. “We’ve had some great success stories among our students, and we’re very proud of them,” said Patricia Veisz, business Staff at the Ohio Small Business Development Center at YSU includes, from left, consultant. “They learn so much from working Rosie Sulik, William Oliver, Patricia Veisz and Christine Dailey. with us, and their experience is very attractive to prospective employers.” The SBDC at undergraduate business interns. Working under the S B D C S T A T I S T I C S YSU is one of 12 supervision of the CBCs, the students are involved in centers in Ohio, all every aspect of every project, said business consulFive-year total of new funded mainly by the tant William Oliver, from creation of a business plan business start-ups U.S. Small Business to marketing and securing funding. assisted by SBDC. Administration, in conIn the case of the packaging company that had $ junction with the Ohio outgrown its facility, for example, the consultant and Department of Develthe student working with the business helped develAmount of capital acquired by SBDCopment. YSU began op a business plan, including a financial forecast that assisted start-ups. serving as host for the determined a new building was needed, then helped center when it opened the business to secure a loan of nearly $1 million to New jobs in 1987 because of the finance acquisition of a new building. created by university’s longstandProfessors in the Williamson College also SBDC-assisted ing commitment to involve their students in class projects designed to start-ups. promoting economic help local companies solve their business problems – development, and Oliver said the center coordinated nine class projects WCBA Dean Betty Jo Licata made it a part of the business for businesses in the last academic year. college more than nine years ago. The company in need of export research, for instance, When the Williamson College opened its new building was an ideal class project for a professor teaching a course in in the fall of 2010, the SBDC moved into its first floor international business. Outreach Centers suite. “This is definitely our best location,” The center, which won the US SBA's 2012 Excellence said Veisz. “Dr. Licata, the business college and the univerand Innovation Award for the Cleveland District, offers sity have been tremendously supportive of what we do, and about 30 training programs annually, most for business that support is critical to our success.” owners and would-be entrepreneurs. This spring, it added an The center's work is supported by six certified business International Trade Assistance Center, with Mousa Kassis consultants (CBC), two MBA graduate assistants and two coming on board as international trade adviser.
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YOUNGSTOWN STATE UNIVERSITY
Alumni S T potligh
Nanette Lepore
CELEBRATING ACCOMPLISHED GRADUATES
From YSU to the Runway – An Alumna’s Fate in Fashion Nanette Lepore ’83
“If you can’t find an opening, make one. If you can’t find a job, create it.” They’re the words of one person who did just that. New York fashion designer and YSU alumna Nanette Lepore is an international name in women’s fashion today, with boutiques across the United States, Asia and Europe and a booming, self-made business in what she calls “one of the scariest, most intimidating fields imaginable.” Lepore came back to campus this spring to receive an honorary degree and speak at commencement – neon pink and orange platform sandals boldly complimenting her black cap and gown. Sharing her story with new YSU graduates, she encouraged them to take the creative Youngstown spirit with them into the real world. “That’s what I hope Youngstown has instilled in you – the idea that one person can make a difference.” Lepore knew this motto by heart even as an undergraduate at YSU. The daughter of a YSU professor, she fashioned an independent curriculum for herself out of finance, art and home economics courses and earned her “very arty business degree” in 1983 before attending New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology and landing her first sketching gig. “My first job lasted all of three weeks,” Lepore remembered, adding that her second was not much better. “Those were the
PeymanVisit Giviwww.ysumagazine.org for video on Nanette’s speech at commencement.
days when fashion was mean, and I was working for some of the meanest.” For Lepore, the third job was the charm, and she found it as a designer at a high-end boutique on the upper east side of New York City. Traveling to fashion shows in Paris, Milan and London, she caught runway fever and was inspired by other 20-somethings who were selling their garment creations out of flea market booths. “There was no big machine behind them,” Lepore said. “They were doing it all on their own.” The nudge of encouragement from her husband was the last thing she needed; Lepore decided to start her own design business. “Neither of us had any idea what we were getting into,” said Lepore. “We set up a shop in the East Village in the cheapest storefront we could find – it was between a gas station and a soup kitchen.” Debts, a mortgage and 10 years later, and Lepore finally found the lifeblood her business had been waiting for – a New York runway show that introduced her to the fame her brand knows today. “We’re opening six stores in China in the next six months, we have a belt line and a resort collection on the way, and a Lepore L’Amour line for juniors out in JCPenney next spring,” said Lepore. She also stays active in fighting to preserve American manufacturing jobs, especially in the fashion industry and her own company. But the big name always stays rooted to her small town. “Never forget that your time in Youngstown has given you an advantage – the advantage of … a strong sense of creativity,” Lepore concluded at commencement. “You can make it anywhere. You’ve got the moxy to do it.” Nanette currently lives in New York with her husband, Robert Savage, also a YSU grad (’78 BFA), and their daughter, Violet (in photo at left). Profile by Andrea Armeni
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Vietnam-Era Student is Posthumously Honored for Heroism The annual Reading of the Names ceremony honoring YSU employees and students who died while on active military duty was especially meaningful this spring. Added to the list of names was former YSU student Leslie Sabo, who was killed in action during the Vietnam War. In May, Sabo was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor by President Obama in a moving White House ceremony. The Medal of Honor, which the president presented to Sabo’s widow, Rose Mary, is the nation’s highest honor for gallantry. Jim Olive, coordinator of YSU’s Office of Veterans Affairs, said Sabo is believed to be the first YSU student to receive the honor. “His act of bravery was indeed heroic, sacrificing his life after being wounded to save his buddies,” said Olive, a veteran of the Vietnam War. Sabo was born in Austria, came to Youngstown when he was two-years-old and then moved to Ellwood City, Pa. He attended YSU between September 1966 and March 1969 and was drafted into the Army in April 1969. He was serving with U.S. forces near the village of Se San in eastern Cambodia on May 10, 1970, when his unit was ambushed and nearly overrun by North Vietnamese forces in a battle that later became known as the Mother’s Day Ambush. Comrades testified that Sabo charged up from the rear, grabbed an enemy grenade and tossed it away, using his body to shield a fellow soldier. Then, shrugging off his own injuries, Sabo advanced on an enemy bunker that had poured fire onto the U.S. troops – and then pulled the pin on his own grenade. He was 22-years-old. Not long after the battle, survivors from Company B, 3rd Battalion, 506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division filed reports attesting to Sabo’s heroism, but somehow the documentation was lost. In 1999, Alton Mabb, another veteran from the 101st Airborne “Screaming Eagles,” found the original paperwork at the National Archives while researching an article for the division’s magazine. He asked archives personnel to send him copies of the paperwork and began the push to get Sabo recognized. According to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, before Sabo, the medal had been awarded 3,458 times since it was first issued in 1863. There are fewer than 90 living recipients. 28
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President Obama presents the Medal of Honor to Rose Mary Sabo in honor of her late husband Leslie Sabo, a former YSU student and Vietnam War veteran. Below, Sabo, dressed in uniform, serving in Vietnam.
’70s
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Bhanoji R. Yedavalli of Hoffman Estates, Ill., ’71 MS in mechanical engineering, was named an honorary member and super delegate of the Democratic National CommitBhanoji Yedavalli tee. Super delegates have voting rights and can influence a close presidential race. Yedavalli’s appointment is in effect through April 16, 2014. He is a registered professional engineer in the state of Illinois and a retired senior technical specialist/senior advisor for the Illinois Capital Development Board. Marie Schiffhauer Morrill of Boonville, Mo., ’76 AB in sociology, is a resident service coordinator for two housing complexes operated by Preservation Housing Management, working directly with disabled and elderly residents. She has 24 years experience working in the field of affordable housing management and compliance. Robert C. Jazwinski of Hermitage, Pa., ’77 MBA, was elected 2012-13 president of the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Jazwinski is a CPA and the founder and president of JFS Robert Jazwinski Wealth Advisors LLC in Hermitage. He chairs the PICPA Foundation Board of Directors and the Sharon Regional Health System Board, and is executive vice president emeritus and chair of the Investment Committee for the Community Foundation of Western PA and Eastern OH. He earned his baccalaureate at Westminster College.
notes
Linda Lucarell Miller of Youngstown, ’78 BSEd, earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from St. Mary’s Seminary in Cleveland. A religion teacher and liturgy coordinator Linda Lucarell Miller at Ursuline High School in Youngstown, she was presented the Golden Apple Award in 2004 and participated in a project linking Jewish and Arab students with Ursuline High School students in 2008 and 2009. Miller also earned a master’s degree in religious education at Loyola University, New Orleans. Her doctoral ministry project, “The Charism of St. Angela Merici; Ursuline High School as Safe Harbor for Adolescents”, explored how the school’s Merician Charism influences teens. Meg Benke of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., ’79 BSBA, has been appointed acting president of Empire State College, effective Sept. 1, by the State University of New York Board of Trustees. She came to the college in 1991 and has served as its provost and vice president of academic affairs since December 2010. After completing her undergraduate degree at YSU, Benke earned masters and doctoral degrees in student personnel from Ohio University.
’80s Bob Rubenstahl of Hudson, Ohio, ’80 BSBA, was named general manager for Jergens Inc.’s tooling components division in Cleveland. Rubenstahl joined the company two years ago and previously served as manager of the workholding solutions group. He has more than 25 years experience in both international and domestic distribution and held several senior management positions before joining Jergens.
Timothy W. Womer of Edinburg, Pa., ’80 AAS, ’82 BS in applied science, was inducted into the Plastics Hall of Fame in April. Recognized as an authority on Timothy Womer plasticizing screws, he held leadership positions in engineering, research and development with several companies during his 38-year career before founding his own consultancy business, TWWomer & Assoc. He holds 15 patents and is a prolific author and lecturer. Ray Smesko of Ridgewood, N.J., ’81 BSBA in accounting, has joined Janney Montgomery Scott as a financial advisor in Upper Saddle River, N.J. Previously, he spent more than 22 years at Morgan Stanley in investment banking and wealth management and three years at UBS Financial Services managing its $170 billion managed accounts business in wealth management. Joseph Hamrock of Merrillville, Ind., ’85 BE in electrical engineering, joined NiSource Inc. as executive vice president and group chief executive officer for the company’s gas disJoseph Hamrock tribution segment. He has served in a variety of senior executive positions in the energy and regulated utility industry, most recently as president and COO of American Electric Power Ohio. A registered professional engineer, he earned an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Alumnus Earns Ph.D. at Age 69 Leon E. Stennis Sr. of Youngstown, ’73 BSBA, ’00 MS in English, graduated with a Ph.D. in English from Indiana University of Pennsylvania on May 12, one day before his 69th birthday. Stennis began working on his doctorate shortly after retiring from YSU in 2005 as coordinator of diversity initiatives. During his 43-year career, he served as news editor at YSU and as a reporter and religion editor at The Vindicator, Youngstown’s daily newspaper. A native of Little Rock, Ark., he was a student at one of the four high schools that the governor of Arkansas closed in 1958 in an attempt to thwart federal school desegregation efforts. “I was one of the casualties of the civil rights movement then,” he said, “but now I consider myself a success story from the movement.”
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Class Notes
LaNard Stradford of Indianapolis, ’87 BFA in graphic design, was recently named production supervisor at the PepsiCo-Gatorade production facility in Decatur Township, Ind. LaNard Stradford
Sam Calabri of Ypsilanti, Mich., ’88 AAS in drafting and design, is a principle designer for Yazaki North America, a tier-one supplier for the auto
Sam Calabri
industry, designing wiring harnesses for Chrysler vehicles. His most recent work has been with the 2010 and 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee and the 2011 and 2012 Chrysler 200. Timothy J. Harrington of Mechanicsburg, Pa., ’88 BSBA, recently completed a two-year tour as the commanding officer of the Naval Sea Logistics Center in Mechanicsburg. He has been reassigned to serve as Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics, Fleet Supply & Ordnance, at the Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Timothy Harrington Capt. Harrington
received his commission in the Navy in 1989 and has served on five ships, including four aircraft carriers. In addition to his undergraduate degree from YSU, he has an MBA from the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business and is a graduate of Duke University’s Business Executive Education Advanced Management Program.
’90s Lydia DiLiello of Cleveland, Ohio, ’90 AB in English and ’94 MBA, was named to the board of advisors for the Professional Pricing Society, a profes-
Lydia DiLiello
Award-Winning Poet Karen Schubert of Youngstown, ’05 BA in professional writing and editing and ’07 MA in English, was presented with a 2012 Individual Excellence Award for poetry and a $5,000 grant by the Ohio Arts Council. The council makes the awards biennially to Ohio poets, fiction writers and creative nonfiction writers. Schubert also earned an MFA in 2010 from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. She is a part-time faculty member in YSU’s English Department, teaching composition and introduction to literature, and also leads a creative writing workshop at Fellows Riverside Gardens in Mill Creek Park, Youngstown. Schubert has authored two chapbooks, Bring Down the Sky (Kattywompus) and The Geography of Lost Houses (Pudding House) and has had numerous poems, interviews and essays published. “Youngstown is so artistically charged, and that makes it a great place to live. I think YSU is a big part of that,” Schubert said. “We have a music school, an art school and a creative writing program, and so year after year artists graduate and many stay, making and supporting the arts. They have innovative ideas about the physical space and about community. I love living here.”
Law Enforcement Grad Honored for Public Service Anthony Cretella of Goose Creek, S.C., ‘04 BS in criminal justice, is a senior police officer in the Charleston Police Department who was honored with the Case-Hartmann Foundation Public Servant Leadership Award for 2012. In photo at right, Cretella accepts the award from Bob McNamara, foundation director. Cretella served on the YSU Police Department for a year before joining the Charleston PD as a patrol officer in 2005. He has been assigned to the department’s office of Professional Development and Training since 2010, is a certified taser instructor and a recipient of the EMS Life Saving Award. Cretella also participates in the city’s Lunch Buddy Program, which involves forming caring relationships with children in the community, and the Healthy Play Program, which offers outdoor activities for at-risk youth.
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sional society dedicated to pricing education. She is director of strategic pricing for Automated Packaging Systems in Cleveland, and also worked in pricing and purchasing roles at Delphi Packard Electric in Warren. She is a regular presenter at Pricing Society conferences. George Hammar of Sumter, S.C., ’95 BA in history, was recently promoted to Lt. Col. and is currently serving as 4th Battlefield Coordination Detachment Operations Officer in Qatar in support of Army operations in Afghanistan. He was commissioned through YSU’s ROTC program, earning a commisGeorge Hammar sion in field artillery, and has been deployed four times in his career, including stints in Germany and Iraq. He earned a master’s degree in military studies, land warfare and international perspective from the American Military University. Ronald V. Ranalli of Sumter, S.C., ’95 BA in history, has been promoted to Lt. Col. and is currently deployed in Qatar supporting Army operations in Afghanistan as Headquarters Support Division Chief. Commissioned through YSU’s ROTC program as a second lieutenant in Armor, Ranalli Ronald Ranalli has been deployed to Bosnia, Germany and Afghanistan, served as signal advisor to the Royal Saudi Land Forces and in a medical brigade in Yonsan, Korea. He has a master’s degree in human resources management from Webster University.
’00s Steven Little of Pittsburgh, ’00 BE in chemical engineering, has been named chair of the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, where he is also an associate professor and Bicentennial Alumni Faculty Fellow. Little Steven Little joined Pitt in 2006 and has focused his research on the controlled release of drugs. He holds eight patents and provisional applications for patents, and has received nearly $5 million in grant funding from the National Institutes for Health, the National Science Foundation, the Army, the Department of Defense, the American Heart Association and others. After completing his undergraduate degree at YSU, Little earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sarah Boyarko of Boardman, ’00 BS and ’04 MS, both in criminal justice, was promoted to vice president of economic development, business retention and expansion at the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber. She joined the chamber in 2006 and has Sarah Boyarko
Authors
Alumni
Rich Docherty of Chestnut Ridge, N.Y., ’73 BA in English, published a novel this spring for teens and young adults titled Dead as Dutch. In the book, a dysfunctional student film crew stumbles upon the long-lost buried treasure of a legendary gangster, Dutch Schultz, but their discovery unleashes a decades-old curse in what the author calls “a comedy of terrors.” Docherty is a freelance writer, photographer, television and video producer based in the New York City area. The book is available at Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble.com.
Ronald Marks
Rich Docherty
Ronald A. Marks of Youngstown, ’68 AB, a retired federal administrative law judge who spent years hearing Social Security disability cases, has authored a book for applicants titled Navigating the Social Security Disability Maze. In the book, available through Amazon.com, the author offers practical advice such as how to apply for disability payments, how to look and behave at hearings, how to keep records and how to prove the existence of pain. Marks earned his law degree from Ohio Northern School of Law and was appointed a federal administrative law judge assigned to the Social Security Administration in 2004. He first served as a judge in Cleveland, then in Cranberry Township, Pa. and on the Appeals Council/Decision Review Board in Falls Church, Va. Chris Taylor
Chris Taylor of Vero Beach, Fla., ’03 BS in education, has released his first novel, a political thriller entitled Presidential Liability, published by Xlibris Publishing and available at Amazon.com. In the book, America’s first family becomes embroiled in a web of scandal and deceit when a terrorist group kidnaps the president’s son and his girlfriend. The author said some parts of the story take place in Northeastern Ohio, including sites on the YSU campus and other Youngstown-area landmarks. Employed as a history and government teacher at Sebastian River High School, Taylor is pursuing a doctorate in educational leadership. David C. Smith of Palatine, Ill., ’74, BA in English, has published his 20th novel, titled Call of Shadows and released by Airship 27, a publisher of neopulp fiction. The book is available on Amazon.com. Employed as managing editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Smith has also authored an English grammar textbook. Ten fantasy and horror novels he wrote in the 1970s through the 1990s are scheduled for republication by Wildside Press, beginning with the epic trilogy The Fall of the First World, originally released in 1983. Starting this spring, the graphic novel version of Smith’s David Smith Seasons of the Moon have been featured on the SkyStorm Studios website. PHOTO BY ERIN LYNN RANSFORD
Class Notes
SUMMER 2012
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Class Notes
been significantly involved in 28 successful economic development projects resulting in the investment of more than $215 million. In 2009 she was an honoree in the Mahoning Valley Young Professionals’ 40 Under 40 Awards. Jamie Marich of Howland, Ohio, ’00 BA, is one of eight trauma researchers and clinicians featured on an educational DVD series titled Trauma Treatment: Psychotherapy for the 21st Century. Marich is a licensed clinical counselor and licensed independent chemical dependency counselor practicing out of PsyCare Inc. in Liberty, Ohio. She earned her Ph.D. in counseling studies from Capella University and a master’s in counseling from Franciscan University of Steubenville. Brandon Aldan of Ellisville, Mo., ’01 BSAS, owns a business, Brandon Aldan Skating Performance, where he trains hockey players and speed skaters in the Greater St. Louis area, ranging from youth to professionals. He also wrote his first book recently, titled The Hockey Player’s Cookbook. Theresa Mottle of Boardman, ’04 BSEd in integrated language arts, ‘10 MA in English, is an English teacher and department chair at Lisbon High School in Columbiana County, where she also serves as adviser to the yearbook and newspaper staffs. She earned
a certificate in children’s and young adult literature at YSU while studying for her graduate degree. She is writing a novel for young adults. Janis Sanfrey of Warren, ’04 MSEd in secondary education/French, and ’11 MSEd in educational administration, was named to the board of directors for the Raymond John Wean Foundation. A French teacher for the Warren City Schools since 2001, she has worked with the schools’ Key Club, its International Baccalaureate program and its advanced placement program and serves on the board of directors for the Warren City Schools’ Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame. Michael Kenneth Centorame of Canfield, ’07 BS in civil engineering, ’11 MS in civil and transportation management, is employed by the Ohio Department Michael Centorame of Transportation as a civil and transportation engineer, and he recently passed his professional engineers licensure exam.
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Kayshia Washington of Youngstown,’07 Associate in political science, ’09 BA in communication studies, is a secretary at MYCAP Head Start in Youngstown and owns a disc jockey business, DJ Kayshia Washington Kayshia D – You’re Rocking with the Best. Washington also earned a certificate in broadcasting this year from the Ohio Center for Broadcasting, and she is Youngstown area producer for an Internet radio station for Godz Hot Spot on urbansoulradio.fm, broadcasting in Los Angeles, Calif. Emily Wollett of Canfield, ’09 BSEd, ’11 MSEd in counseling, was hired as YSU’s assistant athletic director in March. A former YSU track and field standout, Wollett spent nine months as an academic and Emily Wollett membership affairs intern at the National Collegiate Athletic Association in Indianapolis before returning to her alma mater.
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YOUNGSTOWN STATE UNIVERSITY
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PENGUIN FOOTBALL SCHEDULE September Sat. 1 at Pittsburgh Sat. 8 VALPARAISO Sat. 15 ALBANY (N.Y.) Sat. 22 UNI *
6 p.m. 4 p.m. 4 p.m. 7 p.m.
Sat. Sat. Sat.
2 p.m. 4 p.m. 3 p.m.
S TAT E
UNIVERSITY October www.ysu.edu Sat. 6 at North Dakota State * 2 p.m. 13 20 27
at Illinois State * SOUTHERN ILLINOIS * at South Dakota State *
November Sat. 3 SOUTH DAKOTA * Sat. 10 at Western Illinois * Sat. 17 INDIANA STATE *
2 p.m. 2 p.m. 2 p.m.
Home games in bold.
* Missouri Valley Football Conference Game
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Penguins Football,
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The first Youngstown College football team, coached by the renowned “Dike” Beede, was organized in 1938. This photo from YoCo’s first Homecoming game against Clarion University shows quarterback Jim Heber (number 10) taking off with the ball as Carmen Julius (number 39) blocks. YoCo won the Homecoming contest 46-0. Coach Beede chose 35 players from among 110 who turned out for tryouts that summer, then took the team to Camp Fitch for an intensive, 10day training program to prepare for their first season. Beede continued as YoCo’s head football coach through 1972, except for a three-year period during World War II, from 1943 through 1945, when intercollegiate athletics were suspended. Beede and his wife, Irma, are also credited with developing the penalty flag that is now used in football nationwide. The Penguins played most of their games at Rayen High School stadium on Youngstown’s North Side until Stambaugh Stadium opened in 1982.
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1938
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