Enjoy the memories!

digitalcommons.uri.edu/yearbooks

URI Pharmacy Students and seniors from South Bay Retirement Living in South Kingstown, R.I. worked together and had a lot of fun producing their own video version of “Call Me Maybe,” a dance-pop tune by Carly Rae Jepson that was the best-selling single worldwide in 2012. (They also snuck in a little intro featuring “Gangnam Style” by South Korean musician PSY.)

The intergenerational music video was an idea that came from Chris Sheil, resident program manager at South Bay Retirement Living. She knew what she wanted to do, but also knew she would need some help pulling it off. She immediately thought of the URI College of Pharmacy students who are involved in clinical programs and intergenerational activities at South Bay with Clinical Assistant Professor Erica Estus. She knew the students enjoyed interacting with older adults and knew a thing or two about technology.

This video was choreographed by four pharmacy students who jumped at the opportunity: Monica Dougherty, Jenna Solomon, Chelsea Solomon, and Krystal Memmer. They did the choreography, filming, and editing. Michael Bly, also a pharmacy student, is the male star making his music video premier. Dottie Cusack, age 92, is the dancing queen. And to truly reach across the generations, there is also a cameo by 8-year-old Ryan Estus, making his first, but likely not his last, dancing appearance. The ages in this video span 90 years—from 8 to 98.

Estus says, “These older adults are full of energy and a ton of fun—they live each day to the fullest and have a lot more in common with the URI students than you might think. This project took several months to complete, but there were a lot of laughs along the way. And the performers were very good sports about the whole thing; they can’t wait for their next project! They are in talks with their choreographers at this moment.”

“The seniors are hoping the video will go viral,” says Estus, “but we did have to assure them that “viral” is not a bad thing.”

The following photos and obituary were collected and written by Pinderhughes’ daughter, Gayle E. Pinderhughes.

Denard James Pinderhughes Jr. was born June 14, 1913 in East Providence, R.I., the first of four children of Denard James Pinderhughes Sr. and Florence Tolliver Pinderhughes.

One of three Negro students in his class at Hope Street High School, as it was called then, “Jimmie” enjoyed physics and chemistry and lettered in basketball. His classmates described him as “dazzl[ing] both spectators and opponents with his speed on the basketball court” and “making all … laugh with his dry sense of humor.” From 1934 to 1937 he studied agriculture at Rhode Island State College, now the University of Rhode Island.

In 1938 he moved to Washington, D.C., where he met and married Rosa C. Thomas. After U.S. Army service in the Philippines during World War II, he returned to Washington to work for the U. S. Post Office. Daughters Dianne and Gayle were born in 1947 and 1948. By 1949 the family moved to the Bangor Street SE home where he and Rosa remained for the rest of their lives. In 1972 Jimmy retired from his position as a motor vehicles safety officer for the U.S. Post Office and began a second career as a buyer of supplies for Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church, advocating thrift, efficiency, and correct procedures in all matters.

Jimmy was a voracious reader from boyhood. He recalled reading science fiction novels with a flashlight under the bed covers at night. As an adult he channeled his love of learning in many directions, especially investing in the stock market. Fellow church member Doris Savoy, technical information specialist at the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission Library, recalled his visits there: “People loved him! He talked with everyone.… [he] came in as a stranger, but became friends with all the Library staff. … He was willing to find information and did his own research. He used to say the SEC Library ‘has some good stuff here.’”

Jimmy Pinderhughes was handy around the house, always preferring to do maintenance and painting himself. He enjoyed woodworking and found a friend and teacher in master cabinetmaker Charles Lowery, who lived nearby. Pinderhughes continued the interest in horticulture that led him to study agriculture in college by cultivating fruit trees on his uncle’s farm in Shady Side, Md., and red maple trees in his own backyard. Mature red maples now ornament many yards near his Bangor Street SE home.

Pinderhughes loved to share tips on personal finance and techniques for managing home and personal affairs with everyone he encountered. He was resourceful, honest, thrifty, witty, knowledgeable about many things, and a gentleman. He had a twinkle in his eyes and knew how to “hold on to a dollar till the eagle grinned.” He loved Big Band music of the 1930′s and 40′s; dancing; finding well-tailored suits in secondhand shops; and crafting salvaged wood into beautiful, useful furniture.

D. James Pinderhughes is remembered by his daughters Dianne M. Pinderhughes and Gayle E. Pinderhughes; sister Elizabeth P. Kinch; brother Lloyd A. Pinderhughes of East Providence, R.I.; sister-in-law Margaret Irving; and numerous nieces, nephews, cousins, neighbors, and friends. His wife of 70 years, Rosa Thomas Pinderhughes, died two months after he did; his brother Alfred L. Pinderhughes of Providence predeceased him in 2008.

From left: Frank, John, Rhody (of course), Jenna, Nancy, and Matthew.

“Bleeding Keany Blue” comes naturally to all five members of the Luca family, shown here posing with Rhody during Family Weekend 2012. Frank (far left) and Nancy (née Farrell, second from right), both ’83, didn’t know each other while here at college but met shortly afterwards through a mutual URI friend. They married in 1987 and had three children, all currently enrolled: (from left) John, class of ’13, majoring in landscape architecture; Jenna, class of ’14, majoring in human development and family studies, just as her mother did; and Matthew, class of  ’17, majoring in accounting.

“We hoped that our children would consider URI, but never dreamed they would all attend our alma mater,” says Frank, who majored in communication studies and now serves as regional director of One on One Basketball. “They grew up hearing and learning about URI, listening to our stories and what a great education we received there.” They also learned the URI fight song from Nancy, now a teacher assistant in the Smithfield School Department.

“We are both very proud to be URI graduates,” said Frank. “With all our children currently there—one in a dorm, one in a sorority, and one ‘down the line’—we visit frequently and always have URI on our minds. One fun fact is that Jenna joined Nancy’s sorority, which she never could have predicted. Both of my sons are playing many of the same intramural sports that I played.

“Through the years it’s been fun visiting our URI friends in their homes in Texas, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Connecticut: attending their weddings, experiencing the births of their children, and all of us raising our families together. Some of our best friends today are from relationships that we developed at URI.

“When Nancy and I recently attended Family Weekend, we could still feel the excitement of when we were students there. We know that we will always be part of URI.”

Special thanks to Laurence J. Sasso Jr. ’65, M.A. ’67, editor and publisher of Your Smithfield Magazine, and to Brittni Henderson, class of ’11, for conducting the original interview.

Pam and Ryan at their 2010 graduation from URI

College sweethearts Pamela Giron ’10 and Ryan Duffy ’10 have URI to thank for their upcoming nuptials.* The couple met in front of the Memorial Union in 2006 during the first week of freshman year. On July 23, 2012, six years after their initial encounter, Ryan popped the question in front of Pamela’s favorite lighthouse, located in the Castle Hill area of Newport, RI. Pamela and Ryan will be tying the knot on March 16, 2013, a day that not only solidifies their love, but one that falls only a day shy of their favorite holiday, St. Patrick’s Day. The wedding will be held at their hometown church, St. Mary’s in Cranston, RI, with a celebration to follow at Belle Mer, located only a stone’s throw away from the place of their engagement. The entire weekend, full of “I do’s” and leprechaun garb, will be shared by friends and family, and many URI alumni as well.

* Pam and Ryan were married on March 16, 2013. We hope to update ClassPics with a wedding announcement soon!

More ClassPics. Send us yours!

Ryan and Pam in Newport, 2012

As someone who lives so far away from Kingston and has not been to Rhode Island in a very long time, I always check the magazine for photos taken around campus. Might I suggest a regular feature … something like “Then and Now.” I know there has been development around Heathman Hall (my freshman year dorm), but hunger for photos, aerial and on-the-ground, of that quadrant of campus. What is going on with the housing (condos?) up near Fine Arts? Off the ground? Never took off? What does the new Hope dining hall look like, inside and out? What does a typical Barlow Hall (my sophomore and junior years dorm) room look like these days? What does a Butterfield Hall (senior year dorm) room (post “vertical suites”) look like?

Perhaps I’m missing such a regular feature online. If so, please direct me to it. This is the kind of QuadAngles reading that I am most interested in.

Catherine Becker Lanni ’75
Sewickley, Pa.

The editor responds:

What a great idea! We hope you enjoy the “New Digs Walking Tour” here in this issue. Recent past coverage includes “Green Design” (fall 2011) and “Working the Room” (fall 2010). You can view these stories and photos online at uri.edu/quadangles. Searching for “Move-In Day” will also yield slide shows of campus exteriors and interiors.

We hope to show more campus developments in the future. Thanks again for your suggestion.

Gigi Edwards
QuadAngles Editor-in-Chief
e: quadangles@uri.edu

If you are a seasoned professional asking yourself this important question, you are not alone. Research indicates as many as nine million people are in “second act” careers, and as URI alumni career advisors, we counsel many alumni about how to approach the search for “encore” opportunities. So, take a deep breath and give yourself credit for all you’ve accomplished—the skills you’ve developed, the information you’ve mastered, all that you’ve learned from the challenges of your professional life. All of these position you to contribute in a variety of ways in the workplace.

But without some guidance and a sensible approach, it’s easy to become overwhelmed during what can be an exciting journey of discovery. If “What’s next?” is a question that keeps you up at night, ask for guidance and try these steps as you begin your journey.

Create a database of your career experiences. This exercise will remind you of the experiences you really enjoyed.

Connect with people. Use linkedin.com and other networks to share your history and a hint of your vision. Let the conversation flow. Be open to feedback.

Research a variety of industries, companies, and organizations. Be curious and challenge yourself to discover new areas or ones you’ve never considered.

O*NET OnLine. Get the details on any job, role, or function! You’ll get the hang of O*Net very quickly. Place a job title or function in the search field, and enter into a world of occupational education. onetonline.org

ENCORE.org. This nonprofit organization has done a lot of research on encore careers. You will love the information and opportunities you find at encore.org.

Network. Once you begin considering desirable organizations and roles, it’s time to network. Create an elevator speech. Share some details. Ask a lot of questions.

Enjoy the journey. Once you push through being overwhelmed, “What’s next?” can be the beginning of an exciting journey. You may be surprised at what you discover and how much you enjoy the process.

Your sponsorship helps URI Students!

Available Sponsorship Levels for 2013

• Gold Sponsor: $2,500 for one complimentary foursome, sponsorship signage at lunch and dinner, signage in tournament golf carts, custom sponsorship pin flag, and a full page ad in our program.

• Silver Sponsor: $1,500 for one complimentary foursome, sponsorship signage at dinner, one premier sponsorship tee sign, custom sponsorship pin flag, and a half page ad in our program.

• Bronze Sponsor: $1,000 for one complimentary foursome, sponsorship signage at the luncheon, custom sponsorship pin flag, and a quarter page ad in our program.

• Beverage Sponsor: $500 for sponsorship signage at the beverage stops located at either the 6th or the 14th tee and a quarter page ad in our program.

• Premier Tee Sign Sponsor: $250 for premier sponsorship signage at one hole and quarter page ad in our program.

• Practice Facility Sign Sponsor: $100 for sponsorship signage at the putting green or driving range.

• Ad Sponsor: $50 for a quarter page ad, $75 for a half page ad, and $125 for a full page ad in our golf program.

• Raffle/Auction Item Donor: Opportunity to donate items that will be included in our raffle and/or silent auction.

They’ve been profiled in Family Circle and honored as “Health Heroes” by WebMD. But for Richard ’83 and Debra Siravo ’85, it’s all about the work they began a decade ago to improve the quality of life for children and families touched by epilepsy.

The Siravos, of Wakefield, R.I. created the Matthew Siravo Foundation to honor their youngest son, Matty, who was diagnosed with epilepsy as an infant and lost his life after a prolonged seizure at age five. “We wanted to take something horrific and turn it into something positive,” Debbie says. To date, The Matty Fund has raised $1.5 million for workshops, support groups, a therapeutic horseback riding camp, school  epilepsy awareness programs, and epilepsy research.

Community is important to these active URI alumni, who have deep Rhode Island roots. URI students volunteer regularly at Matty’s Place, a local special needs playground. Freshmen in URI 101 classes learn basic seizure first aid. Last fall, College of Pharmacy students and faculty presented a medication workshop for families living with epilepsy. Inspired by Matty’s special joy for life, the Siravos have built a community of support where there was none, changing lives and offering hope to the children and families they understand so well.

—Nicki Toler

The Matty Fund – In celebration of ten years from the Matty Fund on Vimeo.

Internet connectivity at the University of Rhode Island will soon become faster thanks to more than $3 million in grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and Department of Energy. Cox Communications has installed 44 miles of fiber optic cable connecting the Kingston campus, Narragansett Bay Campus, and $30 million Ocean State Higher Education Economic Development and Administrative Network. This network will provide high-speed access to all members and include links to the W. Alton Jones and Feinstein Providence campuses. URI’s Tyler Hall data center will serve as the communications hub for the entire southern portion of the state network. With greater bandwidth, URI can offer high definition video, crystal clear telephone connections, and advanced videoconferencing.

In his photography, an avocation for more than two decades, Harsh seeks out sacred places in a quest to understand the boundaries and intersections of the world’s religions. Besides his native India, his photos examine the spiritual traditions of Nepal, Morocco, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Japan, Thailand, China, and Bhutan, among others. The powerful images revealed in his work answer the question he continues to ask: “With or without the labels, what is our common humanity?”

Traveling to India? International Alumni Ambassador Harsh Lohit invites you to contact him at harshlohit@gmail.com.

The sky belongs to everyone, says Kim. She should know. As media coordinator for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, she’s been working in science outreach for the last 15 years at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass. Now Kim and her colleague Megan Watzke have penned a guidebook that demystifies supernovas and black holes, makes the exploration of our solar system accessible, and dazzles us with photos of must-see stops along the way. Your Ticket to the Universe: A Guide to Exploring the Cosmos, published by Smithsonian Books, is just the ticket for the ride of your life.

URI junior center fielder Jeff Roy was selected as a Preseason All-American by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association in December. Roy is the first Ram ever to earn preseason All-America honors and is one of just 10 outfielders across the nation to earn the 2013 preseason distinction.

The reigning Atlantic 10 Player of the Year, Roy also was picked as the 63rd best player in the country by College Baseball Daily in early January. Roy finished his sophomore season ranked either first or second on the team—and was among the conference leaders—in every offensive category. He recorded a team-best 84 hits and 59 runs while leading the league with a .421 average in A-10 games (40-95). He also reached base in a conference best 41 consecutive games, in addition to leading the Rams with a .487 slugging percentage and a .443 on-base percentage.

The Cranston, R.I. native also was named to the NEIBA All-New England and ECAC Division I All-Star Teams and was an honorable mention on College Baseball Insider’s All-America Team.

Roy carried his success into the summer, when he was a First Team All-Star and top prospect in the New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL). Playing for the North Adams SteepleCats, he led his team in hits (48), runs (40), doubles (11), triples (3), and stolen bases (24), while becoming the first player in NECBL history to steal more than 20 bases and hit 10-or-more doubles in a single season.

Freshman Ellie Bailes was named to the Atlantic 10 Women’s Soccer All-Rookie Team in October.

The midfielder from Maidstone, England started all 18 games she played for the Rams. She ended the year with a total of 10 points (five goals), including two game winners. Bailes was named A-10 Co-Rookie of the Week for her two-goal performance against Temple in an overtime 2-1 victory on Oct. 12. She also had the game-winning goal against Stony Brook in a 3-2 win on Aug. 17.

A native of Reseda, Calif., Barrientos was one of 28 women picked to train with the team in January.

“This is an outstanding opportunity for Jenni, and we are excited for her,” URI head coach Michael Needham ’96 said of Barrientos, whose Guatemalan parentage gives her dual citizenship. “The chance to train and compete for a roster spot with your native country is not something that everyone gets, and we wish her the best of luck. She had an excellent season for us this year. This training camp, and the work we are doing in our own program, will ensure that she is ready for another great year as a senior next fall.”

Barrientos finished the 2012 season as URI’s leader in points with 15 (4 goals, 7 assists). She played in all 20 games for the Rams, starting 19 times. For her career, she has played 57 games and has five goals and 10 assists.

URI finished the season with an 11-8-1 record, 4-5-0 in the Atlantic 10. It was the team’s best finish since the 2007 season.

As chair of the USATF Cross Country Council, Scott will oversee all aspects of the U.S. national cross country program, including national teams, national coaching staff selections, national and regional championships, and development programs. He will also serve on USATF’s Long Distance Running Executive Committee.

“I am deeply honored to have been recognized by my peers for my contributions to the sport of cross country running,” Scott said. “I feel both humbled and privileged to have been elected for a third time to lead our nation’s cross country program. I look forward to addressing several new challenges facing the sport.”

Scott will also serve as the chair for the 2013-16 Olympiad.

Additionally, he was presented with the Cross Country Council Award of Merit. Previously, he received the 2001 USATF President’s Award, as well as the1998 Doris Brown Heritage Award for contributions to women’s cross country.

Named to the team for the second year in a row, Elliott was one of 27 players on the Division I District I team, joining players from Albany, Brown, Colgate, Cornell, Dartmouth, Fordham, Harvard, Holy Cross, Maine, Marist, New Hampshire, Syracuse, and the U.S. Military Academy. To be eligible for the team, student-athletes must carry a 3.3 or better grade point average, be a starter or key reserve, and be at least a sophomore in academic standing.

The Cresskill, N.J., native finished his career making 32 consecutive starts as right guard for the Rams, dating back to his sophomore season. He came to URI as a quarterback, then played defensive end before making the switch from defense to offense early in 2010.

Elliott has excelled in the classroom since his arrival on campus. He finished his degree in finance in the spring of 2012, graduating as the University’s top senior finance student with a 3.63 grade point average, earning the University Excellence Award in Finance in the process.

He returned for his final season as a communications student, and has a cumulative grade point average of 3.57. While at URI, Elliott has been inducted into the international honor society Beta Gamma Sigma as a junior. He also is a three-time CAA Football Academic All-Conference Team member.

The Capital One Academic All-District program recognizes the nation’s top student-athletes for their combined performances athletically and in the classroom. As a first-team selection, Elliott is eligible for the Academic All-America Team ballot.

Upon hearing that URI has a Quidditch team, one might wonder how Muggles play a magical sport that, along with Harry Potter, sprang from the imagination of author J. K. Rowling. This full-contact sport combines rugby, dodgeball, and tag to create a sweat-inducing workout, with students running on brooms instead of flying on them. A player dressed in bright yellow, with a tennis ball in a sock tucked into his or her waistband, serves as the elusive golden Snitch. The human Snitch is free to run and hide on the open space of the URI quadrangle and surrounding buildings.

Quidditch has truly leapt off the pages of the Harry Potter books, developing quite a following in the Muggle (non-magical) world since 2005, when it started at Middlebury College in Vermont. The International Quidditch Association lists hundreds of teams worldwide. In its third year, URI’s co-ed Quidditch team is the brainchild of student Zara Collier, of Narragansett, and several friends. Collier said the team has grown from seven members the first year to 20 last year to 35 this year. URI’s team was instrumental in bringing the 2012 Northeast Regional Quidditch Tournament to the Ocean State in November.

During practices and games at URI, passersby on the quad spot the elevated ring-shaped goals, three on each side of the pitch, or field, and stop to watch. There are the brooms, of course, which each player is required to carry between his or her legs as if defying gravity. Brooms range from what look like Harry Potter’s own Nimbus 2000 to green plastic household models. With seven players on each team, the play is fast-paced as students try to avoid being hit by Bludgers (dodgeballs) while carrying the Quaffle (a deflated volleyball) and scoring.

Collier, who is majoring in math, computer science, and anthropology, reports that even though the competition is fierce, players on opposing teams are nice to each other, helping each other up when they fall. She relishes the lighthearted moments, such as when a dance party breaks out or onlookers burst into applause when the Snitch is caught, ending the game. The players high-five and hug each other easily and often; laughter frequently rings out during practice.

“We’re the generation that grew up with Harry Potter,” said Collier as she watched team members run through drills. “I’m really proud and honored to be part of Quidditch and the Quidditch community at URI.”

Editor’s Note, delivered in a British accent: While it is not this magazine’s policy to capitalize names of sports, players’ positions, or sporting equipment, the foregoing article does so in deference to the style set by Rowling and her publisher, Scholastic Books.

McCann recently cracked the Women’s Professional Soccer League-Elite, the top women’s league in the country, officiating a contest between the Boston Breakers and the Western New York Flash. “I was shocked to be selected as a referee for that match,” she said. In the match, she served as one of the two assistant referees who run the sidelines in support of the center (lead) referee.

Her love of the game began with the Cumberland Youth Soccer Association, where her first coach noticed she was always at the fields and asked if she wanted to be a referee. She worked three kids’ games a day on weekends and made $7 for each contest.

“Most people are afraid to be a referee because players and fans yell at them. But I liked being a leader, and I always had a thick skin. Plus, as a 12-year-old, I liked the money,” McCann said.

In high school, she called games in the Massachusetts Premier League and the Rhode Island Super Liga, worked the Olympic Development Program’s Ryder Cup in New Jersey, and was assigned the U.S. Youth Soccer Under 17 championships in West Virginia. After high school she was the youngest attendee and one of only six girls to attend the Pro Clinic as part of the U.S. Soccer Training Seminar, which opened the door to her first men’s Premier Development League game.

Last summer, she attended the U.S. Development Academy Showcase, the highest level of youth soccer in the country. While at URI, she’s officiating Rhode Island high school girls’ soccer and is assigned to the U.S.A. Men’s Amateur League in Rhode Island.

Right now, McCann is a Grade 6 referee, and FIFA requires Grade 1 status. If she reaches the top level, she would be eligible to referee top pro and international matches. But that’s an achievement nowhere past McCann’s fighting spirit.

Anthony Pesare

Middletown Police Chief Anthony Pesare, M.P.A. ’83, received the 2012 Robert M. Goodrich Distinguished Public Service Award for his many years of service to Rhode Island’s law enforcement community. His career began in 1974 with the Rhode Island State Police, with whom he served for 24 years in five barracks throughout the state. Between 1998 and 2004, when he joined the Middletown Police Department, Pesare served as dean of the School of Justice Studies and associate professor of criminal justice at Roger Williams University. During his tenure in Middletown, he has instituted a community policing program, worked to realign the law enforcement duties in the residential areas of Naval Station Newport, and revamped the department’s communications with the public. He has also worked to reorganize training policies and procedures for the department, making it eligible to seek accreditation through the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, “the gold standard in public safety.”

Sharon Reynolds Ferland

House Fiscal Advisor Sharon Reynolds Ferland, M.P.A. ’95, received the Gary S. Sasse Distinguished Service Award. A native Rhode Islander, Ferland has worked for the Fiscal Advisory Staff to the Rhode Island House of Representatives since 1997, first as a budget analyst, then as deputy house fiscal advisor. In December 2009, she was appointed to her current post. During her tenure at the House Fiscal Office, she has worked extensively and become an expert on such complex issues as education funding, pension reform, and restructuring the state’s personal income tax system. In 2009, Ferland received a National Association of Legislative Fiscal Offices Achievement Award from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

More than 20 College of Business faculty members have spent the past two years reviewing the curriculum, surveying national and regional employers, studying market trends, and talking to students and alumni in order to make the traditional M.B.A. more relevant in today’s marketplace. They developed a curriculum focused on managing, designing, and implementing strategic innovation, making the program one-of-a-kind, both academically and structurally.

Al Verrechia

While a traditional M.B.A. learning model has students taking five or six concurrent courses in distinct functional areas taught by faculty specialists, URI’s new curriculum emphasizes critical thinking, evidence-based decision making, and interpersonal communication across all functional areas of a modern corporation. Using a continuous improvement framework and team teaching, each intensive two-week module is built upon the module that precedes it.

“Our new approach demonstrates to students that strategic decision making is not sequential, but rather interdisciplinary across all areas of a business. Disruptive innovation in business is becoming the rule, not the exception, and this new program will ensure our students can thrive and compete,” Higgins said.

M.B.A. students will also engage in a “live case” with Hasbro executives, giving them a real-life context in which to apply their coursework; and they’ll work as teams in a “business laboratory setting” with established Rhode Island organizations or start-ups, helping develop a new process, practice, or product.

Al Verrechia ’67, M.B.A. ’72, chairman of the Hasbro Inc. board of directors, said, “Employers have high expectations for M.B.A. graduates, and URI’s new M.B.A. offers a competitive advantage. It will prepare them to use critical thinking and analytical skills on the job while applying practical, real world knowledge to confront the challenges businesses are facing on a global level.”

Betaspring, a start-up accelerator program for technology and design entrepreneurs who are ready to build a product and launch a company, will provide leadership and a mix of entrepreneur-centric activities, educational programming, and networking events. The League’s workspace, programming, and support community will be based at the Betaspring headquarters in Providence.

“Many positive things have happened in the start-up community over the last few years,” says Betaspring Managing Partner and Co-founder Allan Tear. “It’s great now to build on that momentum and apply what we have learned to help a broader community of founders and entrepreneurs in Rhode Island.”

URI President David M. Dooley calls the initiative “an effective strategy to keep and attract top talent to Rhode Island. When they find a welcoming community, strong support system and climate, they will say, ‘Rhode Island. Providence. That’s the place to be.’ This is exactly the kind of activity emphasized during my discussions at the White House” in September, he added—“strategies that are strongly supported by the federal government.”

See “Start-up To Success” for the story of a multimillion-dollar global company that began with major input from URI research and expertise.

In front of their newly built home, left to right: Elijah, Jason, Jason Jr., and Cora Stone, with the Rev. Lynn Baker-Dooley and President David M. Dooley.

The University of Rhode Island celebrated three major ribbon-cutting events this academic year. Each of the buildings not only reflects the University’s mission, but also tells an important story about our community.

President David M. Dooley, holding scissors, surrounded by URI students, administrators, and friends at the opening of the new pharmacy building.

The College of Pharmacy’s new, 144,000-square-foot structure provides an outstanding platform for preparing generations of students to contribute to their communities, the nation, and the world. Its state-of-the-art facilities will foster important cutting-edge research, improving the health and lives of countless people across the globe, and creating new knowledge, intellectual property, and products to stimulate sustained economic development. This building represents a major investment in the University by the government and people of Rhode Island who in 2006 approved $65 million in general obligation bonds to finance the construction. Generous alumni and corporate donors endowed special teaching and training facilities within the building. In every way, this building is about community—the support of the people of Rhode Island, the dedication of all those members of the University community who worked to make it become a reality, and the College of Pharmacy students, faculty, and staff dedicated to making a difference.

The opening of Hillside Hall, the largest and most energy-efficient residence hall on campus, was also a major celebration. Now home to 429 students, many from outside the U.S., this striking facility is a model, providing 24/7 multidisciplinary and global learning opportunities in a comfortable, “green” setting. It exemplifies the kind of vibrant campus community life the University wants for all its students.

The URI community and its partners gathered for another special celebration this fall at the dedication of the first Habitat for Humanity house on the Old North Road site close to campus. The completion of this house, the first in a four-unit complex, was the outcome of an inspirational partnership among South County Habitat for Humanity, the town of South Kingstown, the University, its student Habitat chapter, energetic and committed URI alumni volunteers, and many of our student-athletes and sorority and fraternity members who devoted themselves to fundraising and construction. As a direct result of this extraordinary collaboration, the Stone family has their first home.

The completion of each of these building projects is definitely worth celebrating. But what should make all of us at URI just as proud are the generous efforts of so many in our community who have worked, and continue to work together, to make them possible. Thank you to all.

To learn more about URI’s newest buildings, see “A Walking Tour of URI’s New Digs.” To learn more about the Habitat project, visit uri.edu/habitat.

Marc Upshaw, back row second from left, and Sam Mitchell, back row far right, with winners of SaMarc Foundation trophies.

When Marc Upshaw ’84 and Sam Mitchell were teenage basketball players in Columbus, Ga., running the high school hardwood in winter and sweating on steamy playgrounds in summer, they dreamed big.

And one day they made a pact. If each became successful, they’d return to Columbus someday and do something good for the community, to share their success.

Consider that a promise fulfilled. For eight years, Upshaw and Mitchell, a former NBA player and coach, have run the SaMarc Dream and Achieve Foundation, offering basketball and education programs at an annual summer camp held at Columbus State University.

Besides playing basketball, the youngsters who attend the camp also visit learning centers, apply for college scholarships, and take field trips to places like New York City, Washington, D.C., and the Bahamas. There is no tuition fee.

“Basketball is the carrot,” Upshaw said by telephone. “Let’s face it. If we ran a science camp, we wouldn’t get many kids. But basketball is one component. It’s about a lot more than basketball.”

By any measure outside professional sports, Upshaw is a success. His day job is as founder and CEO of Global Diagnostic Services, Inc., which specializes in performing on-site diagnostic testing, X-rays, and medical staffing, primarily for correctional institutions. When he visits prisons, Upshaw meets inmates with third grade educations and dead-end futures outside the penitentiary walls.

“The line between making it and not making it is so thin,” he said. “And the key to me is education. I was so fortunate to be able to earn a college degree, and it’s been a blessing. That is something we emphasize at the camp. I thought we’d see an impact after seven or eight years, but we saw an impact in the first two years. We’re giving kids opportunities.”

He cites examples: A boy fulfilled a dream by getting to tour inside the White House. A trip to the NASA Space Center in Huntsville, Ala., inspired another boy to dream of life as an astronaut. And a foundation scholarship has funded the final classes toward a nursing degree at Columbus State for a young woman who left college early because of pregnancy.

In addition to basketball and cultural experiences, the camp also focuses on comportment. Kids learn how to dress in a professional setting, how to prepare for interviews, and other life skills. “These are things they will have to know how to do,” Upshaw said. “These are skills that go beyond sports.”

When SaMarc’s founders were young, Upshaw was the basketball star. Mitchell, two years his junior, was his tall buddy who’d yet to fill out his lanky frame. Upshaw took Mitchell under his wing as a de facto little brother. “I was the star at the time,” Upshaw said. “But Sam’s the one who made it to the NBA. I didn’t. Things can end up differently than you expect.”

Upshaw’s own life certainly defied expectations. While he was in high school, his cousin, Claude English ’72, who was then assistant basketball coach for URI, talked him into visiting the campus. Upshaw bonded with fellow recruit Roland Houston ’82, still a good friend. Turning down the University of Georgia, Upshaw decided to spend his four college playing years at URI.

At the time, URI was a burgeoning New England power coached by Jack Kraft, Hon. ’78, and later English. Upshaw was an athletic forward, standing six feet, six inches. But in a game at the Providence Civic Center, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. He returned for his senior year but never quite regained the speed and cutting ability that had driven his game.

“Now, 30 years later, they could do a lot more to fix the knee than they could then,” he says. “They didn’t have the same surgeries that they have now.” When he injured his right knee in an Atlanta Hawks summer camp shortly after graduation, he realized he needed to find another way to make a living.

He bounced around, sold sporting goods, and switched to insurance sales. He built his own agency in North Carolina, but moved it to Atlanta, where he and his wife, Debra, were comfortable. The late 1980s recession decimated the business, leading Upshaw to diagram a new play.

“The medical services field seemed recession-proof,” he said. “But I had never taken a medical course in high school or in college.”

Undaunted, Upshaw knocked on doors. He knew sales and, more importantly, knew how to sell himself. He talked his way into a medical company that needed a salesman. He soaked up all the learning he could before becoming his own boss in 1994, when he founded Global Diagnostics with the mission to bring the medical testing equipment to prisoners rather than the other way around.

“And visiting the prisons was part of the incentive for us to start the foundation,” he says.

Upshaw meets plenty of youngsters convinced they are the next LeBron or Kobe. He tries not to douse their dreams, but he also filters in some reality. “It’s the contrast with me and with Sam,” he says. “People thought I would be the one. But Sam ended up playing 13 years in the NBA and was Coach of the Year (2007 with the Toronto Raptors). I had to find success in another way.”

Mitchell, now a sports talk show host and NBA network commentator, still attributes his own success to Upshaw. “Marc showed me the example of hard work and gave me a lot of encouragement,” he says. “Without Marc, I wouldn’t have made it to the NBA. All these years later, I am sure of that.”

Upshaw and his wife Debra are the parents of daughters Diamonn Nicole, 22, and Tyler, 20. Upshaw also has a son from an earlier relationship, John Cruz ’03, who worked as a coordinator in the URI Talent Development program. “I have been given so many blessings from God,” Upshaw says.

He last visited URI about eight years ago, he says, and still has warm feelings for the University. His NBA dream that began in Columbus had to fade when he blew out his knee as a Ram star. But other dreams took root in Kingston. He remembers arriving on campus and settling in to his dorm room, amazed at how far he had traveled, to a situation his parents never could have paid for.

“What Sam and I most have in common isn’t basketball,” Upshaw says now. “It’s that we both earned college degrees. That’s a point we emphasize,” in the SaMarc camp.

For his part, Mitchell still looks up to his mentor. “When we first started the foundation, Marc told me that we would get more out of it than many of the kids,” Mitchell says. “I didn’t understand what he meant at first. But after eight years, now I do. Now I certainly do.”

—Jim Gillis ’81

Spring is in the air, and that means it’s time to break out a flirty skirt or dapper tie. It’s also time to celebrate the fashion trend setters among URI graduates—those who share a passion for fancy duds and all the fun that goes with them.

Some found their calling later in life; others made a bold career switch. Many graduated from the University’s textiles, fashion merchandising, and design program (TMD). So take a seat at the catwalk and enjoy the show. The only price of admission is a round of applause.

Stephanie Kolanko
Most of us bought our Halloween costumes at big box stores. Not Stephanie Kolanko ’11. Her mother whipped up disguises that were the envy of neighbors. In no time, a teenage Kolanko was making her own clothes, including a mini-skirt that convinced her to pursue a career in fashion design: “Something just clicked, and I knew.”

At URI, she honed her design skills and went abroad twice to study high fashion in Paris. Not long after graduation, she made a splash with 19 outfits, or looks, at “Style Week Northeast,” a thriving regional fashion event that showcases new talent.

Home is North Smithfield, which suits her fine. The expansive dining-room table is where she sews clothes that she describes as breezy bohemian paired with rocker chic, already on sale in stores like Luniac Glamour in East Greenwich and Krazy Daisy in her hometown. “I’m off to a great start,” says Kolanko. “You really just have to go for it. You can’t be too scared. You have to dream big and make it happen.”

Amanda Miller
What is Amanda Miller ’08 writing in her journal on Celebrity Apprentice, the hit reality show hosted by real estate magnate Donald Trump? “Just jotting notes,” says Miller, with a chuckle. Do tell! Anyone who watches the program will know that Miller is Trump’s diligent and discreet receptionist. Off-air, she holds the prestigious job of vice president of marketing for the Trump Organization, handling real estate and golf interests. She also does marketing for daughter Ivanka Trump’s line of clothes, shoes, handbags, sunglasses, and perfume.

As a TMD student, Miller concentrated in marketing. Plus, she realized in a sewing class that she could barely thread a needle. She met The Donald and his family while working as a 15-year-old waitress at his golf course in Westchester, N.Y., and was hired by the company a mere two weeks after graduation.

Celebrity Apprentice isn’t her only gig. She garnered national attention as a tour guide on Trump’s lavish private jet. The video of an “inside look at traveling Trump-style” on the gold-plated 757 is a YouTube sensation. “I couldn’t be luckier than to work here,” Miller says. “We have such great people at the Trump Organization. I have terrific bosses who are an inspiration for a young businesswoman.”

Gayla Bentley
Take a woman with curves and put her in a Blue Boyfriend Blouse and what do you get? A knock-your-socks-off look created by alum Gayla Bentley, a Houston designer who specializes in clothes for “modern’’ women of all sizes. She made her national TV debut three years ago on the ABC reality show Shark Tank and also made headlines in O, the Oprah Magazine, People, and Glamour.

Raised in Westerly, Bentley studied communications and theater at URI in the mid-1970s and moved to Texas, where she found work as a fashion director at Saks Fifth Avenue. After a brief sojourn in Paris, she realized there was a dearth of clothes for women sizes 12 and up. What’s her secret to stylish clothes? “They have to feel good, fit well, and move freely,’’ she says. A nice sash helps too.

With her eye on new opportunities, Bentley is in the process of selling her company, but will remain as head designer. One day, you might see her on the home-shopping network QVC or dishing out design tips on her own show. Hollywood producers have already come knocking.

Sharon Ruggieri
What woman hasn’t had an “oops” moment at that time of month? The world’s really gone wrong when it happens on a white-pants day in the middle of a business meeting. Take heart, ladies. Now available: undies that are reinforced, but still sexy. Sharon Ruggieri ’07 (far right in photo) and her business partner, Julie Sygiel (center), a Brown University graduate, are the brains behind Dear Kate, underwear that uses a patent-pending lining to protect women from life’s little surprises. The intimates have also caught on with athletes, pregnant women, and one woman visiting the White House. (For details, see the company’s blog at dearkates.com.)

How did Ruggieri, a mechanical engineering and Spanish major from Cranston, end up selling panties? After college, she received a Fulbright in Mexico to work in banking and then got her M.B.A. from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. At a networking event for start-ups in Providence, she hit it off with Sygiel, the original creator of the fashion-meets-function underwear.

No one is more surprised than Ruggieri by her new venture. “It blows my mind where we’re going,” she says. “The response has been incredible. I went from physics, to engineering, to manufacturing, to finance, to nonprofits, and now to lingerie. I’ve taken advantage of every opportunity presented to me.” She hasn’t forgotten URI on her way to stardom. Alummi who order online get a $10 discount. Just use the code, urialum, at checkout.

Stephanie Taylor
Who’s the source of those couture pumps and jersey dresses worn by rising talk show star Wendy Williams? Usually, celebrity designers like Manolo Blahnik and Norma Kamali; but the wardrobe assistant who procures their creations for Williams is Stephanie Taylor ’07 (above right). Landing that coveted job took hard work, talent, and an underrated quality in today’s workforce: a positive attitude.

Growing up in West Hartford, Taylor knew early on that she wanted to study fashion. Her first choice was URI and its “little known but wonderful” TMD department, she says. After excelling in college, she worked at Nordstrom and then left for the Big Apple, where she found a part-time job in a boutique while holding down two unpaid internships, one of them with the TV crime series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. She joined Fox’s The Wendy Williams Show in 2010 after submitting her résumé “blindly,” she recalls. Now she shops for Williams and also gently persuades designers to send the host clothes to wear on the show.

Her advice to new graduates trying to break into fashion? “Hard work pays off, in your education and professional life,” she says. “If you have a good attitude people will recognize that. Personality counts.” Buy wisely too. She’s BFF with her three-year-old black suede Nine West boots with no-nonsense two-inch heels. “Just a simple bootie.”

Judith Verrier
The mother-daughter relationship can be fraught with peril. Mother: Your skirt is too short. Daughter: My skirt is too long. It’s time to pop the cork when the relationship is solid—and toast when it thrives, in a business, no less. Judith (Delahunt) Verrier ’72 and her daughter, Ashleigh, are the happily paired creative force behind Verrier Boutique, a New York online fashion company that offers whimsical women’s clothing worn by singers Taylor Swift and Jessica Simpson and actors Zooey Deschanel and Jennifer Love Hewitt.

“Jude” studied child development at URI, but also took textile classes and still has her TMD-issued booklet on fabric content and stain removal. After college, she earned her master’s in special education at San Francisco State University and taught students with learning differences before enrolling in a doctoral program at the University of California, Berkeley.

She switched paths in 2004 when Ashleigh graduated from Parsons School of Design, which honored her as Designer of the Year. The duo promptly created a fashion label. After a few years exclusively in Japan, they opened their online company, selling women’s clothes with a striking Eurocentric look.  (Check out the stunning trompe l’oeil tops and Ashleigh’s hand-painted note cards.)

“A psychic once told us we were twins in a previous life,” says Jude. “Like twins, we deeply feel each other’s joy and pain. And it’s wonderful that we share a fair amount of mental telepathy with turbo-type thoughts. That helps us keep up with the fast pace of every NYC fashion minute.”

Nick Kleiner
He’s known on campus as the “kid in duck boots,” but a more accurate description would be Man from Maine as tall as a pine, with a glint in his eye and a passion for fashion. Oh, and he’s the guy who can sew a Russian military jacket in a day or turn a pile of trash into a work of art. Senior Nick Kleiner is going places.

Behind all great minds lies an inspiration, and for Kleiner it was his mother, an art teacher who eliminated boredom with a sketchpad. She nurtured her son’s creativity; an empty yogurt cup could always become something.

Kleiner, who soars to 6 feet 4 inches, is double majoring in TMD and French. Although wicked good at sewing, he prefers the marketing side of the biz. For a recent class assignment he boldly declared that J. Crew will go with a “tweedy, English prep” line in 2014. Look for fitted pants for the gents.

With two internships completed, including one at the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Santa Maria, Calif., Kleiner hopes to find a job overseeing interns at a big fashion company or work in marketing for Ralph Lauren or the retail giant whose products have a place in his heart—uh, closet: L.L. Bean, in Freeport, Maine, a few hours from his boyhood home. “I still have my Bean boots from high school,” he says. “I just got them resoled.”

Jhih-Syuan “Cindy” Yang
Everything Jhih-Syuan Yang ’12 knows about designing, draping, cutting, sewing, fitting and, yes, even getting along with people, she learned in her four years at URI. No, the University is not in the heart of the fashion district, but that’s the point: the closeness of her department allowed her to focus, focus, focus. No question went unanswered.

One class in TMD was especially memorable. She mastered a pattern-making software program that she uses today in her job as assistant technical designer at Sachin + Babi, a funky fashion house in New York. Home is Taiwan, but, for now, she is happily living in Brooklyn with friends. (Alas, no designers.) Some day, she’d like to start her own fashion company, with CEO Yang at the helm.

—Elizabeth Rau

For more information about the Kingston Spring Splash: uri.edu/hss/tmd

For more information about the NYC Spring Splash: advance.uri.edu/springsplash

Within days of the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, Deborah French McCay, Ph.D. ’84, and dozens of other URI alumni who work for Applied Science Associates (ASA) in Wakefield were hard at work monitoring the spill and preparing to travel to the Gulf. They spent the next few months coordinating a rapid assessment of the marine and coastal environment for the federal government, determining pre-spill conditions and collecting data on the harm the spill caused.

Nearly three years later, about 15 of the company’s staff are still working full time on the project, comparing the before and after data. The resulting documentation will be used by government attorneys to build a case against the responsible parties for payment of damages.

ASA is one of only a handful of companies around the world to work closely with governments and the oil industry to monitor and predict the movement of spilled oil in the environment and to assess its damage.

“In the last 20 years, we’ve responded to every major oil spill in the world on somebody’s behalf,” said Malcolm Spaulding ’69, Ph.D. ’73, professor emeritus of ocean engineering and a co-founder of the company. “We have a contract with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to provide support for all spills in the U.S. that reach natural resource damage assessment level. So we are always on call.”

In the 1970s, Spaulding and his graduate students were creating numerical models on early computers to study water pollution in Narragansett Bay. A grant from the Department of Energy led them to study the effects of oil and oil dispersants on fisheries and the marine environment. One result was a model that predicted where an oil spill would travel based on winds, currents, and other conditions. It was the first oil spill model of its kind, which led to contracts with the government to study the potential effects of an oil spill on the continental shelf.

In 1979, Spaulding, along with Engineering Professor Emeritus Frank White, Oceanography Professor Peter Cornillon, and then-graduate student J. Craig Swanson, M.S. ’76, Ph.D. ’87, turned this research into ASA, which started with one employee, Swanson. The company grew quickly, and by the end of 1980 it employed a half dozen people, mostly URI graduates.

“The oil spill focus was the vehicle that got us going and was most critical to our ultimate success, but my focus was on water quality,” said Swanson, whose expertise at computer modeling was indispensible. “We had developed these tools that make predictions of where oil would move to, based on currents and tides, and we used the same kind of models to predict pollutant transport. We did a lot of work with the Narragansett Bay Commission as it was designing a system to control combined sewage overflows into the Bay, helping them evaluate the water quality benefits of various options.”

That work continued through the 1990s, but it has shifted in recent years to focus on thermal pollution from power plants—the movement of warm water discharged by the facilities into waterways and its effect on the marine environment. In addition to his computer modeling work, Swanson has had a lead role in business development and establishing relationships with public agencies and engineering firms.

But it’s the oil spill work that gets the most attention.

“In the oil spill business, you need to know where it’s going to go and when it’s going to get there, with the goal of knowing what can be done to respond and protect resources,” explained Spaulding. “In the Middle East, for instance, goal number one is to keep the oil out of the desalination facilities or else they’ll have no drinking water. In most other places the goal is to protect the environment.”

Around the time of the first Gulf War, the company ran oil spill simulations in the Arabian Gulf for the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to assess how vulnerable their desalination plants were, and it was heavily involved in a variety of projects following the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska in 1989, the North Cape spill off Rhode Island in 1996, and the Prestige spill off the coast of Spain in 2002.

“Ultimately, someone needs to know how much damage the spill has done to the natural resources,” said Swanson. “Deborah French McCay has been instrumental in developing that for us. She brought the skill of using computer models to predict what the biological impacts were going to be. How long does it take the fish and other organisms to recover? That opened up a lot of work for us.”

The oil transport model has also been adapted for use as a tool for search-and-rescue operations to track the likely movement of people or vessels or cargo that have been lost at sea. It is used by the U.S. Coast Guard and similar agencies in six other countries, and in Rhode Island it helped find a fishing boat adrift off Block Island and a plane that disappeared after taking off from Westerly, among others.

All this work has transformed ASA from a tiny start-up with initial capitalization of $3,200 into a global leader with 60 employees in Rhode Island (31 of whom graduated from URI, including company president Eoin Howlett, M.B.A. ’02) and annual revenues of $12 million, making it one of the largest companies to spin-off from research started at the University.

In 2011, ASA was bought by a British company, RPS Group plc, which operates 80 offices around the world with a total of about 5,500 employees. The parent company provides broad oversight, and has provided ASA numerous growth opportunities. As a result, Spaulding said ASA has been growing by about one new employee every month since the acquisition, and it is outgrowing its fourth office location.

“We have a notice on our website all the time listing jobs that are available,” he said. “We’re up to our ears in stuff to do, and we’re looking for good people.”

As it grows, the company is expanding its products and services. It is building a version of its oil spill model for land-based pipelines and considering another version to address the catastrophic failures of oil storage tanks. The company is also using its skills to support the emerging field of offshore wind and wave energy development.

“We’ve been true to the vision that we originally had—it’s an engaging place to work, we work on interesting problems, we’re participating at the leading edge of our field, and we have a healthy and thriving organization,” concluded Spaulding. “And by hiring so many alumni and regularly contracting with faculty, we think we provide a real value to the University.”

–Todd McLeish

On June 2012, two ships collided in Yangtze Estuary. One ship spilled over 100 tons of oil. Chinese government agencies used ASA’s OILMAP system to simulate the spill trajectory and fate of the spill. The model simulation results matched extremely well with the field data observed by the local responders.

Read more about URI’s efforts to boost business ventures on campus and throughout the state: see “Springboard for Entrepreneurs.”

Now that the weather is finally warming up, let’s stroll the Kingston campus to see how the past year’s $300 million in construction and renovation projects—the busiest building cycle in the University’s history—have helped URI do what it does even better.

Where should we start? The north end of campus, where the September opening of the College of Pharmacy building marked a new chapter in teaching and learning for our internationally renowned programs? Or the southern residential core, where Hillside Hall, our newest, most energy-efficient residence, stands as a signal that URI is embracing 24/7 collaborative learning?

North Science District

Let’s save Hillside for last and start in the North District. “There is more community space where students can learn together,” says Lanh Dang, a fourth-year pharmacy student from Lawrence, Mass., of his college’s new home. “So much of what we do now is team-based learning, and this building has perfect common areas for such approaches. It’s easier to grasp complex concepts because of classroom technology that allows us to view videos and animations. Plus, we can interact online with our professors during class.”

The $75 million College of Pharmacy building is the second of three key components of the North Science District, the first being the adjacent Center for Biotechnology and Life Sciences, a $54 million facility that opened in 2009. The third project is the Center for Chemistry and Forensic Sciences, slated for completion in fall 2015 at a cost of $70 million. It will be built in a portion of the Chafee parking lot between the Chafee Social Science Center and White Hall.

Most of the funding for the three projects, $176 million, came from bond issues overwhelmingly supported by the voters of Rhode Island. They would be pleased to hear praise of the results of their decision to invest in higher education, particularly URI’s new pharmacy building. At five stories and 144,000 square feet, it is the largest academic building on the Kingston campus. Outside is a medicinal garden. Inside are an auditorium with 3D projection technology; 3,000-square-feet of research facilities comprising 18 labs; a professional practice lab including sterile preparation; patient assessment areas; three general assignment classrooms; a 1,000-square-foot dual Nuclear Magnetic Resonance facility; student study and informal gathering areas throughout the building; and nine conference and meeting rooms.

“The office space is much improved, and now I can meet with students more privately,” says Clinical Associate Professor of Pharmacy Brett Feret, Pharm.D. ’98. “I love how the teaching spaces allow for much better interaction and discussion with students.”

“The labs are so much better,” says Victoria Venturini, a fourth-year pharmacy student from South Kingstown. “They are much like hospital emergency rooms.”

Graduate students and post-doctoral fellows feel energized by their new and spacious lab environments, according to Bongsup Cho, professor of biomedical sciences and associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Pharmacy. “All the research laboratories are on the third and fourth floors facing the beautiful North District quadrangle,” he adds. “The building is always busy, and it’s good to see smiles in the labs.”

New Learning Commons and Taft Makeover

On our way south toward Hillside Hall, you’ll notice on our right the Robert L. Carothers Library and Learning Commons. Step inside to visit the recently refurbished Learning Commons area on the first floor, offering students a full suite of resources: group study rooms, study pods and booths, a laptop bar, a video and presentation practice room, and flexible social spaces.

“It’s impressively designed!” says Travis Roberts ’06, currently pursuing a master’s in European history. “The private study rooms with whiteboards are great for practicing presentations or working on group projects, and the comfortable new seating areas create a very relaxed study atmosphere. I’ve also received outstanding help from librarians at the new reference desk in finding scholarly works for my thesis.”

Just past the library you’ll see the new slate roof and gleaming new windows on Taft Hall, the oldest academic building on campus, originally opened in 1888. Its latest $2.7 million renovation project began as simple mold remediation but expanded as other issues came to light. The building interior was stripped to the original masonry and rebuilt with new fire protection, insulation, wiring, and finishes such as carpeting. When they moved back in last March, students and staff of URI’s signature Talent Development Program were thrilled with the transformation of their landmark home. Taft also now houses the Associates in Cultural Exchange (A.C.E.) English Language Institute, where international students take intensive English classes before beginning their URI study programs.

Hillside Hall

As we approach our destination just west of the Lower College Road traffic circle, darkness is descending on campus. It’s a perfect time to appreciate the illuminated four-story glass bridge connecting Hillside’s two wings. Beautiful courtyards and functional rain gardens surround the building we’re about to enter. Inside, just about everywhere you look are lounges for studying (15 in the east wing, 12 in the west) and socializing (nine small gathering spaces in each hallway). The $42 million, five-story structure contains 120,000 square feet and houses 429 beds.

“There are so many places for us to do work together,” says Joe Walter, a freshman pharmacy major from Bayonne, N.J. “There’s also the giant sky lounge on every floor, so that’s where everybody can come together.”

Hillside is home to international undergraduates who all live on the first floor. Several of them were happy to comment on life at URI at the end of the fall semester, as they prepared for their last finals before heading back to their homes and their universities.

“We’ve made friends with American students, but our closest friends are the international students on the floor,” said Anwen Beaton, an environmental science major from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. Minu Singh, a business student at the University of Buskerud in Norway, agreed.

“It’s been great because we have traveled every weekend to D.C., Boston, New York,” said Alyssa Ficaccio, a communications and economics major from the University of Calgary in Canada.

All agreed that the facility and campus are beautiful and that they have made enduring friendships with each other.

As we depart, take a last look at Hillside’s common areas filled with students, and recall all of the common spaces at the previous stops on our tour, filled with students, faculty, and staff members working together, doing research, studying, hanging out, and making plans. In short, by thinking big about its space, the URI community is constantly building and renewing itself.

—Dave Lavallee ’79, M.P.A. ’87

Left: Mary Sullivan, interim dean of URI’s College of Nursing, with U.S. Sen. Jack Reed as he announces $3.8 million in funding. Center: Clinical Professor Emerita Judith Mercer. Right: Assistant Professor Debra Erickson-Owens.

Picture a neonatal intensive care unit. Premature babies, some as tiny as the palm of an adult hand, lie in incubators linked to monitors and life-saving equipment. The care is extraordinary, the devotion unceasing, but so is the worry  about the next minute, the next month, the next ten years, especially for parents.

What if research showed that for these little ones, a simple delivery room procedure, or an intervention in elementary school, could mean improved health and easier transitions to adult life?

That kind of research has been under way for years, thanks to two University of Rhode Island nursing professors. Interim Dean of the College of Nursing Mary Sullivan, Ph.D. ’94, is spearheading the longest-running study in the U.S. of premature infants, to see what types of interventions mitigate the effects of early birth. Her colleague, Clinical Professor Emerita Judith Mercer, has already found that delaying the clamping of umbilical cords for pre-term babies produces dramatic health benefits. Now, together with Assistant Nursing Professor Debra Erickson-Owens, Ph.D.’09, she is in the midst of another study of whether that simple delay benefits full-term babies.

In the Delivery Room
As Mercer compiles her results from a $2 million, five-year study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on the impacts of delayed cord clamping for pre-term infants, she and Erickson-Owens have teamed with Women & Infants Hospital, and Brown University’s Sean Deoni, director of the Advanced Baby Imaging Lab, to study delayed clamping in full-term babies. NIH has awarded the team a five-year, $2.4 million grant to study 128 infants from birth to 24 months to measure the effect of delaying cord clamping on the structure and functioning of the developing brain. Called the Infant Brain Study, it also received a $100,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Mothers are enrolled prenatally, and their babies are assigned to a study group when they are born at Women & Infants. At four, ten, and 24 months, they go to the Brown baby imaging lab for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and developmental testing.

“Mom comes in with the baby, and goes to the quiet room, which is set up like a baby’s room, until the baby falls asleep,” Mercer explained. “Once the baby settles, he or she is put on a cart that slides right into the scanner. They put earmuffs on the baby…. One time, a baby woke up, but mom was able to get her child back to sleep and the study was completed. An MRI, unlike an X-ray, puts out less energy than one’s cell phone and is considered a safe procedure.

“Sean has this set up in a very special way,” Mercer added. “It’s not noisy, and he doesn’t use any sedation. It’s a little smaller than a regular MRI. They have done over 250 scans of infants and children, so he has it down to a science.”

Mercer and her team want to find out if delaying the clamping of the umbilical cord, which allows the placenta to transfer iron-rich blood to the newborn, reduces iron deficiency and anemia in the first year for full-term newborns. The MRI scan results can also determine whether delayed clamping enhances myelination in the brain. Iron is required for the process of forming myelin sheaths around nerves in the brain. Good myelin sheaths allow impulses to move more quickly and are critical to a healthy nervous system.

No Longer Babies
For more than two decades, Mary Sullivan has overseen this country’s longest-running study of premature infants. Brown University launched the study a quarter century ago, but Margaret McGrath, URI nursing professor emerita, took it over in 1989, and Sullivan joined the research team in 1990. More than $7 million in federal funding later, Sullivan and her project manager of 17 years, Suzy Winchester, have watched their fragile subjects grow into healthy adults.

Sullivan’s findings, which have been shared around the country and in Europe, show how supportive, loving parents, nurturing school environments, and stimulating factors work to offset the delays pre-term infants experience in their physical, academic, and social development.

Study subject Sean Foster, a 25-year-old employee at BJ’s in Coventry and a student at New England Technical Institute, is a great example of the effects of a nurturing parent. His mother, Catherine Foster ’74, M.A. ’87, recalls how she could hold him in one hand when he was born at 26 weeks weighing 1.5 pounds. Now, he stands 6 feet, 1 inch, and weighs 240 pounds.

Why did she agree to enlist her son in the study when she faced so many demands?

“The team gave me great reasons to be involved, and I knew that my son would get regular monitoring as he grew,” said the physical education teacher at Deering Middle School in West Warwick. “I had to keep daily logs for a while, and I remember he took his first steps at Women & Infants.”

“My first memory of being in the study was when I was asked to bring my best friend Jerry to the hospital,” Sean said. “They videotaped me on how I worked with other people as we played Nintendo 64.”

While the Fosters often went to the hospital for assessments, Sullivan, Winchester, and the other team members also visited Sean’s schools and home.

Sean exhibited delays in his gross motor skills, but that didn’t stop Cathy from doing everything she could to give him an active childhood.

“I faced two issues: single-parenthood when Sean was three months old, and I had to work,” she said. “It was tough, but we did stuff, especially all the free activities we could find. I made him write in a journal, and we redeemed aluminum cans for gas money so we could go on short trips. We played memory games all the time.”

Both she and Sean express overwhelmingly positive feelings about their participation in the study. “It’s been a good experience,” said Sean, who is now engaged to be married.

“I am a 1974 health and physical education major from URI, and I am proud to know that my University is doing this kind of work,” Cathy said. “I am also glad that our participation may help other babies and parents.”

“I am proud to know that my University is doing this kind of work.” —Catherine Foster ’74, M.A. ’87, shown at right with her son Sean, reminiscing about his preemie days.

“Rhode Island Born, Rhode Island Bred”
The words of the Rhody fight song resonate strongly with Jenna Richardson ’09, a nurse at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital who now interacts with Sullivan’s research team as a fellow professional. In 1986, she and her twin sister, Kelley, were born at 32 weeks, with Jenna weighing 1 pound, 2.3 ounces and Kelley weighing 1 pound, 2.5 ounces. They have a 23-year-old sister, Melanie, who was born full term.

Their parents, Amy and Phil, needed plenty of help in those early years.

“The people at Women & Infants were superb,” Amy said. “What they did for the babies was amazing. You could call anytime.” And the members of the study team, she said, “were just so nice from the beginning, you wanted to do it for them.”

That support was important for parents who had to connect Jenna to a sleep apnea machine for the first year of her life, and who dealt with children who were sick frequently. At age two, both twins were plagued with asthma.

Amy said her children benefited from a great pre-school where they got individual attention that detected any delays, outstanding education in parochial elementary and secondary schools, and the benefit of constant interaction as only twins can experience.

As a URI nursing student, Jenna met Sullivan and completed one of her clinical rotations at Women & Infants. “One of the nurses mentioned the study, and I told the group that I was a participant,” Jenna said. “It has been great being a part of the study, especially since I am a nurse. Maybe our participation will make it a little easier for the babies of the future.”

Her twin, Kelley, has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the College of the Holy Cross and works for Deloitte Consulting, Hartford, Conn. as a human capital financial services consultant.

The project changed Kelley’s perceptions of nursing. “I thought it was mostly hospital-based. I have so much respect for nurses, not that I didn’t before, but this really opened my eyes to what they are doing.”

So What’s Next?
Sullivan and Winchester, whose last $2.4 million grant is ending this year, want to apply for another NIH grant to study the young adults further.

“We want to focus on health and daily functioning,” Sullivan said. “We want to look at the really big picture, how they manage their affairs every day, hold a job, have social interactions, maintain a household.”

Will the study subjects continue if Sullivan is awarded another grant?

Sarah Medeiros, 25, of Portsmouth, like her fellow participants, says, “Of course.” She was born ten weeks early, weighing 2 pounds, 2 ounces. Now an analyst at Newport Federal Savings Bank, she is completing her bachelor’s degree in business management at Roger Williams University.

Extremely grateful for and inspired by the many sacrifices of her parents, Barbara and Jeff, she is also deeply impressed with Sullivan’s work.

“She has done so many amazing things, and we have come so far in the research because of her,” Medeiros said.

—Dave Lavallee ’79, M.P.A. ’87

Scarlet Jean, daughter of Sarah Gileau '02 and Nicholas Gagne

Sarah Gileau graduated with a B.S. in Textiles, Fashion Merchandising and Design in 2002. Sarah and fiancé Nicholas Gagne proudly announce that they welcomed their daughter, Scarlet Jean, on November 12, 2012. Congratulations Sarah and Nicholas on your beautiful baby girl!

More ClassPics. Send us yours!

“Every year hundreds of sponsors return from awareness trips changed and deeply touched by what they see. I was one of the sponsors on a recent trip to Costa Rica. For the past 20 years I have sponsored a child through CFCA, the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging, a Catholic organization dedicated to helping children in poverty all over the world.

“On the last day of my stay in Costa Rica, January 16, 2013, my little girl, Lorena, and her family were brought from a remote mountain region where they live on the border of Costa Rica and Nicaragua to meet me. The mother and her three children—Antonio, age seven; Yanci, age eleven; and Lorena, age two—came to San José, the capital, for the first time. They met me at a hotel and rode in an elevator, all first-time experiences for them. My friend and I decided it would be great if they could visit the Children’s Museum in San José since they had also never been to a museum before. It was a hands-on experience for them, and the joy on their faces for what they saw was a reward in itself for me. They were so thrilled with their new experiences, and little Antonio said he wanted to live in the museum! The joy that they brought me far exceeded what I gave them. They made me see courage and humanity at its best. In spite of their poverty they are happy people who feel blessed with the little that they have. The organization is always in need of more sponsors. If you would like to learn more, please visit cfcausa.org.”

Send us your postcard!

Rhody Postcards features photo and video postcards from URI alumni, students, faculty, staff, and friends. We spotlight alumni traveling or visiting interesting places (near or far) to work, study, volunteer, or seek adventure. If you’d like to be featured—or you know someone who should be featured—please contact Barbara Caron, QuadAngles Online editor.

If you are not already an active member of RhodyNet, the URI Career Mentor Network, we encourage you to join and share your knowledge of the work world. Finding a helpful mentor is very important for job seekers and career changers. For your part, membership can be positive and enriching:

•Experience a reconnection with URI
•Learn about the URI of today and the future
•Develop meaningful professional connections with students and other alumni
•Refine your coaching and mentoring skills
•Expand your professional network

Among your registration options, you can choose how many calls you would welcome each month. Please be sure that your information accurately reflects your current employment, ways that you might want to be involved as a mentor, and correct contact information.

Thank you for your continued interest in URI students and alumni. Please contact us if you have any questions.

To log in to the URI Career Mentor Network, please go to: https://www.myinterfase.com/uri/mentor/home.aspx

Look for “Click here to register” at the bottom of the screen, and follow the instructions on the registration page.

Alumni are invited to the following events:

Green Industry Day February 22, 2013, 9 a.m.–3 p.m., Memorial Union

Summer & Internship Job Fair March 6, 2013, 11 a.m. –2 p.m., Memorial Union

Spring Career & Job Fair April 3, 2013, 11 a.m.¬–3p.m., Ryan Center

On-campus Interviews February–April 2012

Check your RhodyNet account for details about Career Services events for alumni.

Internet connectivity at the University of Rhode Island will soon become faster thanks to more than $3 million in grants obtained from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Energy. Cox Communications has installed 44 miles of fiber optic cable connecting the Kingston campus, the Narragansett Bay Campus, and the $30 million Ocean State Higher Education Economic Development and Administrative Network (OSHEAN). This network will provide high-speed access to all members, and will include links to URI’s W. Alton Jones and Feinstein Providence campuses. URI’s Tyler Hall data center will serve as the communications hub for the entire southern portion of the state network. With greater bandwidth, URI can offer high definition video, crystal clear telephone connections, and advanced video conferencing.

He quit teaching high school English to tour full-time with his Americana band, Joe Fletcher & the Wrong Reasons. His songwriting draws plots and characters from literature as well as life. The story behind “White Lighter,” the name of the band’s second album, started at URI in the 1990s, when “white Bic lighters were said to be bad luck,” Fletcher recalls. “Kids would walk up to you at a party and throw your lighter in the woods, because they didn’t want it in their house.”

Read more about Joe Fletcher and the Wrong Reasons at

Providence Monthly

EastBayRI

Melissa Kirdzik ’01, owner of Eat to Live nutrition counseling, has tips for keeping your New Year’s diet resolution:

Set specific, measurable goals: “100 oz. daily water” as opposed to “increase fluids.”

Be accountable: Check in with a registered dietitian, personal trainer, therapist, best friend, etc.

Picture yourself at your final goal. Positive feelings should come not only when you reach it, but throughout the journey.

Melissa hired Jason Oliveria ’01, M.S. ’04 to help her serve clients at her Newport-based company.

President Barack Obama’s call for the Washington, D.C. forum demonstrates his recognition of the integral role that higher education plays in the nation’s global position and economic health.

In Rhode Island, URI, along with many others, has been promoting essentially the same message. For example, at the annual Providence Chamber of Commerce dinner, Governor Lincoln C. Chafee, leaders from Brown University, Lifespan, Care New England, and others discussed how our collaboration could stimulate innovation and business development in the state’s growing health and life sciences industries.

In addition, the White House forum indicated that the size of our compact state can work to our benefit. Proximity matters. Two leading research institutions—URI and Brown—allow our state to become a hotbed of major discoveries and innovation. We are positioned to leverage our resources and talent to drive economic development in Rhode Island and in the nation.

Research and innovation at URI span a very wide range—from engineering to business to pharmaceutical sciences to the environment and to textiles and human services. Much of it is interdisciplinary, multilingual, and certainly multifaceted. The research and scholarship conducted is part of our core mission. Students are involved in research and creative work, and their experiential learning is more important than ever, for graduate students and undergraduates alike.

In 2012, our researchers received more than $98 million from competitive federal grants to fund 474 projects. In fact, external grants and contracts to URI have increased nearly 40 percent in the last three years. This research funding represents 14.5 percent of our total annual budget. Our state appropriation represents 8.5 percent.

A recent National Science Foundation report showed in the year 2010, URI and Brown brought nearly $500 million into the state’s economy through their research in a variety of fields. Studies have shown that every $1 in research funding received by URI returns about $1.70 to the local economy.

Our new partnership with the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce and Brown in support of the start-up accelerator Betaspring is very similar to the highly successful and well-documented ventures discussed at the White House forum. The bottom line is that research universities, government, and the private sector, by working together, can stimulate dramatic growth.

These partnerships and others foster our efforts to build a valuable teaching and research center in Providence’s Knowledge District to address growing demands for highly qualified nurses and research in biomedical fields.

Rhode Island’s burgeoning “meds and eds” partnerships can leverage the efforts of the Governor and the General Assembly to move the state forward, create innovative strategies, and take actions that will promote job creation and economic growth in our state.

Now the stage is set for bold, collaborative action. Working together, we can deliver new knowledge, develop and market new technologies, and use the knowledge and skills of faculty and researchers to prepare the next generation workforce and serve the needs of the state and nation.

—David M. Dooley

Head Coach Jim Foster (left) and Jeff Cammans ’12 receiving BoSox award.

For the second time in the last four seasons, Rhode Island was recognized as the Top-Ranked Division I Baseball Team in New England by the BoSox Club, the official booster club of the Boston Red Sox. 

Last season began tragically with the death of redshirt freshman pitcher Joey Ciancola. With “In Memory of Joe Joe” bands on their wrists and #5 dog tags around their necks, the Rhody baseball players attacked every task with a newfound sense of dedication and inspiration. The Rams put together a 33-25-1 season, finishing third in the Atlantic 10 with a 16-8 conference record. They also spent five weeks as the top-ranked team in New England, were twice named College Baseball Insider’s Northeast Region Team of the Week, and were an honorable mention for National Team of the Week in mid-April.

Nine different Rams earned postseason honors, highlighted by sophomore Jeff Roy, who became the sixth Ram ever to earn All-America honors. He also collected Atlantic 10 Player of the Year accolades, while Jeff Cammans ’12 was selected as the NCBWA District I Player of the Year—Rhode Island’s first player ever to earn the distinction. 

The Rhode Island rowing, women’s cross country, and women’s track and field teams spent a Saturday afternoon in August gutting a home in Matunuck in the name of charity.

The student-athletes and coaches from the three teams worked to remove all of the windows, doors, cabinets, sinks, and other household items at 123 Succotash Road. Homeowners Karen Kames and Chris Gaffney are rebuilding their home, and they agreed to donate the items to South County Habitat for Humanity.

All of the items were taken to the South County Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Charlestown, to be tagged and sold. Proceeds from the sale of the items go directly to funding a Habitat for Humanity project on Old North Road. The home on Old North Road is one of four being built through a project led by the Rev. Lynn Baker-Dooley, wife of URI President David M. Dooley.

The goal is to have one of the homes built entirely by women.

“What’s really cool about this project is that we had a great group of women,” rowing senior Lotte Sherman said. “The fourth Habitat for Humanity house is being built by women for women. The home we were working in is owned by a woman, and the fact [that] we had all these women here helping move the furniture and supplies is great.”

The University of Rhode Island football team continues to save lives through its annual bone marrow registration drive on behalf of “Be the Match” and the National Marrow Donor Program.

Ryan Mattison

In October, assistant football coach Ryan Mattison became the third member of the URI athletics family to save a life through a marrow donation. Mattison was found to be a match for a young child and underwent a procedure to extract marrow at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

He joined senior football player Matt Greenhalgh and former URI women’s rower Grace Rignanese ’12, who both had made donations in the previous 18 months. Greenhalgh donated for an adult male in April of 2011 and got to meet his recipient in August, while Rignanese donated for an 18-year-old girl last January.

Mattison, who joined head coach Joe Trainer’s staff in February, helped recruit people to register for the marrow drive last April. However, it wasn’t until talking with Trainer during the drive that he signed up as a potential donor, a decision that very well may have saved the life of his recipient.

John Greenhalgh

“I am a faithful person, and I believe things happen for a reason,” Mattison said. “If I don’t get hired to coach here, this doesn’t happen.”

Mattison said the only reservation he had was that he got the call to make the donation during Rhode Island’s season.

“Coach Trainer eliminated that reservation right away,” Mattison said. “When I told Coach Trainer about the situation, he was on board. That put me at ease. I am committed to this football program and this team, but you are talking about saving a life here.”

A fourth donor match through the drive will happen in late November. Sophomore football player John Greenhalgh, the younger brother of Matt, learned he was a match and is scheduled to donate his marrow near the end of the football season.

“It’s amazing when you think about it,” John Greenhalgh said. “What are the odds? Four matches overall, and two of them are brothers? I’m really excited at the opportunity to make someone else’s life better. It’s pretty humbling when you get that call.”

“This was a great opportunity early in the school year for us to come together as a team and to raise both money and awareness for a great cause,” said junior swimmer Kiki Wasserman.

Lori E. Ciccomascolo

Interim Dean of the College of Human Science and Services

In July, Lori E. Ciccomascolo accepted an appointment to serve as the interim dean of the University’s second-largest college, with more than 2,400 undergraduate and 400 graduate students in six departments. She joined the kinesiology department faculty in 2002 and has served as that department’s graduate director as well as the College’s interim associate dean. She was nominated for this latest post by several colleagues and appointed by Provost Donald H. DeHayes.

“I am deeply invested in this College and the success of its faculty and students,” Ciccomascolo said. “HSS is the best-kept secret at URI and beyond. We have high-quality faculty doing cutting-edge research. One of my most important goals is to improve the visibility and status of the College.” HSS has attracted millions in federal grants to improve gerontological care, science and math education in elementary and high schools, and use of technology to enhance the K–12 classroom experience. The College is also home to some of the nation’s leading textile chemistry research.

“Dean Ciccomascolo is a highly valued and respected member of the College and the greater URI community. Her long service to the College and deep understanding of its mission will serve students and faculty well,” DeHayes said.

Bruce H. Corliss

Dean, Graduate School of Oceanography

After an international search, Bruce H. Corliss, M.S. ’74, Ph.D. ’78 began leading the academic, research, and outreach activities of URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography in September. To return here to his alma mater, where he earned two graduate degrees in oceanography, Corliss left his position as director of the Duke/University of North Carolina Oceanographic Consortium, which comprises five universities that operate the R/V Cape Hatteras research vessel.

“GSO has an outstanding record of accomplishment in oceanography and marine science based on contributions by its faculty, students, and staff over the last 50 years,” Corliss said. “I look forward to working with the GSO community to continue this tradition.”

Corliss also chairs the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System, an organization of 61 academic institutions and national laboratories that work together to coordinate the activities of U.S. oceanographic research ships. In this capacity, he hosted a workshop on Greening the Academic Fleet to help make existing and future research vessels more environmentally sustainable. He also developed a speaker series for undergraduate colleges serving minority students, with the aim of recruiting students of color into the ocean sciences.

Carnell Jones Jr.

Director of Enrollment Services

In August, following a national search, we welcomed Carnell Jones Jr. as director of Enrollment Services, where he is overseeing registration, records, billing, and financial aid services for more than 16,000 full-time undergraduate and graduate students, as well as thousands of part-time students. Prior to joining the University of Rhode Island, Jones served as registrar for the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, where he managed enrollment, registration, grade reporting, veteran affairs, and related matters for the school’s population of about 10,000 students.

“This is a critical position that affects the services and support of our students, faculty, and staff. I am confident that Dr. Jones’s 15 years of experience and strong focus on customer service will support our efforts to enhance our one-stop office,” said Vice Provost for Enrollment Management Dean Libutti.

“URI is a major player in a major area, and it’s a place where I’m looking forward to applying my energy and skills and really rolling up my sleeves. I’m very excited to join the University of Rhode Island,” Jones said.

Mary C. Sullivan

Interim Dean of the College of Nursing

Mary C. Sullivan, Ph.D. ’94, internationally renowned for her research on premature infants’ development, joined the University’s leadership team in September as interim dean of the College of Nursing. She has served as the director of graduate education in the College of Nursing and is a respected instructor who has overseen the longest-running U.S. study of premature infants from birth into adulthood. She is also a research scientist at Women and Infants Hospital of Rhode Island and an adjunct professor of pediatrics at the Alpert Medical School at Brown University.

“Mary is an accomplished nurse-scientist and scholar and a highly valued and respected member of the College and greater URI communities. I have no doubt that she will provide effective leadership and ensure that the College continues to move forward,” said Provost Donald H. DeHayes. DeHayes has asked Sullivan to explore innovations, directions, and opportunities that will advance the position of both URI and the College of Nursing.

“I am fortunate to be leading the College as it welcomes the most academically talented and diverse freshman class in its history,” Sullivan said. “Given the critical importance of nurses in the role of health care reform, and the College’s efforts to improve the health of patients in numerous settings, URI will remain a leader locally and globally.”

Naomi R. Thompson

Associate Vice President for Community, Equity, and Diversity

Following a national search, attorney Naomi R. Thompson became the University’s first associate vice president for Community, Equity, and Diversity. Thompson will lead the University’s efforts to integrate diversity, equity, and community into its core mission, vision, and strategy. Before joining URI, she was the associate director of the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity at Northeastern University, where she structured a framework to address important diversity management needs, developed innovative models and programs to drive an effective diversity strategy, and implemented comprehensive recruiting, training, and talent management initiatives to improve the quality and diversity of new hires.

“As we’ve outlined in our transformational goals, building a community in which every member is welcomed, supported, and valued is essential to our identity and mission,” said President David M. Dooley. “I am confident that Ms. Thompson’s years of experience, organizational leadership, and passion for these issues will help us advance this core principal University-wide.”

“I am humbled and honored to have this wonderful opportunity,” Thompson said before assuming her new role in August. “I’m very excited by the University’s leadership, direction, and strategic plan. Even the evolution of this position itself … demonstrates an institutional commitment to equity, diversity, and social justice. Now I look forward to getting to work.”

In attendance at the Fall 2012 Rhode Island Judicial Conference were 20 URI graduates—all of whom, space permitting, would have “The Honorable” before their names. Back Row: William P. Robinson III, M.A. ’75; Edward P. Sowa Jr. ’66; Dianne M. Connor ’79; Charles J. Levesque ’77; Alan R. Goulart ’82; Michael B. Forte ’74; Francis J. Darigan Jr., M.P.A.’74; John F. McBurney III ’72; Domenic A. DiSandro III ’83. Middle Row: Robert E. Hardman ’82; Stephen P. Erickson ’73; Sarah Taft-Carter ’78. Front Row: Angela M. Paulhus ’85; Rafael A. Ovalles ’87; Kathleen A. Voccola ’72; Christine S. Jabour ’75; Susan L. Kenny ’74; William R. Guglietta ’82; Brian Van Couyghen ’78; William T. Noonan ’82.

The Rhode Island judiciary descended upon the URI Graduate School of Oceanography for its annual fall conference this year, thanks in large measure to the organizational efforts of the Honorable William R. Guglietta ’82, chief magistrate of the Rhode Island Traffic Tribunal. Drawing on the expertise of URI faculty members, this year’s conference focused on legal implications in marine issues, and featured presentations by Professor of Computer Science and Statistics Victor Fay-Wolfe, who spoke about digital forensics and cybersecurity, and Professor of Oceanography Robert D. Ballard, Ph.D. ’75, who discussed ocean exploration in the waters of other countries. Holly Hitchcock, director of education programs for the Rhode Island Supreme Court, called the conference “a wonderful opportunity for the judiciary to explore the knowledge and resources available to them, and to bridge the gap between higher education and the judiciary.”

Of the 75 judges and former judges in attendance, 20 were University of Rhode Island alumni, “a testament to the high quality of education URI offers,” Hitchcock said.

With a $12.5 million grant received in 2008 to launch the program, RITES also offers K–12 teachers two years of professional development, various opportunities to share ideas, and free online modules to use with their students. Led by URI Professor Emeritus Daniel P. Murray and RIC Professor Glennison de Oliveira, the program has reached 450 middle- and high-school teachers in 27 Rhode Island school districts thus far.

Pairing higher education faculty with K–12 teachers is a key part of the program. “The faculty member brings the science knowledge, and the teacher brings the pedagogical knowledge,” said Howard Dooley, who manages the program. “Together, they create an investigation that is technically accurate, interesting to students, and based on science standards.”

According to RITES teacher Buddy Comet, “One of the main benefits for my students has been the in-class collaboration with RITES and higher education. We’ve had multiple visits from professors and graduate students to extend our students’ learning and experiences.”

The largest grant will bring $2.4 million from the National Institutes of Health to nursing professors Judith Mercer, and Debra Erickson-Owens, Ph.D. ’09, to expand their groundbreaking research on the benefits of delaying umbilical cord clamping. The five-year grant will allow them to extend their study beyond premature babies, to determine if delayed clamping improves brain health in full-term infants as well.

A three-year, $748,121 grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will support URI’s new doctorate of nursing practice (D.N.P.) and acute care nurse practitioner specialization programs, both educating nurses who wish to provide advanced care to underserved elderly and minority patients. URI’s D.N.P. program is the only one offered in Rhode Island. The grant will allow the University to enroll 10 students per year, up from three, in the 42-credit program.

A $686,000, two-year grant from the same agency will provide financial support to qualified, bachelor’s-prepared minority and veteran nurses who seek advanced education as primary care nurse practitioners. “More family nurse practitioners and adult-gerontological nurse practitioners will be on the front lines and able to use their knowledge and skills to improve health care quality and patient safety,” said Mary Sullivan, interim dean of the College of Nursing.

For the next three hours, Hurley will set out upon a calculated itinerary of coaching, encouraging, correcting, and teaching with the 15 student-athletes wearing the blue and white practice gear. Each practice session begins with a goal, follows a minute-by-minute plan, and ends with a solution: becoming better than the day before.

The principles that guide day five do not differ from those of the previous 211 days since he was named the 19th head basketball coach in URI history. Every day poses a challenge. That challenge is taken on by the coaching staff and, this morning, taken out on the players.

The whistle blows after a botched shooting drill. “On the line,” Hurley instructs: time to punctuate the moment with a few wind sprints. Practice continues, and the whistles sound off at the miscues—not enough talking on defense; four dribbles taken in a drill that allowed only three; an errant pass made worse with bad body language. On the line again.

“Our culture is development-demanded, and it’s not for everyone,” Hurley says. “We hold a high standard. You have to be willing to do it the right way in all areas of your life. You have to pay a price to play in our program. That had a huge impact on who stayed, who left, and who we’ll be bringing in through our recruiting.”

A visit to Hurley’s office in the Ryan Center provides a glimpse of his many achievements. Conversation with him reveals his knowledge and passion for teaching the game, combined with a laser-like focus on details, a razor-sharp wit, a low tolerance for distraction, and an uncanny ability to get the most out of everyone associated with his program.

“We are starting to establish our expectations in terms of pace and tempo in the gym, weight room, and classroom,” Hurley says. “It has to be a total buy-in for our players, because this is probably the hardest thing they have ever done and the hardest they have ever worked.

“We are teaching guys how they will exist in our program, how they will be micromanaged socially, academically, and athletically,” Hurley adds. “We’re on them every single second of the day.”

Hard work is a Hurley trademark. Growing up in Jersey City, N.J., Dan and his brother Bobby—now serving as associate head coach at URI (center in photo below)—were standouts for St. Anthony High School, playing for their father Bob Sr. Memorialized in Adrian Wojnarowski’s New York Times bestseller The Miracle of St. Anthony, the story of New Jersey’s first family of basketball has become legend.

Over the past 40 years, Bob Hurley Sr. has won more than 1,000 games, 27 state parochial titles, and 26 state championships, with seven undefeated seasons. While playing for their Hall of Fame father, the brothers were exposed to a basketball culture that would take their game to the highest levels of the sport. It also taught lifelong lessons—ones that shaped their successful playing and coaching careers.

Dan Hurley jokes that, early in his playing career at Seton Hall, he knew he was destined to coach.

“My first game in the Big East was against Georgetown,” he recalls. “I pulled up for a jump shot, and both Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo jumped to block it. I’m not sure which guy got it, but it went about 20 rows up into the stands. That’s when I knew my future in basketball was in coaching.”

Hurley enjoyed a fine collegiate career, eclipsing the 1,000-point mark while helping the Pirates advance to two NCAA tournaments during one of the strongest periods in the history of the Big East. In his first trip to the Big Dance, Dan Hurley and Seton Hall advanced to the Sweet 16, taking on Duke and Bobby Hurley. A photo of the two Hurleys going head-to-head—certainly not for the first time—sits on the desk of Dan’s Ryan Center office.

“It is a family story for us,” he said in an interview with the New York Post. “It has been real neat spending every waking minute together. It is almost like when we were growing up.”

Dan Hurley’s first foray into college coaching was anything but “neat.” After his graduation from Seton Hall in 1996, Hurley joined the coaching staff at Rutgers. Who better to tap into the rich pipeline of recruits from the Garden State?

An infamous Scarlet Knights’ practice left Hurley red-faced and ultimately jaded about the college game. Soon after, a coaching change purged the entire staff. While normally a stressful time in a young coach’s life, Hurley’s departure from Rutgers was a giant blessing in disguise—the shiniest silver lining in the storm cloud of his coaching career.

“By being a college coach, I was being a worse dad than mine was for me,” Hurley explained in The Miracle of St. Anthony. “You want to be a better dad than your father was. And that was hard. I wasn’t exactly traveling around the world doing God’s work. I was traveling around making nice money and basically being a salesman. It was pretty pathetic.”

Despite his feelings about the profession at the time, his reputation as a tactician was never questioned. Rob Lanier, former head coach at Siena College and current associate head coach at Texas, saw Hurley’s stardom early on. “Danny was a better coach than anyone on the [Rutgers] staff. All his life, he had so many things ingrained in him from one of the best basketball minds in the world. Nobody taught the game better than him. Nobody thought it better than him. From a technical standpoint, he was far superior to the rest of us.”

Hurley found solace at St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, teaching American history and coaching basketball. And winning. In nine years, he registered a 223–21 overall record and became the fastest coach in New Jersey basketball history to reach the 200-win mark.

Plenty of college opportunities came calling, but none piqued his interest until 2009, when he was offered the head coaching position at Wagner College in Staten Island, N.Y. Devotion to his high school players and intense loyalty to St. Benedict’s made it a tough decision that was even more painful to explain.

“He was never taught to leave. He didn’t know how,” said St. Benedict’s headmaster Fr. Edwin Leahy in a 2010 New York Times interview. Fr. Leahy knew what was coming in the phone conversation. But all he heard was hemming, hawing, hyperventilating, and finally a hang-up.

“I couldn’t finish, it got so painful,” Hurley recalled. “I couldn’t contain my emotion. I said, ‘I’ve got to call you back.’”

Eventually he got through that call and took over a Wagner program that ranked near the bottom of the national standings in just about every category. The Seahawks had won just five games the previous season and had a dismal grade-point average. Hurley set about to change the culture quickly.

The first season, Wagner was picked 11th out of 12 in the preseason poll but finished sixth. The Seahawks used their eight-win improvement—the nation’s best turnaround—as a springboard into a record-setting 2011–12 campaign. Hurley guided the team to its best-ever start (14–3) en route to a school record in wins (25). Along the way, Wagner downed #15 Pittsburgh, 59–54, snapping a 70-game—losing streak by Northeast Conference teams against the Panthers. It was also Wagner’s first victory over a ranked opponent in 33 years.

The speed of his success was significant. Dan Hurley became the hot name on every athletic director’s list. When Rhode Island began its coaching search, he was the top choice.

“I didn’t anticipate that I’d be making a decision like this for several years,” Hurley explained of his move from Staten Island to Rhode Island. “It was a very difficult thing to do.”

Hurley insisted on telling his team face-to-face, even if that meant waiting for spring break to conclude and delaying his official introduction at Keaney Gymnasium. No matter how difficult or uncomfortable, there is only one way to do things in the Hurley family—The Right Way.

An hour into practice, the Dunkin’ Donuts cup is half-empty. Hurley’s new drink of choice—VitaminWater—is half-full, much like his approach to coaching this season.

“We want to go from being the ‘Running Rams’ to a team that is ‘Ram Tough,’” Hurley remarks.

It is a process. Coaching. Teaching. Transformation.

“My brother and I would not have left a Wagner program that was on the verge of being great—and kids we loved dearly—unless we felt we could build a program here,” he says. “We want a program that can compete every year for a championship, one that can get very used to playing in the NCAA tournament and be a major factor in March.

“That’s what we came here to do. That’s what we came here to accomplish. With a total commitment by everyone involved, we believe it can be done.”

—Mike Laprey

Vladimir Duthiers ’91 has heard the saying, “The key to immortality is living a life worth remembering.” It was these words, in part—oft-quoted, and variously attributed to Bruce Lee, Jesus, and St. Augustine—that led him out of a successful career in finance and back to his true passion.

In September of 1987, Duthiers, the son of Haitian immigrants living in New York, came to URI as a journalism major. He quickly became involved in media, writing for The Good Five-Cent Cigar and hosting a program on the campus radio station. A keen interest in his history and political science classes eventually led him to change his major. He continued to take journalism classes, as well as military science courses as part of ROTC, but in the end, he graduated with a political science degree.

After URI, it wasn’t long before the scarcity of jobs in the writing world led Duthiers to Wall Street. He would spend the next sixteen years working at AllianceBernstein, a $400 billion global asset management firm. He made his way to the helm of their Investment Professional Institute, traveling all over the world to deliver the firm’s investment research and host client engagement seminars. During his time there, Duthiers was part of an international unit that helped generate billions of dollars in assets for the firm.

Although in many ways he was living the life he had imagined for himself, traveling frequently and seeing the world, Duthiers realized that his job wasn’t really in the “immortal” category. “I started to think a lot about my time as a college student, when I wrote for the URI newspaper,” he remembers. “I had always been passionate about news.” He had grown up in a family that discussed politics, history, and philosophy at the dinner table. And he remembered the feeling he got from truly influential pieces of media. When he was at URI, he watched the civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize in an American history class. “I remember thinking, that’s what I want to do,” he says. “I want to find interesting stories, put things into perspective, and provide context so people can understand this world we live in.”

Before long, Duthiers was in graduate school at Columbia University, studying broadcast journalism. Eager to get hands-on experience, he searched for an internship and wound up working as a production assistant for fellow URI graduate Christiane Amanpour ’83. CNN’s chief international correspondent. After earning his master’s degree from Columbia, Duthiers continued to work for Amanpour.

Manoushka; with Anderson Cooper, anchor of CNN’s AC360, reporting from Haiti during the January 2010 earthquake.

Meanwhile, on a Columbia journalism class field trip to CNN, Duthiers had also met Anderson Cooper, another well-known face. Duthiers mentioned to Cooper that he was fluent in Haitian Creole. About a month later, the 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti in January 2010. “I got a call in the middle of the night from Anderson’s executive producer,” remembers Duthiers. He was asked to accompany Cooper to Haiti as an interpreter.

“When I got to the airport,” he remembers, “I was blown away, because there were all the CNN correspondents I’d grown up watching.” He was in for an even bigger shock when they touched down in Haiti, the immense devastation at a level Duthiers had never seen before. “In Port-Au-Prince, there were just stacks and stacks of bodies piled up,” he says. “I struggled with being there to do a job as a journalist and also balancing the emotional toll. I had a common history with these people.”

Anderson Cooper and his team, including Duthiers, stayed in Haiti for four weeks and ultimately won two Emmy awards for coverage of the quake. Due to his fluency in Creole, Duthiers played a larger role in the rescue efforts than that of an ordinary journalist. He remembers clearly how a mother named Manoushka approached rescue workers, saying that she could hear the voice of her 10-year-old daughter in the rubble of a daycare center. Duthiers was asked to call out to the child, asking her to tap three times so that workers could identify her position. Although he and another worker felt they heard a response, after hours of searching, the workers concluded that no one was alive at the site anymore. “We had to tell her that her daughter had died,” says Duthiers.

Running over the incident in his mind, Duthiers thought he had probably imagined the child’s response, coming weakly up from the deep rubble. But when the news team played back the footage they shot that day, a faint voice was audible in response to Duthiers’ prompting. “So there really was someone in there,” he says.

Haiti’s National Cathedral, begun in 1884, completely destroyed by the January 2010 earthquake.

This emotional time in Haiti marked the true beginning of Duthiers’ journalism career. He would go on to work as a full-time production assistant for the CNN Anderson Cooper 360˚ show, returning to Haiti to report on a corrupt American missionary who was abusing young boys, among other stories.

As a journalist, Duthiers finds himself still drawing on the lessons he learned while an undergraduate at URI. His military training through ROTC has helped him in multiple ways, both practically in how he packs his backpack when heading out to the field, and theoretically in the material he draws from when commenting on situations of conflict. His political science and history classes also still inform his work. “A lot of the professors that I was exposed to at URI helped shape my worldview,” says Duthiers. “I learned a lot about the way countries work, how governments operate and interact with each other, how the things you see on the surface are not necessarily what is going on behind the scenes. That taught me to be very critical of the power structures, which has helped me immensely as a journalist. And in this work, if you don’t have a good understanding of the background of a country and its significant events, you are not fully embracing your responsibility as a reporter.”

Currently, Duthiers is a CNN correspondent in Nigeria. He calls it one of the most challenging places in the world to report on, but also one of the most amazing. “It’s a country of 160 million people, the second largest economy in Africa, yet it has a third-world infrastructure, and most people survive on two dollars a day. There is a lot of religious violence, conflict around the oil industry, and the politicians are a whole different breed altogether.” Although there were other assignments Duthiers could have taken, he chose Nigeria for the reward of being a witness to things that might otherwise be overlooked.

Whether pressing Haiti’s president to crack down on child traffickers or investigating reports of Nigeria’s military supposedly shooting suspected terrorists, Duthiers is up for the challenge. “On any given day, it could be anything,” he says of his work in Nigeria. “Last week, I did a story on 25 college students who were hauled out of their dorm in the middle of the night and systematically killed by unknown people. In America, that story would be huge. It would dominate the press! Here it’s news but not on most people’s radar.”

It is this work of bearing witness that has Duthiers finally doing something that feels worth remembering. The transition from security to living his passion has not disappointed. “I feel blessed and fortunate to be a correspondent at CNN. This is a news organization I grew up watching. There are days I need to pinch myself! And it’s a huge responsibility to report the news and give voice to the voiceless. I never lose sight of that.”

—Bethany Vaccaro ’06