TransylvaniaTransylvaniaU N I V E R S I T Y M A G A Z I N EF a l l 2 0 1 1

A Transylvania odysseyEsi Kalefe ’14 comes to Lexington via Togo and NYC

Chris Begley immerses hisstudents in anthropology

Alumni and developmentflourish in new environment

PIONEERS TANGLE WITH WILDCATS

It was a historic night in Lexington’s Rupp Arena on November 2 when theTransylvania men’s basketball team took on the Wildcats of the University ofKentucky for the first time in 100 years. Although outmatched by the nation’spreseason No. 2 Division I team, Transylvania’s disciplined team playedimpressively in the early going and held 11-4 and 19-17 leads before falling to the talented Wildcats 97-53 in a game that was marked by goodwill fromboth schools and great community interest. It was a good showing for theDivision III Pioneers, whose stated objective was to play hard and help UK improve as the Wildcats begin a season in which they seek an eighth national title. The overall record between the two teams now stands at 8-7 in favor of UK.

To see a photo gallery of the game, visit our new athletics web page atwww.transysports.com. For this page, see captions on facing page.

Features12 DIVERSITY DISCUSSIONS / Having a diverse campus

is a primary value of Transylvania University

17 A TRANSYLVANIA ODYSSEY / Esi Kalefe ’15 comes to Lexington via Togo, Africa, and New York City

18 HEART OF THE MATTER / K. Jane Grande-Allen ’91 takes on heart valve disease from within

20 A VISIBLE ADVANCEMENT / New location for alumni anddevelopment office helps staff serve Transylvania’s constituencies

22 A NEW DIMENSION / Anthropology professor Chris Begley ’90 takes his scanner and students to the jungle

Around Campus2 Renowned opera singer teaches at Transylvania3 Blankenship ’81 leaves Transylvania after 26 years4 August term for first-year students debuts in 20125 Whiddon scores documentary film on Appalachia7 Wiecek delivers John Marshall Harlan Lecture

Sports11 Competitive cheer, dance added to sports lineup11 Three coaches join Transylvania staff

Alumni News and Notes25 Class Notes26 Alumnus Profile: Matt Jones ’0027 Marriages, Births, Obituaries28 Alumna Profile: Ellen Furlong ’03

F A L L / 2 0 1 1

On the cover:Esi Kalefe ’15 took an interesting route toTransylvania, leaving her native Togo in Africawith her family in 2006 to move to Americaand complete high school in Bronx, New York.See story on page 17.

Photo by Joseph Rey Au

TransylvaniaU N I V E R S I T Y M A G A Z I N E

Transylvania President R. Owen Williams, left,and his wife, Jennifer Williams, talk withUniversity of Kentucky President Eli Capiloutoand his wife, Mary Lynne Capilouto, before theNovember 2 basketball game at Rupp Arena.

Facing page, top, Transylvania played theWildcats tough, opening the game with an 11-4lead. Clockwise, from top left, Junior BrandonRash goes for a bucket against Kentucky first-year players Anthony Davis, left, and KyleWiltjer; Transylvania students, from left, seniorJoseph Porter, sophomore Tyler Pewitt, seniorStephen Porter, and senior Lee Richardson cheerfor the Pioneers; first-year student Octovia Kingleads Transylvania fans in a cheer; junior BarrettMeyer spins around Kentucky first-year playerMichael Kidd-Gilchrist, left, and Wiltjer;Transylvania head coach Brian Lane ’90 coacheshis team from the sideline; junior Ethan Spurlinshoots over Kentucky sophomore Terrence Jonesand Davis; junior Ashley Edwards performs withthe dance team; UK Coach John Calipari greetsTransylvania senior Michael Stone at thepregame dinner at Keeneland on September 30.Photos by Joseph Rey Au and Ken Weaver.

Associate Vice President of Communicationsand Public Relations: Sarah A. Emmons Director of Publications: Martha S. BakerPublications Writer/Editor: William A. Bowden Editorial Assistant: Tyler YoungPublications Designer: Barbara Grinnell

Transylvania is published three times a year. Volume29, No. 1, Fall 2011. Produced by the Office of Pub-lications, Transylvania University, Lexington, KY40508-1797. Send address changes and alumni newsto Alumni Office, Transylvania University, 300 NorthBroadway, Lexington, KY 40508-1797, fax to (859)233-8797, or e-mail to alumni@transy.edu.

2010-11 Honor Roll of Givingfollows Alumni News and Notes

Four professors have joined the Transylva-nia faculty for the 2011-12 academic year.

• • •Henry Berlin, assistant

professor of Spanish,earned his B.A. in Spanishlanguage and literaturefrom Earlham College in2002, and his M.A. andPh.D. in romance studiesfrom Cornell University in

2009 and 2011, respectively. His researchinterests include late medieval literature inSpanish, Catalan, and Portuguese, andworking on notions of moral philosophy,and theology.

• • •Paul M. Duffin, assistant

professor of biology, earneda B.A. in biological chem-istry from Grinnell Collegein 2005 and his Ph.D. inmicrobiology from North-western University in 2011.His research is in molecular

microbiology, studying the obligate humanpathogen, Neisseria, and gonorrhoeae.

• • •Qian Gao, assistant pro-

fessor of Chinese languageand culture, most recentlytaught at the University ofRedlands and Oakland Uni-versity. She earned a B.A. inEnglish language and litera-ture from Northwest Univer-

sity in 1995 and her M.A. in Asian studiesand Ph.D. in Chinese language and litera-ture from the University of Oregon in 2003and 2007, respectively. Her research inter-ests include the study of new romanticiza-tion of the Cultural Revolution andlanguage teaching.

• • •Ashley Rondini, assis-

tant professor of sociology,earned her B.A. in sociologyfrom Clark University in1997, an M.A. in women’sstudies from the Universityof Sussex in 1999, and anM.A. in social policy and

Ph.D. in sociology and social policy fromBrandeis University in 2006 and 2010,respectively. Rondini’s research interestsinclude race and ethnicity; qualitativeresearch methodology; gender and sexuali-ty; assets, social stratification, and educa-tional mobility; social policy and socialjustice; and health, identity, and the body.

2 TRANSYLVANIA

Transylvania welcomes four faculty members

Renowned opera singerteaches students art of classical singing

Gregory Turay has taken his opera talents allover the world, and his latest stop is Transylvania as Kenan visiting artist in music for the 2011-12 academic year.

Turay spent the last 15 years performing at opera houses around the world, includingJapan, Poland, Spain, and England. He’s earned numerous accolades, notably the presti-gious 2000 Richard Tucker Award, which is presented to an artist who, in the opinion of aconferral panel from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, is on the threshold of a majorinternational career. He was described by the London Times as “one of the brightest natu-ral talents to have emerged from the U.S. in recent years.”

Turay, a tenor, graduated from the University of Kentucky and is currently teaching at UKpart time while working toward a Ph.D. in vocal performance. He comes to Transylvania toteach voice classes and offer workshops for students studying vocal performace. In his shorttime at Transylvania, he has been pleased with the quality of the music students he’sworked with.

“I’ve been quite impressed with the level of the students here,” he said. “They workhard, and they’re really smart. I’ll have students in my 9 a.m. classes show up 15 minutes oreven a half hour early. They’re so disciplined—just all-around great kids. Quite a few couldhave careers in music.”

And Turay knows his fair share about music careers. In 1995, he won the MetropolitanOpera National Council Auditions at 21 years old and then won the 1996 Young ConcertArtists International Auditions. That launched his professional career, which saw him per-form in productions including Don Giovanni, Cosi Fantute, Rigoletto, A View from a Bridge,and Street Scene.

His opera background allows him to help students master the classical technique ofsinging, in which singers lower their larynx for a larger sound that allows them to singunamplified by a microphone. It is a foundation of opera, but it can also be used in popmusic.

“There’s the ‘old school,’ where they sing legitimately, and the ‘new school,’ where theysing pop,” Turay said. “Some of our students like the musical theater style, and you can stillsing pop with a classical technique, but you can’t sing classically with a pop technique.”

Although he has reduced his number of performances recently due to his study andteaching schedule, Turay continues to perform in Lexington and abroad, including a per-formance last year in Bordeaux, France, a concert with the Atlanta Symphony in April, anda starring role in the UK Opera Theater production of Romeo and Juliet in October. Heplans to do a recital at Transylvania early in winter term with music professor Greg Partainaccompanying on piano.

“It’s a real treat being at Transylvania,” he said. “The talent level and the number of students here are great, which is pretty rare at a school like this. But I’ve always maintainedthere are opera singers everywhere; they just haven’t tapped into it. If the students arehard-working and driven, like ours are, that’s a good recipe.”

Dinner honors donors, studentsShown at the scholarshipdonor-student recognitionreception and dinner heldSeptember 21 in the Campus Center are, seated,Norwood Jr. ’65 and Judith’64 Cowgill; seniors AustynGaffney and JustinPenticuff; and mathematicsprofessor David Shannon.Approximately 85 donorsand students were inattendance.

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FALL 2011 3

Mark Blankenship ’81 had manyrewarding, sometimeshumorous experiencesduring his 26-yeartenure at Transylvania,which came to a closein early November. Theassociate vice presidentfor development left the university to accepta position as vice presi-dent of advancementand external relations atLexington TheologicalSeminary.

“One of the first things I learned as ayoung Transylvania admissions officer washow to get lost on the way to a highschool,” Blankenship quipped in recallinghis early years with the university. “I did thatquite well on a number of occasions. Wetraveled a lot, and my territory includedKentucky, Virginia, and the Washington,D.C., area.”

That anecdote speaks to the appealingstyle of one of Transylvania’s much lovedand respected graduates and now formerstaff members. Quick with a smile and ajoke, Blankenship has a gregarious andeasy-going personality that won many

friends for the universityover his nearly threedecades of associationwith the school as stu-dent and staff member.

As an undergraduate,Blankenship majored inpsychology and waspresident of his fraterni-ty, Pi Kappa Alpha. Hewas involved with theInterfraternity Counciland the Student Activi-ties Board, and won

election as Mr. Pioneer his senior year.He was also Peppy Pioneer, a now-

defunct tradition that had a student wear acoonskin cap and generate spirit at basket-ball games.

“I had to borrow a cap from a former Mr.Pioneer, Bob O’Brien (’79), and I dressed injeans and suspenders to try to look like apioneer,” Blankenship recalled. “I had a bigdrum I beat just to annoy the fans.”

After graduation, Blankenship worked inadmissions for several years at a Lexingtonbusiness college and at Berea College. Hereturned to Transylvania in August 1985 asassistant director of admissions.

When he moved into the alumni office in1991 as assistant director of programs,

Blankenship began working more directlywith the late chemistry professor MonroeMoosnick, who had left the science depart-ment in 1984 to become director of alumniprograms and special assistant to the presi-dent. Over a 50-year career at Transylvania,Moosnick became one of Transylvania’smost well known and respected facultymembers and administrators.

The working relationship Blankenshipenjoyed with Moosnick is one he still drawsinspiration from many years after Moos-nick’s death in 1995.

“It was the essence of Monroe’s person-ality to care deeply and sincerely about theindividual,” Blankenship said.“I learned it was a key Tran-sylvania value and a distin-guishing characteristic ofanyone who’s going to besuccessful in admissions oradvancement.”

Moosnick was also willingto do whatever was requiredto get the job done, regard-less of one’s title.

“Monroe would see some-thing that needed doing thatwas not directly related to hisassigned area, but he knew it would makea difference,” Blankenship said. “Thatattracted me. It meant you weren’t tieddown to just one kind of work. In the alum-ni and development office, for instance,everyone worked on the annual fund. Whilein the alumni position, I was given theopportunity to do things more related todevelopment work. It was that variety ofactivities that was a big reason I stayed atTransylvania all those years.”

The regeneration of regional alumniclubs—now called chapters—is an accom-plishment that Blankenship takes great sat-isfaction in, though he is quick to say it wasfar from a one-person job.

“In the past, these groups were devel-oped primarily in conjunction with a capitalcampaign, and when the campaign wasover, they tended to go away,” Blankenshipsaid. “We finally began to support thosechapters away from the campaign mode,and now they are healthy and operating. Iwas there, along with others in our office,when we made that happen.”

Kirk Purdom, who came to Transylvania in2010 as vice president for advancement,relied on Blankenship to help him get ori-ented to the position and to Transylvaniaand its traditions.

“Mark was a valuable resource for me inmy transition to Transylva-nia,” Purdom said. “Hisknowledge and expertiseare greatly missed by all ofus who worked with him. Iam grateful that he remainsin Lexington and is willingto continue to share hisinstitutional knowledge. Weall wish him the very best inhis new role at the semi-nary.”

Blankenship admits tomixed feelings at leaving

Transylvania, where he had spent most ofhis adult life, met his wife (Kimberly NossBlankenship ’81), and saw his three chil-dren (Kelsey ’07, Stephen ’09, and Julia’11) educated.

“It was sad to leave a place that basicallyformed and educated me and my family,”he said. “But I feel good about where Tran-sylvania is at this point, and I’m looking for-ward to the next chapter in my life. I willcertainly continue to support the universityin any way I can. I’d like to think in somesmall way that this is another Transylvaniasuccess story. Or as some of my fraternitybrothers would say, ‘Mark’s finally graduat-ing after 26 years.’”

Blankenship leaves Transylvania for Lexington Theological Seminary

1981

Crim

son

“I’d like to think

in some small way

that this is another

Transylvania success story.

Or as some of my fraternity

brothers would say,

‘Mark’s finally graduating

after 26 years.’”

Mark Blankenship ’81 visits with Emried Cole and Wandaleen Poynter Cole ’67 during anAlumni Weekend 2007 event.

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Senior music majorCaleb Ritchie scored theshort film Waterbody,which was based on apoem by Bianca Spriggs’03. Waterbody wasscreened as part of a larg-er concert at the LexingtonDowntown Arts Center, inwhich Ritchie and otherartists performed.

“Toccata: Act of War” by music professor Larry Barnes waschosen for a 24-hour marathon broadcast hosted by MarvinRosen, We Remember September 11, featuring music inspired bythe tragedies of September 11, 2001. It was broadcast on WPRB103.3 FM Princeton and around the world on September 11.

• • •The admissions viewbook and Transylvania magazine received

first-place honors at the Public Relations Society of America-Thoroughbred Chapter’s 2011 awards competition. PRSA is theworld’s largest organization for public relations professionals.This is the second award for the viewbook this year.

• • •Economics professor G. Rod Erfani presented a paper titled

“The Effects of Privatization on the Financial Performance ofBusiness Firms in Central and Eastern Europe” in a plenary ses-sion at the 2011 International Conference on Economics andAdministration at the University of Bucharest, Romania. Thepaper was published in the ICEA Conference proceedings.

Applause

Caleb Ritchie performs anoriginal arrangement at a

student showcase in April.

4 TRANSYLVANIA

Transylvania will launch anambitious three-week academicand cocurricular programdesigned to introduce first-yearstudents to what a liberal edu-cation means when it debutsAugust term as part of the2012-13 school year.

Students in August term willtake only one course, an inten-sive seminar titled First Engage-ments: Enculturation into aScholarly Community, that willfocus on a theme selected by afaculty committee each year.Each section of the course,numbering about 16 students,will look at common texts,which will be supplemented bymaterial from each professor’sdiscipline. Besides course con-tent, the emphasis will be onlearning how to be a criticalreader and thinker, which areseen as core skills in a liberaleducation.

“The course is designed tomodel Transylvania’s commit-ment to its liberal educationmission,” said William F. Pollard,vice president and dean of thecollege. “Students will havethree weeks set aside for themto take on the challenge of acollege seminar, build academicskills and confidence, and get toknow faculty and one anotheras members of a new first-yearclass. It will help them definetheir role as active participants

in the intellectual life of the col-lege.”

August term will allow allfirst-year students to learn whatis expected of them as scholarsbefore they take on the fullcourse load of the regular fallterm, and before they plungeinto the social life of the largeruniversity community.

“Before everything starts upwith fall term, we want thefirst-year students to have thispure moment to themselves andto cut their teeth, so to speak,on some broad questions thatimpinge on what it means to bea human being,” said classicsprofessor John Svarlien, facultydirector for the August termproject. “We want them tolearn how to take creative andintellectual risks.

“This course will allow themto discover a different relation-ship to knowledge from theirhigh school days, where theymostly absorbed informationand gave it back in papers andon tests. Through critical read-ing, they will learn how to havea dialogue with the text, andthen expand that into a dia-logue in the class with their fel-low students and professors.They will learn how to ask thelarge questions that are at thecenter of a liberal education.”

The First Engagements courseis the central element of Transyl-

vania’s Quality EnhancementPlan that was submitted to theCommission on Colleges of theSouthern Association of Col-leges and Schools as part of theuniversity’s reaffirmation ofaccreditation process. SACSmembers go through this exer-cise every 10 years.

Michael Covert, associatedean of students, is administra-tive director for August termand coordinated developmentof various cocurricular programsthat will be an integral part ofthe students’ overall experience.The initiatives will include tradi-tional orientation events, butalso outside-the-classroom aca-demic elements to supplementthe First Engagements course.The course itself will meet everyday from 9 a.m. to noon, with1-2:30 p.m. set aside forrequired cocurricular events.Options will be offered for theremainder of the afternoon,which will also allow student-athletes practice time.

“The early afternoon sessionsmay feature book lectures, afilm, or small group discus-sions,” Covert said. “These elements will be chosen to com-plement the particular learningtheme chosen by the facultyeach year for August term.We’ll also use that time for tra-ditional orientation sessions onsuch topics as alcohol aware-

ness, academic integrity, theGreen Dot program for sexualassault awareness, and othertopics.”

In an overall sense, Covertsaid the three weeks in Augustwill be an ideal time for the first-year class to adjust to all of thefactors involved in a transitionfrom high school to college life.

“It’s our chance to really workwith them and help them learnwhat’s expected of them atTransylvania, to help them feelcomfortable in their role as aTransylvania student and schol-ar. We want it to be an enrich-ing educational experience, butwe also want it to be fun andenjoyable. We need manythings going on to develop thetotal student.”

Entering into that larger Tran-sylvania community also has avery intellectual purpose, Svar-lien said.

“A scholar is a public individ-ual,” he said. “For knowledgeto be valid, it has to be testedby other people, by other criti-cal opinions. It’s a skill and anattitude that one acquires bydoing it, and August term is ourway of beginning that processin each student. You can hearthe definition of a liberal educa-tion, but you can only experi-ence it in face-to-faceconversations. You can’t Googlea liberal arts education.”

August term for first-year students debuts in 2012Jo

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Writing, rhetoric, and com-munication professor ScottWhiddon was searching forsomething unique as he workedon the music to accompany adocumentary film onAppalachia. He found his inspi-ration by going back to themusic of the 1930s, the era por-trayed in the film, and specifi-cally to what the people of aparticular region of Virginiawere listening to at the time.

“I wanted to see if therewere any recordings of musi-cians from that area and thatperiod, and there are—a veryfew,” Whiddon said.

The film, Rothstein’s FirstAssignment, tells of the forceddisplacement by the Common-wealth of Virginia and the fed-eral government of 500 familiesliving in the mountains of Vir-ginia in an eight-county areathat was targeted to becomepart of Shenandoah NationalPark. It was directed by photog-rapher, writer, and filmmakerRichard Knox Robinson.

Whiddon used the DigitalLibrary of Appalachia and theSpecial Collections and Archivesof Berea College to locate therecordings of J. W. “Peg”Hatcher, an old-time fiddle musicplayer of the region and era. He also spoke with Hatcher’sdaughter, Irene Burnett, whoallowed the filmmakers to useher late father’s music.

As he composed originalmusic for the film, Whiddonworked with Duane Lundy,owner of Lexington’s Shangri-LaStudios, to create the recording.Whiddon’s own music makes up

about 60 percent of the score,with the remainder beingarchival recordings. His compo-sitions, all instrumental, usepiano, guitar, violin, and banjoin various combinations, withWhiddon playing the guitar.Josh Motley ’10 contributedsome de-tuned banjo parts.

“I wanted to respect the tra-ditional music, but also dosomething different,” Whiddonsaid. “Duane and I gave mymusic some interesting sounddesign elements—ghost tonesand echo and feedback. Theresult is music that builds offthose traditional Appalachianforms, but is more textural.”

At one point, Whiddon sentRobinson a portion of therecording that he felt very goodabout, but the director was notsatisfied. “He wanted a darkerhue, something more jagged,”Whiddon said.

The end result, however, wasvery pleasing to Robinson.

“The archival piece of musicby Peg Hatcher that Scott’s dili-gent research uncovered set the

tone for the film,” Robinsonsaid. “Beautifully recorded,Scott’s piece then meshed per-fectly with Hatcher’s recording,providing the bridge I was looking for between past andpresent.”

The film’s title refers to NewDeal photographer Arthur Roth-stein, who was sent to themountains of Virginia in 1935to photograph the residents ofthe Appalachian backwoodsand hollows before they weredisplaced for the national park.Robinson retraces Rothstein’ssteps by interviewing descen-dents of the mountain peopleand weaving those piecestogether with a 1964 audiointerview with the photogra-pher, archival newsreel footage,and clips from the 1964 docu-mentary Hollow Folk.

Robinson uncovers evidencethat Rothstein’s images werenot always pure documenta-tion—that some were stagedfor the camera. This creates anaura of propaganda that sug-gests complicity between Roth-

stein’s work and the involuntarydisplacement. The film also digsfurther into the forced institu-tionalization and sterilization ofmountain people, done in thename of eugenics.

“This is a highly disturbingfilm,” Whiddon said. “It’s ascary story about a complexmoment in our nation’s history.Richard has done a masterfuljob of telling not only the storyof this event, but of how truthis constructed rhetorically.”

The film draws extensivelyfrom the writings of KatrinaPowell, whose books “Answer atOnce”: Letters of MountainFamilies in Shenandoah NationalPark, 1934–1938 and TheAnguish of Displacement: ThePolitics of Literacy in the Lettersof Mountain Families in Shenan-doah National Park chronicle thestories of the displaced families.Powell was Whiddon’s disserta-tion director at Louisiana StateUniversity and the one whocalled Whiddon to offer him thefilm work. She is co-producerwith Robinson on the film.

This was Whiddon’s first filmscore, though he’s been a musi-cian since childhood, has playedwith several bands over theyears, and has been involved infour or five major recordings.

“Working on this project waseasily one of the most amazingexperiences of my artistic life,my research life, and my intel-lectual life,” he said.

FALL 2011 5

Whiddon scores documentary film on 1930s Appalachia

For the past several years, theParents Fund has raised hun-dreds of thousands of dollarsfor Transylvania’s J. Douglas GayJr./Frances Carrick ThomasLibrary. Last year, the fundraised a record $104,015, help-ing secure a $1 million chal-lenge grant as part of a $6.2million initiative to reinvigoratethe library.

This year the Parents Fundhas become the Parents AnnualFund and is now part of Transyl-vania’s overall Annual Fund.Instead of gifts from Transylva-nia parents and grandparentsgoing only to the library, moneyraised will go toward improvingall facets of campus life.

“The Parents Annual Fundenhances time in the classroom,

supports extracurricular activi-ties, provides scholarships, andstrengthens the Transylvaniaexperience,” Rikki Starich, majorgifts officer, said.

This year’s Parents AnnualFund goal is $105,000, up from$100,000 last year. ParentsCouncil co-presidents Scott andCarmen Jagoe, parents of Lind-sey Jagoe ’12, hope to see thatnumber bested again and therelationship between Transylva-

nia and its parents to grow.“Anything extra that people

can give is a huge benefit,” Car-men Jagoe said. “And I wouldencourage every parent to beinvolved in any way they can,even to volunteer for an hour.”

For more information about the annual fund, or to make a contribution, visit www.transy.edu/giving or callthe development office at (859)233-8275 or (800) 487-2679.

Parents giving now contributes to Annual Fund

Scott Whiddon works withjunior Bobby Puckett, left, andsenior Erin Brock in theTransylvania Writing Center.

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6 TRANSYLVANIA

Author Harriet Washingtonspoke about medical historyand ethics for the fall convoca-tion address September 11 inHaggin Auditorium.

The presentation served asan extension of the FirstEngagements reading, TheImmortal Life of Henrietta Lacksby Rebecca Skloot, whichchronicled the story of a poorAfrican American woman’s cellsbeing harvested without herknowledge and revolutionizingcancer study. Washington’s lat-est book, Medical Apartheid,

tells more storieslike Lacks’sinvolving mis-treatment ofAfrican Ameri-cans in thename of medicalscience. She hadstudied Lacks inthe 1990s, andwhen Sklootcame to her

about the book idea, Washing-ton told her, “You’ve got towrite this book.”

Washington said that med-ical science is still guilty of tak-ing advantage of people inorder to further research andmake money. Only today, thevictims are the uninformed—she dispelled the idea that theproblem is white doctors mis-treating black patients.

“The real division is notbetween white and black, butrather the guilty and the inno-cent,” she said. “It’s betweenpeople who are ready toaccept this state of affairs andthose who are not. The goal isto let people choose.”

She used the example of“informed consent” versus“presumed consent,” a subtledifference in language that isactually a huge difference inimplications. Presumed consentmeans that studies may beconducted on patients withouttheir knowledge, as long asthey give implied approval.That can be as simple as hold-ing a town hall meeting in the

area the study will be conduct-ed, and as long as there are noserious objections, it isassumed that the entire areaagrees to submit to the stud-ies. Those tend to happen inlow-income communitieswhere many people do nothave access to informationregarding studies’ risks. Thesame thing goes for traumavictims, according to the Codeof Federal Regulations 2150.23, which says that if apatient is unable to communi-cate, consent is assumed.

“We’re vulnerable todaybecause of presumed consentlaws,” Washington said.“Coroners can take our partsand sell them to corporationsfor profit. We sign many con-sent forms before surgery, andyou may not know one form isconsenting to have tissuetaken. These are the kinds ofissues that confront us today.”

Washington challenged stu-dents, both those who areconsidering medical professionsand those seeking careers else-where, to have an open mindand to know when to chal-lenge customs when those cus-toms may be causing injustices.

“We as a country have to bemuch more acutely aware ofthe things that threaten us inthe medical field,” she said. “Ichallenge you to work withinyour profession and respect itstraditions, but more important-ly to know when to questionthem.”

Medical Apartheid won aNational Book Critics CircleAward, the 2007 PEN OaklandAward, and the 2007 Ameri-can Library Association BlackCaucus Nonfiction Award.Washington has been a fellowin medical ethics at the Har-vard Medical School, a seniorresearch scholar at the NationalCenter for Bioethics atTuskegee University, a fellow atthe Harvard School of PublicHealth, and the recipient of aJohn S. Knight Fellowship atStanford University.

Washington teaches students about medical injustices

Q: How does the admis-sions office make friendswith prospective studentseven before the studentscontact Transylvania?

A: Through Facebook andTwitter.

Because prospective studentsare heavy users of social net-working, Transylvania recentlycreated a digital recruitmentcoordinator position in theadmissions office, which hasbeen filled by Laura Rudolph.

“Prospective students areoften surprised when Transylva-nia takes the time and effort tocontact them, when maybethey haven’t yet contacted us,”says Rudolph. “But since one-on-one attention from our fac-ulty is a staple of Transylvania,we want to provide that per-sonal touch online as well.”

Rudolph developed andlaunched the university’s newadmissions Facebook page,www.facebook.com/beapi-oneer, as well as an admissionsTwitter account, @beapioneer.She also monitors social mediaand college recruitment web-sites.

In the past, prospective stu-dents expected to come to theadmissions office, tour campus,and meet an admissions coun-selor in person. Today, however,they expect to be able to e-mailtheir counselors with questionsand interact with them throughsocial media—and for thecounselors to be responsive.

“Prospective students share alot of personal information withus: grades, test scores, personalstatements,” says Rudolph. “Sothey want to get to know theiradmissions counselors, too.Each counselor now has a per-sonal Twitter account so theycan interact with students.

We’re not just trying to keepup with our competition fromother colleges; we’re providingadditional funnels for studentsto have a dialog with us.”

The admissions Facebookand Twitter pages are in addi-tion to the university’s alreadystrong social media presence,including the official Transylva-nia site administered by thepublic relations office andpages for alumni, athletics, sustainability, and the library.The admissions section ofwww.transy.edu includes linksto the admissions Facebookand Twitter pages.

“Our theme this year is ‘Be aPioneer,’ which was inspired byVirginia Hamilton, the studentspeaker at commencement2011,” says Rudolph.

Drawing on Transylvania’smission of preparing studentsto be critical thinkers and prob-lem solvers, Hamilton chal-lenged fellow graduates to“Don’t just be an optimist, be a leader. And don’t just be aleader, be a pioneer.”

The admissions Facebookhomepage changes weekly toreflect various aspects of thattheme. One week it said,“Don’t just be a scientist, be a pioneer,” with a photo of a student in a lab. Anotherweek’s theme was, “Don’t justbe an athlete, be a pioneer,”with a student-athlete photo.

The admissions office alsohas a Class of 2015 Facebookpage that has been extremelyactive, especially last summerafter room assignments wereposted. “Students were askingeach other what residence hallthey would be in—what floorand room,” says Rudolph.“Making connections beforethey arrive on campus makestheir transition to college easier.”

Plans are in the works to fur-ther develop the admissionsFacebook presence. “We’re tex-ting out all the time to ask stu-dents what they want to seethere,” says Rudolph.

Rudolph coordinates digital recruitment

Laura Rudolph

FALL 2011 7

John Marshall Harlan, an 1853 graduateof Transylvania’s distinguished nineteenth-century law department, was raised in aslave-holding Kentucky family and heldracist views for much of his early life thatwere typical of the era. Yet he went on tobecome one of the U.S. Supreme Court’smost respected early champions of civilrights during the later decades of that cen-tury.

Before his moral conversion that occurredaround 1867-68, Harlan had opposed aboli-tion and the Emancipation Proclamation. Yetin 1863 he had raised a regiment to fightfor the North and was considered instru-mental in keeping Kentucky in the Union.

How does such a walking contradictionof a man forge a reputation on theSupreme Court as a stalwart defender ofthe rights and freedoms of all Americansregardless of skin color?

Exploring those ideas formed the heart ofhistorian William Wiecek’s presentation,“John Marshall Harlan, Race, and the Unit-ed States Supreme Court,” delivered onSeptember 26 in Carrick Theater as the firstspeech in the John Marshall Harlan LectureSeries.

Wiecek is professor emeritus at SyracuseUniversity College of Law, where he heldthe Congdon chair in Public Law and Legis-lation from 1984-2010. His book The Birthof the Modern Constitution: The United

States Supreme Court, 1941-1953 (volume12 of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise His-tory of the Supreme Court of the UnitedStates) won the John Phillip Reid Prize fromthe American Society for Legal History forthe best book in legal history published in2006. He is a graduate of Harvard LawSchool and received his Ph.D. in history

from the University of Wisconsin.After tracing Harlan’s early life and edu-

cation, including his many unsuccessfulattempts to win political office, Wiecekfocused on Harlan’s change of heart thatled to his famous Supreme Court dissents.

“When Harlan changed his views on race,critics charged him with being an oppor-tunist seeking only to win an election,”

Wiecek said. “Harlan’s answer was, ‘I wouldrather be right than consistent.’ I believe hedid undergo a genuine conversion in histhinking and that he deserves his reputationas a prophet on racial issues.”

Wiecek traced the 13 major cases involv-ing race that came before the SupremeCourt from 1873-1914 and noted that Har-lan dissented in nine of those cases. Perhapshis most famous dissent came in the 1896Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which upheldSouthern segregation statues. Harlan wrotethat “Our Constitution is color-blind...inrespect of civil rights, all citizens are equalbefore the law.”

“Justice Harlan stood out from the domi-nant trend of his time in race issues,”Wiecek said. “His picture of the Constitu-tion as color-blind is a noble vision. In hisdissents, he showed a lonely moralgrandeur.”

In speaking of Harlan’s Transylvania edu-cation, Wiecek noted the prominence of theuniversity’s law department.

“From 1799-1858 Transylvania shonebrightly as a center of American legal edu-cation,” Wiecek said. “Harvard and Transyl-vania had the field of university-affiliatedlegal education to themselves in antebellumAmerica.”

The John Marshall Harlan Lecture Series ismade possible by a generous gift fromMcBrayer, McGinnis, Leslie, & Kirkland, PLLC.

Transylvania University’s pioneering nineteenth-centurylaw department was a nationalleader in the development ofuniversity-affiliated legal educa-tion during its 1799-1859 life-span. At one point, it was thenation’s largest law department,and is credited with giving birthto law programs at Indiana Uni-versity (1842), the University ofLouisville (1846), the Universityof Louisiana/soon to becomeTulane (1847), and the Universi-ty of Mississippi (1854).

“There was but one programof higher education in law thatenjoyed genuine success in theantebellum years,” wrote DukeUniversity law professor andlegal historian Paul Carrington.“That program was an intellec-tual offspring of William &Mary, the law department ofTransylvania University in Lexing-

ton, Kentucky.”Carrington penned those

words in his presentation titled“Teaching Law and Virtue atTransylvania University: TheGeorge Wythe Tradition in theAntebellum Years” given atMercer University Law School asthe 1989 Carl Vinson Lecture.

In his paper, Carrington docu-ments the fact that the fourprofessors in Transylvania’s lawdepartment in 1840 made it thelargest law faculty in the nation.Enrollment in the departmenthad reached 40 by 1822 andvaried between 30 and 70 forthe next three decades, makingthe student body also amongthe nation’s largest.

In a 2010 interview withTransylvania magazine, Carring-ton said that the connectionbetween Transylvania’s lawdepartment and statesman

Henry Clay, who taught in thelaw department from 1805-07and was a Transylvania trustee,was a key factor in burnishingthe school’s national reputation.

Clay’s life of public servicewas a shining example of a pri-mary purpose of legal educa-tion in the thinking of ThomasJefferson, who felt that legaleducation would prepare menfor public service and helpsecure the integrity of publicinstitutions.

“Part of Transylvania’s successlay in its connection with HenryClay,” Carrington said. “Themessage was that if you wantedto be a politician in Americaand you wanted to get some-where as Clay did, and youwere living in the western halfof the United States, then theplace to train yourself in the lawand qualify yourself is by talking

to and learning from the judgeswho were teaching at Transylva-nia. In the 1840s it was themost important law school inthe nation and had the mostdemanding curriculum.”

Although Transylvania nolonger has a law department,graduates of the university winacceptance to many of thenation’s leading law schools,including Harvard, Cornell,Duke, and Stanford. Studentsrecommended by Transylvaniaenjoy a 100 percent acceptancerate.

For a video of an interviewwith Transylvania President R.Owen Williams by John Harwoodof CNBC and The New YorkTimes on Henry Clay, his role asSpeaker of the House, and histies to Transylvania, go to:http://bit.ly/harwood_williams.

Wiecek explores moral issues in first Harlan Lecture Series presentation

Transylvania once had the nation’s most important law department

Harlan lecturer William Wiecek, professoremeritus, Syracuse University College ofLaw

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Entering class is academically talented, racially and ethnically diverse

Well-intentioned government programsaimed at alleviating poverty can actuallyhave the opposite effect by discouragingrecipients from building assets for a prosper-ous future.

That was one of the conclusions emerg-ing from a May term 2011 economicscourse titled Asset Building for the Poor.The class was team-taught by economicsprofessor Alan Bartley and President Emeri-tus Charles L. Shearer, whose Ph.D. fromMichigan State University is in economics. Itwas supported by a grant from the JesseBall duPont Fund.

The course looked at the differencebetween income-based welfare programsand recent proposals based on asset build-ing. In the former, the emphasis is on sus-taining a person from day to day withwelfare assistance based strictly on theincome level of the family. The asset-buildingapproach aims to help people accumulatefinancial, educational, or job-related assetsthat will help them over the long run.

“Our current system discourages peoplefrom bringing themselves up out of pover-ty,” said Ruth Kloha, a senior mathematicsmajor from Ashland, Ky. “It gives peopleonly enough money or food stamps to sur-vive on a daily basis. Then there’s nothingyou can put back on reserve to eventuallybuild your own foundation of wealth.”

Lyman Stone, a junior economics majorfrom Wilmore, Ky., said the class looked atsuccessful micro-financing programs indeveloping countries such as Bangladesh,where loans to small farmers have put themon the road to economic independence.

“We associate micro-financing with thethird world, but it’s being tried in the UnitedStates as well,” Stone said. “Even people

stuck in poverty who we think can’t con-tribute in an economic way to society can bebrought back into the marketplace if westructure incentives correctly. You have tohave a government or a generous privatedonor, but in the long run it’s less expensivethan giving them a check every week whena larger sum now will help them create sus-tainable economic growth for themselves.Then you don’t have to finance them, theirchildren, and their grandchildren.”

The class surveyed a variety of ways to“front-load” the poverty-relief programs tofocus on benefits that will lead to long-termprosperity for the recipients.

Shearer pointed to a United Way pro-gram that supports the working poor whowant to save by matching their savingsefforts on more than a dollar-for-dollarbasis. “Building assets is what will pull youout of poverty, not just living on welfarechecks. The idea is to move people awayfrom pure consumption and toward the cre-ation of their own assets.”

“We went with the premise that a lot ofworking poor people sincerely want to gen-erate assets,” Bartley said. “That’s seen asthe way to a life of responsibility andrespect. If that’s the case, then the questionbecomes how we as a society change ourpolicies to encourage that.”

The course was taught as a seminar andrequired the 11 students in the class to fulfilldaily reading, writing, and class presentationand discussion requirements. There werealso a number of outside speakers fromagencies such as the Mountain Associationfor Community Economic Development andthe Federation of Appalachian Housing.

“This was my favorite class so far at Tran-sylvania, and I really liked the way it was

conducted,” said Kloha. “They gave us verypointed and interesting reading assignments,and the class sessions were discussion-based. It was a lot of reading and writing,but you wanted to do it so you could partici-pate in the discussions.”

Both Stone and Kloha said the class had apositive impact on their career thoughts.

“I don’t know exactly what I’m going todo after Transylvania,” Stone said, “but thiscourse was a good grounding in welfarepolicy in general, not just asset building, thatI believe will be helpful for any type of workI might chose to do in the public sector. Theoutside speakers showed us how these ideascould have immediate applications.”

The course influenced Kloha to applywith Teach for America, a federal programthat places teachers in very rural areas orinner-city neighborhoods where teachershortages typically exist. It also drew herattention from world poverty issues to thesituation in parts of America, especially hernative Kentucky.

“This course took away some of thenaiveté I had about poverty in Appalachia,”she said. “We read some texts that talkedabout Appalachia and Kentucky as the eye-sore of America and how some people fromacross the country see Kentucky as a third-world nation. That completely floored me. Icouldn’t fathom that we have these issuesright here in America.”

Whatever she winds up doing, Klohafeels the class was an asset-building experi-ence for her personally.

“The course will make me a better citizenof Kentucky and the nation. It inspired meto be aware of the community I live in, how I vote, and the schools I will send my kids to.”

Course looks at asset-building strategies for the working poor

First-year students and student orientation leaders compete in theOrientation Olympics at the Beck Center.

This year’s entering class of 259 is the most academicallyaccomplished in Transylvania history. Class members bring withthem an average high school GPA of 3.76 and an average ACTof 27.

“There is much to be excited about with this group of newstudents,” said Brad Goan, vice president for enrollment anddean of admissions. “With credentials slightly higher than lastyear’s record-setting class, they are the most academically tal-ented group Transylvania has ever welcomed to campus, andalso the most diverse: 11 percent identify themselves as mem-bers of a racial or ethnic minority.”

The class of 245 first-year students and 14 transfer studentsincludes 34 Kentucky Governor’s Scholars and Governor’sSchool for the Arts participants and six National Merit Finalists.Eighteen percent come from 18 states outside of Kentucky andfrom four foreign countries—China, Hungary, Nigeria, and Tai-wan. These new students bring overall fall enrollment to 1,029.

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After more than a year’s worth of designand content upgrades, Transylvania hasrolled out the first phase of a redesignedtransy.edu, featuring improvements createdto enhance the website’s role as a tool forthe world to connect to the university.

“Our new homepage has sliding photoswith taglines and links to feature or newsarticles or videos to continually promoteTransylvania people and events,” SarahEmmons, associate vice president for com-munications, said. “We’ve transformed astatic homepage to be more dynamic andencourage visitors to come back.”

The three main goals were to simplify the design to enhance visual appeal,improve the text to effectively representTransylvania, and streamline the pages foreasy navigation.

“All aspects of a website work togetherto make it effective,” Web DevelopmentManager Mariana Shochat said. “A lot ofwork went into not just the design, butimproving the overall experience. Thatmeans increasing site functionality andcohesion for all types of visitors, primarilyprospective students and their parents.”

Transylvania considers its website to beone of its most effective recruiting tools.Questions high school students typicallyhave about the university are answeredquickly and clearly with just a few clicksaround the About Transylvania page, which was beefed up significantly to offer a comprehensive picture of the universityand Lexington. Students can go totransy.edu/about/campus_map.htm for aninteractive campus map with links to pagesabout the various buildings and areas, or to

transy.edu/about/downtown.htm for aninteractive map of downtown Lexingtonattractions.

On the Student Life section, prospectivestudents can learn about housing options,ways to get involved, campus services, sus-tainability, wellness, and other benefits ofbeing a Transylvania student.

“We did a lot of work to the student lifesection with prospective students in mind,”Web Writer/Editor Jesse Darland said. “Wethink this is a good picture of what life oncampus is like for students.”

Other sections of the site have adoptedthe design change, including the academic,friends and donors, and alumni pages, andthe athletics site has moved to its own loca-tion, transysports.com. The events calendar,which has a link at the top of the frontpage, also received a facelift. Users canbrowse events by moving back or forth 30days at a time, or they can search for anevent and filter their results by type ofevent—lecture, theater, academic, etc.

Another important feature is a gray“Have a question?” button that hangs onthe bottom right of the window and popsout into a text box where users can leavequestions, comments, or suggestions to theweb team.

“Those responses come directly to us asan e-mail, and we have made changes andclarifications based on feedback we’ve got-ten from that box,” Darland said.

Other elements under the hood havebeen improved as well, including browsercompatibility, loading time, a 404 errorpage that suggests links, and quick search-ing in the A-Z index.

Phase two of the redesign is now under-way, including new academic program andfaculty pages, an enhanced campus map, avirtual tour, photo galleries, and more video.

“The website is an extension of our campus,” Emmons said. “Whether you arean alum, friend, or someone who knowsnothing about the university, it’s a wonder-ful way to pay Transylvania a visit.”

What’s that weird box?Launching further into the

age of social media, Transylva-nia is beginning to use the QRcode in publications to direct people to ourFacebook page, Twitter, and main website.

Short for Quick Response, the QR code iseasily read by smart phone cameras and canstore data such as website URLs.

To use the QR code, download a QR codeor barcode reader to your smartphone.Launch the application, and point the cam-era to the code. Your phone’s web browserwill be automatically directed to the link.

Seventeen professors from around the country participated in Transylvania’s summer liberal arts seminar, Twenty-first Century Liberal Education: A Contested Con-cept, in July. The seminar was sponsored by Transylvania and its Bingham Program forExcellence in Teaching and coordinated by Transylvania professors Jeffery Freyman,Ellen Cox, and John Svarlien. Participants included, front row, from left, JonathanIsham, Middlebury College, economics and environmental studies; Katherine Singer,Mt. Holyoke College, English; Annette Aronowicz, Franklin & Marshall College, historyof religions; Richard Meagher, Randolph-Macon College, political science; Cecilia Con-rad, Pomona College, economics; Christian Hoeckley, Westmont College, philosophy;middle row, John Svarlien, Transylvania, classics; Ellen Cox, Transylvania, philosophy;John Rudisill, The College of Wooster, philosophy; Anne Harris, DePauw University,medieval and general art history; Reid Golden, Hartwick College, sociology; ScottCohen, Stonehill College, English; back row, Peter Gottschalk, Wesleyan University, religion; A.J. Senchak, Southwestern University, business management; FernandoLozano, Pomona College, economics; Pam Luecke, Washington and Lee University, jour-nalism; Linda McGuire, Muhlenberg College, mathematics; Donal O’Shea, Mt. HolyokeCollege, mathematics and statistics; Jeffrey Freyman, Transylvania, political science.

Not pictured: Michele Intermont, Kalamazoo College, mathematics.

Transylvania hosts seminar on liberal education

Transylvania launches upgraded Transy.edu with new design, features

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A major restructuring of the TransylvaniaBoard of Trustees has resulted in a smallergroup of active board members who willbecome more involved in the governance ofthe university, plus the creation of a Boardof Regents whose members will act in anadvisory capacity.

Other significant changes to the opera-tion of the board include a term limit of fiveyears, a 10-year limit on board servicebefore sitting out a year, more meetings,and longer meetings that will likely stretchover two days.

“With everything we’re facing today,from the need for financial resources andkeen strategic thinking, the more involve-ment we can get from board members, thebetter,” said William T. Young Jr., chairmanof the board.

Young emphasized that the push forboard overhaul came from the board mem-bers themselves.

“This was self-initiated,” Young said. “Several trustees came to me and said theywould like to get more involved in boardstrategy and decision-making, and wantedto review board structure. I appointed an adhoc committee to study the possiblechanges.”

Norwood “Buddy” Cowgill Jr. ’65 was amember of the ad hoc committee and feelsthe new board structure, which wasapproved by the board at its May 2011meeting, will benefit the university goingforward.

“I am very excited about the newarrangements,” he said. “This structure willresult in a stronger, more active, and moreinvolved board. The change was necessary

because of the many challenges facinghigher education and the need to improvethe governance of the university.”

Ann Rosenstein Giles ’75 served on thecommittee and noted the research that wasdone in relation to boards at colleges similarto Transylvania.

“The committee spent a great deal oftime studying the role of university boardsand found that we were not unique inwanting to make these changes,” she said.“The competitive arena has shifted and willcontinue to evolve due to the ever-changingfinancial, educational, and internationalworld in which we live today. We are fortu-nate to have a very strong board whosemembers want to be more involved andwork together with President Williams tomove Transylvania ahead.”

The new board consists of 37 members,in contrast to the 66 members of the for-mer board. Young met with all board mem-bers to determine their interest in servingunder the new structure, and several choseto become Board of Regents members.

“The board was dealing with the interest-ing dynamic of how you ensure a criticalmass of members without becoming solarge that you lose some of the engagementof all members,” said President R. OwenWilliams. “The resulting smaller board willmake it easier for members to really helpthe university.”

There will continue to be an executivecommittee consisting of the officers, stand-ing committee chairs, and other membersas determined by the board chairman.

Board of Trustees is smaller after major restructuring

As part of Transylvania’s rebrandingefforts over the last year, the branding com-mittee and faculty approved a new missionstatement that clarifies Transylvania’s role asan institution.

The committee, which included PresidentR. Owen Williams and members of the fac-ulty and staff, wanted to preserve the spiritof the existing mission statement whilemore closely aligning it with the university’snew slogan—“Question everything, accom-plish anything.” The members workedtogether and wrote a succinct description ofTransylvania’s goal as a liberal arts college:

Through an engagement with the liberalarts, Transylvania University prepares its stu-dents for a humane and fulfilling personaland public life by cultivating independentthinking, open-mindedness, creative expres-sion, and commitment to lifelong learningand social responsibility in a diverse world.

“This mission statement is a clear representation of the benefits studentsreceive from a Transylvania education,”Williams said. “Not only do they expandtheir knowledge of a wide range of aca-demic subjects, they learn to become citi-zens who can use their ability to learn toimpact the world.”

The mission statement was rolled out dur-ing Williams’s presidential inaugurationspeech and can be found at transy.eduunder About Transy.

Transylvania unveils newmission statement

Consider voluntary subscription toTransylvania magazine

Transylvania magazine has been your connection to campus and each other since1983, providing news about programs,events, and athletics, as well as in-depth features and updates on alumni. It’s all delivered to your mailbox three times a year,free of charge. But as production costsincrease, we would appreciate your support.

Please consider a voluntary subscriptionof $15 per year—just $5 per issue. Go towww.transy.edu/giving, click on Make aGift Now, and specify “magazine” in thebox labeled “other.”

You will continue receiving the magazineregardless of whether you participate in thevoluntary subscription program. But yoursupport will help retain the quality and vital-ity of this award-winning publication.

Transylvania magazine is for you. Makeit from you, too.

Transylvania Board of Trustees

William T. Young Jr., ChairmanWilliam M. Arvin ’61 Glen S. Bagby ’66 Mindy G. Barfield ’85 Elizabeth Brooks Bulleit ’76 Karen K. Caldwell ’77 Aristides S. Candris ’73 John S. CarrollJoe E. Coons ’73 Norwood Cowgill Jr. ’65 Luther Deaton Jr.Rose Mary Stamler Dow ’88 Angela L. Edwards ’91 Michael C. Finley ’90James H. Frazier III ’76 Ann Rosenstein Giles ’75 John R. HallLaura R. Harper ’84 Claria D. Horn ’91 James L. Hurley ’69 James G. Kenan IIISamuel J. Mitchell Jr.William C. Oehmig ’71 Erwin Roberts ’94Warren W. RosenthalFrances F. Taylor ’75 Joe M. Thomson ’66 John E. TobeHerbert B. TullyGeorge M. VanMeter Jr. ’77 A. Guy Waldrop ’59 Jeffrey P. WilliamsJohn N. Williams Jr. ’74 Ann Orme Windley ’65 Brian C. Wood ’94 Byron Young ’61 Christopher H. YoungR. Owen Williams, ex officio

Transylvania will add com-petitive cheerleading anddance to its intercollegiatesports lineup with the start of the2012-13 season. These teamswill eventually compete forpost-season bids to nationalchampionships, while “spirit”cheer and dance squads willcontinue to perform at men’sand women’s basketballgames, campus activities, andcommunity service events.

Teams can qualify for nation-al competition after attendingcamps run by the NationalCheerleading Association andthe National Dance Associa-tion, or by videos submitted to

those organiza-tions.

Tora Carter,who has coachedboth spirit teams atTransylvania foreight years, will

also lead the competitivesquads. Recruiting is underway,targeted at between 12 and 20members for each team. Ath-letes can be members of boththe spirit and competitiveteams.

Carter is also program direc-tor at Legacy Cheer and Danceof Lexington, where she works

with over 400 cheerleaders anddancers from age three to 25.She is certified by the AmericanAssociation of CheerleadingCoaches and Advisors.

“This is an exciting time forTransylvania,” said Carter, whograduated from the Universityof Kentucky, where she was amember of the UK Danzers.She also coached at UK from2004-05. “There has alwaysbeen interest at Transylvania inhaving these competitiveteams, so I feel we can get theprograms up and runningquickly. Very few small collegesin this area offer both competi-tive and spirit teams, so Tran-sylvania is definitely on thecutting edge.”

“These programs will providea great opportunity to attractthe highest caliber cheerleadersand dancers in the region,”said athletics director Jack Ebel’77. “We think Transylvania is aplace they will want to attendand that Tora is the perfect per-son to grow the programs.”

With the announcement ear-lier this year of the addition ofmen’s and women’s lacrosse toTransylvania’s lineup, the uni-versity will be sponsoring 22intercollegiate sports programswith the 2012-13 school year.

FALL 2011 11

Three coaches join Transylvania staffNew head coaches in women’s lacrosse, softball, and men’s and

women’s cross country and track and field have recently joined theTransylvania staff.

Former University of Cincinnati standout Haley Marvine is Transylvania’s first women’s lacrosse coach. She is a 2011 graduate of Cincinnati, where she was a four-year letter winner and a teamcaptain for the Bearcats. She has extensive experience workinglacrosse camps in the South and Midwest as well as at Duke University and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

“I am looking forward to the challenge of getting the Transylvaniawomen’s lacrosse program started,” Marvine said. “My knowledge oflacrosse in Cincinnati and throughout the Midwest will be an asset inbringing talented players to Transylvania.”

“Haley impressed us with her background and coaching experi-ence,” said athletics director Jack Ebel ’77. “She brings a lot of confi-dence and energy to the position, and she has a very strong workethic. Haley is a tremendous addition to our staff.”

Heidi Pinkerton, a former team captain at the University of NorthCarolina-Greensboro and head cross country coach for Guilford Col-lege, is the new men’s and women’s cross country and track and fieldcoach. She replaces Jason Moncer, who held the position the pastthree seasons.

While earning her bachelor’s degree at UNC-Greensboro, Pinkertonran cross country and track, and was a two-time All-Southern Confer-ence selection. She set the school record in the steeplechase.

“I think we have the potential to become one of the premier pro-grams in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference and in theregion,” Pinkerton said. “This is a great opportunity and challengethat I very much look forward to.”

“Heidi was an accomplished runner in college and had great suc-cess coaching at Guilford, where she produced two NCAA Division IIIAll-Region performers,” said Ebel. “She is a young coach with a lotof knowledge, enthusiasm, and passion for her sport. She is a realasset to our staff.”

Kim Tackett, a former All-American at Muskingum University, isthe new softball coach, replacing Michelle Manning, who held theposition for three years. She played for the late Donna Newberry,winningest NCAA Division III coach in history, and was a second-teamAll-American and three-time All-Region and All-Tournament selection.

Tackett earned her bachelor’s degree from Muskingum and a mas-ter’s degree from John Carroll University, where she was an assistantcoach for three seasons and a member of the Ohio Athletic Confer-ence Coaching Staff of the Year.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to coach at Transylvania, whichhas a strong history of success in softball,” Tackett said. “I look for-ward to the challenge of building on that success.”

“Kim was a four-year starter for a perennial NCAA Division IIIWorld Series team,” said Ebel. “She has been a part of two highlysuccessful programs and will be a tremendous role model for our stu-dent-athletes. I believe she is one of the top up-and-coming youngcoaches in America.”

Competitive cheer, dance added tointercollegiate sports lineup

From left, Heidi Pinkerton, Kim Tackett, and Haley Marvine joinedthe Transylvania coaching staff this year.

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Nino-Moreno uses global experience to promote understanding

Eduardo Nino-Moreno chuckles whenyou ask where he’s from.

The Uruguayan citizen, born inColombia, married a woman from Panamaafter she graduated from a Mexicanuniversity. Holding an undergraduate degreefrom Dartmouth College and a graduatedegree from Cornell University, he workedfor the United Nations for almost three

decades, working in 14 countries and carrying out missions inmany more.

Now Nino-Moreno brings his impressive resumé to

Transylvania, where he became the university’s first director ofcampus diversity and inclusion September 5. He was workingfor the UN on a consulting basis and wanted to find a placewhere he could use his background in diversity and globalrelations. After several months of research, he sent in just oneapplication.

“I was looking for a challenge—not a job,” Nino-Morenosaid. “There were around 17 positions dealing with diversityavailable. I researched them, went to websites, asked friends,and decided that this was my application. The challenge was thatfor the first time in its long existence, Transylvania created anoffice to deal with issues that are so dear to me.”

Nino-Moreno works with all areas of Transylvania to promotea culture of diversity on campus, from spreading the word aboutthe college to other countries to organizing events on campusthat foster provocative discussion and better understanding of

12 TRANSYLVANIA

Having a diverse campus is a primary value of Transylvania University. The articles in this special sectionlook at some of the initiatives and people who are having an impact in many areas, including racial, eth-nic, gender, and geographic diversity. Future articles in this series will explore four additional primaryvalues of Transylvania: globalization, sustainability, technology, and community involvement.

BY WILLIAM A. BOWDEN AND TYLER YOUNG

DIVERSITY DISCUSSIONS

Officers of Transylvania’s student diversity organizations are, from left: Rachel Williams, president, Black Student Alliance; BradleyChristopher, president TUnity (unifying Transylvania’s gay and straight communities); Israel Cook, president, Diversity ActionCouncil; Austyn Gaffney, co-coordinator, VOICE (feminist organization); Lindsey Jagoe, co-coordinator, VOICE; and Quantá Taylor,student coordinator of diversity organizations.

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other cultures, races, religions, disabilities, and anything else thatcan allow a person to see the world from a different viewpoint.Diversity in an academic setting is crucial to helping studentsbecome the most well-rounded citizens possible.

“Diversity and inclusion are issues you cannot escape from—they are present wherever you go and in whatever you do,” Nino-Moreno said. “I learned through my years of international servicethat the more diverse the teams I work with, the better the resultsin the end. That gave me a fantastic perspective. I feel as if I haveprepared for this particular job all my life.”

Although he has been on campus just a short time, Nino-Moreno has done a lot of listening and has identified areasTransylvania can capitalize on now as well as in the long term.But he is quick to note that while his job is to stimulate andfacilitate diverse discussion on campus, everybody must pitch infor a culture to change.

“We should all become recruitment officers,” he said. “It’snot only the admissions office—we can all participate. Connectiondoesn’t cost anything; conversation doesn’t cost anything;kindness doesn’t cost anything. Those three things go a longway toward creating a climate of inclusion.”

While Nino-Moreno saw Transylvania as a challenge, he isgreatly encouraged by what he has already seen. He notedTransylvania has lots of assets that will be paramount to thesuccess of diversity on campus. He gave as an example a storyof when he was carrying personal items into his office on a rainyday, and a poster of Martin Luther King Jr. he has taken all overthe world with him began to slip out of his hands. A studentcame over to offer a hand, helped him carry his things inside,and stayed to talk with him.

“Look at Transylvania,” he said. “I was totally different, andhe helped me. That illustrates the spirit I’ve found here. Youcannot imagine the long list of people who have offered theirhelp.”

Nino-Moreno praised the commitment to diversity he seesfrom the administration, and he said he has heard concerns andencouragement from faculty, staff, students, and alumni, showinghim that this is a place ready to move forward.

“We are not starting from scratch—there are many thingsthat have already been started,” he said. “Transylvania has donea lot of things since 2007 when I started to review the literature.The Diversity Action Council has produced excellent results. Iremember reading one of President Williams’s first newspaperinterviews, and I think he is very committed.”

Nino-Moreno has met with community leaders, forming atwo-way relationship that he hopes to use in the future to benefitboth Transylvania and Lexington. He has met with students inthe Alternative Winter Break program, which is traveling to theDominican Republic this year, and he is setting up a meetingwith Dominican officials so the students can tell them aboutTransylvania. He plans to hold a town hall meeting and conducta campus-wide survey on diversity, set up an interactive diversitywebsite, and create a “diversity nook” in Old Morrison whereanyone can come and engage in conversations and ask questionsabout diversity on campus and off. His office will sponsorworkshops on delicate subjects and address the issues of socialjustice and power and privilege. Those are just baseline projectsthat will get the ball rolling on transforming the campus culture,which he says is so important for students to experience now.

“I have heard college students say they are sometimes afraid

to talk to people who don’t look like them or think like them,”he said. “But you have to take risks, take advantage of this hugeprivilege of being here. Four years is just a whisper.

“We as a campus can promote understanding. The idea is tohave as much difference as possible, until difference doesn’tmake any more difference.”

• • •

Bingham is excited aboutthe future of diversity at Transyl-vania

Vince Bingham ’98, Transylvania’scoordinator of multicultural affairs, hasworked for the past 10 years to spread thediscussion about diversity and inclusion

around campus. He has scheduled presenters, raised awarenessabout multicultural events, and advised campus diversity groupswhile cultivating relationships with outside diversity groups inLexington and elsewhere.

There’s a lot for Bingham to be proud of over the decade,and now the reinforcements have arrived in the form of newstaff and a renewed vigor on campus for the spirit of diversity.His job description is not changing, but Bingham now has ateam of people to discuss ideas with and help with programming.And he could not be more excited.

“If you’d asked me a year ago what Transylvania needed asfar as diversity staff, I would have said they needed someone inadmissions, and we need another person in administration,” hesaid. “Now I can honestly say we’re doing it. We’re getting it.Now we get to put these people together and make a plan. Jonah(Brown, assistant director of admissions and multiculturalrecruitment) is going to be great in admissions, and Eduardo(Nino-Moreno, director of campus diversity and inclusion) ismonumental to Transylvania—he’s definitely going to bringsomething we haven’t seen before.”

Bingham’s position serves as support and leadership fordiversity groups and initiatives. His four main duties are advising,educating, training, and outreach. He advises the DiversityAction Council, TUnity, Black Student Alliance, and othergroups on campus, ensuring that they have the support theyneed. He puts together events on campus for celebrations suchas Free Trade Week, Women’s History Month, and MartinLuther King Jr. Day. He trains campus groups, including studentorientation leaders, resident advisers, and department of publicsafety officers, on inclusion issues. And he is involved with organ-izations like Urban League of Lexington, the YMCA, and BlackAchievers.

Through those roles, he gets a good read on the pulse ofcampus and the students, and he has seen a great improvementin the level of awareness and interest among Transylvania studentssince he arrived in 2001.

“Students are becoming more inquisitive about diversityissues,” he said. “That speaks to a new generation of studentsthat isn’t accepting the way things are. When I make presentations,they come question me—‘Why is this?’ At one time you didn’t

14 TRANSYLVANIA

have that. The students have taken charge, and they’re startingto fully embrace how diversity plays into the liberal arts culture.”

Faculty and staff also play a big part in promoting inclusion,and Bingham sees growth in that area as well. He noted as anexample head men’s basketball coach Brian Lane ’90 taking hisplayers to a march downtown on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

“That’s something that’s never been done before,” Binghamsaid. “But to me, that’s awesome. People are making an effort,and the little things mean a lot.”

Bingham said the Transylvania community can expect asignificant increase in the amount of programs offered both fordiversity awareness and for minority students. Bringing morerecognizable figures to campus to hold lectures or panelsencourages more people to attend those events and get involved,and he intends to improve those offerings, as well.

“It increases the learning environment,” he said. “You’re notgoing to get anywhere trying to solve increasingly complexproblems with a group of one-track-minded people. Diversityis a commitment to academic integrity.”

• • •

DAC students step up to promoteappreciation for culture

As important as it is for diversity and inclusion to be discussedand encouraged by faculty and staff, Transylvania students musttake charge and be leaders in promoting those values for themto be successful.

The Diversity Action Council is leading the way in that charge.Created to plan events and campaigns on campus, the councilis made up of students who strive to provide opportunities tolearn about other cultures and lifestyles on campus. It also overseesthree other diversity organizations—TUnity, which seeks to unifyTransylvania’s gay and straight communities; Black StudentAlliance, an African American student leadership group; andVOICE, a new feminist organization.

This year’s Diversity Action Council is bringing back manyprograms that have been successful in the past, including Diversity

Dialogues, a program where professors givelectures on diversity issues outside their aca-demic fields, and Diversity Week, whichpromotes international studies.

“Our goal this year is to increase studentawareness and student participation andmembership in the organizations we’reinvolved with,” said Quanta Taylor ’12,student coordinator of diversity. “We’ve hada lot of success the last couple of years with

the programs we’re bringing back.”Plans are underway for several new events, such as a Privilege

Dinner, which seeks to visually represent socio-economic statusin terms of world hunger.

“Say you have 100 people come, 75 of them will eat rice andwater for dinner,” Taylor said. “Twenty will have a normal platedinner, and six will have steak for dinner.”

The council is planning Cultural Awareness Week, seekingto bring cultural groups to campus like Step Afrika, a dancegroup from Washington, D.C., that specializes in step dancing.

It also plugs itself into the Lexington community, workingwith organizations like Black Achievers to go into schools andhelp students with college applications, essay writing, and projectsin their classes. Vince Bingham ’98, Transylvania’s coordinatorof multicultural affairs, advises the groups, helping them withservice and learning opportunities locally.

“Vince has done a great job in linking us to outside organi-zations—bringing them to campus and taking us to them aswell,” Taylor said

All of the planning and programming work together to furtherthe discussion of diversity on campus, a purpose that Taylor saysequips Transylvania students with an appreciation of culture thatwill greatly benefit them in their personal and professional lives.

“When we talk about these issues—not necessarily race, butgender issues, veteran status, socioeconomic status—those areissues that hit everyone in some way, shape, or form,” he said.“Big-time programming is a recruiting tool. That makesTransylvania desirable. I think for Transylvania’s goal of focusingon creating a new level of civic engagement, increasing discussionand awareness of those issues will provide our students the chanceto have a greater impact on the world. It makes Transylvania animportant piece of a very attractive puzzle.”

• • •

Brown takes the Transylvaniamessage on the road

To Jonah Brown, learning on a diversecampus with a variety of backgrounds andcultures isn’t a luxury for students—it’s anecessity.

Transylvania’s new assistant director ofadmissions and coordinator of multicultural

recruitment is working to attract a more diverse population toTransylvania. His role was created to have an admissionsrepresentative dedicated to traveling around the country to tellthe Transylvania story to students of varying racial, ethnic, andgeographic backgrounds.

“My role is new, and we’re still shaping it as we go, but myfocus is targeting ways Transylvania can do a better job ofbroadening our funnel of students that are interested in cominghere,” he said. “We’ve been very successful in our percentagesin getting interested students to commit to Transylvania—ourproblem has been getting students to take a look in the firstplace.”

That means Brown spends a lot of his time in largemetropolitan areas like Chicago, Dallas, and New York Citywhere the minority populations are substantial. Instead of atypical recruiting pitch, he is finding ways to get those studentsexcited about Transylvania, a school many may not have heardof. One of the major selling points he’s discovered early on—particularly with guidance counselors— is the appeal of Lexingtonas a city where students used to big-city living could feelcomfortable.

“We have growing name recognition among high schoolteachers and guidance counselors, and we want them to thinkof us as a great option for their students who are looking for a

FALL 2011 15

smaller, private school but in a big city,” he said. “That’s whatwe’re really trying to sell—if you’re a student coming from oneof these larger cities, Lexington is a very realistic option for you.”

A big part of Brown’s role in those cities is changing theperception of Transylvania and other small, private schools asplaces for rich, white students. While that’s an unfair assessment,his job is to show that minority students can get the best impactfor their money from Transylvania, through scholarshipopportunities, financial aid, and Transylvania’s reputation for ahigh rate of students graduating in four years and going directlyto graduate school or the work force.

“We’re trying to explain to students the value of Transylva-nia—that you’re going to get more out of it as a long-term invest-ment,” Brown said. “It’s very easy to look at some of the largerschools that are offering more money. Turning down that moneywhen you’re 17 or 18 years old can be difficult. That doesn’tapply only to students of color, but it’s a hurdle we’ll be facingin the African American and Latino communities.”

Brown, who is from Richmond, Ky., has a strong backgroundin presenting compelling arguments. He came to Transylvaniafrom the Fayette County Circuit Court, where he was a staffattorney for Judge James D. Ishmael. He earned a bachelor’sdegree in political science from the University of Kentucky anda J.D. from the UK College of Law, and he was studentgovernment president and a UK ambassador, recruiting and rep-resenting UK at functions.

“I felt like my experience as a very involved student who triedto take advantage of everything college had to offer would makeme effective at selling the college experience,” he said.“Transylvania has a lot to offer, and it’s a great opportunity forme to continue that work.”

One of his most memorable experiences was his summer inthe Governor’s Scholars program during high school, where hefirst got to meet students from other parts of Kentucky. Learningfrom his peers what life was like in western Kentucky, easternKentucky, Louisville, and other regions made a big impact onhow he views learning.

“College isn’t just the faculty we have here or the classes wehave set up—it’s the students providing experiences for eachother and with each other,” he said. “And we need to providean environment where students can share and learn from eachother and grow.”

• • •

Wheeler deepens her understanding of civil rights at NEH summer institute

Education professor Tiffany Wheeler ’90 thought she hada pretty good understanding of the civil rights struggles of AfricanAmericans, and then she attended a 2011 summer institute atHarvard University on the subject.

“It certainly expanded my understanding of the civil rightsera, to include much more than what we think we know fromthe 1950s and ’60s movements,” Wheeler said.

Before high-profile 1960s groups like the Student NonviolentCoordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Freedom Riders gottheir start, there was the Southern Negro Youth Congress,founded in the 1930s. And long before that, civil rights issues

were being confronted well back into the nineteenth century.The title of the institute—“African American Struggles for

Freedom and Civil Rights, 1865-1965”—aptly sums up thescope of the four-week academic exercise, which was sponsoredby the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institutefor College Teachers and by the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute atHarvard.

Wheeler was one of 25 professors chosen for the prestigiousfour-week residential institute from among more than 100applicants nationwide. The purpose of the program is to trainprofessors on how to integrate more black history in theirclassrooms and research projects.

The institute’s curriculum began with the early civil rightsefforts that took place in the years just after the end of the CivilWar. Coincidentally, this time period was included in TransylvaniaPresident R. Owen Williams’s doctoral dissertation at YaleUniversity titled “Unequal Justice Under the Law: The SupremeCourt and the First Civil Rights Movement, 1857-1883.”Historian Eric Foner, author of A Short History of Reconstruction,among other books, was on the institute’s faculty as well asWilliams’s dissertation committee.

“Eric Foner was but one example of the brilliant historiansand scholars who were our teachers,” Wheeler said. “There werealso a number of people taking part in the institute who wereinvolved with civil rights movements in the twentieth century,and it was thrilling to have personal contact with them.”

Prominent among those people was Esther Cooper Jackson,a 94-year-old activist whose mother was president of the Virginiachapter of the National Association for the Advancement ofColored People. Jackson was friends with intellectuals and activistssuch as author W.E.B. Du Bois, concert singer and actor PaulRobeson, and author Langston Hughes. With Du Bois and hiswife, Shirley Graham, Jackson edited Freedomways, a culturaland literary journal that ran from 1961-85.

Wheeler also had the opportunity to meet Robert Moses,who was prominent in the SNCC, and Martha Norman Noonan,an editor of Hands on the Freedom Plow, which published first-

Education professor Tiffany Wheeler ’90 is pictured with HarvardLaw professor Randall Kennedy, who presented a Kenan Lecturetitled “Can We Talk? Problems in Race and Conversation” inHaggin Auditorium February 16, 2011.

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person accounts from women involved in the SNCC.Wheeler said the most immediate application of what she

took from the institute will be an enrichment of her course Race,Ethnicity, and Social Class in American Education.

“We study the civil rights movement in that course, but nowI’ll be adding a lot of understanding to that subject, especiallywhat preceded the movements of the 1950s and ’60s,” she said.“Another course, Schooling in American Culture, looks at mar-ginalized groups like African Americans and Asian Americans.The Harvard experience will help me explain how these historicalproblems can still affect my students as teachers today.”

Wheeler would also like to see an African American Studiesminor created at Transylvania, along with a course on the historyof African American education. The summer institute gave herexcellent background for those projects.

“Being at Harvard this past summer among all those scholarsand social activists has given me new direction for both my teachingand my personal scholarship, plus my sense of activism as acommunity citizen,” Wheeler said. “It was one of the most beneficialexperiences I’ve ever had, personally and academically.”

• • •

Intellectual engagementwith differing views is funda-mental to creating a trulydiverse campus

As Transylvania works to create a morediverse university in all respects, KathleenJagger imagines a time when the subjectwill no longer require the kind of

conversations and initiatives that are now taking place on cam-pus.

“If we work hard to create a mindset of curiosity about otherways of viewing the world and make sure that perspective is infusedthroughout the curriculum and throughout every student’sexperience here, we should reach a point where we don’t eventalk about diversity anymore because it’s everywhere,” said Jagger,associate vice president and associate dean of the college.

That intellectual engagement with the myriad of differingviews of the world is the true meaning of diversity, Jagger believes.Such a state goes far beyond the visible signs of having students,faculty, and staff members of various races and ethnicities, orobserving events such as Women’s History Month.

“Even when we reach the point of having a very representativecampus community, we can’t be satisfied,” Jagger said. “We haveto look much more deeply than appearances. We have to lookfor the depth every person has to offer, the talents every personhas to offer. Our conclusions should be based on our interactionswith individuals, not on assumptions based on superficialinformation about where they are from or what they look like.I think it’s a constant struggle to keep your mind open to others’points of view.”

As she works to bring about a more diverse faculty, which isone of the areas of involvement she is focusing on, Jagger seesmany other initiatives as having significant impacts on diversity.The single most important happening, she feels, is the

appointment of Eduardo Nino-Moreno as director of campusdiversity and inclusion. (See page 12.)

“Eduardo’s office will be the catalyst for continuing changein every single area of campus,” she said. “He was brought toTransylvania as a change agent, as someone who will foster thediscussions that need to happen, connect the people who needto be working together. He has done this at the global level,with his 27 years of experience working with the United Nations.”

Jagger also pointed to the addition of Nancy Jo Kemper ’64to the staff as interim associate dean of interreligious life for the2011-12 academic year. Kemper, former executive director andspokeswoman for the Kentucky Council of Churches, is chargedwith creating an interfaith dialogue on campus that will explorethe history and practices of many religious traditions.

“I see a lot of strengths in things that are happening rightnow, including recent speakers like Randall Kennedy and HarrietWashington,” Jagger said. Kennedy, a Harvard University lawprofessor, delivered a Kenan lecture on the history ofnomenclature related to Americans of African descent, whileauthor Harriet Washington addressed convocation this fall onmedical injustices perpetuated on African Americans. (See page6.)

Other groups and committees are addressing the need formore international students, changes and additions to thecurriculum to reflect a more diverse spectrum of course content,and aspects of student life that can be educational vehicles fordiversity enlightenment.

“From an academic point of view, we have a ways to go toreally infuse diversity into the curriculum,” Jagger said. “Weneed to have more courses on the African American experienceor the Hispanic American experience if we expect to attract thosestudents.”

In the end, Jagger believes creating a true culture of diversityis the responsibility of all Transylvania campus citizens.

“When we reach the ideal environment in terms of diversityand inclusion, we will have developed a genuine interest in, andcuriosity about, every student, every faculty member, everyemployee, and work to be supportive of all of them. No oneshould ever feel marginalized or excluded in any way.”

• • •

Admissions identifies strate-gies to reach underrepresented stu-dents

A significant portion of Transylvania’s new StrategicEnrollment Plan is dedicated to reaching minority students tooffer them a Transylvania education and enhance the level ofmulticulturalism on campus. Taking the Transylvania story to alarger number of students in diverse populations and thuswidening the enrollment umbrella is an overall theme of theplan.

“Transylvania has always done a good job of getting studentsto apply once they learn about the college,” said Brad Goan,vice president for enrollment and dean of admissions. “Theproblem has been reaching those students to be able to tell them

FALL 2011 17

our story.”One strategy already underway involves working with com-

munity-based organizations, schools, and school districts thatserve a large number of students from underrepresented demo-graphics. Transylvania is partnering with those organizations tooffer faculty presentations on topics the students are interestedin and send admissions staff to do programs about the collegesearch process. In return, the staff and students from those organ-izations will be able to come to campus, take tours, and meetstudents, faculty, and staff.

“We’ve tended to work with individual schools and individualstudents, but we’ve not really gotten in the game with, particularly,community-based organizations,” Goan said. “That’s going tobe a big part of the Strategic Enrollment Plan moving forward.”

Goan, director for campus diversity and inclusion EduardoNino-Moreno, and assistant director for multicultural recruitmentJonah Brown have identified several groups to partner with andare working to find more.

“Our hope is, if we develop relationships with 15 or 20 ofthese organizations, and we’re visiting them on an annual basis,we’ll build these relationships, and students will be aware ofTransylvania and apply and come,” Goan said.

As a bonus, Transylvania will provide scholarships for studentswho choose to attend Transylvania and have been full participantsin these organizations or students in the school districts.

Transylvania is also enhancing international recruitment,which will bring more students from minority populations, andmaking bigger pushes in larger urban markets, such as Chicagoand New York City. Associate director of admissions Ingrid Allen’89 is doing a lot of the work in international markets, and Brown,who started at Transylvania over the summer, is working in theurban markets. In both of those areas, the staff explains to thestudents, many of whom come from poor financial backgrounds,that Transylvania can be an affordable choice for them.

“Among underrepresented populations, there is a perceptionthat private higher education is not affordable,” Goan said. “So

ESI KALEFEPath to Transylvania begins in Africa for Esi Kalefe

Sophomore Esi Kalefe’s path to higher education began inTogo, a nation of seven million on Africa’s west coast, and ranthrough Bronx, New York, before ending in Kentucky at Transylva-nia. Those experiences give her a little different perspective com-pared with that of many of her Transylvania classmates.

“At my high school in Bronx, there were students from 46 coun-tries,” said Kalefe, who can handle three languages—English,French, and Ewe (a Togo dialect). “We were all just trying to learnfrom each other and share opinions.”

In New York, Kalefe’s path also crossed that of Jeff Briggs ’00, a chemistry and mathematics teacher at New World High Schoolwho was her teacher for trigonometry her sophomore year, anadvanced placement pre-calculus class her junior year, and chem-istry as a senior.

“In high school, I wanted to go into biochemistry,” said Kalefe, achemistry major and possible math double major or minor. “Mr.Briggs (a Transylvania chemistry major with history and mathminors) said Transylvania would be a good fit for me because theyhave good chemistry professors. He talked to me about the profes-sors he had here and said I should apply.”

That suggestion did not come lightly from Briggs, who said heweighs student achievement very carefully before committing torecommend a student.

“I am very sensitive to students who will not be able to handlethe work demanded by a good private college, who borrow a lot ofmoney, and then waste a year and end up far behind in their col-lege journey,” he said. “Esi, on the other hand, was one of thethree or four students who, based on their development, attitude,and work ethic, I felt could go to a school like Transylvania andwould make me proud. Writing a letter for her really meant some-thing to me.”

Kalefe had lived in New York City with her parents and brothersince leaving Togo in 2006 at age 12. Coming to America, languagewas never a problem for her.

“In my country, you start with French in elementary school, thenbegin English in middle school. Also, my father is half Ghanaian,and they speak English in Ghana. I went on vacation there, and thathelped me understand English better.”

When Kalefe flew into Lexington for her student orientation andregistration event in the summer of 2010 and saw the city and thesurrounding countryside for the first time, she was momentarilystunned.

“For a second, I thought I was back home in Togo,” she said. “Ilived in a city, but not such a big city, and Lexington is like that. AndI like the farms. We had a horse park not so far from my home thatI used to go to every summer.”

Kalefe was part of Crimson Crew in the admissions office her firstyear, and was also a work-study student in the development office,a position she is continuing this year. As she began her sophomoreyear, she was also involved with the Diversity Action Council.

“I’m really looking forward to this year,” she said. “I’ve gottenused to the classes and am getting to know some of the professors.I want to be an orthopedic surgeon, but after seeing all the oppor-tunities in the sciences, I’m not sure of the path I will take to getthere. I didn’t know much about research when I walked into Tran-sylvania, and now I’m growing to love it. Chemistry and math aretough subjects, but they are tough subjects that I love.”

Sophomore Esi Kalefe is pictured with Mary Blanton Cotton andWayne Bell ’40 at a scholarship donor-student recognitionreception and dinner held September 21 in the Campus Center.

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K. Jane Grande-Allen ’91 can’t help but laugh alittle when she points out that her A.J. Durelli Awardis given to young investigators in experimentalmechanics.

“It’s flattering because I’m not eligible for a lotof young investigator awards anymore,” Grande-Allen, 41, said after being presented the award June15. “But I am really, really proud of it.”

Winning the Durelli Award, which has now beenpresented five times by the Society for ExperimentalMechanics, serves as a prominent acknowledgementof the 20 years of work Grande-Allen has done inheart valve research. An associate professor of bio-engineering at Rice University in Houston, Grande-Allen has spent her research in a field that hasn’treceived a lot of attention, but her persistence hashelped make headway in searching for treatmentsand cures for heart valve disease.

The four valves in the heart open and close tocontrol blood flow through the heart. When workingproperly, the valves open to approximately thediameter of a quarter and close tightly to preventblood from leaking. A valve can develop two kindsof problems: stenosis, when the valve does not openwide enough and only a small amount of blood can

pass; and regurgitation, when the valve does notclose all the way and blood leaks backward. Withboth afflictions, the heart has to work much harderto compensate for the erratic blood flow.Approximately 100,000 people each year in theUnited States undergo heart valve replacement orrepair surgery, and many more are estimated to beafflicted with some form of valve disease.

Grande-Allen, who graduated from Transylvaniawith majors in biology and mathematics, beganstudying heart valves when she started her Ph.D.research at the University of Washington in Seattle.At the time, the majority of the research being donewas focused on improving replacement heart valvesinstead of the disease itself and possible treatmentsor cures.

“That kind of stifled study into what causes valvedisease because the (replacement valve) surgeons areexcellent, and the replacements are awfully good,”Grande-Allen said. “So they weren’t really asking,‘How can we prevent this disesase in the first place?’”

But Grande-Allen did ask that question. Eventhough replacement valves have become so effective,the surgery is still invasive—although work is beingdone to begin widely implanting them in a non-

K. JANE GRANDE-ALLEN IS TAKING ON VALVE DISEASE FROM WITHINBY TYLER YOUNG

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surgical manner with a stent—and findingtreatments for valve diseases remains anappealing goal. That’s why she has spentall this time on just that problem.

“We’re trying to improve the range ofoptions for treating people with heart valvedisease,” she said. “Some of my work istargeted to helping find new medicationsso people could just take some pills insteadof having to have surgery.”

The work has taken her from Seattleto the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio,for five years, then to Rice in 2003. Herresearch includes creating complexcomputer models of the valves that sheuses to simulate not only the valve and itsfunction, but diseases, abnormalities, andeven surgeries.

She began by working with a tissuebank to get donated human heart valvesthat were not able to be used in patients.She did magnetic resonance imaging onthe valves and was able to learn a lot aboutthe size and geometry of normal valves.She took the results and entered the datainto a computer application to render asimulated heart valve.

“For my Ph.D. research, I was creatingrather complicated models, and we had torun them on supercomputers, and it stilltook days and days for them to solve,” shesaid. “Now you can do it on a laptop.”

She took that rendered valve and wasable to simulate numerous factors,including birth defects, diseases, and evensurgery.

“I applied blood pressure to the valvewithin the modeling software and the valvewould close and stretch in response to theblood pressure,” she said. “I simulatedvalve disease, valve surgery, andreplacement of the aorta that surroundsthe heart valve with different types ofartificial blood vessels. It was a really richproject, and we published a lot of papersout of it.”

One of the more commondiseases is calcific aortic valvedisease, which is when theaortic valve turns into a miner-alized, bony structure. Thevalve does not open and closeproperly because of the calcifi-cation, and blood leaksbackward against the normalflow of blood. Often the onlysymptom a person feels withthe disease is tiredness or short-ness of breath, but the diseasecan cause much more seriouscardiovascular problems.

“The heart has to work really hard tocompensate for having a leaky heart valve,”Grande-Allen said. “There’s not enoughoxygenated blood moving forward—muchof it is trickling back.”

Most people would have the aortic valvereplaced, but Grande-Allen’s research isdedicated to fixing the problem at thesource. Some aspects of the disease aresimilar to atherosclerosis, the disease whereblood vessels fill up with plaques and slowblood flow. But similar treatment has notproven to be effective.

“Statins like Lipitor are wonderful fortreating atherosclerosis, but they’ve beenfound to be pretty useless in calcific aorticdisease,” Grande-Allen said. “So thesediseases are unique enough that they needto be studied on their own, and that’s oneof the things we’re doing.”

But progress has been made insearching for other chemicals that will havea comparable effect on valve calcification.

“My students and I have found someneat things,” Grande-Allen said. “We’vefound that certain chemicals will inhibitthe calcification of heart valve cells, butthese chemicals are also known to be thingsthat would cause other problems if yougave them to patients. So we haven’t foundsome magic cure drug yet, but we’ve foundsome novel directions for studying the waycells are behaving.”

Another treatment method Grande-Allen is developing uses living valve replace-ments that are tissue engineered.

“Tissue engineered valves could actuallygrow and heal inside the patient, asopposed to an artificial valve,” she said.“We have some promising research in mylab on that, too.”

Grande-Allen works closely withcardiac surgeons and cardiologists alongwith other bioengineers. Most of her workhas been in medical centers, including theUniversity of Washington’s department

of cardiothoracic surgery, the ClevelandClinic, and now Rice University, which ispart of the Texas Medical Center in Hous-ton. The Texas Medical Center has 49institutions and is the largest in the world,and Grande-Allen has collaborators inseveral of those institutions. One of them,The Methodist Hospital, even appointedher director of heart valve bioengineer-ing.

The recognition she’s gotten has servedas an encouragement to continue battlingthe valve diseases. With as much progressas she’s made—she has published approx-imately 70 papers and counting—she isable to look fondly on her career so far.

“It’s been fulfilling, especially when Isee how many people have read our papersover the years and built upon that work,”she said. “I’ve learned a lot along the wayand have worked with some wonderfulpeople.”

One of the people she credits forsteering her in the direction she went isTransylvania mathematics professor DavidShannon.

“He was my mentor when I was atTransylvania, and he really impressed uponme that I should continue doingsomething that had a mathematical com-ponent,” she said. “So I was attracted toa project I saw on computer modeling ofheart valves, and I signed on for thatresearch project. I learned that it was areally compelling problem, and I’ve wantedto keep working on it ever since.”

In fact, several Transylvania professorsleft an impression on Grande-Allen’s edu-cation and career.

“Without question, all of the supportI got from my math professors was excep-tional,” she said. “I absolutely loved theclasses I took from (former mathematicsprofessors) Jim Miller and (the late) DavidChoate. In biology, I really enjoyed (lateprofessor) J. Hill Hamon’s classes—it was

such a lively atmosphere. Eventhe labs were fun. We studiedtogether, we worked togeth-er—I just loved being at Tran-sylvania.” ■

For more information aboutGrande-Allen’s Durelli Award:http://bit.ly/grandeallenriceor:

20 TRANSYLVANIA

BY WILLIAM A. BOWDENAlumni and other visitors to the

new alumni and developmentbuilding are greeted by a spaciousfacility that gives the staff moreroom and amenities with which toserve the many constituencies of theuniversity.

Meeting space for alumnireunion committees and othergroups that is outfitted with tech-nology for presentations, largeroffices that can accommodate morevisitors, a reception area with guestseating, and an office specially forstudent workers are among theadvantages the new dedicatedlocation on the north side of campushas over the former office suite onthe first floor of Old Morrison.

“This building gives us the oppor-tunity to really expand our program-ming in fund-raising and alumnirelations,” said Kirk Purdom, vicepresident for advancement. “We havea lot more flexibility now. It’s also avery inviting building for alumni andfriends to visit, and for our students.It’s just a more professional space inall respects.”

The 5,670-square-foot building,which faces North Broadway justtwo doors north of Fourth Street,includes offices and meeting roomson the ground level and a basementcurrently being used for storage thatwill eventually be finished forpurposes such as phonathons.

The facility was purchased by theuniversity from the Boy Scouts ofAmerica-Bluegrass Council in 2008and underwent an extensiverenovation that included a newheating and air conditioning systemas well as reconfiguring of walls tocreate optimum spaces for the 12staff members. New carpeting and

windows, added insulation, freshpaint, and enhanced technologycompleted the transformation.

Alumni have made good use ofthe office since its August opening.The Bluegrass Alumni Chapter andthe Transylvania Women’s Clubboard held meetings that used boththe conference room and a largemeeting and work-space area in therear of the building. Both spacesinclude projectors and large screensfor presentations.

“The executive board andmembers of the Bluegrass AlumniChapter were really pleased to havethis kind of meeting space that is partof our offices, instead of having tomeet elsewhere on campus,” saidNatasa Pajic Mongiardo ’96, directorof alumni programs. “We also havethe capability for conference calls andSkype to accommodate people whocan’t attend in person.”

Phonathons are a major fund-raising tool for the annual fund. Thetraining required for them to be suc-cessful can now be accommodatedin the new offices. A large area inthe back of the suite, circled byoffices, can handle sessions forstudents, faculty, and staff who takepart in phonathons. With the com-pletion of renovations in the lowerlevel, phonathons themselves willtake place there.

As Transylvania moves forwardwith fund-raising efforts designed tosupport a planned increasedenrollment to about 1,500, alongwith the expansion of academic andstudent life programs toaccommodate that growth, thedevelopment staff is spending moretime on the road visiting current andpotential donors. Still, there arealways opportunities to host donors

A Visible AdvancemeNew location for alumni and development office helps staff better serve Transylvania’s constituencies

Counterclockwise, from top above, Winn Turney ’65talks with assistant director of alumni programsTracy Dunn ’90, center, and director of alumniprograms Natasa Pajic Mongiardo ’96 on the frontporch of the new alumni and development building;administrative assistant Elaine Valentine and vicepresident for advancement Kirk Purdom confer inthe reception area; Dunn and Mongiardo meet withmembers of the Bluegrass Alumni Chapter Board,from left, Will Freeman ’05, Jean Fudold Smith ’69,and E’Corbin Crutcher ’47 in the conference room;the Bluegrass Chapter board meets in the back area;Katie Wilson Conrad ’99, left, and Emily HeadyMorris ’03 relax in the reception area; the newoffices for alumni and development are at 415North Broadway. Photos by Joseph Rey Au.

FALL 2011 21

in the alumni and developmentoffices, and that’s another area wherethe new facility really shines.

“When donors come to see us,they expect a certain type of atmos-phere,” Purdom said. “When youenter our building, we project a veryprofessional, business-likeenvironment, probably similar towhat they have in their ownbusinesses. We can also plug the com-puter in and show them apresentation on screen. When we’reworking with an individual or cor-porations and foundations about apotential gift, all of these factors aresignificant.”

Donors, alumni, and otherscoming to the alumni anddevelopment offices can now comedirectly to a discrete building, asopposed to locating the offices withina larger building. Parking is availablein the front and rear of the building.When they arrive, they find areception area and seating that theformer location could not offer.

“I just love the fact that when wehave alumni visitors, we have a placefor them to sit and browse yearbookswhile they’re waiting,” Mongiardosaid. “It’s such a community spacewhere they may also interact withmore staff members and get to knowus better. We certainly welcome allalumni to pay us a visit.”

Student philanthropy is anotherarea where the new facility is havinga positive effect. The Student AlumniAssociation and the Senior Challengecommittee can meet in the offices,

and all students who visit the areacome into more contact with the pro-fessional staff and have exposure tothe concepts and benefits of philan-thropy.

In their everyday work situations,members of the alumni and devel-opment staff are enjoying and ben-efitting from the more spaciousoffices and work areas.

“This is my second experience atmoving out of a main administrationbuilding and into a facility just foralumni and development,” Purdomsaid. “I feel we’re now getting ourjobs done a little more quickly andefficiently.”

“In our old offices, ourrefrigerator was in a filing cabinet,”Mongiardo laughed. “We now havea nice kitchen area, and also a separateroom for our main files. With thespace between our offices, I can leavemy door open and not be distractedby people outside my office. It’s reallya nice environment where peopleenjoy coming to work.”

From the mundane—morestorage space and room to expand—to the conceptual—a moreprofessional space and appearancethat stimulate staff and create bettervisitor impressions—the new alumniand development office is fulfillingits role to enhance fund-raising andalumni relations to advanceTransylvania in all respects.

“I love this building,” Purdomsaid. “I hope we get to stay in it along time.” ■

nt

22 TRANSYLVANIA

BY TYLER YOUNG

The water that surrounds him is at oncesilent and deafening. He kicks his feet,slowly making his way deeper, when thebeam of his light suddenly reveals a giantanchor, long buried but easily recognizable.He takes out his scanner to document theartifact—complex algorithms will soondigitally recreate it to the minutest detail.

Chris Begley is preparing for class.

Chris Begley takes his scanner andhis students to the jungle

A New Dimension

FALL 2011 23

Begley ’90, an anthropology pro-fessor at Transylvania, is anarchaeologist, traveling around theworld to research and excavate. Thisparticular underwater experience tookhim to Spain over the summer, wherehe and a student, sophomore AnneWright, along with a group of researchers,documented items from Mediterranean history,dating back to pre-Roman times in 250 B.C.

Begley is a firm believer that only a part ofeducation happens in the classroom, and he routinelytakes students on digs both in the United States andabroad.

“I try to let them see the whole process, to seehow they could do this when it comes their time,”he said. “Sometimes they get to excavate, sometimesthey get to do whatever kinds of field work we’redoing. They get to interact with local scholars, whichI think is really important, to see that wherever yougo, there are a whole lot of dedicated experts thatare doing great work.”

Much of Begley’s research takes place in thejungles of Central America, particularly in Honduras,a Spanish-speaking nation with a rich history ofindigenous cultures that fascinate him. But to getto some of the places he goes, he has to travel fordays on foot or in canoes, reaching the remotestareas of the country with two weeks supply of foodand water and hundreds of pounds of research equip-ment. Once he gets to the sites, many of the artifactsare fragile or so lightly preserved that any contactcan be irreparably damaging. Both are commonproblems for archaeologists, and Begley is workingon a way to solve them.

Eli Crane, then a graduate student at theUniversity of Kentucky College of Engineering, andhis professor, Larry Hassebrook, worked with a three-dimensional scanner that used normal light insteadof lasers and expensive equipment to make renderingsof objects. It was developed as a way to fingerprintMuslim women at airports and borders withouttouching them, so it had to be accurate to the tiniestdetail—as small as 20 microns. Begley asked Craneif he thought it would be possible to take that ideafurther and create a scanner big enough and ruggedenough to be used on archaeological digs and digitallydocument artifacts without contact.

At its core, the scanner is a projector that uses a35 mm slide and light to project a pattern onto anobject. When it lands on a flat surface, you see anundistorted pattern, and when it is projected ontoan object, the lines distort and are captured by adigital video camera. Later, a computer will analyzeand measure the pattern and create a perfectlyaccurate 3-D rendering of the object, which can bemanipulated to observe details that can’t be seenwith the naked eye.

Crane and Hassebrook developed a model, and

in 2009 Begley took it to Hondurasto test it in the jungle. It worked per-fectly. The team made it lightweight,and its energy consumption was solow that it went the whole two weekswithout needing a charge. It didn’trequire a computer to store the

images, so the files could be sent off later andprocessed. It worked so well they went back andmade it waterproof so it could be used on dive sites.

“I think this is really important for archaeologistsand any other field researchers that need accurate3-D maps of objects they’re going to take in hostileenvironments,” Begley said. “What we’re envisioningis a system where archaeologists could buy theequipment cheaply, take the data, and send off whatyou want to be processed. I see a lot of potential forthat in places like Honduras that don’t have a lot ofresources.”

In Spain, he scanned two caves to look for toolmarks or modifications that had possibly goneunnoticed. He also scanned underwater artifacts anditems from a Roman city that was in the process ofbeing excavated. Artifacts included jewelry, warhelmets, and coins, including one coin that was thesubject of a disagreement about whether or not therewas a faint engraving of a cross on it. The scannershowed there was.

He then went to Sicily to scan a bronze ram thatwould have been on the front of a warship duringnaval warfare in the Mediterranean. Up until a fewyears ago, there had been only one ever recovered.Begley scanned the ram, and the team was able toread and see inscriptions and artwork that wouldhave been impossible to study otherwise.

As a result of his work with the 3-D scanner,Begley received a grant from National Geographic

Transylvaniasophomore AnnieWright and engineerEli Crane use a laser 3-D scanning system to scan a pre-Romanmortuary cave on theisland of Menorca.

All photos submittedby Chris Begley.

Facing page,Transylvaniaanthropologyprofessor Chris Begley’90 uses a 3-D scanneron a huge eighteenth-century anchor in 80feet of water off thecoast of Menorca,Spain; left, Begleytests a prototypeunderwater scanner inwaters off Trinidad inthe Caribbean.

24 TRANSYLVANIA

that focuses on pilot programs using newtechnologies. The grant sent him and a teamback to Honduras for a month with afilmmaker, Josh Howard, to scan petroglyphs,ancient rock carvings that historically havebeen difficult to document. They also lookedat river erosion to get an idea of conservation

and preservation issues. From that experience, Begley and Howard

decided to team up again to work on their currentproject—a documentary on the legend of a lost cityhidden in Honduras’s Mosquito Coast.

For centuries, there has been talk of a lost citysomewhere in the rainforest on the northeasterncoast of Honduras. People have come from all overlooking for it—it is a kind of El Dorado for Spanishand American explorers. Begley has heard the legend

many times during his workaround the Mosquito Coast.

“Everybody knows about itand talks about it, and they havefor hundreds of years,” he said.“Some of the places formerlythought of as the lost city arenow just villages. The city justmoves, retreats into the jungle.There’s always a lost city aroundthe next corner, just out ofreach.”

While he doesn’t believe itexists, he is searching forfunding to shoot the filmbecause he wants to know whythe story has persisted for somany years.

“That’s part of the questionfor this film—what function

does it serve for the people who have this legend?”he said. “For the indigenous people, it seems to referback to a time when they had greater autonomy—the glory days. For non-indigenous people in thearea, it’s the open frontier. It gives them hope thatthere’s something still there undiscovered. Fortreasure hunters, it represents fame and glory.”

Part of the reason the legend has survived, Begleyhas surmised from his research, is because of thespectacular limestone cliffs over the river that looklike buried palaces, barely visible. That feeling isenhanced when the limestone sediments that makestraight, horizontal lines intersect with water stainsflowing vertically down the cliff. The resultingrectangles look like they could have once beenwindows or doorways.

Other projects Begley is working on include cavearchaeology in Missouri and underwater research inthe U.S. and jungle rivers in Central and SouthAmerica, which have not been studied extensivelybecause of low visibility and difficult diving. He hasbeen working with a portable x-ray fluorescentmachine, a spectrometer that can be pointed at anobject and will read its elemental makeup.

Much of Begley’s research makes its way into hisclass. He likens it to, instead of being a reporter whowrites about the news, creating the news yourself.

“Research is not something I do that is ‘extra,’”Begley said. “This ought to be fundamental to whatwe do as faculty. This is what makes me valuable andcreates opportunities for my students. If you are inthe midst of it, then you present it in a totally differentway, and I think that’s important. While teaching isthe central thing we do, it’s not enough.”

That’s why he spends so much time taking studentsoff campus to get hands-on experience, particularlyin his archaeology courses. He has held fourarchaeological field schools at four different centralKentucky sites—Camp Nelson Civil War camp, Lex-ington’s first Catholic cemetery, an early pioneerstation, and a historic stagecoach stop and tavern onan old route between Lexington and Washington,D.C.

And when he takes students abroad, they not onlyget archaeological experience, they learn howdifferent research can be for scholars in other coun-tries.

“In many cases, they’ll see how it’s kind of anunfair situation,” Begley said. “They don’t havethe same resources, in some cases, the same oppor-tunities to publish to a big audience or present theirwork. They get to see that we’re a part of this com-munity. They get to interact with other scholars,and now all of those people who were part of theproject know about Transylvania, our students, and

Top, Begley and Eli Crane,former UK graduatestudent and nowengineer with Trioverse,stand by petroglyphs tobe scanned along the RioPlatano in the jungles ofeastern Honduras. Above,the point cloud data for apetroglyph from the RioPlatano that likelyrepresents a monkey.

Begley trails Kristin Geil ’11 and Chase Pugh ’10 as they descend from the summit ofYanapaccha, an 18,000-foot peak in Peru, on an alumni trip led by Begley.

FALL 2011 25

’64Nancy Jo Kemper, Versailles, Ky., has been named interim associate dean

of interreligious life at Transylvania for a one-year, part-time appointment. She will advisefaith-based student organizations, coordinatechurch-related internships, provide socialjustice and interreligious programming, workwith the interreligious life team to developa new model for campus, monitor campusreligious activities to ensure they areconsistent with the liberal arts mission of thecollege, and provide spiritual counseling forstudents, faculty, and staff.

’66Samuel W. Bourne, Erie, Penn., retired in June after 33 years as

director of pastoral services and chaplain atUPMC/Hamot Medical Center. Sam andhis wife, Ann, celebrated their 40th weddinganniversary the same month in Florida withtheir son Robert, daughter Jennifer, son-in-law Artie, and granddaughter Juliet.

’74Christopher P. Herrick, Middlesex, N.Y., is a VMS Systems manager con-

sultant to AT&T with Q Analysts, LLC, ofCalifornia. He’s in charge of more than 30systems nationwide.

’76James H. Frazier III, Lexington, managing

member of the law firm ofMcBrayer, McGinnis, Leslie &Kirkland, has been elected aschairman of the Lexington &Fayette County Parking Authority Board ofCommissioners.

Malinda Beal Wynn, Loveland, Ohio, writesthat her husband’s job is taking them toPanama for a few years, and she would loveto host any visitors to the area or start aPanama alumni chapter.

’85Alan B. Storrow, Brentwood, Tenn., vice chairman for research and

academic affairs in the Department of Emer-gency Medicine at the Vanderbilt UniversityMedical Center, has helped to secure a $3.5million grant from the National Heart, Lungand Blood Institute to fund the VanderbiltEmergency Medicine Research Training pro-gram. The program is a five-year focus ontraining and mentoring physician-scientistsin all aspects of research necessary to preparethem for the challenges associated with trans-lating basic science into care improvementsfor acutely ill or injured patients. The grantis one of the nation’s first training grants inemergency medicine from the National Insti-tutes of Health.

’87P. Gene Vance, Lexington, received the Mr. Delta Sig Award at the Delta

Sigma Phi Biennial Convention in July. Thisaward is the highest honor the fraternitypresents to an alumnus and is given to onlyone person per year. Its stated purpose is torecognize “an individual who has givenextraordinary service to the fraternity for asustained period of time.”

’89Alvin D. “Chip” Chapman, Colum-bus, Ohio, president of Integrated

Building Systems, has created a neweducational video series entitled OfficePlanning 101. The series offers guidancefrom central Ohio experts on fundamentalslike choosing a mover, designing the space,and planning office technology.

’90Tiffany R. Wheeler, Lexington, assis-tant professor of education at Tran-

sylvania, was selected to participate in aNational Endowment for the HumanitiesSummer Institute at Harvard University titled“African American Struggles for Freedomand Civil Rights: 1865-1965,“ which washeld June 27-July 22. (See article on page15.)

’92Susan B. Marine, Waltham, Mass., has been named assistant professor and

program director of higher education at Mer-rimack College in North Andover, Mass.

’96Cynthia Ice-Bones, Citrus Heights, Calif., received a master of public

administration from the University of SanFrancisco School of Business and ProfessionalStudies in May. Cindy is an equalemployment opportunity specialist for theU.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau ofLand Management in the California stateoffice.

’97Jennifer Henderson Simpson, Louisville, is chair of Prom Project

Ministry at Northeast Christian Church, anoutreach program that has provided promattire to more than 1,000 girls who wantedto attend prom but lacked monetaryresources. She was interviewed by Today’sWoman magazine.

’00G. Thomas Barker, Lexington, has been appointed gift and estate

planning officer at the University ofKentucky. A 2002 winner of the KentuckyBar Association annual Student WritingCompetition, Tom has had articles publishedin the Kentucky Law Journal and Bench &Bar. He interned in the White House Officeof Intergovernmental Affairs duringPresident George W. Bush’s administration.

’02J. Michael Bernardi, Shelbyville, Ky., finished his residency in dermatology

and has joined Advanced Dermatology and

AlumniNEWS & NOTES

Transylvania would like to publish yourphotos of alumni events and personalmilestones. For consideration, pleasesend photos to Transylvania Magazine,Transylvania University, 300 NorthBroadway, Lexington, KY 40508-1797.

George VanMeter ’77 (above, cen-ter) won the 55-59 age group compe-tition in the 2011 Ironman Brazil, heldMay 29 on the island portion of thecity of Florianopolis in southern Brazil.The win qualified VanMeter for the2011 Ironman World Championship inHawaii October 8.

Competing against 27 entrants in his age group, VanMeter covered the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and26.2-mile run in 10 hours, 57 minutes,59 seconds. This was 19 minutes aheadof the second-place finisher. Overall atthe Brazil meet, there were 1,823 menand women from 39 countries.

VanMeter, a member of the Transyl-vania Board of Trustees, entered hisfirst triathlon in 1984. Last year, hewon his age group in the Ironman heldin Louisville in a time of 10:56, thenfinished 13th in his age group in theHawaii competition with a time of11:15. This year, he finished 45th inHawaii with a time of 12:42.

“I love the competition,” VanMetersaid. “It’s been a progression over theyears to get to this point. Hopefully, Ihave more good years in front of me.”

VanMeter wins age group inIronman Brazil 2011

Kentuckysportsradio.com may notlook like a media powerhouse, but thesite, founded by Matt Jones ’00, is oneof the most popular independently runcollege sports websites in the country.

Jones, a political science major whoearned a J.D. from Duke University LawSchool, started the website in 2005 witha partner, Rob Gidel, hoping to use it asan online radio show about University ofKentucky sports. The pair did a coupleof shows and decided it wasn’t feasible,so Jones began using KSR to keep upwith some of his Transylvania friends,including Andrew Jefferson ’04, ChrisMosley ’02, Chris Tomlin ’98, JasonMoore ’01, and Duncan Cavanah ’99.The crew had spread out from Lexing-ton, but still had three commonbonds—UK sports, Transylvania, andmaking each other laugh.

“Howard Dean had run for presidentin 2004 and used this notion of blogs asa way to communicate,” Jones said. “Somy buddies and I began using the blogjust as a way to communicate with eachother. There was no notion that it was going to be a popularthing, but within a month we were getting 200 to 300 hits aday, and we thought, ‘Let’s see what we can do with this.’”

The site slowly began attracting more visitors, but even whenit reached 5,000 hits per day, Jones still didn’t think it had muchof a chance to be widely read.

That changed in 2007 after former head basketball coachTubby Smith left Lexington and Billy Gillispie was hired to coachthe Wildcats. Jones had gotten a radio show at a strugglingLouisville station, mostly so he could receive a press pass to UKmedia events. At Gillispie’s first press conference in Lexington,which was televised live, Jones raised his hand to ask a ques-tion, and thousands of famously basketball-crazed UK fansglued to their TVs saw an unfamiliar, and oddly disheveled, headpop out of the crowd of media members.

“It was really windy that day, and I had a lot of hair backthen,” Jones said. “My hair was everywhere, literally could nothave looked worse. People were like, ‘Who in the world is thatguy?’”

Now with his hair and his blog on fans’ radars, Jones took hisopportunity to make a name for himself. He met Patrick Patter-son, a prized recruit from West Virginia who fans desperatelywanted to commit to Kentucky, and Gillispie. Patterson liked thefact that Jones and his crew were young guys like him whowere having fun covering Kentucky sports, and he would onlytalk to them, coming on Jones’s radio show and granting himexclusive access to one of the biggest recruiting stories in years.When he signed with Kentucky in May 2007, KSR got 20,000hits, crashing the site and proving that Jones had arrived as aplayer in the Kentucky sports media world.

Since then, KSR has exploded, now getting around 175,000hits per day during the season, and as many as 250,000 per dayon big news days, like when John Calipari was announced as

basketball coach in 2009. (Jones had agood source on Gillispie’s firing andCalipari’s hiring and was the first toreport both stories.) Jones parlayed hisnewfound popularity into a statewideweekday radio show in Louisville and aweekday television show, aptly titledKentucky Sports Television. In 2010, heleft the law firm he opened with a partner to focus full time on KSR.

Kentucky sports coverage has longbeen run by traditional media—news-papers, radio, and television. The factthat a fan-operated website has insert-ed itself as a new pillar is sometimes acontroversial one. KSR’s motto is “Uni-versity of Kentucky basketball, football,and recruiting news brought to you inthe most ridiculous manner possible,”and its content is openly written from afan’s perspective. Jones has had plentyof detractors decrying the merits ofKSR’s journalism—which Jones passion-ately contends is solid, with crediblesources and insightful writing.

“Back when we started, what I wasdoing was essentially funny commentary,” he said. “We still dothat, but what makes you a powerful outlet is that you have toreport. What bothers mainstream media people is that we doboth. I don’t think you have to choose, as long as you’re clearabout which you’re doing at a given moment.”

Jones constantly looks for the best ways to push the KSRbrand. He covered recruiting when that was an overlookedaspect of college sports, and he was an early adopter of Twitter,which he says “changed everything.” His page, which has morethan 30,000 followers, was named best Twitter page in Lexing-ton by Ace Weekly in 2011. No matter what trend is out there,Jones says KSR will be a forerunner.

“The website is our bread and butter, but we don’t evenknow what the Internet will look like in 10 years,” he said. “Wejust want to make KSR the best at whatever it is. We have thehighest share of any sports radio show in Louisville in 15 years.We got the KSR brand on television. And whatever the nextthing is, we won’t fight it. We’ll make KSR the best.”

Jones said the site got the voice it did because Transylvaniahelped him and the other founders develop their own voicesthrough professors encouraging strong discussion in the class-rooms. In particular, political science professor Don Dugi made abig impact on him, following his career and offering help andencouragement the whole way.

“Don Dugi encouraged me to go to Duke, and then once Iwent to Duke he encouraged me to apply for a clerkship, whichI never would have thought I’d have the chance to do,” he said.“Then when I told him I was thinking about quitting law to dothis, he was encouraging. (Political science professor) JefferyFreyman and (writing, rhetoric, and communication professor)Gary Deaton were both very influential as well. I had a greattime at Transylvania.”

—TYLER YOUNG

Matt Jones ’00TURNING UK COVERAGE UPSIDE DOWN IN ‘RIDICULOUS MANNER’

Matt Jones ’00 is shown on the set ofKentucky Sports Television.

FALL 2011 27

Dermaesthetics of Louisville with offices inFrankfort, Prospect, and downtownLouisville. His wife, Jean-Anne Jensen ‘02,is an orthodontist with BracesBracesBracesOrthodontic in Shelbyville and Valley Sta-tion.

Lindsay McWilliams Workman, Fort Mitchell,Ky., has been promoted to group managerfor tax audit at Procter & Gamble inCincinnati. She started with the company asa tax analyst in December 2005.

’03M. Shayne Gallaher, Paris, Ky., is serving as a foreign service officer

with the U. S. Consulate in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Emily Heady Morris, Lexington, has beennamed associate in the Lexington office ofLittler Mendleson, P.S.C., the nation’s largestlaw firm dedicated exclusively to the repre-sentation of management in labor andemployment law matters.

’04Cordell G. Lawrence, Louisville, has been

named senior consumer relationship marketing com-munications specialist forBrown-Forman in Louisville.

’05Joseph P. Berry, Owensboro, Ky., has been named project manager for

downtown development by the GreaterOwensboro Economic Development Corp.

’06Amy Shupe Kerner, Edgewood, Ky., has been promoted to supervisor,

commissions in the Western Southern financeand accounting department atPriceWaterhouse Coopers. She has her CPAand is currently working on her M.B.A. atWestern Kentucky University.

Candace Maeser Livingstone, Hinckley,Leicestershire, United Kingdom, and herhusband, Adrian, completed a 1,200-miletrek on foot from the southernmost pointin England, Land’s End, to the northernmostpoint in Scotland, John O’Groats. Theirthree-month walking expedition raisedmoney for the Association for InternationalCancer Research. Candace’s mother,Elizabeth Underwood Maeser ’78 ofLeitchfield, Ky., is a breast cancer survivor.

Tyler M. Smithhart, Hopkinsville, Ky., hasbeen named head basketball coach atChristian County High School.

’07Patrick N. Coleman, Smiths Grove, Ky., a CPA in the audit area in the

Bowling Green, Ky., office of Holland CPAs,has been promoted to supervisor.

B. Trent Fucci, Lexington, earned his M.F.A.in performance from the University of

Central Florida and plans to relocate to NewYork City.

Langdon S. Ryan, Lexington, is an attorneywith the Lexington law firm of Golden &Walters.

’08Zachary A. Davis, Lexington, a realtor and principal auctioneer, has

been elected to the board of trustees of theLexington History Museum. To find outmore about the museum, visit www.Lexing-tonHistoryMuseum.org.

Lauren T. Covert, Washington, D.C., has beennamed center administrator for GeorgetownUniversity’s National Security Studies Pro-gram.

Marriages

Stacey Ann Dixon ’90 andCharles William Turvey,February 23, 2011

Ryan T. Garrett ’97 and Nicole Vaccaro, Sep-tember 3, 2011

Erin Elizabeth Weaver ’97 and TravusGeesaman, May 14, 2011

Christopher Allen Carter ’98 and LaurenMabry, April 30, 2011

Erin Elizabeth Moran ’01 and Wes Keltner,June 10, 2011

Heather Marie Rowland ’01 and Jay Gough,June 10, 2011

David Bradley Horton ’03 and Ashley MarieCrawford, May 14, 2011

Amy Elizabeth Musterman ’03 and BrianOates, June 11, 2011

Lino Nakwa achieves citizenship

His dream finally came true.Lino Nakwa ’09, a refugee from

Sudan who endured years of uncer-tainty and anguish over his immigra-tion status—including during his timeat Transylvania—took the oath of alle-giance and became a United Statescitizen on September 2 in a naturaliza-tion ceremony in Louisville.

Nakwa had been abducted at age12 in his native Sudan by a terroristgroup. Because of the military trainingthat was forced upon him for a monthwhile in captivity, federal immigrationauthorities initially denied him residen-cy. While he was at Transylvania, thecampus community rallied to hiscause, embarking on a letter-writingand telephone campaign on hisbehalf. This past May, Nakwa wasfinally granted his green card.

“I will never forget the outpouringof support from the people on theTransylvania campus,” he said. “Iknow that it had a significant impacton the success of my case.”

Nakwa was among a group of 268people from many nations whobecame U.S. citizens in a special natu-ralization ceremony held at the GaltHouse in downtown Louisville. Theevent was planned to coincide withWorldFest 2011, a three-day celebra-tion of Louisville’s international culture.

“This is a special thing for me,”Nakwa told The Courier-Journal.“Finally getting my citizenship means Ifinally have a home for the first timesince 1992, when I became arefugee.”

In the same week of his naturaliza-tion, Nakwa, a business administrationmajor at Transylvania, was promotedto general manager of a KFC restau-rant in east Louisville. He told an Asso-ciated Press reporter that he wouldlike someday to pursue a master’sdegree in agribusiness and use thatknowledge to help relieve hunger inhis native Africa.

CorrectionAn article in the summer Transylva-

nia magazine (page 26) about thepresentation of the Morrison Medal-lion to trustee Joe M. Thomson ’66should have stated that he co-found-ed PLANCO in 1977 and that thecompany was acquired by HartfordLife Insurance Company in 1998, atwhich time he continued as presidentthrough August 2000. He was seniorvice president and director of businessdevelopment for Hartford Life from2000-05. Thomson is now presidentand chief executive officer of PacerFinancial, Inc., which he established in2005 as a hedge fund developmentand financial products distributioncompany. Transylvania magazineregrets the errors.

28 TRANSYLVANIA

Helen Elizabeth Beaven ’04 and PatrickBischoff, June 18, 2011

Haley Christine Trogdlen ’07 and JamesMason McCauley ’07, June 11, 2011

Thomas Scott Lefler ’07 and MaggieAlexandra Davenport ’10, June 25, 2011

Mary Ruth Barger ’08 and William M. Dixon,July 6, 2011

Tiffany Dawn Blackburn ’09 and NickTackett, August 20, 2011

Katherine Renee Davis ’09 and Andrew BryanCrowe, June 4, 2011

Lindsey Ellen Roberson ’09 and Jason Adams,June 12, 2011

Nicholas Ryan Ledgerwood ’10 and EmileighLucille Burns ’11, June 18, 2011

Jeffrey Brent Gullett ’11 and Lacey Alanna

Napper ’11, July 23, 2011

BirthsDonal P. Cashman ’89 and Casandra

Cashman, a daughter, Vera CelesteCashman, May 21, 2011

Robin J. Bowen ’90 and Daniel Bucca, adaughter, Emma Diana Bernice Bucca,June 25, 2011

Angela Logan Edwards ’91 and BrianEdwards adopted a son, Coleman WrightEdwards, born February 1, 2011

Elizabeth Grugin Burton ’92 and John Burton’92, a son, Eli John Hughes Burton,August 29, 2011

Evelyn Freer Gee ’92 and Shawn Gee, a son,Beau Wesley Gee, April 18, 2011

Amy Adams Schirmer ’92 and Peter Schirmer,a son, Adam Ryne Schirmer, August 29,2011

Martha Phyllis Bertram-Arnett ’93 and MarkArnett, a daughter, AvaJosephine Arnett, July 3,2011

Carmen Hall Caldera-Brzoska ’94 and WayneBrzoska, a daughter, Chloe AlexanderBrzoska, April 22, 2011

Daniel F. Swintosky ‘94 and Ann Wirth Swin-tosky ’96, a son, Aiden Charles Swintosky,July 24, 2011

W. Justin McDonald ’96 and AndreaMcDonald, a daughter, Landry KateMcDonald, September 5, 2011

Tracy Todd Blevins ’98 and Frankie C. BlevinsJr., a daughter, Tessa Louise Blevins,December 28, 2010

Mary Kay Pendley Kasiborski ’98 and JohnKasiborski, a daughter, Sara Kathryn Kasi-borski, June 29, 2011

Ann-Phillips Mayfield ’99 and Jay Ingle, ason, Franklin Holman Ingle, July 29, 2011

Kristina Felblinger Bolin ’00 andJeffrey Bolin, a son, WilliamChristian Bolin, December10, 2010

Sherri Swift Crossett ’00 and Jason Crossett,a son, William Silas Crossett, July 19, 2011

Travis A. Crump ’00 and Faith Hawkins Crump’02, a son, Langdon Aaron Crump, May20, 2011

Johan F. Graham ’00 and Aimee Hicks Graham’03, twin sons, Charles Johan Graham andNoah Oliver Graham, May 8, 2011

Kimberly Ehret Jones ’00 and Adam D. Jones’00, a daughter, Eden Ruth Jones, June17, 2011

Nicholas M. Holland ’01 andSarah Stewart Holland ’03, ason, Amos Edward Holland,June 3, 2011

Joshua P. Morris ’01 and EmilyHeady Morris ’03, a daughter, HadleyGrace Morris, January 29, 2011

Sally Francisco Billings ’02 and NathanBillings, a daughter, Elizabeth FayeBillings, August 2, 2011

Tamara Bentley Caudill ’02 and David Caudill,a daughter, Willa Jane Caudill, August 22,2011

Chad Needham renovateshistoric Spalding’s Bakery

When Spalding’s Bakery moved from itsNorth Limestone and Sixth Street location aftermore than 70 years, the building sat vacant forfive years until Chad Needham ’94 saw achance to move in on the historic property andcontribute to the urban renewal taking placearound downtown Lexington.

Needham, a developer, gutted the inside ofthe building, tearing out walls to reveal theoriginal brick, restoring the doors and molding,and installing new floors, appliances, HVAC,and plumbing. He converted the first-floor bak-ery into a studio now leased by local artist JohnLackey, and the second-floor apartments theSpalding family lived in became office space.

He became the third owner of the building, which was constructed in 1880and operated as a meat market, saloon, and coal yard before being purchased byan upstart doughnut baker in 1934. Spalding’s quickly became one of Lexington’smost famous and beloved bakeries. Now Needham hopes to preserve the build-ing’s history while reintegrating it into Lexington business.

Needham, who describes the renovation as “contemporary rustic,” said thatwhen he was a student in the early ’90s living in the soccer players’ house onConstitution Street, the area around Transylvania wasn’t always well suited forcollege students. The surrounding lots that had pawn shops and a liquor storenow house businesses like Doodle’s, Atomic Café, and Third Street Stuff.

“When I was a student, it was a little rough,”he said. “Boy, has that changed. And that wasonly 16 or 17 years ago. As a developer, I thinkof what the potential for the area will be inanother 16 or 17 years.”

He said that while many of the buildings in thearea have lots of need for restoration and reno-vation, the time is ripe for other developers tocome in and capitalize on low prices and a goodlocation to buy property on North Limestone. Hethinks business will flourish and continue therenewal process of downtown Lexington.

“With a little effort and a group of people whowant to see North Limestone get better, I thinkwe’ll get there,” he said.

Local artist John Lackey rentsthe first floor of the buildingas an art studio.

Chad Needham is the thirdowner of the 131-year-oldbuilding on North Limestone.

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Ellen Furlong ’03 came to Transylvania knowing she wantedto be involved with animals in some way for her career, but shewas a little vague on just how that would play out.

“I worked with dogs all through high school, in obediencetraining and in shows, and was interested in how they learned,”Furlong said. “So I was interested in animal cognition at a verybasic level, very early on. But at that point, I thought if youworked with animals, you had to be a veterinarian.”

After a summer internship at the Louisville Zoo that was facili-tated by her adviser, art professor Nancy Wolsk, Furlong saw thelight. While sweeping out straw around the orangutan cage oneday, she witnessed a demonstration of cognitive ability that wastotally unexpected. It left an lasting impression.

“I didn’t want to get too close to the cage and have themgrab the broom or me,” she recalled. “As I was hemming andhawing about what to do, the orangutan came over, sat down,and sort of assessed the problem, and then reached out withher arm under the bars and swept the straw. In that moment, I thought, what is going on here?”

Finding answers to that question is one way of defining whatFurlong is now devoting her career to. She focuses on primatecognition in her work as a post-doctoral fellow in the psycholo-gy department at Yale University and plans to become a full-time college professor in that subject.

Furlong works primarily with brown tufted capuchin monkeysin her research, but her interests in primate cognition are broad,reaching across the primate spectrum and throughout evolution,and include humans.

“I’m interested in the cognitive skills that underlie our deci-sions and how they changed across time and across evolution,”Furlong said. “I take a developmental and comparativeapproach. You can do that in a small sense, in terms of goingfrom two to five years old, for instance, or in a large senseacross the primate order, looking at chimpanzees and humans.

“Humans stand apart from all other animals in their level ofcognitive abilities, yetthere are basic founda-tions of our reasoningand thinking abilitiesthat we can see acrossspecies in a compara-tive sense, and acrosstime in an evolutionarysense. Chimps andhumans have a com-mon ancestor, maybe15 million years ago,and we believe thekinds of commonalitieswe see in the ways thathumans and chimpsthink are common tothat ancestor.”

Furlong majored inmathematics at Transyl-vania and completed aminor in psychology.She earned a master’s

degree and a Ph.D., both in developmental psychology, at TheOhio State University, where she also was a lecturer in the psy-chology department for two years before securing fellowshipfunding at Yale.

At first glance, mathematics might not seem the best choicefor a career that involves so much psychology. Furlong’s answerto that question shows both the value of math discipline to hercareer as well as the essence of a liberal arts preparation for acontinuing education.

“What I find exciting about math is all the logic and proofsand theoretical thinking about the world that it entails,” shesaid. “Every time I write a paper now, I write a math proof first,and then just flesh out the paper from there. And I do statisticsevery day in my research. I study number cognition in primatesand deal with mathematical models.

“But my Transylvania undergraduate work also demonstratesthat what you need to succeed in graduate school are not thelittle bits of knowledge about your particular field. It’s knowinghow to do research, how to construct an argument, and how totalk with your faculty adviser, who is incredibly important. Youget good training and a solid foundation at Transylvania. It wasnever a problem that I didn’t have a degree in psychology whenI went to Ohio State.”

Furlong is thrilled to be at Yale—“It’s like Disneyland for scien-tists”—and working with Laurie Santos, a prominent scholar inprimate cognition. Her current research looks at how bonusesaffect performance. The experiment varies the size of the bonus-es—in this case pieces of cereal—given to monkeys who areplaying a computer game. She is seeing a disconnect from theidea that larger bonuses always result in superior performance.

“When we give them the largest bonus, their performanceactually drops,” Furlong said. She relates this to a classical psychological finding known as the Yerkes-Dodson law, whichreveals that we all have an optimum level of stress. The largebonus equates to increased expectations and heightened

pressure to perform.Studying primates

with a leading scholarin the field at Yale is along way from the dogobedience training thatFurlong cut her teethon as a high school student. She perhapsunintentionallysummed up the fasci-nation she holds forher work when shedescribed a researchexperience involving a260-pound chimpanzee,the largest primate shehas worked with:

“They’re big, they’rescary, they’re aggres-sive—and they’re awesome.”—WILLIAM A. BOWDEN

Ellen Furlong ’03MONKEY BUSINESS: THE SERIOUS STUDY OF PRIMATE COGNITION

During a lecture visit to Transylvania in February 2011, Ellen Furlong ’03stopped by the Primate Rescue Center in Nicholasville, Ky., where sheworked while a Transylvania student. She’s shown with a brown tuftedcapuchin, the species of monkey she now works with in her research as apost-doctoral fellow at Yale University.

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30 TRANSYLVANIA

Mathew B. Mattingly ’02 and Alexis RowlandMattingly ’03, a son, Rowland Pratt Mat-tingly, September 1, 2010

Lindsay McWilliams Workman ’02 andThomas Workman, a son, John ThomasWorkman, June 8, 2011

Stephen E. Kreyenbuhl ’03 and Sidney AllenKreyenbuhl ’04, a son, Edward AllenKreyenbuhl, August 25, 2011

Sara Morton Spencer ’03 and Aaron J.Spencer, a son, Jackson Davis Spencer,May 22, 2011

Robin DeBolt Fink ’04 and Justin Fink, a son,Wyatt Matthew Fink, August 10, 2011

Lisa Taylor Warpinski ’05 andNick Warpinski, a daughter,Eleanor Laurene Warpinski,May 9, 2011

Whitney Smith Nordmoe ’06 and MatthewNordmoe, a son, Sebastian MilesNordmoe, May 14, 2011

ObituariesOnly alumni survivors are listed.

Zelmer W. Pique ’33, Palos Verdes Estates,Calif., died January 14, 2011. Ahumanities major, he worked intechnology sales and marketing atcompanies including General Electric,Westinghouse, and Texas Instruments.He retired from Ameron Corp. He servedin the U.S. Army during World War II andcontinued in the Army Reserve, retiringas a Colonel. He received an honorarydoctor of humanities from London Uni-versity in 1973.

Eleanor Miller Russell ’36, Glasgow, Ky., diedJuly 22, 2011. She spent her life as a home-maker.

Frank Allen ’38, Long Beach, Calif., died July15, 2010. The biology major was amember of Phi Kappa Tau fraternity,Books and Bones, and was a tenor in theA Cappella Choir. He earned a master’sdegree in education from Arizona StateUniversity and was a retired musiceducator and founder and music directorfor the Long Beach Bach Festival.

Susan Sweeney Schultz ’39, Springfield, Va.,aunt of Margaret Foley Case ’76 and MaryEllen Foley ’79, died May 31, 2011. Shewas a social science andhistory major, a memberof Chi Omega sorority,and a member of the 1939Transylvania Day Courtof Honor. A pianist, sheperformed “Rhapsody inBlue” with the

Transylvania Symphony Orchestra andregularly accompanied the glee club andchoir. She served in the U.S. MarineCorps during World War II and was aretired real estate broker.

Caswell P. Lane ’42, Mt. Sterling, Ky., diedMay 28, 2011. He was a member of KappaAlpha Order and was inducted into theRobert Barr Society in 1992. Hegraduated from the University of KentuckyLaw School, practiced law in Mt. Sterling,and served as police judge, MontgomeryCounty judge, and circuit judge. Hereceived the Kentucky Bar AssociationSpecial Service Award.

Hazel Wilson Sawyer ’42, Lexington, diedJune 17, 2011. She was a member of PhiMu sorority and the Y.W.C.A. She andher husband helped start the First Churchof Christ in Highland, Ind., and she servedthere as a teacher, youth worker, andwomen’s ministry leader.

Louise Linville Hill ’46, Hamilton, Ohio, diedMay 26, 2011. She was inducted into theRobert Barr Society in 1996.

J. Robert Jones ’51, Paducah, Ky., father ofStanley F. Jones ’80, died July 22, 2011.He was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha fra-ternity and a U.S. Army veteran, wherehe served in the Korean War.

Robert A. Kelley ’51, Lexington, died May27, 2011.

Frances McGuire MacKenzie ’51, Louisville,died May 25, 2011. She was a member ofBeta Sigma Phi sorority and former officemanager for Christian, Brown and Rufer.

Natalie Brower Sherman ’51, Lexington, wifeof Albert L. Sherman ’49, died May 18,2011. She was a sociology major. DuringWorld War II she was a stenographer, clerktypist, and translator for the WarDepartment.

Joseph A. Cuzner ’57, Grandbury, Tex.,husband of Barbara Noteboom Cuzner ’58,died July 25, 2011. He was a chemistrymajor and was vice president of RycolineProducts.

Robert L. Hayes ’58, Mt. Sterling, Ky., diedAugust 30, 2011. He was a retiredDisciples of Christ minister, farmer, andbusinessman and served churches inGeorgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Hewas also an Army chaplain for 30 years,including a year in Vietnam.

Reba Nell Mayfield Jones ’59, Hollister, Calif.,died May 1, 2011. She was a college pro-fessor, conducted cancer research, and wasa retail antique dealer and appraiser. Shewas also active in the San Benito CountyRepublican Women Federated and servedas president. She was inducted into theRobert Barr Society in 2009.

George E. Crow ’65, Savoy, Texas, husbandof Janice Ebs Crow ’66, died July 31, 2011.

Alumni travel in 2012 and 2013The alumni office continues to promote trips to interested alumni and

friends. For a trip brochure or more information on any trips mentionedbelow, contact Natasa Pajic Mongiardo ’96, director of alumni programs, atnpajic@transy.edu or Tracy Dunn ’90, assistant director of alumni programs, attdunn@transy.edu, or at (800) 487-2679 or www.alumni.transy.edu.

Best of the Mediterranean and Greek Isles - Oceania Cruises - Veniceto Athens departs October 3, 2012. Discover the famed and unique ports andislands of the eastern Mediterranean while cruising aboard Oceania Cruises’newest vessel, the elegant Riviera. The past comes to life with visits to Italy,Croatia, Montenegro, Greece, and Turkey. Per-person cost based on doubleoccupancy from $3,799 includes roundtrip airfare.

Save the date for these two Oceania Cruises in the works for 2013: TahitianJewels, January 26-February 7, and Mayan Mystique, February 24-March 6.

Rome and the Amalfi Coast, November 1-10, 2012. Ten days, 13 meals(eight breakfasts, one lunch, four dinners). Highlights include whisper head-sets, Rome, regional wines with dinner, Ravello, Villa Rufolo, Vietrisul-Mare,Sorrento, Amalfi Coast, Paestum, Pompeii, wine tasting, Naples, and Archaeo-logical Museum. Per-person cost based on double occupancy is $3,099 (ifbooked by April 25, 2012, with a deposit of $250 per person) and includesmeals mentioned above, roundtrip air from Lexington, air taxes and fees, andhotel transfers.

FALL 2011 31

ALUMNI BULLETIN BOARD

To contact the Alumni Office:Natasa Pajic Mongiardo ’96, director of alumni programs, npajic@transy.edu

Tracy Stephens Dunn ’90, assistant director of alumni programs, tdunn@transy.eduElaine Valentine, administrative assistant, alumni@transy.eduPhone: (800) 487-2679 or (859) 233-8275 / Fax: (859) 281-3548

Mail: 300 North Broadway, Lexington, KY 40508 / E-mail: alumni@transy.edu / Web: www.transy.edu

Recommendations sought for awards andAlumni Executive Board

Alumni are encouraged to submit recommendationsfor several awards that are presented during AlumniWeekend each year and for new members of the AlumniExecutive Board.

Recommendations are sought for the Pioneer Hall ofFame, Morrison Medallion, Outstanding Young AlumniAward, and distinguished achievement and serviceawards. The Hall of Fame recognizes former athletes,coaches, and others who have made outstanding contri-butions to Transylvania athletics, while the MorrisonMedallion is given to an alumnus or alumna for out-standing service to the university. The Outstanding YoungAlumni Award in most cases recognizes an alumna oralumnus who has been out of school 10 years or lesswith an extensive record of service and support to theuniversity. Achievement and service awards honor profes-sional excellence and service to Transylvania.

Those recommended for the Alumni Executive Boardshould have a record of support and service to the uni-versity and be willing to serve a three-year term. Newmembers are nominated by the board and elected at theannual meeting during Alumni Weekend. For recommen-dation forms, contact the alumni office, or submit rec-ommendations to Natasa Pajic Mongiardo ’96, director ofalumni programs, at npajic@transy.edu.

Announcing alumni affinity partnership

Your alumni benefits now include a special discountedrate on auto insurance and home insurance from LibertyMutual. We are proud to provide our alumni with a greatbenefit from a Fortune 100 company that protects mil-lions of people across America. Find out more about Lib-erty Mutual home and auto insurance athttp://www.libertymutual.com/transylvania. In Kentucky,contact Kent Lewis at (859) 223-1313 ext. 53304 or bye-mail at Kent.Lewis@LibertyMutual.com. Elsewhere, call(800) 524-9400. Reference client #118832.

Discounts and savings are available where state lawsand regulations allow, and may vary by state. To theextent permitted by law, applicants are individuallyunderwritten; not all applicants may qualify.

Transylvania Golf Classic set for May 31, 2012

Join Transylvania’s athletics department and the alumnioffice for the 2012 Transylvania Golf Classic, a four-play-er scramble set for May 31, 2012, at the University Clubof Kentucky Big Blue course. Registration and lunch willbe at 11 a.m., followed by a noon shotgun start. Spon-sorship opportunities are available.

For more information on the tournament or sponsor-ships, contact Jack Ebel ’77, director of athletics, at (859)233-8548 or jebel@transy.edu.

Strong finish needed to retain title in Battle of the Bumpers

With the help of alumni, students, faculty, staff, par-ents, and friends, Transylvania was once again the win-ner of the Association of Independent Kentucky Collegesand Universities Battle of the Bumpers in 2010. The 2011license plate competition began on January 1, and youcan still make a difference by the end of the year. Formore information, including contact information for yourcounty clerk, visit the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’sDivision of Motor Vehicle Licensing at http://mvl.ky.gov.

Ways to stay connected

There are lots of ways to keep up with your almamater and fellow alumni:

www.alumni.transy.edu — alumni online communitywhere you can register for alumni events and browse thealumni directory for the latest news on classmates.

www.facebook.com/TransylvaniaUniversityAlumni— the quickest way to get alumni news and informationon events.

linkd.in/TUAlumni — If you’re interested in professionalnetworking, join the Transylvania University Alumni groupon LinkedIn.

He was a business and economics majorand member of Kappa Alpha, where heserved as treasurer. He earned an M.B.A.from Cornell University. He was vice pres-ident of Sun Oil Lubricants and QuakerState Oil and was president of Cross Oil.

Anne Marlowe Shurling ’69, Louisville, diedAugust 17, 2011. A music major andmember of Chi Omega sorority, shereturned to Transylvania in 1982 as a psy-chology professor for nine years. Sheearned a master’s degree in counselingfrom Florida State University and a Ph.D.in psychology from the University of Ken-tucky. In addition to her time atTransylvania, she was a private practicepsychologist and musician.

Robert W. Schwartz ’75, Lebanon, Tenn.,died August 13, 2011. He played soccerand was involved with music ensembles,playing drums for several campus andGreek functions. He continued playing inbands and in studios in the Nashville area.

James L. Clay Jr. ’79, Lexington, died May27, 2011.

Jeanette Collins Unsell ’81, Springfield, Mo.,died February 16, 2011. She earned herM.Ed. degree from Drury University andserved in several state and areaorganizations including Valley WatermillPark and Water Shed Committee of theOzarks.

Alice Feagin Brooks ’83, Memphis, died April25, 2011. She was an English major andwas involved in several campusorganizations, including serving aspresident of the campus chapter of theNational Organization for Women andeditor of the Rambler.

Christopher A. Fox ’04, Lexington, diedAugust 15, 2011. He earned degrees inmedical laboratory science, biology, andchemistry from the University of Ken-tucky

• • •.

The summer 2011 issue of Transylvaniaincorrectly identified Nell Robinson Waldrop’59 as Miss Transylvania in 1959. JoyceThaman ’59 was 1959 Miss Transylvania.Waldrop’s date of death was also May 5,2011, not May 4, as it appeared in her obit-uary.

Alumni Weekend 2012April 27-29

Make plans now to return to your alma mater for Alumni Weekend 2012 toremember and renew all your best college memories. The three-day schedule offun activities will include plenty of time to reconnect with classmates andfavorite professors.

Friday’s golf outing and horseracing at Keeneland will get the weekend off toa lively start, followed by the Pioneer Hall of Fame dinner and TGIF Kickoff Partyfor all alumni. Other fun activities will include tours of Transylvania’s SpecialCollections, an alumni choir concert, and 10-year celebration of the Beck Center opening.

Saturday’s Alumni Celebration Luncheon and that evening’s class reunionreceptions/dinners are always a highlight of the weekend. A Barr Societybrunch and chapel service in Old Morrison chapel on Sunday morning will bringthe weekend to a close.

Reunion classes include the Robert Barr Society (1942, 1947, 1952, 1957),1962, 1967, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2002, and 2007. However,all alumni, regardless of class year, are invited to participate in Alumni Weekend.

To view the reunion website, visit www.transy.edu (select Alumni,News & Events, and Reunions/Alumni Weekend). You can complete theonline questionnaire, obtain hotel information, and make a contribution to yourclass gift.

An invitation and detailed schedule will be mailed to alumni in late winter.Online registration will be available beginning in February. For more informa-tion, contact Natasa Pajic Mongiardo ’96, director of alumni programs, at npajic@transy.edu or (800) 487-2679.

Return.Remember.Renew.

! Obituaries in Transylvania are based oninformation available in alumni office filesand from newspaper obituaries. Pleasesend information concerning alumnideaths to the attention of ElaineValentine in the Transyl vania AlumniOffice, 300 North Broadway, Lexington,KY 40508-1797. Newspaper obituarieswith complete listings of survivors arepreferred.

32 TRANSYLVANIA

MUSIC AND TECHNOLOGY MEET AT STUDIO 300 FESTIVAL

Transylvania’s Studio 300 Digital Art and Music Festival was held September 16-17 and featured more than 60 concerts and exhibitions of digital art and music in the form of art installations, interactive pieces, and works of video and sound.Transylvania students showed and performed their works, as well as professional artists and musicians from eight countriesincluding the U.S., Canada, Norway, the United Kingdom,Australia, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany. The Studio 300 Festival was held in various venues on and off campus and wascoordinated by music professor Timothy Polashek (above, right). Photos by Joseph Rey Au and Helena Hau.

300 NORTH BROADWAYLEXINGTON, KENTUCKY 40508-1797

Non-Profit Org.U.S. Postage

PAIDLexington, KYPermit No. 122

The Canadian Brass were not above spoofing various performing arts genres,including this inspired take on ballet, during their performance in HagginAuditorium on September 21 as part of the Dorothy J. and Fred K. SmithConcert Series at Transylvania. Right, sophomore Matthew Durr takes advantage of a workshop offered by the ensemble members to improve his trombone technique. Photos by Joseph Rey Au and Helena Hau

Tripping the light fantastic