Author: Continuum staff

Association News

August 1, 2012

From Alumni House to Alumni Center

Plans are under way for a revamped gathering place.

This artist’s rendering shows the preliminary plan for the exterior of the new Alumni Center on the University of Utah campus. (Rendering by Bowen Studios)

The red brick building at 155 S. Central Campus Drive, known as the Alumni House, opened in 1980. It is the nerve center for U loyalists, including students and alumni, and is the headquarters for the University of Utah Alumni Association and its staff.

The plan for the interior atrium of the new Alumni Center includes lots of windows and well lit, open space. (Rendering by Bowen Studios)

Under the leadership of Executive Director John Ashton BS’66 JD’69, the Alumni Association connects and engages 243,000 U alumni worldwide. From the Alumni House, the association:

  • oversees 16 U.S. alumni chapters and three international clubs
  • raises and awards more than $400,000 annually in student scholarships
  • sponsors the Alumni Association, Beehive Honor Society, Emeritus Alumni, Student Alumni, and Young Alumni boards and assists with their activities
  • recruits and trains more than 400 alumni legislative advocates
  • produces and distributes 270,000 issues annually of Continuum magazine, as well as monthly Alumni Association e-newsletters and various email updates
  • supports the Utah Food Bank in an annual food drive that this past year collected $108,000 and 320,000 pounds of food for needy Utahns
  • sponsors The MUSS, the 6,000-member student athletics fan club, voted the loudest in the Pac-12
  • provides career services to U alumni near and far

The University of Utah Alumni Association has outgrown its current Alumni House.

The building is also a meeting and gathering place. More than 500 alumni, campus, and community events were hosted at the Alumni House last year. These included retreats, conferences, campus orientations, awards ceremonies, service projects, birthday parties, wedding receptions, and retirement parties. The Alumni House has served the Alumni Association well, but its age is beginning to show. As the campus grows and expands, so must the building.

With a 36 percent increase in the student population since 1980, the U’s entry into the Pac-12, and the University’s growing national and international reputation, the Alumni House can no longer keep up with the internal and external demands. The much-loved gathering place must be improved.

Michele Mattsson HBA’85 JD’88, a member of the U Board of Trustees and a former Alumni Association Board president, along with current officers and board members, recognized the need to expand and upgrade the Alumni House. Floor plans and renderings were created to transform the 1980s-vintage building into a more spacious, contemporary Alumni Center.

The new center will include:

  • a two-story atrium with natural light, sweeping views, and cozy meeting areas
  • an elegant ballroom capable of seating more than 300 people
  • a full-service, modern kitchen
  • a variety of meeting rooms, including a formal boardroom
  • a memorabilia gallery, class link wall, and donor tributes
  • an array of upgrades to the building’s exterior, grounds, and technology

A project like this is no small feat. The Alumni Association has launched a capital campaign to raise the estimated $8 million it will take to transform the current building into an Alumni Center.

For more information, contact Jessica Peterson at the Alumni Association, (801) 581-3857, or go online to www.alumni.utah.edu/transformation.

Alumni Association Welcomes Board Members and Officers

The University of Utah Alumni Association this spring welcomed seven new members of its Board of Directors and four new presidents of the board’s affiliates.

The new board leaders and members were announced by Board President Keven M. Rowe BS’83 JD’86 and Vice President Heidi Makowski BS’83 at the association’s Annual Board Meeting on May 9, at the Alumni House.

Graham Anderson BA’09 is the new president of the Beehive Honor Society Board. He currently works as director of special projects for Crown Council, overseeing multiple partnerships for a network of dentists, and is a former member of the Alumni Association’s Student Alumni Board. Tim Conde BA’00 JD’04 will serve as president of the Young Alumni Board. He is a lawyer with Stoel Rives, specializing in commercial and employment litigation. Susan Anderson BS’61, who currently works in commercial real estate investing, is the new president of the Emeritus Alumni Board. And Danielle McConkie, a U senior majoring in political science, will lead the Student Alumni Board.

 

Graham Anderson

Susan Anderson

Tim Conde

Danielle McConkie

The seven new members of the Alumni Association’s Board of Directors are Luis Ayllon BME’02, Tom Dearden BFA’85, Rebecca Duberow BA’72, Scott Hagen BA’83 JD’86, Jennifer Kohler BA’92 JD’99, Shaun Nielson MBA’98, and Scott Verhaaren BA’90 MBA’91.

Ayllon works as a program leader for General Electric Healthcare, leading and managing hardware engineering teams. Dearden is chief executive officer of Datamark, a direct-marketing firm specializing in the education sector. Hagen is a lawyer with Ray Quinney & Nebeker, where he is the chair of the firm’s employment and labor section.

Duberow is an associate broker with The Group Real Estate in Salt Lake City. Kohler is senior counsel for the Utah Transit Authority. Nielson is senior vice president and office manager for the Wells Fargo Real Estate Banking Group in Salt Lake City. And Verhaaren is a senior partner with The Boyer Company, a real estate development firm.

Luis Ayllon

Tom Dearden

Rebecca Duberow

Scott Hagen

Jennifer Kohler

Shaun Nielson

Scott Verhaaren

U Alumni Gather in Germany for 2012 European Reunion

Story and photo by Cornelia Divricean

U alumni paddle rafts past the cliffs of the Danube Gorge during the 2012 European Alumni Reunion.

More than 60 University of Utah alumni from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Russia, as well as from Utah, Idaho, and Texas in the United States, gathered during a weekend in May for the 2012 University of Utah European Alumni Reunion in Regensburg, Germany.

Regensburg is a beautiful old city in Bavaria, about one hour north of Munich. Situated on the Danube River, Regensburg was once one of the most important cities in central Europe and recently became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The guest speakers for the reunion were A. Lorris Betz, former senior vice president of health sciences and former interim president of the U; Barbara Snyder, the University’s vice president of student affairs; and Laura Snow BA’88, special assistant to the president and secretary to the University.

The reunion was organized by the Utah Europe Association, the U’s first international alumni group, with the help of Jörg Ehehalt, who was an exchange student at the University of Utah in 1996 to 1997. The European alumni have held a reunion every year since 1998.

This year, the reunion began on the evening of May 25 at the traditional Dult Festival, a smaller version of Oktoberfest that is held in the spring. After a day of sightseeing, the alumni gathered May 26 for the U official dinner at a restaurant on a Danube River island. The first European Alumni Award was presented to Alexandra Kaul BS’87 MBA’88, who is from Germany, for her contributions to the European Alumni Association.

The next day, alumni paddled rafts past the steep cliffs surrounding the Danube Gorge and then returned to the Dult Festival, where they enjoyed delicious Bavarian food, fresh beer, and great U friends, and talked about where they should meet in 2013.

—Cornelia Divricean BS’09 MS’12 is the U’s international alumni coordinator.

Through the Years: Short alumni profiles and Class Notes

August 1, 2012

Leveling the Playing Field

Norma Carr, a U alumna and former coach, recalls the struggle for Title IX.

By Kim M. Horiuchi

Forty years ago, when the playing fields for women athletes were rocky to nonexistent, coach Norma Carr MS’77 would shed tears when male counterparts shut her teams out of their field houses and gymnasiums. It was a time when there were no summer sports camps for young women, and Carr handcrafted her own trophies to give to her female teams, because competitive sports for them were banned. Before Title IX, which marked its 40th anniversary this year after becoming law on June 23, 1972, women’s sports went unrecognized and unsanctioned at the most amateur levels, and elite competition if you were female was a pipe dream. “Church sports, recreation sports, competitive sports, it was all different for women,” Carr says.

Following Title IX, Norma Carr, center, led the University to a pair of 20-win seasons as the women’s volleyball head coach from 1975 to 1979 and was twice named conference Coach of the Year. (Photo courtesy University of Utah Athletics Department)

Carr, who was the first head coach in both softball and volleyball at the University of Utah and was inducted into the Crimson Club Hall of Fame this year, was instrumental in seeing that changed in Utah, and it wasn’t easy. The discrimination was blatant, and the struggles intense. Carr says she was confronted with opinions that “sports were making girls masculine and that their uteruses would fall out.” She was told “a woman’s place was in the home, having babies and cooking.”

“There were fierce, ugly, verbal battles,” Carr recalls. “We were treading on sacred ground.” Girls who wanted to participate in athletics were branded tomboys, and gender differences were magnified.

The Utah Shamrocks, a league softball team, was playing the only type of high-level sport that women could find at the time, but even then there was little coaching and the players were basically “self-made athletes,” Carr says. Worse, instead of skill or talent, the focus was on what the players wore and how they dressed. Clad in satin uniforms with skirts, Shamrocks players were forced to slide to base on bare legs.

“What guys were doing, girls could never do,’’ Carr says. “For me personally, there was a lot of frustration. … The social and emotional side of life became a challenge.”

Carr remembers growing up in Centerville, Utah, trying to find a patch of field to play baseball—with the boys. There was no sports equipment. Learning to pitch came by throwing a ball against the side of the barn.

After graduating from the U in health sciences, Carr began her teaching and coaching career in northern Utah’s Davis School District. The girls would participate in sports through informal “play days.” The policy at the time was that girls could participate in cheerleading, pep clubs, and drill teams, but not interscholastic sports. Coaches, including Carr, would hold games and matches for their girls anyway, even though such action invariably came with a reprimand.

Norma Carr, center, coaches softball in 1987. She is the winning-est softball coach in the U’s history. (Photo courtesy University of Utah Athletics Department)

Soon some girls began playing on boys’ tennis teams, but state officials also deemed that off limits. Parents threatened to sue, and Carr was thrust in the middle of the battle for Title IX. It took years, but eventually girls and women were able to compete in sanctioned sports, and compete they did.

At the U, Carr served as an assistant women’s athletics director from 1975 to 1989. The winning-est softball coach in school history, Carr had a 372-244-3 (.603) record in 14 seasons. She led the Utes to the AIAW College World Series in 1976 and the NCAA College World Series in 1982 and 1985. Carr was named the region Coach of the Year once and the conference Coach of the Year twice.

As the women’s volleyball head coach from 1975 to 1979, Carr led Utah to a 77-58 (.570) overall record—including a pair of 20-win seasons—and a 39-22 (.639) mark in conference play, becoming a two-time conference Coach of the Year. Carr left the U in 1989 to become the athletics director at Salt Lake Community College, where she was the first woman in the state to oversee both men’s and women’s programs. Carr was named to the Utah High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame in 1996. In 2009, she was named National Administrator of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Women Athletic Administrators.

The success is “exhilarating,” Carr says, especially considering the immense challenges and struggles for women to get there. “The unfortunate part is that it took a law to change it, because a law takes it to the extreme. You can’t change people’s attitudes and feelings with a law. Some of that pain still exists today.”

Many of those male coaches who barred her teams from playing in their spaces have since apologized to her, Carr says. With a change in perspective that time brings, they are grateful, she says, that their granddaughters now playing high school sports enjoy the protections of Title IX. The future for women athletes is unlimited, Carr says, but there are still hurdles.

“My disappointment,” she says,“ is that women aren’t giving back. Where are the future women’s coaches? Where are the women’s players? Where are the future contributors for women’s programs? Everybody can figure out how they can give back.”

—Kim Horiuchi is an associate editor of Continuum.

 

Newspaper Find Leads to Hall of Fame for University of Utah Alumna

University of Utah alum Patsy Neal sports her uniform for the 1959 Pan-American Games. (Photo courtesy Patsy Neal)

In the 1950s, when Patsy Neal MS’63 was in high school, female athletes had very different options than they do today. If they could find a way to compete at all, it might be on a boys’ team. If an all-girls’ team was cobbled together, they might have trouble finding other female teams with which to compete. But even then, opportunities could be found, and Neal was fortunate to come across one—an opportunity that changed her life.

In her small-town Georgia newspaper, Neal read a short paragraph about women’s basketball scholarships available at Wayland Baptist College in Texas. Suddenly, she saw a way to both continue her education and play the sport she loved.

During her time at Wayland, Neal would become a three-time All-American Amateur Athletic Union basketball player and also served as the college’s first woman student body president. At the University of Utah, she earned a master’s degree and taught in the U’s Health, Physical Education and Recreation Department from 1963 to 1966. She was selected to serve as captain of the United States women’s basketball team in the World Basketball Tournament in 1964, in Peru, and was on the U.S. All-Star team that toured France, Germany, and Russia in 1965.

Neal, who lives in Morristown, Tennessee, has been inducted into the National Association for Sports and Physical Education Hall of Fame, the National Amateur Athletic Union Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, and the Wayland Baptist University Hall of Honor. She was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003.

 

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Other Notable Alumni

’60s

Arnie Ferrin BS’66 has been inducted into the Pac-12 Basketball Hall of Honor. The four-time All-American, who led the University of Utah to the 1944 NCAA championship and 1947 National Invitation Tournament title, is the U’s first inductee. Ferrin became the first freshman ever to be named MVP of the Final Four. After capping his Utah career with the NIT crown, Ferrin went on to become the MVP of the national East-West All-Star Game. He was drafted by the Minneapolis Lakers and helped the franchise win titles in the BAA (1949) and NBA (1950). Ferrin’s jersey No. 22 is one of seven retired by the U. He was inducted into the National College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009. Ferrin also served as general manager of the ABA’s Utah Stars and as the U’s athletics director. LM


Stephen Jacobsen BS’67 MS’70 received the lifetime achievement award in the 2012 Utah Genius Awards for his work as a prolific inventor in the field of robotics. Jacobsen is a Distinguished Professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Utah and the founder of Sarcos Inc., a company based at the U that is now called Raytheon-Sarcos and creates robotic suits that give people superhuman capabilities. He also founded seven other companies. He previously has been recognized with election to the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists, as well as honors including the Leonardo Da Vinci Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Pioneer of Robotics Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and the Utah Governor’s Medal for Science and Technology.

’70s


David Cornell Hartzell, Jr. BS’79 has been elected as supervisor of Clarence, New York. The supervisor serves as mayor of the town, which has a population of 31,000 and is located 25 miles east of Buffalo. Hartzell has served as president of the Clarence Chamber of Commerce from 2007 to 2010, chairman of the Clarence Industrial Development Agency from 2004 to 2012, chairman of the Erie County Industrial Development Agency Leadership Council, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the University of Buffalo’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership program and of the Board of Directors of the FBI Citizens Academy.

’80s


Chris Johnson MS’84 PhD’90, director of the University of Utah’s Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute and distinguished professor of computing at the U, has been honored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) at the International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS). Johnson was awarded the IEEE IPDPS Charles Babbage Award at the symposium in Shanghai, China, on May 22. Charles Babbage, who lived from 1791 to 1871, is considered one of the fathers of computing and was the inventor of the first mechanical computer. The namesake award was presented to Johnson in recognition of his “innovations in the area of scientific visualization and their application to computational biomedicine, engineering, and scientific discovery.” Johnson is co-founder of Visual Influence Inc. and co-editor of The Visualization Handbook. He is the recipient of the Utah Governor’s Medal for Science and Technology, as well as the Distinguished Professor Award and the Rosenblatt Prize, both from the U.


Colonel Kevin B. Wooton BGL BGP’85 has been selected for promotion later this year to brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force. Wooton, an Intelligence and Cyberspace Operations officer, is currently the commander of the 67th Network Warfare Wing at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. The wing is the cyberspace operations force and newest combat wing of the Air Force. Its mission is to operate, manage, and defend global Air Force networks. Wooton deployed to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in support of Operation Deseret Storm, and recently to Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he served as director of intelligence. He also led the 25th Intelligence Squadron as a mission commander deployed to the Joint Special Operations Air Component’s Directorate of Operations at Al Udeid, Qatar. Wooton and his wife, Elizabeth Anderson Wooton BSN’79, have four daughters. LM


Paul S. Kirby BA’88 BA’89 MA’91 MEd’01 (PhD, Utah State University), an assistant principal at Hillcrest High School in Midvale, Utah, was named Utah Assistant Principal of the Year for 2011. The award was bestowed by the Utah Association of Secondary School Principals, which will submit Kirby’s name to the national association for national competition. At the University of Utah, Kirby earned a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and political science, as well as a master’s degree in languages and literature, with a Spanish medieval emphasis. He also received a master’s of education degree and an administrative endorsement. In the late 1980s, he worked as a teaching assistant in the Foreign Language Department at the U. Kirby attended the Universidad de Salamanca in Spain for Spanish language undergraduate and graduate courses and earned a doctorate in curriculum and instruction this year from Utah State University. He was a Fulbright Scholar in 1997.

’90s


Jennifer B. Danielson BA’95 JD’96 has been appointed president of Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Utah. Danielson joined the company in 1997 and has an extensive health insurance and policy background from previous positions held with Regence in leading the public policy division and on the legal team, as well as with the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office, the Utah Department of Health, and the Utah Attorney General’s Office Health Division. Danielson is the past president of the Utah Health Insurance Association.

 

 

LM Lifetime Member of the Alumni Association    AM Annual Member of the Alumni Association


We want to hear from you! Please submit entries to Marcia Dibble. To read more alumni news, check out the “Honor Roll” column in the Alumni Association’s online newsletter here.

Campus Notebook

May 18, 2012

Governor, Legislature Show Support for the U in 2012

Legislative session victories in 2012 include infrastructure funds and dental-school approval.

Utah Governor Gary R. Herbert and the state Legislature demonstrated clear support for higher education and the University of Utah during the 2012 legislative session that ended March 8.

Higher education received the first increase in state funding since 2008, and thanks to the efforts of University of Utah Interim President Lorris Betz and new President David Pershing, the U specifically received much-needed funding to replace its failing infrastructure.

Alumni, students, and faculty and staff members who had signed up to be political advocates for the University played a key role in helping communicate the U’s needs to the legislators and governor, and the U Alumni Association helped organize their efforts.

“Several legislators have let me know how much they appreciated the thoughtful and helpful communications they received from our advocates during the session,” President Pershing wrote in a letter to the advocates after the session’s end. “Your outreach helped secure many of our top priorities and enhanced our relationship with the Legislature.”

The U had many victories during the session. Among the successes:

  • A top priority for higher education was the need to fund specific initiatives at each institution while providing increased funding for significant student growth throughout the system. The Legislature appropriated $8 million, which will be evenly split between initiatives and growth.
  • The U received $22 million to begin replacing its failing infrastructure. This appropriation, combined with a portion of the $30 million that was allocated for system-wide capital improvement projects, will allow the U to complete all of its year one infrastructure requirements. The University will continue to work with the Legislature for the funding that will be required in subsequent years.
  • Over the past five years, the USTAR initiative has attracted world-class researchers to the state and has brought in more than $175 million in direct and indirect research funds. This initiative has been critical to the mission of the University of Utah, and this year, $6 million was appropriated to restore cuts to the program over the past several years.
  • Effective this year, funding has been allocated to give a 1 percent compensation increase for higher-education employees.

Several buildings were authorized by the Legislature for the U, including:

  • Authorization to construct the Student Life Center after raising $10 million. Thanks to statutory amendments now in place, the University can proceed with this much-anticipated building.
  • Bonding authorization plus operations and maintenance funding to construct the new S.J. Quinney College of Law Building. This was the only building in the state to receive operation and maintenance approval this year.
  • Authorization to use $37.4 million in previously donated funds to construct a new dental school building.
  • Bonding authorization to expand the Orthopaedic Center.
  • Bonding authorization to expand the athletics center.
  • Bonding authorization to construct two parking structures, one near the HPER building and another for Health Sciences.

Five Receive 2012 Honorary Degrees at the University

The University awarded five honorary doctoral degrees during the annual commencement ceremonies held on May 4.

A. Lorris Betz was given an honorary doctorate of science. Betz joined the University in 1999 as senior vice president for health sciences, dean of the School of Medicine, and chief executive officer of the University of Utah Health System. He has served twice as interim president of the University, most recently from May 2011 to March 2012. H. David Burton BS’67, who served as presiding bishop of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1996 until this past March, received an honorary doctorate in business. Burton worked more than four decades in Utah as a dedicated civic leader, financial steward, and community builder.

A. Lorris Betz

H. David Burton

Wataru “Wat” Misaka

Jerilyn McIntyre

Beverley Taylor Sorenson

Philanthropist Beverley Taylor Sorenson BS’45 received an honorary doctorate of fine arts. In 1995, Sorenson founded Art Works for Kids, a teaching model that integrates arts into core subjects to improve learning for elementary school students. Sorenson’s philanthropic efforts have led to the construction of several buildings on the U’s campus, including the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts and Education Complex.Wataru “Wat” Misaka BS’48 received an honorary doctorate of humane letters. Misaka was the first professional basketball player of Asian descent and the first non-white person to play in the National Basketball Association. He went on to become a successful engineer and, until recently, consulted for a circuit-board business in Salt Lake City. Jerilyn McIntyre, Central Washington University’s first woman president, received an honorary doctorate of education. She served the University of Utah on the faculty as professor of communication and in the administration as vice president for academic affairs and twice as interim president. She serves the University still through the advisory boards of the Marriott Library and the Tanner Center for Nonviolent Human Rights Advocacy.

Keith Sterling Named U Communications Director

Keith Sterling

Keith Sterling is the new communications director for the University of Utah. Reporting directly to the chief marketing and communications officer, Bill Warren, who joined the U last year, Sterling will work to develop a strategic media relations plan to help elevate the profile of the U while also serving as the University’s primary media spokesperson.

Sterling came to the U from the city of Burbank, Calif., where he held the position of public information officer. Prior to his time in Burbank, he served as public relations director for the city of Broken Arrow, Okla.; Scottsdale School District in Arizona; and a boutique advertising and public relations agency, also in Arizona.

College of Education Slated to Move to Sorenson Arts Complex

Plans for the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts and Education Complex have been expanded so that it will include a new home for the entire College of Education. The complex is currently in final design and scheduled to be completed in November 2013.

To accommodate faculty and staff in the College of Education, the $32 million complex will be increased from its original size of 82,000 square feet to 110,000 square feet. Additionally, the construction site for the complex has been relocated to the east side of Milton Bennion Hall. The new building site provides the College of Education, the College of Fine Arts, and the Virginia Tanner Dance Program considerably more space.

In Memoriam

Matthew “Bronco” Bradley MEd’06, 41, community activist, University of Utah associate professor, and co-director of the Honors College’s Social Justice Scholars program

Thetis M. Group, M.D., 73, dean and professor emerita of Syracuse University and adjunct professor at the University of Utah

Tom Loveridge BA’79 MEd’81, 58, University of Utah administrator for more than 30 years

Click here for more.

The Fast and the Furious

A unique exhibit at the UMFA brings together 19 famous automobiles.  

This 1957 Jaguar XK-SS, once owned by Steve McQueen and now owned by the Petersen Automotive Museum, is part of the “Speed” exhibit at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. (Photo by Peter Harholdt)

The 1938 Mormon Meteor III was once owned by racing legend Ab Jenkins. (Photo by Peter Harholdt)

Steve McQueen called it the “Green Rat”: a 1957 Jaguar XK-SS roadster resplendent in British racing green, one of only 18 such machines built. McQueen would hop in the Jag and zip down narrow, two-lane Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles, squealing through hairpin turns and maybe slowing before his friend James Garner’s house just long enough to toss beer cans into the latter’s immaculate front lawn.

The 1952 So-Cal Speed Shop Belly Tank reached 198.34 miles per hour at Bonneville. (Photo by Peter Harholdt)

Reckless driving didn’t get McQueen (cancer claimed him in 1980) or the Green Rat, which ended up in the hands of private collectors. Now, for a limited time, the car will be among 18 other famous automobiles on display at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, from June 2 to September 16. The “Speed: The Art of the Performance Automobile” exhibit has been in the works since October 2008, when avid car collector and ambassador John Price approached the museum with an idea: Why not host an exhibit of automobiles representing the highest achievements of engineers, designers, and drivers? Guest curator and automotive historian Ken Gross—who has spearheaded automotive exhibitions nationwide—was tapped to pull together the exhibit, with cars on loan from some of the country’s top automobile collections, including the National Automotive Museum, as well as many private collectors. “The most difficult part of an exhibit like this is convincing collectors that they should part with their cars for better than four months,” says Gross.

“Speed” is the first exhibit of its kind, bringing together these 19 automobiles, from a 1904 Peerless racer to a 1975 rocket-on-wheels that topped 432 miles per hour in 1991. But there’s more to this exhibit than horsepower and history. The vehicles—which Gross calls “rolling sculpture”—epitomize the curves and angles of their respective eras. “People are looking at these cars as 20th-century industrial art,” Gross says.

A New Way to Predict Risk for Preterm Birth

A simple blood test may help to spot preterm births in advance.

Though more than one in 10 American babies are born prematurely, there have been few clues to predict whether a particular baby is going to arrive too early. Now, a new blood test developed from research by scientists with the University of Utah, Brigham Young University, and Intermountain Healthcare could spot more than 80 percent of preterm births in advance.

The test measures three new peptide biomarkers that, in combination with other proteins, can signal high risk of preterm birth. It works by looking at just a drop of blood from a mother who is 24 weeks pregnant.

“With preterm birth, if we could even prolong a pregnancy by one or two weeks, we could make a very big impact on the number of babies that survive and make sure that those that survive are healthy,” says M. Sean Esplin, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Utah and an obstetrician for Intermountain Healthcare who was the lead author of the study that paved the way for creating the test.

Knowing she is at high risk for preterm birth is a big advantage for a mother when it comes to decisions about travel and activity level. Esplin also notes that a new hormone treatment can help a baby stay in the womb a little longer.

Esplin and Steven Graves, who directs the chemistry portion of the research at BYU, began searching for molecular clues to pregnancy complications in 2002. The new method for predicting preterm birth is patented by the University of Utah and BYU and has been licensed to a company called Sera Prognostics. The company hopes to wrap up testing by the end of 2012 and aims to have the diagnostic test on the market in 2013. The company recently secured $19.3 million in venture capital financing from private investors to develop the test.

Association News

May 18, 2012

Founders Day Scholar Aims to Help Military Bases Go Green

Randy W. Cardon, a University of Utah student and gunnery sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps who has served five deployments, including two tours in Iraq, was selected to receive this year’s Founders Day Scholarship.

Cardon, who grew to appreciate nature during his childhood years working outdoors, is majoring in environmental sustainability, and he hopes to work as an environmental safety officer on a Marine Corps base after he graduates with his bachelor’s degree. “I think the military has a long way to go before they’re environmentally friendly,” he says, and he wants to help address the problem.

Randy Cardon hugs his daughter, Elise. (Photo courtesy Randy W. Cardon)

The University of Utah Alumni Association awards the Founders Day Scholarship annually to honor students who have overcome difficult life circumstances or challenges and who have given service to the University and the community.

“There are a few attributes about Randy’s character that stand out—the strength of his integrity, his enthusiastic commitment and drive to become better, and his sense of duty, honor, and service,” wrote Kathleen Nicoll, an assistant professor of geography at the U, in a letter recommending Cardon for the scholarship. “Randy is truly someone who sees opportunities instead of obstacles, and he finds a way to stay motivated and optimistic, and to inspire others.”

Cardon attributes much of his resilience and mental toughness to his childhood experiences growing up in a family that struggled through financial hardships and other adversity. He was born in St. George, Utah, and grew up working with his family on various ranches in southern Utah and a dairy farm near Shelley, Idaho. It was a hard life—the family of five at one point lived in the southern Utah desert in a 19-foot camping trailer that at times had no running water. Cardon’s mother competed in barrel racing in rodeos so she could use her winnings and pawn trophy saddles to help buy groceries. And kids in the local schools picked on him because he had to use duct tape to hold his boots together. “I didn’t want to go to school,” Cardon recollects now. “School was secondary to living. I had to work to survive, and school wasn’t very nice because of things like that.”

Cardon, left, stands with two other Marines on the Kuwait/Iraq border in 2008. (Photo courtesy Randy W. Cardon)

His parents divorced when he was 8, and his stepfather took in Cardon and his two sisters and treated them as his own. But the family still struggled financially, and Cardon worked to help the family with the ranch and dairy work from the time he was 11. When a Marine Corps recruiter found him at age 15, Cardon says he saw an opportunity. “I wanted to join the Marine Corps to escape the small town,” he says. “I thought of it as a way to have a future.”

Cardon had missed many days of school and wasn’t on track to graduate, so the recruiter helped him sit down with the high-school counselor and work out a plan for him to get his diploma. He went to summer school between his sophomore, junior, and senior years, and he attended night school during his junior year to make up missed work. “I did all that—I did double duty—and I graduated a half-year early,” Cardon says.

From there, he went straight into Marine Corps boot camp. “I found it quite easy,” he says. “A lot of it was common sense-oriented. A lot of it was being outside working hard.” And his upbringing had prepared him well for that. “The Marine Corps was a blessing,” he says.

Then University of Utah Interim President Lorris Betz congratulates Cardon at the Founders Day Banquet this past February. (Photo by Nathan Sweet)

He attended recruit training in 2nd Battalion Fox Company in San Diego, Calif., where he became the platoon honor man and was meritoriously promoted to lance corporal. He continued to rise through the ranks during postings in Washington, D.C., and Camp Lejeune, N.C. His first deployment came in 2002, when he spent seven months on a ship that stopped in different spots in Africa. After that came the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and as a squad leader and platoon sergeant, he spent seven months with his unit, pushing from the Kuwaiti border to Baghdad. Once the tour was up, he returned to San Diego to be a drill instructor.

Four years later, he was back for another tour of duty in Iraq, this time in Ramadi for another seven months, as a platoon sergeant. Two more deployments followed—on a ship in the Middle East in 2008, and in Mongolia in 2009, when he was one of four Marines selected for a mobile training team for the Mongolian army. He was promoted to gunnery sergeant in 2009, and in 2010, was picked to be assistant Marine officer instructor at the University of Utah. “After sucking in the 120-degree dust of Iraq and running for my life, I now enjoy the casual walk to classes,” he says.

Cardon says he chose to attend the U in order to be closer to his 10-year-old daughter, Elise, who lives in the Salt Lake City area. “I thought this would be a chance to spend a lot of time with her,” he says, “and let her know education is important.” He also coordinates the Marines’ local Toys for Tots effort during the December holidays, and he spends his summers as a drill instructor at the Officer Candidate School boot camp in Quantico, Va. “He stands head and shoulders above others on multiple levels of merit,” Nicoll wrote. “What stands out is Randy’s degree of motivation, his intellectual engagement, his fitness, the tremendous depth of his character, and his idealistic commitment.”

Save the Dates for Homecoming 2012, September 8-15

Homecoming at the University of Utah is slated for September 8-15. Save the dates, and don’t miss out on any of the festivities leading up to the showdown game versus Brigham Young University. The Homecoming theme this year is “Red, White and U.”

The week kicks off with the annual Legacy of Lowell Community Service Day on Saturday, September 8, with many opportunities for volunteers to donate their time and help.
The following Tuesday, September 11, alumni who graduated 40 or more years ago are invited to attend the Emeritus Reunion, at the Natural History Museum of Utah.

Highlights for the rest of the week include the Crimson Rally on the Union Plaza the evening of Thursday, September 13. And alumni and others are invited to compete in the Homecoming Scholarship Scramble golf tournament on Friday, September 14, at the Bonneville Golf Course in Salt Lake City. The proceeds will go to help fund University scholarships for students. Early on Saturday, September 15, the U community and alumni will have yet another opportunity to have fun raising money for scholarships, with the Young Alumni 5K and Kids 1K Fun Run.

Everyone will head toward the stadium later Saturday, for the Alumni Association’s pre-game tailgate party on Guardsman Way that afternoon and then the big football game against BYU.

The chair of the 2012 Homecoming Committee is Liz Whitney BA’85 JD’87. The lead sponsor of Homecoming 2012 is University Credit Union.

Spring Awards Honorees Include Researcher and Counselor

The University of Utah Alumni Association honored a former U student and a staff member at its Spring Awards Banquet on April 10.

Kiri L. Wagstaff

The Alumni Association’s Young Alumni Board presents its Par Excellence Award annually to a former student who attended the U within the last 15 years, in recognition of his or her outstanding professional achievements and service to the community as well as the University. This year’s honoree is Kiri L. Wagstaff BS’97, a senior researcher with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. The U Alumni Association also presented its Philip and Miriam Perlman Award for Excellence in Student Counseling. The recipient this year is Lori K. McDonald BS’95, associate dean of students at the University. The awards banquet festivities were held in the Spence and Cleone Eccles Reception Room at Rice-Eccles Stadium.

Lori K. McDonald

Wagstaff graduated from the U with a bachelor’s degree in computer science before going on to receive master’s and doctoral degrees from Cornell University and a master’s from the University of Southern California. She now works as a senior researcher at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. She specializes in machine learning and investigating problems that lie at the interface between computer science, geology, and astronomy. Her projects at the laboratory have included finding ways to automatically identify landmarks and detect change in Mars orbital images, tracking the north polar ice caps on Mars, and predicting county-level crop yields from orbital images of Earth. Outside of work, she volunteers in the technology center of her local public library and serves on the LGBT Youth Task Force.

McDonald, who holds a master’s degree from Ohio State University in addition to her bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah, has worked in student counseling at the U since 1997 and became associate dean of students in 2007. Her responsibilities include coordinating the student-conduct administration process and serving as the chief hearing officer for the University. She also advocates for students facing challenges and behavioral difficulties. And she advises the Associated Students of the University of Utah in all areas of student government.

Amid all this, she has been dedicated and disciplined in pursuing a doctoral degree at the University, in educational leadership and policy. “She is seen as a leader among both students and staff,” says Kari T. Ellingson, associate vice president for student development at the U.

One More: Solar Ivy

May 18, 2012

Ivy-covered walls have long been a hallmark of academe. The University of Utah plans to bring that emblem a new significance later this summer, with the installation of an array of solar panels crafted to resemble ivy leaves.

The “solar ivy” will cover about 800 square feet of the south wall of Orson Spencer Hall and is scheduled for installation in late August. The installation is expected to generate an average of about three kilowatts of electricity—a relatively small amount equivalent to the power needed for the kitchen and living room of a four-person household—and will feed into the University’s main power grid, says Tom Melburn, a U student who came up with the idea for the project and found the funding for it. Melburn, who graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies, says he learned in 2011 that a company in New York called Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology had developed the solar ivy. Melburn approached the U’s Office of Sustainability with his idea and then sought financing for the $42,000 cost of his project through the University’s Sustainable Campus Initiative Fund, which is supported by student fees. He was awarded a $30,000 grant and then raised the remaining $12,000 in donations over a two-month period.

The installation on Orson Spencer Hall will feature small photovoltaic panels that are green, to resemble leaves, as well as red ones placed in the shape of a block U. “I like its aesthetic value the most,” Melburn says. “This isn’t just something that goes on top of a building and is out of sight and mind. It’s going to attract interest to how we produce and consume energy.”

Samuel Cochran, chief executive officer of the company that makes the ivy, says the installation at the University of Utah will be the first in the United States, and the second in the world. An exhibit of solar ivy was scheduled to be installed this past spring at the Environment Museum of the Montreal Biosphere, in Canada.

The company uses environmentally sustainable practices in manufacturing the panels, Melburn says. The leaves are made of recycled plastic, and the company doesn’t use silicone-based photovoltaics that contain rare-earth minerals that are harmful to the environment. “The downside is that these aren’t as efficient when it comes to energy generation” as silicone-based panels are, “but we wanted to take into consideration the sustainability of the production,” he says.

Orson Spencer Hall may be renovated or replaced during the next 10 years, and if and when that happens, the solar-ivy installation can easily be removed and reinstalled. Beyond the logistics, Melburn says he loves what the installation signifies. “This is a really unique project, because it is representative of how fast technology is changing and how fast we can adapt this into our lives and change the ways we think about energy.”

Editor’s Note: Due to difficulties with the company that produces the solar ivy, the University decided in late 2012, a few months after this article was published, that it would not be able to install the panels on Orson Spencer Hall.

 

Web Extra

This artist’s rendering shows what the solar-ivy installation on Orson Spencer Hall will look like. (Image courtesy Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology)

In Memoriam

May 16, 2012

bradley_mattMatthew Bradley MEd’06, a popular University of Utah professor and social activist, died March 20 in Sandy, Utah, in an accidental drowning. He was 41.

Matthew Wade Bradley was born August 19, 1970, in Salt Lake City to Craig S. and Kathleen Linebaugh Bradley. He graduated in 1988 from Alta High School, where he was a Sterling Scholar in visual arts and a student body officer. An Eagle Scout, he worked as a counselor at several boys’ ranches, including Bennion Teton Boys Ranch. He also served a mission for the LDS Church in Italy. Matt received an undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University, master’s and doctoral degrees in folklore from Indiana University, and a master’s in education from the U. Matt had a distinguished teaching career as an assistant professor (lecturer) for the Honors College at the U, where he led the Honors Social Justice Scholars, the Honors Think Tank on Social Change, and the Mestizo Arts and Activism program. Matt also taught honors classes at AMES High School. He inspired hundreds of students to be advocates and modeled for them the power of commitment, vision, and compassion. Matt’s efforts were recognized with honors including an Equity and Diversity Award, the Distinguished Honors Professor Award, and the Community Engaged Faculty Fellowship and Community Scholar in Residence awards from University Neighborhood Partners. In 2010, he received a special recognition from ACLU of Utah, “For Fostering Freedom.”

Matt demonstrated immense courage in his fight with cancer in 2010, returning to the classroom just 10 days after surgery to amputate his lower leg. A longtime cycling enthusiast, Matt successfully faced the challenge of redefining himself as an athlete with his new prosthetic limb, placing 3rd at the 2011 U. S. Nationals in Para-Cycling in both the Criterium and the Time Trial, earning a spot to compete for the U.S. national team in 2011 in the Para-Cycling World Championships held in Denmark. Because of his passion for cycling, Matt “Bronco” Bradley was named Cycling Utah – 2011 Rider of the Year. His voice was a mainstay every fall at the Utah Cyclecross series, and he also helped in organizing the Cross Out Cancer event.

Matt is survived by his father ,Craig S. Bradley; siblings Nicole (Joseph) Sepulveda, Seth R. (Megan), Luke H., Jeremiah S. (Erin), Zachary J. (Brenda), Adam C. (Angi); 19 nieces and nephews; and grandfather Ralph O. Bradley. He was preceded in death by his mother Kathleen Linebaugh Bradley, grandparents Glade C. and Thora Hawkins Linebaugh, grandmother Mildred Harris Bradley, sister-in-law Elizabeth “Bunny” Bradley, and “Righty” (his right leg). Interment is at Larkin Sunset Garden. In lieu of flowers, family suggests donations to The Huntsman Cancer Foundation or Mestizo Arts and Activism. Condolences may be read and left in the guest book here.

Edited from the notice published in the Deseret News from March 23 to March 25, 2012

 

Thetis M. Group, M.D., dean and professor emerita of Syracuse University and adjunct professor at the University of Utah, died January 20. She was 73.

Thetis M. Group was born in 1938 in Syracuse, N.Y., and moved with her family to Liverpool, N.Y., in 1942. She graduated from Northfield School for Girls, East Northfield, Mass., in 1956 and received a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., in 1960. After working several years as team leader and senior community health nurse with the Visiting Nurse Service in New York City, Group attended Columbia University, where she received a master of arts in nursing supervision, a master of education in community health nursing, and then a doctorate in nursing education. In 1968, Group was appointed assistant professor of nursing at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she taught community health nursing. In 1972, she returned to Syracuse to accept a position as associate professor of community health nursing at Syracuse University School of Nursing. In 1975, she was appointed full professor and dean of the School of Nursing, moving quickly to rename the school as the College of Nursing. She continued as dean through 1985. Group served as president of the New York State Deans of Nursing Council, president of the New York State Chapter of the National League for Nursing, and was a consultant to many colleges and universities, as well as the New York State Education Department, State Board of Nursing. In 1979, she was given the Women of Courage Honorary Award by the Central NY Chapter of Nation Organization for Women. Working with Dr. Joan I. Roberts, psychologist and professor emerita of Syracuse University, Dr. Group wrote and published two books, Feminism and Nursing and Nurses, Physicians, and the Medical Monopoly. Group retired as dean and professor emerita in 1997 and relocated the following year to Scottsdale, Ariz., maintaining a second residence in Salt Lake City.

During her 25 years with Syracuse University, Group served on numerous University Senate and governance committees, such as Budget and Fiscal Affairs, Chancellor’s Select committees, the Association of Women Faculty, and Affirmative Action. As dean of the College of Nursing, she directed the production of 26 grants for external funding, achieved increased equity in nursing faculty salaries, initiated a faculty development program to increase the number of doctoral degrees held by the nursing faculty, expanded graduate enrollment by 350 percent, expanded the Continuing Education Program in Nursing, guided the faculty in developing several program specializations at the graduate level, increased undergraduate student scholarship funds by 150 percent, increased graduate student scholarship funds by 120 percent, incorporated the college’s undergraduate program into the University Honors Program, and assisted students in forming a chapter of the National Student Nurses’ Organization.

Thetis is survived by her companion of 54 years, Joan I. Roberts; nephews Dr. Edward F. Group III (wife Dr. Daniela Zegarac and sons Edward IV and Kingston) of Houston, Texas, and Dr. Jonathan N. Group (wife Jennifer Hanges and children Ashley, Jonathan Jr. and Andrew) of Austin, Texas; and adopted nieces Pamela Andrews and Linda Campos. She was preceded in death by her parents, Dr. Edward Sr. and Thetis M. Group, and by her brother, Dr. Edward F. Group, Jr. Interment will be in Woodlawn Cemetery, Syracuse. Contributions in her honor and to her memory may be made to the Dr. Thetis Miller Group Charitable Trust, 7307 East Rose Lane, Scottsdale, AZ 85250.

Edited from the notice published Jan. 22 in the Syracuse (NY) Post Standard.

 

Tom Loveridge BA’79 MEd’81, who worked with the University of Utah’s administration for more than 30 years, died Feb. 6 during a routine surgery. He was 58.

Thomas John Loveridge was born Feb. 5, 1954. Shortly after serving an LDS mission to Japan, he married Dillece Bates and had his first four children: Dustin, Benjamin, Daniel, and Tracey. As a student at the U, he was elected to Phi Kappa Phi and Phi Beta Kappa. He later became a valued member of the U administration. In 1996, Tom met and married Elizabeth E. Rose. He and Liza had two children, Tommy and Josie. As a family, they loved traveling together, creating “adventures” to undiscovered places, setting up holiday decorations (especially Halloween and his scary village), skiing, and going to movies.

Tom also found joy in his rich hobby life. He loved flying radio-controlled electric airplanes with the Falcon Park Brotherhood. He also loved practicing and performing magic for parties, charities, and for his children’s schools. He always loved golf, reading historical biographies, and studying Ancient Greece.

Tom is survived by his wife Liza; his children, Dustin, Benjamin, Daniel, Tracey, Tommy, and Josie; his parents, Dick and LaRae Loveridge; siblings Karen, Lisa, Gary, and Bill; and 13 grandchildren.

Edited from the notice published in The Salt Lake Tribune from February 8 to February 9, 2012. 

Gazette: Campus News

February 28, 2012

David W. Pershing Named President of the University

David W. Pershing

David W. Pershing

On January 20, the State Board of Regents announced that David W. Pershing had been selected as the 15th president of the University of Utah, capping a seven-month national search.

Pershing, senior vice president of academic affairs at the U since 1998, joined the University as an assistant professor in chemical engineering in 1977. The 20-member presidential search committee, appointed last summer by the regents, picked him as one of two finalists on January 17 after several days of comprehensive interviews. Kumble R. Subbaswamy, provost at the University of Kentucky, was the other finalist.

The search committee—composed of regents, faculty and staff members, a student leader, and outside donors and advisors—had worked with a search firm and considered more than 80 potential candidates to fill the position following the departure of former president Michael K. Young in 2011. After months of soliciting public input through statewide public meetings and online submissions, the group narrowed the field to four individuals qualified to take the helm, but two withdrew their candidacy because they didn’t want their names to be made public.

“The support of U faculty, students, and staff, along with the statewide community as a whole, has been tremendous throughout this search process,” notes the search committee’s chair, Regent Nolan Karras.

The search committee faced a particular challenge in the hunt for a new leader. Several top universities—including the universities of Arizona, California-San Diego, and New Mexico, as well as Iowa State, Temple, and Rutgers universities—had also initiated national searches for top talent, and some of those who applied for the job at the U had also applied at other schools.

At the news conference announcing his appointment, Pershing indicated that improving undergraduate education would be one of his top priorities. He pledged to make sure the University encourages and assists those who seek a college education. “I want every well-prepared high school student to think about coming to the University of Utah,” he said. He pointed out that the U’s enrollment strategy would be undergoing a change (see “Faces of the Future”) and that the University of Utah would strive to help students graduate in a timely fashion.

Pershing received many honors during his prior academic and administrative career at the U. He was named a Presidential Young Investigator by the National Science Foundation in 1984 and became dean of the College of Engineering in 1987. He has more than 80 peer-reviewed publications, more than 20 research grants, and five patents to his credit. Pershing has won both the Distinguished Teaching and Distinguished Research awards and is the 1997 recipient of the Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence, the U’s highest honor. He was the director of the University of Utah’s Center for Simulation of Accidental Fires and Explosions, fueled by a $40 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. Pershing holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Purdue University and a doctorate in the same field from the University of Arizona.

Pershing will take office as president in March. His inauguration is slated for October. An in-depth profile of Pershing will appear in the Fall 2012 issue of Continuum.

Travel and Learn With an Expert from the U

Ever wanted to go on a truffle hunt? How about wine tastings or cooking lessons—in Italy? Now, a University faculty expert on all things Italian will lead the way when Continuing Education’s new Go Learn program offers its first trip May 5-15. Travelers will be guided on a custom tour through the heart of Italy, loaded with discoveries and learning.

After nearly a decade without a travel program for the community, the U is initiating Go Learn to once again engage participants in meaningful educational travel. The trips include both domestic and international destinations.

“I am really excited to have University experts lead trips and to reach out to the community in such a way that we truly connect campus to the rest of the valley and beyond,” says Christoph Dressler, the program’s director.

Go Learn is open to community members, friends, and alumni of the U who want to explore the world with the expertise of University faculty and academic leaders.

Find more information at www.golearn.utah.edu.

Momentum Builds With Together We Reach

James L. Sorenson Molecular Biotechnology Building

James L. Sorenson Molecular Biotechnology Building

In the fall of 2008, the University of Utah launched the public phase of Together We Reach: The Campaign for the University of Utah, with the ambitious goal of raising $1.2 billion through gifts to scholarships, research, new facilities, and program support. Despite the recession, the campaign has thrived, thanks to the overwhelming generosity of University alumni and friends.

Campaign donations have helped fund, from top, scholarships for U students, new facilities such as the Robert A. and Diane J. McDonald Lecture Hall in the Spencer Fox Eccles Business Building, and world-class research.

Early in 2012, the campaign realized its original goal, but there is much to accomplish before the campaign ends in late 2013. Since the campaign began, the University has more than doubled the number of new donors to a total of more than 103,000, meaning that more than 56,000 new donors have pledged their support to the U.

The success of the campaign to date has been overwhelmingly positive and has revitalized interest in the U’s threefold mission of teaching, research, and service. The campus has never looked more beautiful, the caliber of students and faculty has never been higher, and technological advancement from U labs continues to find its way to those who need it most.

“The success of the capital campaign has shown us just how much our alumni and friends care about the University and the vital contribution it makes to the state, the nation, and the world,” says newly appointed President David Pershing. “However, with nearly two years to go in the campaign, there is still much more we must do to make the University truly world-class.”

One of the goals the University is still pursuing in the campaign is enhancing the overall educational experience at the University, particularly for undergraduate students—including dramatically increasing funding for both merit and need-based scholarships. Other priorities include strengthening opportunities for students through the MUSE initiative, construction of the Student Life Center, and further promoting student innovation through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program. In addition, the U sees the extension of the campaign as an opportunity to completely fund building projects already under way, including the Spencer Fox Eccles Business Building, the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts and Education Complex, the Thatcher Chemistry Building, and the Crocker Science Center.

The University also has embraced other opportunities that have presented themselves since the campaign began, which include a new home for the law school, improved facilities for football and sports medicine, a center for international activities, a film and media arts center, a “net-zero” facility for the College of Architecture + Planning, and new student housing. Plans to grow support for U research and provide backing for arts, athletics, cultural services, and facilities are also in the mix.

For more information about the campaign, please visit togetherwereach.net.

Campus Notebook

University’s School of Business Opens Spencer Fox Eccles Business Building

Spencer Fox Eccles Business Building

Spencer Fox Eccles Business Building

The David Eccles School of Business cut the ribbon in early November 2011 on the Spencer Fox Eccles Business Building, the school’s new flagship educational facility.

The building has been named in honor of Spencer Fox “Spence” Eccles BS’56 (banking and finance), chairman emeritus of the Intermountain Region of Wells Fargo & Co., and former chair and CEO of First Security Corporation.

The building’s Phase 1 space was occupied by students and faculty in January of this year, and Phase 2 is slated for completion in May 2013. Included in both phases of the “green-friendly” facility is the latest in state-of-the-art wireless technology, podcasting, and video-conferencing capabilities.

University of Utah Gets $12 Million from Prestigious Federal Program

The University of Utah is launching a six-year effort to conduct basic research aimed at developing new materials for uses ranging from faster computers and communications devices to better microscopes and solar cells.

The new Center of Excellence in Materials Research and Innovation is being established and funded for six years by a $12 million grant from the National Science Foundation, $6.5 million for major equipment from the Utah Science Technology and Research initiative, and $3 million from the U. The new center involves more than two dozen researchers from seven departments in the College of Science, College of Engineering, and College of Mines and Earth Sciences.

Pioneer Theatre Company Names Azenberg as New Artistic Director

Pioneer Theatre Company has named Karen Azenberg as its new artistic director. She will become just the fourth artistic director in PTC’s 50-year history, and the first woman in the job.

Azenberg assumes duties in July from Charles Morey, who will have held the post for 28 years when he retires in June. Azenberg was previously a New York-based freelance theater director, but Utahns should already be familiar with her work: She has choreographed and/or directed such PTC productions as Next to Normal, Rent, and Miss Saigon.

Torti Leading U’s Honors College

Sylvia Torti

Sylvia Torti

Biologist and writer Sylvia Torti PhD’98 has been appointed dean of the University of Utah Honors College.

Torti joined the U faculty in 2003 as research assistant professor in biology and has been associate director of the University’s Rio Mesa Center, a research and education center located near Moab, Utah. Torti also has a parallel career as a literary writer, having so far published one novel, several short stories, and essays.

In addition to a doctorate in biology from the U, she holds a bachelor of arts degree from Earlham College. She did her graduate work in tropical biology in the Congo, Panama, Mexico, and Trinidad.


Middle East Center to Be Restructured, Two Interim Co-Directors Appointed

The U’s Middle East Center is embarking on a two-year restructuring program.

The process will be overseen by interim co-directors Kirk Jowers and Bob Goldberg, who have agreed to provide oversight for this period. Jowers heads the Hinckley Institute of Politics, and Goldberg leads the Tanner Humanities Center.

The Middle East Center’s former director, Bahman Baktiari, was fired in June 2011 following accusations of plagiarism. Under the restructuring plan, the Middle East Center will suspend its graduate program and eliminate joint faculty appointments. At the conclusion of this two-year interim period, a search for a new director will begin.

Ed Catmull to Speak at U Commencement

Ed Catmull

Ed Catmull

Ed Catmull BS’69 PhD’74, president and cofounder of Pixar Animation Studios, will deliver the University’s general commencement address on May 4.

Catmull contributed to the world of computer graphics while a student at the U, but his main goal was always to one day create a full-length feature film entirely generated by computer graphics. In 1995, Catmull achieved his goal and revolutionized the film industry with the Pixar motion picture Toy Story.

Catmull received bachelor of science degrees in physics and computer science as well as a doctorate in computer science from the University of Utah. Since producing Toy Story, Catmull’s Pixar has created dozens of short and feature-length animated films, such as Finding Nemo and many others.

 

In Memoriam

Chi-Bin Chien, 46, professor in the U’s Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy

John W. Ryan BA’51, Ph.D., 81, president emeritus of Indiana University and founding chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Boston, among many other higher education leadership positions

Ralph Thomson BA’62, 74, a longtime member of the U’s National Advisory Council and policy adviser to five presidential administrations

For more on these and other memoria, click here.

Association News

February 28, 2012

U Raises Record Amount In Annual Food Drive

U students who are members of The MUSS hold up cans of food during the annual Utah vs. BYU Food Drive. The U gathered 421,798 pounds of food.

The final tally from the Utah vs. BYU food drive is in! A remarkable total of 616,398 pounds of food and $153,792 in cash donations were raised for the Utah Food Bank and the United Way Food Bank of Utah County. Of the combined total, University of Utah organizers were responsible for 421,798 pounds of food and $108,045 in cash donations that went to the Utah Food Bank, an increase of 69,573 pounds and $15,011 in cash donations over the U’s 2010 record.

The generous donations came despite the lack of a rivalry football game with Brigham Young University this year during the time of the food drive; in past years, the rivalry game had helped spur donations. But the Student Alumni Board of the University of Utah Alumni Association, The MUSS Board, the Associated Students of the University of Utah, and volunteers worked with community members in November in a big effort to fight hunger in Utah.

The U food drive ran Nov. 12-25, with collection spots on campus, in local grocery stores, at the Utah Food Bank, and at Rice-Eccles Stadium when Utah played Colorado on November 25 during the last Pac-12 football game of the season. The results were unprecedented.

“The increase is directly attributable to the University of Utah community not being willing to let someone go hungry simply because there wasn’t a rivalry week football game,” says John Fackler BS’89 BS’94 MprA’95, the Alumni Association’s director of business and outreach. “We did a reality check in mid-October and realized that despite difficulties, we’d go back to the food drive basics: promoting school spirit, beating BYU, providing hope. That’s when members of the Alumni Association’s Community Service Committee, Student Alumni Board, and The MUSS Board redoubled their commitment to the cause.”

In addition to the food drive, efforts to raise hunger awareness took place all over campus during the month of November. The U’s College of Social Work challenged community members and faculty to take part in the Utah Food Stamp Challenge Nov. 8-14. Participants in the challenge experienced what it’s like to rely on a food stamp budget for a full week. More than 293,000 Utahns use food stamps to feed their families, and the average allowance they get is a daily budget of $4 per person—roughly $1.33 per meal.

The Lowell Bennion Community Service Center hosted its annual Hunger Banquet on November 22. Community members ate a dinner of soup and bread at the banquet, which focused on exploring hunger in Utah. Every day, 63,000 people in Utah eat dinner at a soup kitchen. Proceeds from the banquet went toward supporting the food drive.

“This year’s food drive is a great example of the ability of Utah alumni and students to come together and help the community, even without a big rivalry week game,” Fackler says.
“Some individuals and businesses made large individual donations of food and money, which are greatly appreciated. But the heart and soul of this effort were literally thousands of Utah supporters giving what they could. Students bringing cans to their schools. Shoppers donating to volunteers at grocery stores. And we received extremely generous donations from fans and tailgaters on game day.”

Five Honored With 2012 Founders Day Awards

The 2012 Founders Day Award recipients, from top, are Arthur L. Ruoff, Gary Crocker, Klea Blackhurst, J. Michael Mattson, and H. Roger Boyer.

Four outstanding graduates of the University of Utah and one honorary alumnus have been presented with the 2012 Founders Day awards.

Actress Klea Blackhurst BFA’85, businessman H. Roger Boyer BS’65, former U vice president J. Michael Mattsson BS’60, and scientist Arthur L. Ruoff PhD’55 received the Distinguished Alumnus/a Award at the University of Utah Alumni Association’s Founders Day Banquet on February 22. These awards are the highest honor the Alumni Association gives to U graduates, in recognition of their outstanding professional achievements and/or public service. Gary Crocker, a Utah entrepreneur, received an Honorary Alumnus Award, in recognition of his support of the University.

Blackhurst, who graduated from the U with a degree in theater, lives and works in New York and currently plays Shelby Cross on The Onion News Network. Her first big break was in Oil City Symphony at Circle in the Square Downtown. Since then, she has performed on both New York and London stages. Her homage to Ethel Merman, Everything the Traffic Will Allow, was met with critical acclaim when it opened in 2001 and was honored with the inaugural Special Achievement Award from Time Out New York magazine as well as the 2002 Manhattan Association of Cabaret and Clubs award for Best Female Vocalist.

Boyer is chairman and founder of The Boyer Company, which has developed commercial properties throughout the Intermountain West, including The Gateway shopping center in Salt Lake City and several buildings in the U’s Research Park. After graduating from the U, Boyer went on to obtain a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University. He was an executive with Terracor, a Salt Lake-based land and residential development company, until he founded The Boyer Company in 1972. He is a former chair of the Utah Division of Business and Economic Development Board and a former member of the University of Utah’s Board of Trustees.

Mattsson was the University of Utah’s vice president of development from 1985 to 2006. At the time of Mattsson’s retirement, former U President David Gardner said, “I can think of no other individual from the time I first knew Mike in 1973 to today who has had more influence on the University’s efforts to make friends and secure private funding.” Mattsson graduated from the U with a degree in political science in 1960. He became the director of development and communications for the University of Utah Medical Center in 1972. Under his leadership as the University’s first vice president for development, the U raised a then-unprecedented $1.7 billion.

Ruoff has had an influential and award-winning career in the field of materials science. He has been a professor at Cornell University since he graduated with his doctorate in chemistry from the University of Utah in 1955. Ruoff won the Westinghouse Award for Outstanding Teaching, wrote two influential books on materials science, and served as chair of the Department of Materials Science at Cornell from 1978 to 1988. His research has focused on the structural and electronic behavior of materials at extreme pressures. “His award-winning research has changed our fundamental understanding of how matter behaves under extreme conditions,” says Henry S. White, Distinguished Professor and chair of the U’s Chemistry Department.

Crocker is president of Crocker Ventures and chairman of Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, and has been honored as Entrepreneur of the Year for Utah by both Ernst & Young and the MountainWest Capital Network. He received both a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from Harvard University. He currently serves as chair of the University of Utah College of Science Advisory Board. And he is the lead donor in the renovation of the historic George Thomas Building (former home of the Natural History Museum of Utah), which will become the Crocker Science Center, a state-of-the-art center for scientific research and teaching for the College of Science.

U Alumni Help Mobilize Caucus Attendance

Lawmakers and citizens gather in the rotunda of the Utah State Capitol.

The University of Utah community is being called upon to support higher education in 2012 at the most fundamentally important and influential level of Utah politics—the delegate selection process.

Utah has a rather unique political nominating system: It is one of seven states that use a caucus/convention system as a method for bypassing primary elections. This means that Utah’s candidates for state and federal office often are chosen by delegates, not by voters in a primary election. How are these delegates chosen? By ordinary citizens who attend neighborhood caucus meetings one night of the year (even-numbered years only) in March. This year’s meetings are March 13 at 7 p.m. for Democrats and March 15 at 7 p.m. for Republicans.

Historically, only about 2 percent of Utahns have attended their caucus meetings, meaning the other 98 percent choose from the candidates that this sliver of the population has nominated. It’s important to become part of the process by selecting those who do the nominating—the delegates—or by becoming delegates. Without voices for higher education among the delegates, the higher education community is fighting an uphill battle for support at the Utah State Legislature. It’s not enough to try to influence what the decision makers are deciding. Utah residents need to influence who those decision makers are, and that begins with the delegate selection process at the precinct caucus meetings.

To help faculty, staff, students, and alumni learn more about how to become a delegate, a nonpartisan group called Education First conducted precinct caucus training sessions on the University of Utah campus and on other campuses across the state in February. The University of Utah Alumni Association helped mobilize people who had signed up to be political advocates for the U by getting the word out to them about the sessions. The purpose of these training sessions was to give people the basic tools and knowledge needed to attend their local meeting and be an effective voice. The training was a free service provided by the University of Utah and Education First. Alumni in other parts of the state were able to attend training sessions on other public-college campuses that were closer and more convenient for them.

One More: The Blitz Kids

February 27, 2012

Arnie Ferrin’s son and grandson tell the unlikely tale of the 1944 championship team.

The year was 1944, and the University of Utah’s Einar Nielsen Field House, which was to have been the home court for the men’s basketball team, had been requisitioned by the Army to serve as barracks for troops. All the team’s senior players had been drafted into the military. The only freshmen who were eligible for the team were premed, predental, or engineering students—who could all postpone military enlistment until after graduation—or those who couldn’t enlist because of health issues. Few colleges had teams, and wartime restrictions on gasoline and buses made it difficult to even schedule games.

Despite the stringencies, U Basketball Coach Vadal Peterson cobbled together an unlikely team with four freshmen as starters: Bob Lewis ex’47, Herb Wilkinson ex’46, Dick Smuin BS’50, and Arnie Ferrin BS’66 (who later returned to the U for his degree). A pre-med sophomore, Fred Sheffield BA’45, was the fifth starter. Wat Misaka BS’48, a talented player and a transfer student in engineering, was one of two Japanese Americans on the team, and he at first sat on the bench, although he later played a crucial role in the team’s success. The team’s tenacity and skill, combined with the unique circumstances of college athletics during World War II and a terrible accident for a top team in the nation, the University of Arkansas, led the Utes to the 1944 NCAA championship. The Utes beat Dartmouth, 42-40, in the first overtime game in NCAA Tournament history.

That story of March Madness in a different time has now been told by Ferrin’s son Tres Ferrin BS’71 and grandson Josh Ferrin BA’04 in a new book, Blitz Kids: The Cinderella Story of the 1944 University of Utah National Championship Basketball Team, published in February by Gibbs Smith. Arnie Ferrin went on to play professional basketball with the Minneapolis Lakers for three years, was general manager of the Utah Stars of the American Basketball Association, and eventually became the U’s athletics director, until his retirement in 1989. Josh and Tres Ferrin say they grew up hearing his recollections of that memorable 1944 team and decided they should be the ones to tell the story in its entirety.

“Luckily for us, most of the players are still around,” says Josh Ferrin. “We did hours and hours of phone calls and lots of research through old newspapers and archives to try to piece together the best tale we could find.”

The resulting book tells the story in narrative form. “We wanted this to read like a movie,” Josh Ferrin says. Indeed, the two authors sold the movie rights to the book before they picked a publisher. The movie is in preproduction, with a screenplay written and co-producers and distributors in place.

As for Arnie Ferrin, he’s pleased his son and grandson are the ones to tell the tale. “He has really enjoyed seeing it come full circle,” Josh Ferrin says.

 

Read more about the 1944 championship game and player Wat Misaka, who broke the color barrier in pro basketball, in the Spring 2010 Continuum feature “That’s Just How It Was.”

Web Exclusives
This 30-minute video shows highlights of the 1944 NCAA Championship game. The video clip has no audio. (Video courtesy Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah)

Photo Gallery:

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In Memoriam

February 20, 2012

WEB EXTRA~

Chi-Bin Chien, a professor in the University of Utah’s Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, died Dec. 2 after a long battle with cancer. He was 46.

Chien was born Nov. 3, 1965, in New Haven, Conn., the first child of Chih-Yung Chien and Chun-Wuei Su. Chi-Bin Chien was extraordinarily gifted academically, entering Johns Hopkins University at 12 years old, then completing a doctorate in biophysics at the California Institute of Technology, followed by postdoctoral training in neuroscience at University of California, San Diego, and the Max Planck Institute in Tübingen, Germany. At the U’s School of Medicine, his research focused on how the precise wiring of the nervous system is established. Now, at his passing, the international zebrafish research community has established The Chi-Bin Chien Award, to honor a select research trainee who demonstrates both the intellectual excellence and generosity of spirit that characterized Chien.

Though prodigiously accomplished, Chien’s demeanor was humble, his nature inclusive, his point-of-view invariably positive. He passed on to daughter Molly his unflagging optimism, his curiosity, and his excitement about the world. He also enjoyed making weekend breakfasts for his family, playing ultimate Frisbee, and filling his house with friends.

Chien is survived by his wife, Nicola Hack; daughter Molly Chang-Ling Chien; brother and sister Chi-Kai and Chi-An, and their spouses, Setsuko and Keith; father-in-law Kenneth; brother-in-law Roger and his wife, Jenny; sister-in-law Pip; and seven beloved nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his mother Chun-Wuei and mother-in-law Lee Hack, both victims of cancer. In lieu of gifts or flowers, the family requests that any contributions be made to an educational fund for Molly Chien at www.uesp.org. (Beneficiary: Molly Chien, Account # 200215526, Account holders: Chi-Bin Chien and Nicola Hack). Online condolences may be left at www.legacy.com.

Edited from a notice published in The Salt Lake Tribune from December 4 to December 5, 2011.

John W. Ryan BA’51, Ph.D., president emeritus of Indiana University and professor emeritus in its School of Public and Environmental Affairs, died Aug. 6. He was 81.

Ryan was born August 12, 1929, in Chicago, Ill., to Leonard John and Mary Maxine Mitchell Ryan. John Ryan received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah, then spent two years in Bangkok, Thailand, at Thammasat University as a research fellow with Indiana University’s Agency for International Development. Upon his return to Bloomington, he went on to complete both his master’s and doctoral degrees at Indiana University. Ryan began his professional career first as an instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before moving into university administration in various posts. His appointments and positions included secretary of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst; vice president of Arizona State University; founding chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Boston; regional campuses vice president for Indiana University; interim president of Florida Atlantic and the University of Maryland at Baltimore; two years in Washington, D.C., with the Agency for International Development; chancellor with the State University of New York Systems; and president of Indiana University from 1971 until 1987, a term exceeding the length of all but three of his predecessors.

Under his stewardship as the 14th president of Indiana University, he restructured the institution and transformed it into a multi-campus university that now serves every region of the state. Ryan held the titles of IU president emeritus and professor emeritus in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at the time of his death. He also was a member of the Board of Directors at the IU Foundation.

Ryan is survived by his wife of 62 years, D. Patricia Ryan of Bloomington; daughter Kathleen Elynne Ryan Acker of Bloomington; son Kevin Dennis Mitchell Ryan and his wife, Shirley, of South Lyon, Mich.; grandchildren Ryan Keith Acker of North Aurora, Ill., Monica Acker Futrell and her husband, Adam, of Mount Juliet, Tenn., Kristin M. Ryan of Toledo, Ohio, Kelly Ann Ryan of Mount Juliet, and Kyle Scott Ryan of Eugene, Ore.; sisters Patricia M. Hallagan of Bloomington, Maureen E. Avery of DelRay Beach, Fla., and Mary M. Haise of Louisville, Ky.; and many nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents, son Kerrick C. Ryan, brother Leonard E. Ryan, and sister Ellen T. Amlung. Memorial contributions may be made in Ryan’s memory to The John W. Ryan Fellowship Fund with the School of SPEA at Indiana University; Polish Studies at Indiana University; Hungarian Chair at Indiana University, all in care of the Indiana University Foundation, PO Box 500, Bloomington, IN 47408; the Sister Henrita Fund at Loyola High School, in Mankato, Minn.; or the IU Health Bloomington Hospital Home Health and Hospice Program. Online condolences may be sent to the family here.

Edited from a notice published in The Indianapolis Star on August 8, 2011.

Ralph Thomson BA’62, Ph.D., a longtime member of the University of Utah’s National Advisory Council, died December 23, 2011, after a long bout with liver disease. He was 74.

Thomson was born August 15, 1937, to Ralph Daniel Thomson and Ruth Watts Thomson. He spent most of his childhood in Salt Lake City’s Harvard-Yale neighborhood and the mountains of Kanosh, Utah, attending East High School and the University of Utah, where he served in student government and as a diplomat at the National Student Association. After serving an LDS mission in West Germany and marrying Julienne Allen, he obtained two master’s degrees and a doctorate in international affairs and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Tufts and Harvard Universities; dissertation advisor, Henry Kissinger). He was deeply involved in the Civil Rights movement at home and abroad.

In academe, Thomson directed Boston University’s Overseas Graduate Programs in Europe and taught at Heidelberg University, the Free Universities of Berlin and Brussels. In politics, he was a policy adviser to the Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush administrations, and to NATO, the United Nations Development Program, the World Bank/IFC, and the U.S. National Governors Association. Most recently, he served on the Obama Administration’s White House National Export Initiative. During a decade with then-Control Data Corporation, Thomson served as vice president for government and public affairs and as special assistant to his mentor, Control Data’s pioneering founder and chair/CEO, William Norris. As senior vice president for the American Electronics Association, Thomson established the first U.S. electronics industry representation offices in Brussels, Tokyo, and Beijing, in cooperation with Commerce Department Secretary Malcolm Baldridge. Thomson organized the first industrywide U.S. Electronics Summits and pioneered bilateral political/industry summits between U.S., Chinese, European, and Japanese technology and government leaders.

Thomson served on many industry, investment, and academic boards, including the California World Trade Commission; the National Advisory Councils of the University of Utah, Utah State University, and Utah Valley University; the Utah Technology Alliance under two governors (co-chair); the U.S. National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), composed of business/government leaders from 20 Pacific Rim nations (organizer/host); and the U.S. Advisory Committee on Telecommunications for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (chair). In 2007, Thomson accepted the Award for Corporate Excellence from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the U.S. Department of State for his leadership in African economic and social development. From 1988 until his passing, he served as chair/CEO of International Business Catalysts, a global firm devoted to funding, M&A, and strategic alliances.

Thomson is survived by his wife, Julienne; their children, Brook (Jenny), Kimball (Joei), Heidi (Mike Marshall), Tracy (Kevin Kiernan), and Preston (Hollie); 17 grandchildren; his sister Kristin (Grant Paulsen); and many nieces and nephews. He is preceded in death by his parents and his sister Susan (Steve Walker).

Edited from a notice posted at www.larkinmortuary.com.

Gazette

November 28, 2011

U Chemist Awarded National Medal of Science

Peter Stang with President Obama

President Barack Obama presents the National Medal of Science to University of Utah chemist Peter J. Stang on October 21, during a ceremony at the White House. / AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

University of Utah organic chemist Peter J. Stang has won a National Medal of Science–the highest U.S. honor for a scientist or engineer–and was honored by President Barack Obama during a ceremony at the White House on October 21.

“I am very humbled, honored, and pleased,” says Stang, a Distinguished Professor of chemistry and former dean of the University of Utah College of Science. “To date, I have had approximately 100 postdoctoral students and Ph.D. students whom I mentored, and this recognizes their work, too.”

Stang was among seven scientists honored with the Medal of Science and five inventors honored with a National Medal in Technology and Innovation. He was cited by the White House “for his creative contributions to the development of organic supramolecular chemistry and for his outstanding and unique record of public service.”

Stang has pioneered new methods in a field called supramolecular chemistry for the self-assembly of molecules–large molecules that mimic nature and build themselves from a mixture of pre-designed chemical building blocks.

“It’s like a Lego set with individual building units,” Stang says. “You can make complicated structures and systems.”

These molecules, created through what chemists call rational design, have many uses, from new drug-delivery vehicles against cancer to substances with promise as modern catalysts to speed chemical reactions in petroleum refining.

Stang received his undergraduate degree from DePaul University in 1963 and his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1966. He joined the University of Utah faculty in 1969 and became Distinguished Professor in 1992. He chaired the Department of Chemistry from 1989 to 1995, and served as dean of the College of Science from 1997 to 2007.

Watch a video of Peter Stang accepting the National Medal of Science at the White House,

U Community Weighs In On Presidential Search

University SealMeetings with University of Utah constituent groups were held in late summer and early fall to help define the criteria most important to consider in selecting the next University president. Search committee members (20 total) spoke with faculty, staff, students, alumni, and business-community representatives in meetings from Salt Lake City to St. George (where the U has a satellite campus for certain advanced programs).

Many people who attended the meetings talked about the need for a leader who is a good communicator. Keven Rowe BS’83 JD’86, president of the U’s Alumni Association and a search committee member, said during a meeting with alumni, “They want someone who can have a strong academic and community presence, someone who can reach out to the Legislature and the community and still be an academic leader.”

Dinesh Patel, chair of the USTAR Governing Authority and also a search committee member, told the alumni the U community’s expectations are high. “They want a superhuman,” he said. “Someone has to be academically stellar,” he added. “For me, personally, it’s an out-of-the-box thinker.”

A recurring theme was the importance of a new president’s ability to woo legislators without sacrificing the U’s integrity. Many urged the committee to select a president capable of communicating the University’s academic and economic impact while ensuring that the Legislature contributes appropriate funding for the U.

Numerous comments from the community suggested the new president should favor allowing guns on campus—and not surprisingly, a raft of comments recommended the opposite.

Comments from faculty and students in the Academic Senate ranged from wanting someone who would strongly support the U’s commitment to becoming carbon neutral by 2050 to seeking a fearless champion of the importance of the humanities in a university education. One faculty member stated, “The new president should be a ‘renaissance’ person in spirit who values all sides of the academic world—teaching and research, sciences and humanities; a diplomat who is firm in dealing with legislators.”

Finalists for the position are expected to be identified in early 2012.

New Life For an Old Building

Meldrum House, on the southeast corner of 1300 East and 200 South in Salt Lake City, will house actors and other artists visiting the University of Utah.

The historic but run-down building on the southeast corner of 1300 East and 200 South in Salt Lake City has been transformed during the past year from a neglected boarding house to “Meldrum House,” an attractive apartment building that visiting artists to the University of Utah campus will call home. Pioneer Theatre Company (PTC) and Cowboy Partners, which did the renovation work, purchased the building and spent the past year gutting the inside to create compact apartments from the original common-area spaces. Cowboy Partners retains ownership of the ground floor and will lease it as restaurant space. PTC owns the upper floors and has created one-bedroom living spaces for the professional actors, directors, designers, and musicians who come to Salt Lake City to participate in performances on campus. The rooms have high ceilings and big windows, and all have stovetops, refrigerators, and their own heating and air conditioning systems. The second floor has a laundry room and a gathering space for meetings and social events. During the academic year, the apartments will be used 80 percent of the time by PTC, with the remaining 20 percent for use by other campus entities. During the summer, that proportion will reverse.

Support Center Aims to Help Veterans at the U

Roger Perkins

Roger Perkins / Photo by Lawrence Boye

The University of Utah recently established a Veterans Support Center to help veterans transition into the sometimes unnerving world of civilian life. The center, located on the first floor of the Olpin Union Building, is under the direction of Roger L. Perkins.

Perkins notes that the center is set up to help with the myriad needs of any student navigating a large university system for the first time, in addition to the specific needs that may arise in the veteran population. “The center and our staff can help with anything from finding a tutor for that pesky organic chemistry class to helping find part-time employment, to arranging counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder,” Perkins says.

The center’s team is also working to help veterans with their educational benefits. Perkins and the staff advise students about how to apply for veterans benefits and where to go on campus for various services. They also act as advocates for student veterans should the need arise.

The Veterans Support Center falls under the auspices of Student Affairs at the University. Associate Vice President for Student Development Kari Ellingson says that the office’s creation was spurred by newly collected data on student veterans’ issues, coupled with establishing the National Center for Veterans Studies on campus and support from the Office of Budget and Planning.

David Rudd, dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Science and co-director of the veterans-studies center, explains there is a great need to provide support for this portion of the population at large. “After 10 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, large numbers of veterans will be making their way to college and university campuses around the country. In addition to navigating a somewhat complex Veterans Affairs benefit process, a student veteran service center will allow us to target additional needs across the full academic and social spectrum.”

The center’s opening comes at a critical time for U.S. veterans. A recent study by Rudd indicates that up to half of student veterans have contemplated suicide. Rudd’s study garnered national press coverage, including an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education (available at http://chronicle.com/article/Half-of-Student-Veterans-Have/128524).

 

Campus Notebook

Bryan Ritchie to Lead Technology Commercialization Office

Bryan Ritchie

Bryan Ritchie

The University of Utah has selected Bryan Ritchie to be the next director of the Technology Commercialization Office. The office manages the University’s intellectual property, which includes collecting invention disclosures, filing patents, licensing technologies, and fostering startup companies. Ritchie joins the U from James Madison College, a residential college that is part of Michigan State University, where he served as a professor of political economy with a focus on international relations. He also was director of the Michigan State Entrepreneur Network and co-director of the Michigan Center for Innovation and Economic Prosperity. He holds a doctorate in political economy from Emory University, a master of business administration from Brigham Young University, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

U Research Dollars Hold Steady, Not Counting Stimulus Money

The University of Utah collected nearly $411 million in research grants and related funding during the recently ended 2011 fiscal year. The total was down 8.8 percent from the previous fiscal year, due to an expected sharp drop in federal economic stimulus money. Not counting stimulus money, funding for research and related projects at the University remained flat at $368,489,250 in the 2011 fiscal year, a small increase over the 2010 fiscal year’s $368,142,468. From July 1, 2010, through June 30, 2011, the University was awarded $410,563,908 in research grants, contracts, and outside money. That was 8.8 percent below the $450,336,188 awarded during the 2010 fiscal year. Federal economic stimulus funding—provided by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009—fell to $42.1 million in the 2011 fiscal year, a decrease of about $40 million from the $82.2 million the U received in the 2010 fiscal year.

Former Middle East Center Head Files Lawsuit After Being Fired

Former University political scientist and head of the Middle East Center Bahman Bakhtiari was fired from the U in late June. Bakhtiari had been accused of failing to correctly cite passages used in materials submitted to the U when he applied for a tenured position, as well as plagiarizing other published materials. A faculty panel recommended suspension and a public reprimand, but that decision was overruled by Lorris Betz, the University’s interim president, who noted in his decision, “The only appropriate sanction in this case is dismissal, which is necessary to preserve the academic integrity of the institution and to restore public confidence in the University.” Bakhtiari responded by filing suit against Professor Peter Sluglett, the Middle East Center’s former director. The lawsuit alleges that senior faculty in the program—including Sluglett—conducted a smear campaign against Bakhtiari that resulted in his dismissal from the U. The case is pending in Third District Court.

Grant Provides Funding for Student Newspaper Digitization

Thanks to a grant from the Lawrence T. and Janet T. Dee Foundation, the J. Willard Marriott Library will be digitizing issues of The Daily Utah Chronicle from 1940 to 1994, making them freely accessible via the Web. The library’s Utah Digital Newspapers program is recognized as one of the leaders in newspaper digitization in the United States. Digitizing the Chronicle issues will make the history contained within them more accessible to students, faculty, staff, alumni, and other researchers. Visit http://digitalnewspapers.org to view the Utah Digital Newspapers archive.

Construction Begins on $22 Million Thatcher Biochemistry Building

Thatcher Building

An artist’s rendering shows the Thatcher Building for Biological and Biophysical Chemistry.

Ground breaking for the new $22 million Thatcher Building for Biological and Biophysical Chemistry was held September 22. Located adjacent to the southwest corner of the Henry Eyring Chemistry Building, the five-story, 41,000-square-foot structure will provide space for a complex of mass spectrometers to analyze chemicals, one floor for advanced undergraduate teaching laboratories, organic and biochemical synthesis labs, world-class imaging and spectroscopy equipment, and a new campus home for theoretical chemistry. The building is scheduled to open by spring 2013. The facility is named in honor of the Lawrence E. and Helen F. Thatcher family of Salt Lake City in recognition of their support in providing a lead gift to the project. The National Institutes of Health contributed $8 million toward the building’s construction.

Learning Center Will Develop Apps for Teaching Neuroscience

In September, the Genetic Science Learning Center in the Department of Human Genetics was awarded $1.33 million by the National Institutes of Health to create a neuroscience curriculum for middle and high school students designed for fast-growing classroom technologies such as interactive white boards and touch pads (e.g., the iPad and Xoom). The Neuroscience of Our Senses will employ multimedia
and touch interface to engage students in the anatomy, physiology, and function of the five senses. The lessons will incorporate research being conducted at the U’s Brain Institute, conveying the subject’s immediacy and relevance to human health. To be completed in 2016, the project will be presented in workshops to 850 secondary school teachers nationwide and will be available to the public as freely downloadable apps.

In Memoriam

Esther Fujimoto ex’91, 49, a University of Utah scientist who was on a team that helped discover a breast cancer gene

Billings Witbeck BS’57, 82, a longtime University of Utah manager in education administration

For more on these and other memoria, click here.