Save the date for a trip to support the URI Women’s Rowing Team as they race in the historic Henley Regatta for the first time in URI’s history. There will be two receptions at the exclusive Leander Club of Henley-on-Thames, England. For more information on supporting the team or travel, please contact Sarah Lobdell at 401.874.2438, or visit advance.uri.edu/alumni/athletics.

Photo gallery.

See more photos online: advance.uri.edu/photo­albums/pridenight/2011

Horton, who attended URI from 1976 through the spring of 1980, has established himself as one of the top fitness experts in the world, thanks to his work with Beachbody, the parent company for P90X.

The success of the brand, which has made hundreds of millions of dollars, led to Horton working with U.S. Congress and military branches on specialized fitness programs.

In early 2011, Horton released Bring It!, a fitness book that took him on a nationwide promotional tour.

Horton, who studied theater and communications at URI, took a weight lifting course here: “I never forgot the way the course was taught, and it’s why with the P90X I show each exercise with three different methods, at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels,” Horton said.

Janis Merluzzo has been into physical fitness for years, working out with weights, speed walking, and practicing yoga in addition to ballet lessons that she began at age five. As a physical education and health major at URI, Merluzzo studied ballet with Herci and Myles Marsden of the Rhode Island State Ballet.

Merluzzo continued ballet classes in New York City and in New Jersey where she taught health education and psychology at Bergen County’s Mahwah High School for 24 years and physical education in grades 3–5 for five years. She was also an adjunct professor in the Department of Health Professions at Montclair State University.

Her current dance athleticism builds on the strength and grace gained in those years of training. Today, she and her dance partner, Daniel Fugazzotto, are national champion ballroom dancers. They routinely practice two to three hours a day—upping that to four to six hours a day before a competition—and take lessons three times a week with their head coach plus occasional lessons with specialty dance coaches.

After early retirement and a move to Florida nine years ago, Merluzzo attended weekly open ballroom dances at a local studio; that’s where she met her dance partner. Fugazzotto and Merluzzo soon decided to share private lessons “to share expenses and have someone to practice with.” Their teacher felt the pair also shared ability, determination, and work ethic and encouraged them to start competing after just six months of lessons.

Now the pair hold several national titles in the DanceSport division of USADance and are members of Sarasota’s White Sands Chapter, where Merluzzo is events and publicity chair and incoming president. They compete in four Divisions: American Smooth, American Rhythm, International Standard, and International Latin in two senior age groups.

—Sally Adams ’66, M.A. ’68

From his email address, which starts off “appleman,” to his colorful Web site, tougasfarm.com, Mo Tougas is all about apples. And now American Fruit Grower magazine has given him another title—2011 Apple Grower of the Year.

Tougas owns a 120-acre Pick Your Own operation, Tougas Family Farm, in Northboro, Mass. His farm is close to the geographic center of New England, a fitting location for a farm that was voted one of the 10 best apple orchards in the country by Woman’s Day magazine.

Tougas’ life centers around growing apples and several other fruits and his family—wife Phyllis and their children, Andre, Nicole, and April, all of whom have roles in the farm’s operation.

Tougas, who spent three years as an agricultural extension agent after URI (B.S. in natural resources, M.A. in education) married Phyllis in 1981 and a year later bought the pick-your-own farm.

His travels and exposure to other growers convinced Tougas that his customers would like to have more than a bag of fruit when they visited. As a result Tougas Family Farm is a place to have fun, enjoy food, and absorb all the sights and smells of a farming operation.

Children by the thousands descend on his farm via school tours—he estimates 15,000 this fall— and while he and his family host the children, they also hope to start modifying their eating habits—slices of apples rather than candy for example. “Juvenile diabetes is a real problem in this country,” he says, adding that more consumption of fruits and vegetables is part of the solution.

The Apple Grower of the Year is not content with traditional methods of growing fruit. Rather he has embraced and is experimenting with high density growing techniques that he witnessed on trips to Europe. He is promoting the techniques through talks, on-site demonstrations and even U-Tube videos. “The whole idea,” he says, “is to grow fruit, not trees.”

—Rudi Hempe ’63

Although Jon B. Cooke liked to read comics when he was young, he became passionate about them when he was 12 and living with his mother and younger brother Andy in Europe. When he ran out of comic books, he and Andy created their own.

While most kids eventually outgrow comics, Cooke, 52, never has. “Comics, put simply, can tell a story as passionately and with as much impact as any prose literature. When composed in expert fashion, the melding of word and visual create a unique experience, one as enriching and vital as any in books, film, painting, music—you name it,” says Cooke. “If you sit down and read Maus or Persepolis or Jimmy Corrigan with an open, critical mind, you might come away quite enlightened as to the experience and the possibilities of the form.”

Cooke credits URI with helping him find and meld his interests in journalism and history with a lifelong hobby. Specifically, his stint as editor “in the grungy, counter-culture offices of The Great Swamp Gazette in the Memorial Union basement, where, with the aid of equally manic cohorts and lots of coffee” the staff pasted together the student alternative publication.

Those skills would eventually lead to the creation of COMIC BOOK ARTIST, a magazine Cooke produced between 1998 and 2005. The magazine won five consecutive Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (the Oscars of the art form) for “Best Comics-Related Periodical,” sometimes presented by Eisner himself.

Cooke and his brother Andy produced an award-winning documentary, WILL EISNER: PORTRAIT OF A SEQUENTIAL ARTIST, which debuted at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. Many consider Eisner the most influential person in American comics. Learn more at montillapictures.com.

While maintaining a full-time job as art director in advertising and marketing, Cooke’s zeal for comics has never waned. He owns thousands of comics and an almost equal number of magazines, fanzines, and books on the subject.

— Jan Wenzel ‘87

Amy Knowlton with her partner Bill McWeeny.

Entanglement and Other Issues

One thing’s for sure about working with right whales: it’s no boring desk job. Just ask Amy Knowlton of the New England Aquarium.

In 1987 Knowlton was conducting an aerial survey for North Atlantic right whales off the Georgia coast when the twin-engine plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean. Her account of her escape and rescue was featured on the PBS science program NOVA.

Then there was the time her team was attempting to measure a whale’s blubber using an ultrasound device. North Atlantic right whales weigh about 70 tons and can reach 50 feet in length, and this one didn’t care to be studied. “The whale did a 180o turn and came up under our vessel and slammed it,” she recalled. “I got catapulted off. Luckily I had a float jacket on.”

The rewards involved in preserving these great creatures are worth the risks, she says. As a research scientist with the aquarium’s Right Whale Research Project, Knowlton studies one of the world’s most endangered large whale species. Fewer than 500 North Atlantic right whales survive in the coastal waters of North America. Human impact—in the form of vessel strikes and entanglements in fishing gear—accounts for about half of all right whale deaths.

Knowlton recently returned from two months on the water in the Bay of Fundy, where each year in late summer her team monitors the right whale population as part of a decades-long study. She started on the project right out of college.

Her graduate studies in marine policy at URI helped her to play a role in a successful effort to convince the federal government to place seasonal speed restrictions on ships in the whales’ habitats.

Her current focus, the entanglement issue, reflects the enduring struggle between humans and the natural world: “I’m trying to help us coexist.”

Get more information about right whales and the Right Whale Research Project.

—Mark Sullivan

Jennifer Baker and shelter dog Hunter.

Adoption Counselor

The world needs more people like Jennifer Baker. Despite the fact that she’s working a full-time job as a property coordinator while simultaneously studying for her master’s degree in nursing from Regis College, she also finds time to be an adoption counselor at the Northeast Animal Shelter.

After earning her degree in psychology in 2008, Baker decided to use some of her free time volunteering. She chose the Northeast Animal Shelter, in Salem, Mass., New England’s largest no kill shelter. She started with a couple of hours a week, but it quickly grew into more. “So many people volunteer just to play with animals,” she said. “But I wanted to work. I cleaned cages and walked dogs.”

Shelter managers soon asked her to become a part-time adoption counselor. Her psychology degree proved an asset in helping clients pick the dog that’s right for them.

All adoptions start with a pre-screen application process, and then the counselor must take many different factors into consideration including the adoptee’s working hours and family conditions such as the presence of young children in the household.

“These are rescue dogs so it’s important to make a good placement,” Baker explained. “Sometimes I have to put my conflict resolution skills to work. People will fall in love with a particular animal and don’t always understand that they won’t be able to take that same animal home.”

Her love of animals had led Baker to consider becoming a veterinarian: “I was interested in vet school but got discouraged because there are a lot of prerequisites, not a lot of schools to choose from, and really not that many jobs. And I’m very sensitive and didn’t think I would ever be able to help euthanize a dog.” Luckily that is something that never happens at the Northeast Animal Shelter.

As the recent recipient of a rescue dog, I can attest that the work Baker is doing is life changing for both dog and owner.

—Jennifer Gaul ’89

When we speak in our native tongue, we have mannerisms that indicate our gender. Marjorie Johnson ’10 wants to know if those tendencies carry over when individuals learn a second language.

Johnson headed to Paris, France, in October to research the topic, thanks to the Walter J. Jensen Fellowship for French Studies. The double major in French and philosophy won the fellowship from the Phi Beta Kappa Society last spring. It’s designed to help educators and researchers improve education in standard French language, literature, and culture and in the study of standard French in the United States.

As the country’s lone recipient, Johnson earned a $14,000 stipend that will allow her to pursue her master’s degree at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (the School for Advanced Study in Social Sciences).

“I love the French academic system, because it puts a lot of the planning on the students,” Johnson said. “Students’ success in France is a function of their own motivation and effort.”

Johnson’s research thesis is “Des Américains bilingues en France: la transformation de la parole sexualisée,” (“Bilingual Americans in France: The Transformation of Gendered Speech).”

Johnson’s parents speak French. Her father, Galen Johnson, is a professor of philosophy at URI and the director of the University’s Center for the Humanities. Her mother, Becky, is a French and Spanish teacher at South Kingstown High School as well as an accomplished violinist. Marjorie Johnson plays the piano and upright bass and is an award-winning poet.

“All of us speak in a way that reflects our gender,” said Johnson, who taught several sections of French at URI last year. “I am fascinated to explore why that is. Is it something that carries over when we learn a second language? Is it a product of how we are raised? I want to know how much of our speaking patterns are determined by the social expectations that surround us.”

—Shane Donaldson ’99

Women’s Track and Field Coach Laurie Feit-Melnick, center, with, left to right, Mary Pratt, a founder of New Agenda: Northeast Hall of Fame, and Marcia Crooks, chair of the New Agenda: Northeast Hall of Fame.

Women’s track & field/cross country head coach Laurie Feit-Melnick was inducted into the New Agenda: Northeast Hall of Fame on Nov. 6. The New Agenda: Northeast promotes the advancement and recognizes the achievements of girls and women in sports throughout New England.

At URI, Feit-Melnick has been named Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year nine times and Rhode Island women’s Coach of the Year four times.

The road to the Final Four in women’s basketball runs through Kingston, as URI’s Ryan Center is hosting the 2012 NCAA Women’s Basketball East Regional.

Four of the country’s top teams will converge at the Ryan Center on Sunday, March 25 for Sweet Sixteen play. The winners of the two games will then meet on Tuesday, March 27 for a spot in the Final Four.

“We are thrilled to have been chosen to host the 2012 NCAA East Regional Women’s Basketball Championship,” said URI Director of Athletics Thorr Bjorn. “I know it is going to provide a tremendous benefit, not only to URI athletics, but the entire University and State of Rhode Island, for that matter. We are looking forward to putting on a first class event and ask all of our alumni and fans to come out and see some great basketball.”

Tickets for all sessions are $50 for adults, $35 for youths and students, and $40 each for groups of 20 or more, and may be purchased at the Ryan Center Box Office. Orders may also be placed over the phone at 401.874.7297 or via the Web through GoRhody.com.

Rhody baseball senior Mike Le Bel is writing a season-long blog for College Baseball Daily. Here is an excerpt from his November entry.

On October 27, 2011, the University of Rhode Island baseball team lost a teammate and a brother, Joseph Paul Ciancola. I want to start by saying that, on behalf of the Rhody baseball team, our thoughts and prayers are with the entire Ciancola family.

Although under the most unfortunate of circumstances, I recently had the pleasure of meeting Joey’s family, and I now know where he got his smile, strength, and love. Michele Ciancola, Joey’s mother, has been an incredible inspiration to all of us throughout this difficult time. Her strength is unmatched.

Talking with my teammates over the past week has made me realize just how special and how much of a privilege it is to play college baseball. To be able to step on that field and play a game we all share a passion for while building friendships that will last a lifetime off the field has been the best experience of my life.

The Rhody baseball team is a family. Joey was a big part of that, and he will be forever. Each day Joe would walk into the locker room with a big smile on his face, no matter what the circumstance. He was the type of kid that just wanted to make other people happy, make them laugh, and have a good time.

On the field, Joey was a competitor. He worked harder than anyone else. When Joe took the mound, he just had this presence about him—he was calm and confident and knew he would get the job done.

Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil pulled back the curtain to a future filled with transformative technologies such as a three-dimensional printer that can print a violin with good sound quality. His talk, given in a packed Edwards Auditorium, was the inaugural lecture of this fall’s Honors Colloquium, Are You Ready for the Future?

Kurzweil envisions that plans for solar panels or house parts could be emailed to individuals who would then print the products on these printers.

Human life will be extended because biology has become part of information technology, thanks to the unlocking of the human genome. Kurzweil said the creation of microscopic blood cells that could be sent through the bloodstream to destroy pathogens and disease at the cellular level and organ replacements are around the corner.

Kurzweil foresees a merger of the human brain with artificial intelligence in 20 to 30 years.

The two professors head two ongoing studies that examine the impact of technology use on physical and mental health and interpersonal relationships in college students.

Adams and Kisler found texting and cell phone use is affecting important aspects of students’ physical health. In their study of 236 college juniors and seniors, 47 percent reported that they were awakened by text messages to which they responded before falling back asleep.

They also reported that 40 percent of the students answered phone calls during sleep time. Students who use such technology throughout the night were averaging as much as 44 minutes of lost sleep per week. This pattern of sleep interruption showed indicators of other serious issues for students, particularly poor sleep quality, depression, and anxiety.

“At first glance 44 minutes doesn’t seem like much, but combined with the fact that college students are the most sleep deprived population across all age groups, the implications are significant,” Adams said. “More often than not, the interruptions caused by texting come within the first few hours of sleep, which is the most important time for restorative sleep. If students are constantly interrupting their sleep cycle, they place themselves at risk for sleep debt, which can impact multiple areas of their lives, including academic performance.”

Beavan visited the Kingston Campus in September to help kickoff a semester-long series of lectures, activities, and film screenings designed to raise awareness of and interest in sustainability issues.

Check out Colin Beavan’s No Impact Man blog.

The University has recently completed a Climate Action Plan, an evolving document that will guide URI to climate neutrality, meaning no net greenhouse gas emissions. By 2050, the University aims to reduce its 2005 emissions levels 50 percent, according to Robert A. Weygand, vice president for administration and finance and chair of the President’s Council on Sustainability.

Click here for more information about sustainability activities on campus.

The U.S. has an 18 percent rate of hospital readmissions within 30 days of discharge; as many as 76 percent of these readmissions are preventable, according to Medicare data. If these unnecessary readmissions were avoided, an estimated $25 billion could be saved annually.

Studies show that medication problems occur frequently after hospitalization, with about half of patients experiencing drug therapy duplication, drug interactions, or other types of medication problems after discharge.

Pharmacists can make sure that new medications prescribed in the hospital are compatible with the ones prescribed by the patient’s usual doctors and also review over-the-counter medications that the patient may be taking. Additionally, pharmacists are specifically trained to look for an important medication that may have been inadvertently omitted and would also know if a better formulation of a prescribed medication is available, Kogut said.

Cervical cancer is the leading cause of death of women in Peru, where only 30 percent of women get Pap smear screenings.

CerviCusco, a non-profit Peruvian agency, is committed to increasing that percentage. Barbara Klitz ‘76, clinical professor and director of the Cyto-pathology Program offered at URI’s Feinstein Providence Campus, volunteered at the clinic during the summer of 2010.

That experience inspired Klitz to create the first summer abroad course, Special Problems in Clinical Lab Science.

Last August, graduate students Robert Mathis ’10 of Pawtucket, Ashlee Taylor ’10 of North Kingtown, Carolyn Thompson ’05 of Hopkinton, Daniel Attoh of Pawtucket, and Stephanie Ruszcyk of Danville, N. H., screened more than 400 pap smears and found a number of atypical smears. Even though it wasn’t part of their six-credit course, which completed their degree, the students happily volunteered to screen an extra day to help with the clinic’s workload.

Sandy Quaglieri ’73 of North Kingstown, who has 30 years experience as a cytotechnologist, served as clinical instructor. To prepare for the trip, she studied Spanish for a year.

In addition to the screenings, the class gained an historical perspective by reading Kim MacQuarrie’s book, The Last Days of the Incas. “Some of those stories were fresh in our minds,” says Quaglieri. “We were amazed at the gentleness of the Peruvian people.”

He’s more than up to the task. His 20-year career in higher education philanthropy includes three major campaigns at institutions in Kansas that netted a total of more than $800 million. He developed and implemented a comprehensive development program at Kansas State University that increased annual gifts from $21 million to more than $100 million.

“I was impressed by all of the people I met throughout the interview and selection process and energized by the transformative goals that have been set by President Dooley,” said Smith. “From the Foundation Executive Board and staff, to the administration, Alumni Association, academic deans, athletics, and beyond, it was obvious to me that everyone shares a passion for this University and an understanding of the great potential it has.

“The role of private philanthropy at URI is becoming increasingly important, and I look forward to doing what I can to help build and increase opportunities that will enhance URI’s profile and competitiveness.”

Her study involves not only helping the gibbons, but engaging with local residents and students to teach them about global conservation. She is shown here with her Lao research team field (from left) Tsing, Souliya, Dua, Somphet, and Suree.

Because Laos is so mountainous and isolated, there are a lot of areas where gibbons survive. However, industrialization and development have created rapid changes in recent years, causing widespread habitat fragmentation for the gibbons,” she says.

“Ruppell’s research is part of her doctoral dissertation in biology at Portland State University where she earned a master’s degree in biological anthropology.

“Gibbons are one of the few primates to sing,” says one of the ape’s biggest fans. “An adult male and female live together with their offspring in a territory they defend by singing. The male sings for several minutes, then the female chimes in with a great call of notes that become louder and increase in siren-like frequency.”

Left to right: Gerry Tyler, Joanne Walsh, Sharon Woodsmansee, Al Killilea.

This fall, more than 100 alumni, faculty, students, and friends gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Department of Political Science. U.S. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) was on hand to mark the milestone. His talk, “The Place of the U.S. in the New Global Order,” was followed by a question-and-answer session.

Poli-sci, which now enrolls about 2,000 undergraduates and 150 graduate students annually, has achieved much in just 50 years. Department highlights:

• Six faculty members received URI Foundation Teaching Excellence Awards, a faculty member received a URI Foundation Research Excellence Award, and a staff member received a URI Foundation Staff Excellence Award.

• Conversion in 2009 to an innovative four-credit curriculum for deeper learning;

• The founding in 1994 of the John Hazen White Sr. Center for Ethics and Public Service, which offers ethics workshops for public officials as well as other programs in ethics and public service.

• The founding of the Mentor/Tutor Internship in 1998, which enrolls more than 150 trained interns annually. MTI students assist the Rhode Island Family Literacy Initiative as well as high school students in more than 25 schools at risk of dropping out.

• Dedication in 2003 of a Pre-Law Home Conference Room and Pre-law Classroom where students interested in legal careers can gather, study, and get advice.

In addition to these highlights, in 2004 Professor Al Killilea played an instrumental role in URI being named one of three Truman Foundation Honor Institutions. Killilea served as URI’s Truman Scholarship campus committee chair for 20 years. Seven of URI’s 12 Truman Scholarship winners were political science majors.

The anniversary event also celebrated the careers of Killilea, who will retire in June 2012, and Professor Gerry Tyler, who retired in June 2011. Both educators were praised by their former students for impressing upon them the importance every citizen has in this country’s affairs.

Sex Ratio: 55 percent female; 45 percent male.

Where U.S. Students Come From: Forty-three states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico; after Rhode Island, the top states represented are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York.

Where International Students Come From: Fifty-four countries; the top countries are South Korea, China, India, Germany, Japan, and Great Britain.

Price Tag: Rhode Islanders pay $11,366 for tuition and fees; out -of –state students pay $27,454. Room and board is not based on geography—everyone pays $10,432.

Most Popular Majors: Nursing, psychology, and communication studies.

“Design is not about how well you can draw,” says Susan Hannel, associate professor of textiles, fashion merchandising, and design. “It’s about the ability to recognize and create good design. That ability can be taught. With the technology and equipment here at URI, students are able to realize their designs and ideas, regardless of their artistic ability.”

Apparel magazine has named Hannel its All Star Educator of the Year, in part for her efforts to improve technology in URI’s apparel lab and bring it up to industry standards so that students are prepared for fabulous careers.

According to Apparel, under Hannel’s guidance, the apparel lab was transformed from a “sea of home sewing machines to a true-to-life production floor, replete with industrial machines and sergers, professional steam irons, industry-standard dress forms, and professional worktables.”

Hannel was able to achieve that transformation with the help of two Champlin Foundations grants and with equipment donations from Lectra, a worldwide textiles industry leader in integrated technology solutions.

In addition to teaching apparel classes, supervising internships, and winning grants, Hannel also leads students on fashionable study tours to London and Paris.

Remarkably, as this issue of QUAD ANGLES illustrates, inspiration and hope can be found in seemingly unlikely places. There are few groups in our nation as stigmatized, ostracized, belittled, and threatened as those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered. The University of Rhode Island is committed to changing this in our community and is committed to building a community here where everyone is welcomed, affirmed, and supported. It is one of our highest priorities, but we have quite a way to go. Nevertheless, a group of students came together at the Women’s Center at URI and created hope and inspired the entire University.

They raised thousands of dollars and devoted countless hours to plan and produce the video It Gets Better at URI: Coming Out for Change. It has been called a “simple message of hope”—and it is. But it is also a profound and inspirational response to a national problem: The prevalence of depression and suicide among LGBT young people. The young women who produced this video wanted to share the message that it can, and does, get better. The University of Rhode Island will be a better university, a stronger community, and a better environment for all its members as a result of their efforts. I am extremely proud of them and everyone at URI who shared their vision for hope and contributed their own story, or their support, to this project.

As is evident in this issue, a lot of things are getting better at the University of Rhode Island. We need to be a better university for the sake of our students, the state, our nation, and even the world. Our alumni, friends, and supporters are partners with us in this important endeavor.

—David M. Dooley

Andy Gresh ’97, a former offensive lineman for the Rams, spent the first 16 years of his life in Carmichaels, Pa., a tiny town of 530 people as smack in the middle of nowhere as one can get. “Real back woods” is how he describes it.

During those formative years, Gresh watched his father head off every day to work in a coalmine near town. “I know this: my old man worked for a living,” says Gresh. “I do a lot of different things in my business considered ‘work.’ I bust my hump—that comes from him. He did physical labor. I was smart enough to take the marketable skills I had and turn them into a profession. I think part of him is amazed—I think both my parents are amazed—that their son talks on the radio, talks sports, and makes good dough doing it.”

It is that work ethic, colleagues say, combined with the ability to juggle a half dozen media jobs and bring a unique style of enthusiasm to each one, that has pushed the self-described “dumb kid from small town western Pennsylvania” to the top of New England’s sports media landscape.

“He doesn’t say ‘no,’” says former NFL quarterback Scott Zolak, Gresh’s radio partner for most of the past 10 years. “He knows how to work.”

And work Gresh does. Pick a day, pick an hour, and Gresh is somewhere debating, dissecting, writing (he’s the author of The Great Book of Boston Sports Lists), reporting, working. If it’s a Sunday morning, he’s at Gillette stadium in Foxborough, Mass., as part of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Patriots Radio Network’s pre-game and post-game coverage. If it’s a Monday evening, he’s appearing as guest and sometimes host of Comcast Sports Net New England’s Sports Tonight television show. If it’s a Thursday evening, he’s at WPRI-12 in Providence where he serves as the station’s football analyst. If it’s a Saturday afternoon, he’s somewhere in the Northeast serving as color commentator for televised Colonial Athletic Association football games.

And if it is any weekday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., he’s inside CBS Boston’s radio station, his booming voice on the airwaves at 98.5 The Sports Hub, arguing with callers and providing equal time to entertain and aggravate listeners with his bombastic opinions. “With Andy, there’s never a dull moment, no mellow days,” says Zolak. “I think he’s successful because he’s so passionate, he brings a unique perspective, and he works hard.”

That passion and work ethic were apparent to his journalism professors at URI. “Andy was one of the hardest working and most determined students I’ve ever had,” said Professor Linda Levin. “He wanted so much to be a sports commentator. He was passionate to succeed, so I’m not surprised that he did.”

Journalism Professor Barbara Luebke often shares stories of Gresh’s commitment with current students. “One clear memory I have of Andy relates to a summer internship he did with WFAN in New York. I recall how determined he was to intern there because he was convinced that he wanted a career in sports radio. He secured the internship entirely on his own, and twice a week, I believe, he took the train into Manhattan from Westerly in order to put in his hours. Most weeks I would hear about guests he met and calls he screened. I recall talking with him at the end of the internship, and in that distinct Andy voice he recounted what a terrific time he had, how it was worth every sacrifice to do the internship, how he was more driven than ever to do radio.”

To this day, that internship at WFAN is the coolest thing Gresh says he’s ever done in sports talk radio. “The best piece of advice I got from the whole Journalism Department at URI, whether it was Barbara Luebke or Tony Silvia or David DeHoyas, or Linda Levin, is that they all told me to do internships.”

Three days a week during the summer of 1995, Gresh worked side by side with radio professionals he’d grown up listening to. He worked with Mike and the Mad Dog (Chris Russo) on Mondays from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m., and on Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Then he was off until Saturday, when he was on the overnight shift from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Sunday morning. On weekdays he took the train twice a week from Rhode Island to New York. On the weekend, he stayed at the home of his best friend, Nelson Martinez ’98, in Newark, N.J.

Gresh has the same drive and determination today as he did during his days as an intern, and it’s paid dividends for him and his colleagues at 98.5 The Sports Hub, now the top sports radio station in New England, according to the latest Arbitron ratings.

The Gresh and Zo Show’s audience is double that of rival station WEEI-850, according to those same ratings, but Gresh says he cannot and will not allow himself to relax: “I always felt that with the right management and the right opportunity, Zolak and I would be able to do great things. But it’s just the beginning, and you can die in this business really quickly. So I don’t worry about what other people do; I worry about what we do. Personally, I think we’re pretty good at what we do, but if we don’t prove it every day, our butts are going to be on the street.”

He knows that aspect of the job all too well. Gresh has been fired three times: “You really haven’t lived in the business until you’ve been fired. It’s sobering.”

He beats on, undeterred by the fickle nature of the business of talk radio. The uncertainty of it all doesn’t strike fear in him, but fuels him to work harder to stay on top. “I want to do as much as I can all the time, and let’s face it, it’s fun. Half my life, I talk about football. My old man was a coal miner. I talk for a living. That’s very different.”

By Justin Martin ’95

LBTQ Women’s Group members Christina Kinney, Jen Kaye, Kim McGuiness, and Portia Burnette lead a discussion on It Gets Better at URI at the film’s premier in Edwards Auditorium on Oct. 5.

“I’ve advised student organizations for many years, and I’ve seen students do some amazing things,” said Human Development and Family Studies Professor Annemarie Vaccaro. “But this is the biggest thing I’ve ever seen students do.”

She is talking about It Gets Better at URI: Coming Out for Change*, a student-made film that represents both a minor miracle and a University-wide commitment to support students struggling with their sexual identity. The miracle is the story behind how the film was made; the effect of the film on campus and beyond has already been felt.

Late in the spring 2011 semester, five members of the LBTQ Women’s Group, which meets weekly on campus, decided to make a small film as URI’s contribution to the national effort known as “It Gets Better.” The movement, which offers support for young people, was started after some highly publicized suicides that resulted from harrassment and bullying of gay students. The five—graduate students Jen Kaye and Kim McGuiness, sophomore Portia Burnette, senior Christina Kinney, and junior Dana Speesler—had no experience in filmmaking, and they were thinking, “we could maybe use our cell phones to shoot some video and post it online.”

Problem number one: It was final exam week. Most students would vacate campus in a matter of days, and many faculty would be less available. With help from Vaccaro, clinical counselor Holly Nichols, and Carolyn Sovet, a student life staff member, the five students sent emails and delivered flyers to academic departments. Within days they had heard from over 80 people who wanted to be interviewed, and they received money from faculty, staff, administrators, and some academic programs to underwrite the film.

“What it showed us,” Nichols said, “is that this campus is filled with supportive people who understand the struggles that gay students face, and they want to help in whatever way they can.”

When the students began working with filmmaker Robert Rose last summer, they had commitments for interviews from more than two dozen students and 60 faculty, staff, and administrators—far more than they ever anticipated. They worked with Rose all summer recording interviews and editing, ending up with almost 30 hours of film that they had to distill down to about one hour. The result is a candid, sometimes surprising, sometimes inspirational, and often emotional record of testimony from students, faculty members, and URI staff, several of whom came out publicly about their homosexuality for the first time.

Leslie Williams, director of student conduct and community affairs, gave perhaps the most emotional interview as she talked about her mother, who, when Williams was in high school, had encouraged her to accept the fact that she was gay. Years later her mother committed suicide. “I appreciate the students making the effort that they did,” Williams said. “I wanted to get the message to students about the finality of suicide and to assure others on campus—students and staff—that they are not alone and they can find support.”

President David Dooley, Provost Donald DeHayes, vice presidents, deans of various colleges, and Athletic Director Thorr Bjorn all made cameos of support in the film. Since the October 5 premier in Edwards Auditorium, the group has sold 100 copies, Dooley has ordered 30 for various offices, and many student organizations and academic departments have asked for a screening. The film is scheduled to air on public television in Rhode Island this winter, and Rhode Island College has requested a screening.

Assistant Athletic Director Gina Sperry was key to the Athletic Department’s remarkable involvement with the film. More than half the audience at the premier was composed of athletes who were required to attend. Athletics Director Bjorn was the first University official to respond to the students’ call for support; in the film he talked about how his views changed when his sister revealed that she is a lesbian.

His support for the project helped inspire Sperry to make her own revelation. “The athletics staff community is a small group across the country,” Sperry said. “There is always fear that you could lose your job or not find another. Homophobia is deeply embedded in the athletic community, so it was scary for me to come out. I’ve really been heartened by the response. Some folks have said that if they had known I was gay, they would have come out to their teams long ago.

“Afterwards student-athletes and coaches thanked me. I was very nervous watching the film with them, but I felt great about it when they said later, ‘it takes a lot of courage.’ The most important thing, though, is that this will show students that there are people here who will support them and help them when they are struggling.”

That is the film’s main objective. “When I was in high school, I wish I had had something like this,” said Kinney, a marine affairs major, who first brought the film idea to her friends in the women’s group.

“We started this as an effort to support people,” McGuiness added, “then it turned into forming allies and giving them a chance to help.”

Burnette noted that many of the film’s participants wanted to counter last year’s negative publicity about the University: “People felt they were being labeled as non-supportive, and they saw that they needed to be public with their support.”

Dean Lynn McKinney of the College of Human Science and Services wanted to participate because, he said, suicides have continued to occur among gay students nationwide: “I wanted to do something to help. The atmosphere here on campus is much better than it used to be. Kathryn Friedman, the University’s interim vice president for diversity, has brought a new level of comfort for gay faculty, staff, and students.”

The vanguard of five students all said they had no idea the project would become as big or as significant as it has. “We never expected the kind of response we got,” Kaye said, echoing Speesler’s sentiment that the project became much bigger than they anticipated. “It surprised me that there were professors who were willing to be allies,” she said. “It has been an amazing learning experience.”

By John Pantalone ’71

*The video will be aired this spring on RI PBS.

The University found pairing a language and cultural studies expanded students’ knowledge and chances to work in global companies in the U.S. and around the world.

No matter how you say it, URI is BIG in languages. “I believe that we have one of the largest language programs in the country,” says Norbert Hedderich, chair of URI’s Department of Modern and Classical Language and Literatures.

About 3,600 students take a language class each semester or about 28 percent of the undergraduate population. Spanish with 1,247 students, French with 598 students, German with 359 students, and Italian with 492 were the most popular this fall. Chinese with 188 students is a new major that’s getting lots of traction.

For years, language courses languished at URI with a small number of majors. So what made the difference? The University found pairing a language and cultural studies with another academic program gave students the opportunity to study and/or intern in a different country with a different culture. That experience expanded students’ knowledge and chances to work in global companies in the U.S. and around the world.

“When potential employers see that an applicant has taken the risk to live, study, and work abroad for a whole year and has developed high level proficiency in a foreign language as well as valuable cross cultural skills, they want to hire them,” said Sigrid Berka, executive director of URI’s International Engineering Program, which combines an engineering degree with a bachelor‘s degree in either German, French, Spanish, or Chinese. IEP boasts a nearly 100 percent placement rate. “Globally operating employers view those skills acquired in one country as transferable to any country,” says Berka.

“As far as I know, we still are one of the largest French programs in the country, and I would even go so far as to say that we are one of the most dynamic,” says Professor Karen de Bruin, who directs URI’s French program. “Many traditional French programs, plagued with low numbers of majors, are fighting for survival. Because we highly encourage double/triple majoring, our unofficial major count last year was 172, our biggest yet.”

De Bruin notes that students can and do combine French with engineering, textiles, international business, marine affairs, forensic science, film media, and more.

“The other reason why we are so dynamic is because we aim to provide experiential learning opportunities in French for as many of our majors as possible. This fall, for example, President Dooley signed a bilateral exchange agreement with Mod’Spe, a Parisian fashion marketing and merchandising school,” says de Bruin, noting that other exchanges for other disciplines are in the works in France and Canada.

Computer Engineering and Chinese

Joseph Hackman ‘11 is thrilled with his new job as a software engineer at Intel Oregon, a global center of semiconductor research and manufacturing. “The job is fantastic. Everyone I work with is absolutely brilliant, and I get to know things about the industry outsiders won’t for years.”

 

“Due to the multinational nature of Intel, I certainly feel that my knowledge of Mandarin and the Chinese culture makes me a more valuable employee.””

Hackman studied computer engineering and Chinese in URI’s unique 5-year International Engineering Program. While at URI, he studied in China at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou and at Qingdao University in Qingdao. He completed an internship at HengTian, a software services company, where he communicated solely in Chinese. He delayed his graduation so that he would be the first student to complete the requirements for URI’s newly approved Chinese major.

Intel offered Hackman the job before he completed his studies. “Due to the multinational nature of Intel, I certainly feel that my knowledge of Mandarin and the Chinese culture makes me a more valuable employee, and it certainly didn’t hurt my chances landing the job.”

Hackman has a lifelong interest in Japan, and during his year in China, he traveled to Japan several times. Chinese, he says, breaks down barriers to learning Korean and Japanese: “I would certainly recommend language study to students. Language study and study abroad are huge parts of personal and professional development, and they are both areas where URI is in the top tier.”

Pharmacy and French
Ashley Pincins ‘11 found a place to channel her energy and empathy for others when she enrolled in the College of Pharmacy’s six-year Pharm D. program. To give her brain a change from all the science courses, she took several French courses. She had enjoyed an intensive French program at her high school.

With her French fluency, Pincins completed two of her required six pharmacy rotations in French hospitals. The rotations were coordinated by the School of Pharmacy, University of Rennes. “Practicing pharmacy in France gave me an invaluable perspective on the differences and similarities between professional practices in two different countries,” says the 24-year-old.

Because of her hectic schedule, Pincins was a few courses shy of earning her bachelor’s in French, but she says her knowledge of the language is a plus.

“In the face of globalization and a limited job market, learning a language makes a college graduate more marketable to prospective employers. Even the pharmacy market is much more competitive than when the class of 2011 entered as freshmen. I have had three separate employment offers since graduation, and I attribute that in part to my language skills.

“When a person invests the time to learn a language, that commitment suggests a set of skills and values that employers would be happy to have. My French-speaking ability was discussed at every job interview.”

Pincins is employed at a community health center in Maine that serves uninsured patients with limited resources.

Global Business Management and Spanish

 

“I feel strongly that this set me apart from other candidates.””

Alina Zolotnitskaya ‘09 spent two weeks in Costa Rica with her Needham High School Spanish class. “It not only sparked my love of Spanish, but also my passion for travel,” she says. “I got to see an amazing country and do things I never imagined like hiking through a rain forest. What really inspired me, however, was my ability to communicate with my host family who spoke no English.”

While attending URI, Zolotnitskaya participated in the Salamanca, Spain summer program and studied in Seville for a semester. “I fell in love with Spain,” she says, explaining that after graduation she taught English in Malaga, Spain for 10 months.

During job interviews after she returned, every interviewer wanted to know about her experiences abroad. “I feel strongly that this set me apart from other candidates,” says the alumna who was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and speaks fluent Russian.

Zolotnitskaya is now an analyst for Jones Lang LaSalle in Chicago, where she develops communication processes and provides data integrity management and training to support real estate managers.

Although she’s not currently using Spanish on the job, she chose that global firm for its international opportunities and hopes to work abroad in the next few years.

Any advice for current students? “While going abroad can be a scary experience that takes you out of your comfort zone, the experiences you will have are invaluable.”

Fashion and Italian

Every fashionista would love to have Ashley Sayers’ job. The 2010 alumna is an assistant buyer of women’s shoes for Gucci America, Inc., New York City. Growing up in Northern New Jersey, Sayers always had an interest in the fashion industry. When deciding on a college, she applied to URI because its Department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising, and Design had a great reputation.

Her fashion classes gave her the chance to explore the multiple career avenues the industry has to offer. The major requires students to take a language course. “I did not start studying or speaking Italian until my sophomore year,” she says. “I ended up taking it as a double major.”

Italy, of course, is one of the leading countries in fashion design and fashion is an important part of that country’s cultural life. Gucci is one of the leading fashion houses in that country.

To prepare for her future career, Sayers studied at the University of Richmond in London during the fall of her junior year and at the University of Richmond in Rome during the spring semester of her senior year. Before landing her current job, she was a buying intern at Gucci.

Today, her job description includes jetting to Italy where she easily feels right at home speaking fluent Italian with colleagues or striking up a conversation with a cab driver.

Oceans Away

Growing up in Framingham, Mass., Matthew “Matt” Zimmerman ‘01 thought about studying engineering in college, but he never thought about also majoring in German or French.

 

Many people in the world can speak three languages. “It’s only unique for an American, and this should not be the case in a global economy.””

Yet today the vice president of engineering and co-founder of FarSounder often communicates in those languages while traveling the world visiting customers, training dealers, or participating in trade shows.

“When I speak the local language, I’m able to get around better and make better connections,” says the graduate of URI’s International Engineering Program who spent five months studying in Orleans, France, and then moved to Germany to complete a six-month internship with SAP in Karlsruhe.

While a student, he also worked on sonar technology with Ocean Engineering Professor James Miller. Before Zimmerman graduated, he and Miller commercialized their work and co-founded FarSounder in Warwick, R.I. The result was 3D Forward Looking Sonar to improve of navigational safety for surface vessels by helping them avoid obstacles.

Today, the company designs, manufactures, and markets 3D sonar systems with a variety of applications in the commercial, recreational, defense, and homeland security markets worldwide.

“We’ve become the de facto standard in these technologies and continue to grow and create new products,” Zimmerman says with some understandable pride, noting the company hires a number of URI graduates and student interns.

He doesn’t find his linguistic skills extraordinary. In fact, he says, many people in the world can speak three languages. “It’s only unique for an American, and this should not be the case in a global economy.

URI students combine land exploration with underwater archaeology.

Photos and footage from the 2011 trip.

“A shuttle picked us up every morning at 6:30 a.m. and dropped us off at a banana planation. A quick hike through the banana trees and we were at our site,” senior Abbie Casavant remembers. “It didn’t look like much at first—just a big, open, dusty construction site.”

Casavant, a senior majoring in history and anthropology and minoring in underwater archaeology, was near Haifa, Israel, in July 2011, one of 12 undergraduates to participate in the pilot year of URI’s Israel Coast Exploration Project, an 8-credit summer program coordinated by William Krieger, assistant professor of philosophy, and Bridget Buxton, assistant professor of history.

The three-week long summer program is an innovative combination of underwater and on-land archaeology. Although only in its first year, it was the third largest international program at URI last summer.

“Underwater digs and terrestrial digs are generally kept very separate,” explains Krieger. “We want to move the field forward in a way that is explicitly integrative and theoretically based.” Archaeologists usually train through field schools, but none of the schools in Israel have included underwater components. “This was a single project working on one question,” says Krieger. “We want to understand a coastal city in its entirety as it relates to the surrounding cities and the region as it was in antiquity. Much of this may currently be underwater. We want to get a full picture, instead of just a few separate snapshots.”

For its first year, the coordinators selected two nearby sites on the northern coast of Israel for the underwater and terrestrial components. Students could choose to focus on either the land or water component. “But everyone digs,” explains Krieger, “There are many things that an archeologist does that an underwater specialist doesn’t. We wanted everyone to have a full training.”

“We started digging at around 7:30 a.m. after setting up our tents and getting our tools out,” explains Casavant. Becky Wrightson, a senior art history major, explains that the shade tents were a neces-sity due to the high temperatures and humidity. “We would spend the next few hours digging with pick-axes and smaller shovels. We worked in groups in separate areas within the overall dig site,” she remembers. “We would systematically clear the dirt away, keeping the level of the square even. We would keep records of what we were doing and what we were finding. We made sure to take measurements and drawings of the site before and after digging every day. We also had buckets set up collecting pieces of pottery, glass, and whatever other artifacts we found.”

“Working all day in the heat was tough!” says Casavant. “At the end of the day, we were covered in dirt from head to toe—caked in our hair, ears, and noses.”

Meanwhile, every day the weather permitted, Buxton was heading into the water. “I ended up taking one student for our first year,” she explains, as students already have to be certified to dive when they come to the program. “Next year, we will take more underwater students as we expand the program. But we need to keep the numbers small enough so that I can always be in the water with them.”

The underwater work revolved primarily around testing some new tools. “We were using a SyQuest stratabox, a kind of underwater sensing technology, to look for shipwrecks that are 1-2 meters under the sand. All we really wanted for our first season was proof of concept. The easiest way to prove that we could find what we were looking for with this equipment was to actually find something.”

The underwater component proved to be quite successful. “We made some discoveries of shipwrecks in Akko harbor that should resolve the question of the location of a lost ship from Napoleon’s siege of Acre in 1799,” says Buxton. But the real passion of the program, she affirms, is for Hellenistic archaeology. “There’s evidence that the very oldest seafaring trading ships in the world will be found off the coast of Israel. We have information through the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) about the original find spot of the bronze ram of a Hellenistic warship. That’s our ultimate prize.”

To earn their credits, the students were also given a full immersion into the history of Israel through a series of daily lectures and tours. “Our program partner in Israel, Jacob Sharvit, is the head of the underwater unit of the IAA,” says Krieger. “With Jacob, we went behind the yellow tape at nearly every site. We always got the backstage tour! We went to the IAA research and storage facilties, which is something out of Indiana Jones. It was stunning!”

“Visiting the IAA storehouse,” remembers Casavant, “where almost all of the artifacts found in Israel are catalogued and stored, left me speechless.” Buxton agrees, “Krieger and I both have worked in Israel before and we’d never seen any of this stuff for ourselves.”

Both Krieger and Buxton enthusiastically anticipate how the Israel Coast Exploration Project will grow and expand over the coming years. Its debut was generously supported by alumni Eric Roiter ’70 and Marc ’69 and Claire Perlman ’73. The coordinators continue to look for support as they chart the course for next summer. “There is no question that this is going to be a strong flagship program for URI,” says Krieger. “We can offer immersion in an international setting, experiential learning in the humanities, undergraduate research—it is possible to do all this. We’re hoping to take up to 20 students next time.”

Judging by the reaction of the 2011 participants, students will surely keep coming. “There’s no better classroom than the field,” affirms Casavant. And the rewards are worth all the backaches and dust. “The thought that this pottery shard in my hand hasn’t been touched in almost two thousand years,” says Wrightson, “is just amazing.”

For information about season 2 of the underwater/terrestrial field school, slated to hit the ground (and water) in June 2012, contact William Krieger at krieger@mail.uri.edu or Bridget Buxton at babuxton@mail.uri.edu.

By Bethany Vaccaro ’06

In addition, 26 leaders in diverse fields were honored by the University’s colleges and graduate school with Deans’ Awards.

Held on Saturday evening, October 22 at the Westin Providence, the awards honor alumni, faculty, staff, and friends of the University who have brought distinction to themselves and the University through their professional achievements, outstanding leadership, and community service.

PRESIDENT’S AWARD RECIPIENTS

Alfred J. Verrecchia ’67, M.B.A. ’72, Hon. ’04

Sybil Putnam Seitzinger, Ph.D. ’82

Vincent A. Sarni ’49, Hon. ’85

Richard E. Beaupre ’62, Hon. ’03

What do you say to a child who has lost a loved one? Probably nothing. “It’s the elephant in the room,” says Carolyn Hames, associate professor of nursing, who focuses on grief and loss in children and adolescents.

“Adults want to protect children and not expose them to painful events. It’s the single biggest error. The result is we disenfranchise children. When there’s a death in the family, kids learn their family’s cultural norms for grief and mourning by observing adults. Adults are their role models; when they don’t talk about the loss it compounds the children’s belief that things must be really bad. So bad, that it’s unmentionable. That which is unmentionable is unmanageable. Death becomes frightening to them, and they don’t ask questions.”

One out of five American kids will have a parent die by the time they graduate from high school. Many more experience other significant types of loss. “It is very possible that a significant amount of high risk behavior, acting out, school failures, and juvenile delinquency are triggered by childhood and teen losses that are not recognized or grief that is not supported,” said Hames.

Children grieve differently than adults, and they mourn differently depending on their age, according to Hames.

“Grief is limited by a child’s developmental stage,” says the expert. “Children understand death, loss, and grief only to the extent of their capacity at a given point in time. As they mature, they reprocess the loss with expanded insight and understanding. So, in effect, they re-grieve.”

Although there is very little literature on the subject, Hames believes that babies grieve. “If they are old enough to attach, they are old enough to grieve,” says Hames, whose early professional experiences with death as a pediatric nurse at Children’s Hospital Boston compelled her to want to help families deal with loss after they walked out of the hospital doors.

Grieving Styles

Everyone grieves differently, but there are two distinct styles of grieving:

• Intuitive Grieving: An intuitive griever is someone who is reflective and shares thoughts and emotions with others.

• Instrumental Grieving: An instrumental griever is someone who releases grief by doing and thinking. Reactions are more physical, like laying stones to create a memorial walk.

One style is not better than the other. “Personalities and styles of grief should be recognized and honored,” says Hames, noting that grieving styles can clash among family members and unintentionally create roadblocks to healing. For example, an intuitive child would not thrive in a family environment where no one talks about the deceased and where all pictures of the deceased have been removed. Or the teenager who vents his anger and feeling of loss through sports and comes home to a mother who continually asks him: How do you feel? Husbands and wives can and do clash in styles, which can create conflict.

Secondary Loss

A primary loss is followed by other losses, referred to as secondary loss. For instance, one spouse dies. The couple always took a summer vacation with another couple. However, the next summer, the widow doesn’t get invited to go along.

Children also experience secondary loss. For example, if a father dies, it might mean that the family home has to be sold. The move might require the child to go to a different school. Family income is cut in half. Mom may have to work or work longer hours. These are compound losses—loss of friends, loss of the familiar, and loss of time with the surviving parent.

Funerals and Wakes

Should adults bring children to wakes and funerals? “If the child is old enough to go on a family picnic, the child is old enough to attend a family funeral,” says Hames. “However, the child needs to be prepared. If a child is going out on Halloween night for the first time, adults typically explain what will happen and what to expect. The same should be true for funeral rituals. After the explanation of what will happen, I firmly believe that a child should be given a choice whether or not to attend.

“So many teachable moments get lost when there’s no discussion. I know an 11-year-old child whose dad died. The Irish wake and the funeral that followed involved a lot of stories and laughter about the deceased. Misunderstanding these cultural rituals, the child grew angry, mad that people were making fun of his dad.”

So what do you say to a child who has lost a loved one? “Have the guts to mention the deceased,” advises Hames. ”That gives the child permission to talk, lets him or her know you are willing to have a conversation, and honors the memory of the loved one. The best way to start the conversation is to share a memory. One of the things children fear most is that they—and others—will forget their loved one.”

By Jan Wenzel ’87

Healing Time at FRIENDS Way
Kaitlyn Bouchard was 11 when she lost her father. Matthew Banno served with the U.S. Marines in Iraq and was exposed to death on and off the battlefield. Both URI students have been able to use their experiences by helping children and adolescents cope with loss.

They do that by participating at FRIENDS Way a children’s bereavement center, in Warwick, R.I., which Carolyn Hames co-founded in 2000.

FRIENDS Way is a safe place for children and adolescents age 3 to 19 to explore and express their feelings. Trained volunteer facilitators help normalize the grief process through age appropriate creative activities. Children and their caregivers meet with FRIENDS Way staff and volunteers, some of whom are licensed clinicians, every other week through the school year. The organization also runs a weekend camp in July. No fees are charged. The non-profit relies on community involvement and donor support.

Picturing Grief

Kaitlyn Bouchard was 11 and about to complete sixth grade at Hopkins Hill elementary school in Coventry when her dad died unexpectedly.

She desperately missed spending every other weekend with him. No more parading down the streets with matching sweatshirts, no more Sunday breakfasts at the local diner, no more midnight runs for tasty snacks, and no more gorgeous Valentine’s Day bouquets from him.

She also missed his lessons about values and life: Education is important, say no to drugs—he quit smoking and regretted ever starting. He often told her “life is short.” Little did she know how short his would be.

“I’m an only child, and my mother had remarried a year before my dad passed away, so I often felt alone in my grief,” she says. “I didn’t have anyone else who was going through the same loss. “

Kaitlyn’s transition to middle school was rough for her emotionally and academically. “I don’t know what I would have done without FRIENDS Way,” says the senior film/media and art double major.

She attended her first meeting the fall after her father’s death. “It helped me open up to others who were dealing with the same loss. A lot of people came and went, but I stayed to help others by sharing my story,” she says.

She told that story in a music video called Father’s Day, which faculty members noted when they awarded her the Joyal Film Award in Film/Media Production for overall quality of her production work.

Father’s Day from Kaitlyn Bouchard on Vimeo.

In the video, Kaitlyn explores her loss. Her young cousin, Railey, plays Kaitlyn as a child. Railey was born a few months after Kaitlyn’s dad died. The song “Father’s Day” by Kaitlyn’s favorite band, Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers, plays throughout the video.

Kaitlyn contacted the band and made arrangements to show the video to the members when they came to Newport for a show. “We huddled around my laptop and watched; I was so nervous,” said Kaitlyn. “They all loved it. Stephen Kellogg actually cried on my laptop while watching it. I couldn’t believe it. They told me that they wanted to release it as their official video for the song, and they gave me verbal permission to submit it to film festivals.”

A Special Person

Matthew “Matt” Banno, a 25-year old Army and Marine Corps veteran, took Carolyn Hames’ honors course, Loss in the Lives of Children and Adolescents, completed its service learning component at FRIENDS Way, got hooked, and became a trained facilitator.

“When I first went there, I was kind of nervous. I ended up going along with older teenagers (14 to 18 years old) and taking part in their group,” recalls the biology and psychology double major.

“I figured that I would be able to relate to some of their issues as teenagers since high school wasn’t all that long ago for me,” he says.

Matt, a Coventry resident, continues to work with the same age group, facilitating discussions. “It’s difficult at times to hear and see a child grieving over a loss, but I have made a certain level of commitment to the kids to be there for them in a supportive and listening way.”

Matt shares some of himself during those discussions. “At FRIENDS Way, we refer to the person that the children have lost as their ‘special person.’ When I referred to my special person, it’s Josh. Josh died by suicide a little over a year ago, unable to deal with his experiences in Iraq. I had a hard time dealing with his death; at times I still do. The best resources that I always had, and still do to this day, is fellow marines and soldiers I served with. We understand each other like no third party ever could. I have found that I have been able to apply some of what I have learned when talking to friends and fellow veterans.”

Matt plans to pursue a graduate degree in psychology after he leaves URI; “I think my knowledge and experience with bereavement will absolutely fit into those plans. Even if I were not in the mental health field, they would fit into my life in some capacity.

Death is something we will all deal with at some point, and I feel confident in my ability to deal with it myself and help others deal with it since beginning my time at FRIENDS Way.”

Here is Kurzweil’s lecture, The Web Within Us: When Minds and Machines Become One.

The Inner Space Center utilizes telepresence technologies to connect the world to oceanographic exploration projects in real time to share the excitement of undersea discovery with land-locked observers.

The public is invited to tour the Inner Space Center on the first Tuesday of every month at 10 a.m. Reservations are required. Call 401.874.7892

“Technology transfer is definitely a contact sport. It’s about connecting people and innovative technologies with market needs.”

In university and government laboratories across the country, brilliant scientific minds are developing technologies, systems, and a host of products.

However, most innovations never see the light of day. Government statistics prove that disappointing reality. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, only about 10 percent of 15,000 patents and patent applications held by their 17 national laboratories have been licensed for commercial use.

Aiming to reverse that trend is Karina Edmonds ’92, who was recently named the department’s first technology transfer coordinator. Though the position was approved by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Edmonds was not appointed until last year: “The previous administration added the duties of the technology transfer coordinator to the role of the under secretary of science,” Edmonds explained. “Dr. Steven Chu, the current secretary of energy, recognized the need for a dedicated person to ensure we have a robust technology transfer program across the Department of Energy.

“I am extremely fortunate to have Secretary Chu’s full support in establishing policies that promote the effective and efficient transfer of knowledge, intellectual property, and capabilities developed at DOE labs to the private sector to create new products and services that bring additional benefits back to the American taxpayer.”

Edmonds, who majored in mechanical engineering at URI and went on to earn an M.S. and a Ph.D. in aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology, brings a wealth of experience to Washington.

At the time of her appointment, she was serving as director of the Technology Transfer Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In that environment, where scientists develop space-based telescopes and satellites, Edmonds enjoyed success in shepherding this complex technology beyond the confines of a laboratory: “People would be shocked to learn of all the incredible technologies that have had a big market and societal impact. In the area of imaging, JPL scientists had to build very small, lightweight, low-cost imagers to look for very faint objects far away in the universe. That same technology is now found in most cell phones with cameras.

“Another imaging technology based on a quantum well infrared photo detector (QWIP) sensor that detects very small temperature differences, has been applied to the early detection of breast cancer. On the bioscan system, cancer cells show up as a different color on the image because they emit more heat than normal cells due to their higher metabolic activity.”

At the root of Edmonds’ achievements is her ability to blend technical and interpersonal skills seamlessly: “Technology transfer is definitely a contact sport. It’s about connecting people and innovative technologies with market needs. I spent a lot of time at JPL building relationships with scientists and educating them about the importance of protecting their intellectual property.”

One of Edmonds’ biggest challenges is the sheer size of the U.S. Department of Energy. In addition to its 17 labs, the agency maintains plants and facilities that are also working with the private sector to move products to market.

Aiding Edmonds in her endeavors is the Technology Transfer Working Group with representatives from each DOE national laboratory and plant that have identified roadblocks to progress: “We are in the process of streamlining our contractual vehicles by removing outdated clauses and reducing the upfront payments—ranging between $10,000 to $50,000—that a company would need to license technologies from a lab. In the past, it could take more than six months to get on contract. We are working to reduce that to six to eight weeks. Clearly a very ambitious goal, but one that is worth pursuing because it is what our industry partners need.”

If ambition serves as the driver to efficiency and effectiveness, then Secretary Chu chose the ideal candidate to head the Technology Transfer office. Edmonds demonstrated an inherent desire to learn and succeed as a child when she arrived in the United States from the Dominican Republic. When she boarded the airplane, she thought, “How can this big chunk of metal stay in the air?”

Supportive teachers and the TIMES2 (To Improve Math, Engineering, and Science Studies) program designed to prepare minority children for careers in the sciences fueled her interest in how things worked.

Inspired by the engineers who gathered like-minded youths at TIMES2, Edmonds went on to serve as a catalyst bringing minority engineering students together when she helped found URI’s chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers: “I was inspired by a gathering at Brown University with a large group of minority engineering students—by large, I mean more than 20 students. Then I attended a National Society of Black Engineers conference in New York, and I was hooked. This was something that was definitely lacking at the time at URI; I thought it was a way to tap into a larger support network.”

Today Edmonds’ network is the Obama administration. She shares the president’s visions for promoting clean energy technology that correlates to job growth and for improving science literacy among the nation’s youth: “We need to figure out a way to keep students engaged in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] activities from an early age. Unfortunately, engineers and scientists are still not portrayed well on television, and as a result the perception is skewed. We are very well-rounded individuals who have an interest in making the world a better place through the pursuit of scientific knowledge.”

Given that Edmonds’ expertise has now transferred successfully from the lab to the Department of Energy, she is on the cutting edge of forging a clear path toward a greener nation and encouraging students—especially women and people of color as they remain largely underrepresented in STEM fields—to achieve that goal.

By Maria V. Caliri ’86, M.B.A. ’92

From NFL Player to Dementia Patient

Eleanor Perfetto ’80, M.S. ’88, met her husband, Ralph Wenzel, a physically fit former National Football League offensive lineman, when they were working in South Dakota. “He was healthy, active, and a vegetarian,” said Perfetto, now a senior director of government reimbursement and regulatory affairs for Pfizer, Inc.

The Johnston, R.I. native had no idea that hidden in her husband’s brain tissue were the beginnings of a chronic disease caused by repeated blows to his head suffered during his football career. Wenzel’s NFL career as a 260-pound lineman ended in 1974 after stints with the Pittsburgh Steelers, San Diego Chargers, and St. Louis Cardinals.

“When I graduated from URI in 1980, I was stationed in Pine Ridge, S.D., with the federal Indian Health Service, and Ralph had taken a job as a coach and teacher at a local school. That’s where we met.”

They moved to Rhode Island in the mid-1980s, where Perfetto completed her master’s degree in pharmacy in 1988, and Wenzel served as a volunteer coach for the Rams. In the 1990s, Wenzel, then only in his 50s, began experiencing memory problems and issues with decision-making. His brain function slowly worsened.

Today, because of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease that results in behaviors similar to Alzheimer’s disease, the 160-pound, 68-year-old Wenzel is now in a locked nursing facility, is fed pureed foods, suffers from behavioral outbursts, and is experiencing physical decline from the illness. He no longer understands simple verbal commands.

Wenzel’s condition and the plight of other former NFL players like John Mackey, a Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee who suffered from dementia and died in July at age 69, have led to heavy media coverage of concussions and sub-concussive blows in sports and their connection to chronic brain disease. Sub-concussive trauma is defined as brain trauma that does not produce acute clinical symptoms. It is believed that sub-concussive blows contribute to the development of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

Perfetto has been an advocate for her husband and other stricken former professional football players. She serves as a board member of the Sports Legacy Institute in Boston, which was founded in 2007 to address growing research showing that sports-related concussions and brain trauma have become a grave health crisis.

NFL management and players’ union officials also know her well. In December 2008, she tried to attend a meeting in Bethesda, Md., between Commissioner Roger Goodell and former players to discuss long-term care. Goodell and others prohibited her from attending. Perfetto’s unsuccessful standoff with Goodell was reported in The New York Times.

“The NFL has been very hesitant, very negligent,” said Perfetto, who now lives in Annapolis, Md. “They long ago accepted that former players with chronic knee, back, and shoulder problems qualify for long-term disability benefits, but they stalled in acknowledging chronic brain injury and dementia as long-term disabilities.

“I don’t think I am on Roger Goodell’s Christmas card list, but that was a good night because I confronted him personally,” Perfetto said. “There has to be greater effort in reaching out to current NFL players, as well as younger players, to convey that this is a serious issue.”

Last season, the NFL got tougher on players who commit helmet-to-helmet hits, and it’s helping states around the country develop laws to protect young athletes from the long-term effects of head injuries. This season, NFL doctors and trainers are using standardized sideline tests for the first time to assess concussions, and they will add a balance test to others used in follow up examinations.

Attention to Head Injuries at URI

Concussions among student-athletes have been a priority for many years. Kim Bissonnette ’77, associate director of athletics for health and performance, said that the National Collegiate Athletic Association, URI, the various conferences, and state associations have all done a great deal in the last several years to educate student-athletes and coaches about the short- and long-term effects of concussions and head injuries. Last fall, Bissonnette completed his 20th season at URI; he has worked in excess of 200 Rams football games.

“We have always taken concussions and head injuries very seriously at URI,” said Bissonnette, who earned his master’s degree in physical education and athletic training in 1997 at the University of Arizona. “We must keep in mind that we are dealing with someone’s son or daughter and that we are talking about brain injury and someone’s long-term quality of life.”

Bissonnette said every student-athlete at URI has to read and sign an NCAA information sheet reminding them of the critical nature of concussions. Bissonnette added that the intense research into short- and long-term effects of concussions, improving technology, and strong education efforts have made many old evaluation standards obsolete.

“For years the gold standard in evaluating concussions was the CAT scan, but we now know that in most cases objective evidence of concussion never shows up on the scan. The feeling was if the CAT scan was OK and the player felt OK, then he could play. Fortunately, the return-to-play standards are now much more stringent,” Bissonnette said.

URI follows a step-by-step approach before it allows a student-athlete to play after a concussion. There is a full assessment and monitoring of a player’s symptoms, cognitive testing, balance testing, and gradual increases in activity once a player is symptom free. If at any point during the process a player’s symptoms return, then the process begins all over again, starting with rest, before the player can be cleared to play.

Bissonnette said the concept of rest after a concussion or head injury should be reassessed as well. “Rest may not just mean staying off the field. It might mean staying out of class because studies put a strain on the brain. It might mean that the player does not go to an away game because sleeping in hotels and early wakeup calls may not be conducive to recovery. It may be best for that person to stay home.”

Training Helps Save Life at South Kingstown High School

South Kingstown High School Athletic Director Terry Lynch ’84, a former player and coach for the Rhody Rams football team, knows that concussion and head injury education probably prevented the death of Mike Gray, a South Kingstown football player, in 2010.

“Mike had taken a couple of hits in the same practice, and after the second one resulted in his head hitting the ground, coach Eric Anderson knew quickly that Mike was in trouble. He called 911 right away,” said Lynch, who oversees 26 head coaches.

The hit caused a subdural hematoma, a mass of clotted blood in the brain resulting from a broken blood vessel, which then led to several surgeries. “Thanks to the quick response by Anderson and emergency medical personnel, we were celebrating Mike’s graduation this year instead of grieving the loss of one of our own,” Lynch said.

Lynch, who is also the color analyst for Rhody radio football broadcasts, said the Rhode Island Interscholastic League and districts like South Kingstown have made head injury prevention and awareness priorities: “Each coach in the state has to be educated on concussions and pass a test to be certified.

“Also, for the 2010–2011 academic year, South Kingstown High School began cognitive baseline testing for football and hockey players. This year, we are expanding the testing to girls’ and boys’ soccer. That means every player on the team takes a cognitive test on a computer. If a player suffers a concussion, we wait until the symptoms end, and then the athlete takes the test again. We compare those results to the baseline results. Our trainer then evaluates the player and all the health and cognitive data to determine the next steps.”

Resisting the Message

While major efforts have been made to address the effects of concussion and brain trauma in sports, Perfetto said most current players don’t grasp the impact of chronic brain illness: “They also have to understand that it’s not only concussions that cause long-term problems.

“Sub-concussive trauma is also linked to long-term brain issues. Many coaches want to make us think that the post-concussion protocols are the solution, but they may give a false sense of security. Repeated blows to the head with no concussion may be more of a problem.

“I have invited current NFL players and their wives to come visit my husband, but I haven’t had one single person take me up on that. I hear the players say they need to make enough money to take care of their families, but do they want to suffer like this, do they want to put their wives, their families through this?

“People talk about rule changes and equipment changes to make the game safer. There is no helmet that prevents the dangerous jostling that happens to a brain when the head receives a blow. It’s like these players are being exposed to shaken baby syndrome every week.”

By Dave Lavallee ’79, M.P.A. ’87

Vaccine Design Technology Flourishes at the Providence Campus

It didn’t take long for Annie De Groot to make a major impact at URI. Just a few months after being hired as a research professor of biotechnology in 2009, she was awarded a $13 million grant from the National Institutes of Health—one of the largest grants in URI history—to develop vaccines against emerging infectious diseases. The lab she had established at the Feinstein Providence Campus, called the Institute for Immunology and Informatics (or I-Cubed), soon tripled in size to accommodate about a dozen new researchers and students. And she began inviting scientists from around the world to Providence to learn to use the vaccine development tools she invented.

It was an auspicious start, but not an unexpected one. De Groot came to URI after 13 years at Brown University, where she built a reputation for tuberculosis and HIV research, and from which she spun off her vaccine design technology into the start-up company EpiVax. She was also collaborating with local organizations to operate an HIV clinic in Mali and founded the Global Alliance to Immunize Against AIDS (GAIA) Vaccine Foundation.

“I came to URI because I saw that the institution appreciates the importance of translating science into applications for human use,” said De Groot, who earned her medical degree from the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago, trained in internal medicine at New England Medical Center, and completed additional training in immunoinformatics and vaccine research at the NIH. “There’s no fear of biotechnology here; in fact professors are encouraged to work toward creating drugs or vaccines. The connection between basic laboratory research and biotech applications is embraced by the administration.”

De Groot, who helped establish national prison standards for the care of inmates with HIV and founded a free clinic in Providence, said that the objective of her lab is to make better, safer vaccines more quickly than traditional methods and to train the next generation of researchers.

“Vaccines are the most effective medical intervention ever discovered,” she said, “because you give them once, and then you’re protected for your lifetime for very little cost. We all remember reading about whole cities that were wiped out by disease in the past, but those events are not even in our vocabulary any more because of the availability of vaccines.”

Soon after founding the Institute, De Groot hired Denice Spero as co-director. An organic chemist by training, Spero worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 18 years discovering new drugs to treat asthma, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis. At Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, she built an organization to evaluate drugs before they go into clinical trials and weed out the ones that might fail. With a Boehringer colleague, she founded the nonprofit Developing World Cures to bring new drugs and vaccines to the developing world.

“We make designer vaccines using a suite of tools Annie developed that looks at how peptides bind to molecules that generate an immune response,” explained Spero. “It’s a way of designing vaccines in a computer. Instead of taking 20 to 25 years to go from concept to vaccine, we figured out how to do the informatics in months, not years.”

The Institute for Immunology and Informatics is focusing its work on what the scientists call neglected tropical diseases, like dengue fever, Chagas disease, and leishmaniasis. These are diseases that the World Health Organization defines as “primarily infectious diseases that thrive in impoverished settings, especially in the heat and humidity of tropical climates.” Approximately one billion people suffer from one or more of these diseases.

“In the developing world, people are dying from horrible diseases—worm and bacterial and viral diseases—that no one has addressed because the people are very poor and the diseases aren’t affecting those of us who have great health care,” explained Spero. “We believe we can solve this problem by making sure that the people in the developing world have appropriate vaccines.”

Added De Groot: “I have personal experience working in the field, vaccinating people, and seeing the terrible outcomes when vaccines are not available. In the developing world, vaccines are the simplest and most cost-effective intervention.”

Vaccines also act to engage the body’s natural defense mechanisms, she said. “I like the idea that we’re using a natural response that we all generate to protect against disease rather than taking a drug that is somewhat unnatural. Vaccines arm the natural immune system response, training you to protect yourself against something that your system hasn’t seen yet.”

While neglected tropical diseases get the most attention in the lab, the scientists are also working on vaccines against other diseases as well. They are collaborating with URI’s Entomologist Thomas Mather on tick-borne diseases, Assistant Research Professor Lenny Moise and Lifespan gastroenterologist Steven Moss on a gastric cancer vaccine, and Brown Medical School Associate Professor Stephen Gregory on hepatitis C and liver cancer vaccines.

Perhaps the most unusual project is one aimed at multi-pathogen diseases that could result from biowarfare agents. Spero said that many foreign governments are actively developing biowarfare agents, including smallpox, anthrax, and others she describes as “scary bacteria that you hope you will never meet.” De Groot is leading the lab’s effort to develop “single shot” vaccines that could fight three or four different bacteria at once and that could be used for military personnel.

“If you were in an anti-terror situation and a pathogen was released in Providence, how would you deal with that?” Spero asked. “Using our tools we could very quickly analyze the genome of the pathogen, evaluate what proteins it produces, and identify peptides to target in a vaccine.”

As important as this work is, De Groot and Spero say training the next generation of vaccine scientists is equally important.

“Developing vaccines is a long, continuous process, and you need to train new people to continue the work,” Spero said. “When Annie and I aren’t doing this work any more, today’s students will be the next generation making further innovations and new discoveries. The science works best when you work as a team.”

That team includes undergraduate and graduate students, primarily from URI, and recent graduates who work in the lab and who are assigned to particular research projects; summer fellows (undergraduates and local high school students) who attend classroom lectures in the morning and learn how to use analytical equipment in the lab in the afternoon; and young scientists from around the world who spend three weeks in January learning to use the lab’s vaccine development tools.

Danielle Aguirre, a graduate student who stumbled across the I-cubed lab by chance, originally considered enrolling in the Graduate School of Oceanography and is excited to be on the frontlines of vaccine development. She is working on a better vaccine delivery system that will more quickly initiate the immune reaction.

“I really wanted to be on the forefront of the gene-to-vaccine approach used here,” Aguirre said. “And I love the friendly atmosphere in the lab. It has turned into a second family for me. I really love it.”

That engaging atmosphere is one of the reasons that I-Cubed is a place where top-tier researchers want to work. The lab has already attracted one of the leading researchers on dengue fever, Alan Rothman, and De Groot said several more scientists “are waiting until the planets are aligned and they can move their grants here. We have a uniquely entrepreneurial system where you’re rewarded for bringing new research dollars into the lab. So we have a number of folks planning to join us as soon as they can,” she said.

That entrepreneurial focus was illustrated last summer when De Groot and Spero taught a workshop to vaccine scientists who want to start their own businesses. As a result, three new companies are actively looking for funding and lab space in the Providence area.

As dedicated and skilled as the I-Cubed directors are, they both give a great deal of credit for the success of the lab to Professor Greg Paquette, director of biotechnology programs, and Associate Professor Ed Bozzi, coordinator of the University’s Biotechnology Manufacturing Program.

“We’re thrilled to be working with Ed and Greg and the rest of the team here at the Providence Campus,” De Groot said, “because they are so focused on getting people engaged in biotechnology, from kindergarten to the master’s degree level. They export what we do here and make it accessible to people. This place is really focused on the next generation, and Denice and I feel so lucky to be part of that.”

The bottom line for De Groot and Spero, however, is a desire to provide people around the world with access to the means to improve their health.

“Some people make great food, some write great books,” De Groot said. “We want to make great vaccines and improve human health everywhere in the world.”

By Todd McLeish

Susan Roy ’73 cut her journalistic teeth covering anti-war protests and women’s rights rallies in the early 1970s as a URI journalism major and staffer at The Good 5¢ Cigar. After a career with magazines such as Good Housekeeping, Self, This Old House, and Allure, she has returned to her radical roots with her first book, an illustrated history of Cold War paranoia.

Bomboozled: How the U.S. Government Misled Itself and Its People Into Believing They Could Survive a Nuclear Attack has generated a buzz in the media and publishing world, nabbing reviews and author profiles in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Publishers Weekly and the French language magazine AD France.

A coffee table volume published by Pointed Leaf Press, the book combines Roy’s crisp prose with an eye-catching layout featuring her collection of pamphlets, photographs, government missives, and pop culture memorabilia relating to America’s fling with fallout shelters in the 1950s and 1960s. For anyone who lived through that era, leafing through the book will spark vivid memories of diving under desks during drills or breathing a sigh of relief when the announcer assured you that the buzzing from your TV set was “only a test” of the emergency broadcast system.

Roy, who lives in Manhattan with her husband, Randall Rothenberg, became interested in fallout shelters during an architecture course at Columbia University when she ran across photographs of a shelter built to resemble a luxurious house 25 feet below the desert in Nevada. She did a paper on the shelter, designed by architect Jay Swayze for a client, Gerard B. Henderson. Roy built on the idea for her master’s thesis and ultimately her book.

The photos of that shelter are a highlight of the book. A two-page color spread shows the family room with sofas, lamps, carpeting, and sliding doors that lead to a “yard” with a fake green lawn. Exterior shots show a swimming pool, patio, guest house, lawn furniture, and artificial evergreen trees with lush lower branches and thick trunks that taper up and disappear into billowy white clouds painted above.

Roy’s book lifts a curtain on how the government tried to convince citizens that a nuclear nightmare would be little more than a speed bump in the American dream.

The first page shows a cut-away drawing of a “nuclear family” in a cozy underground home behind thick brick walls. Mom prepares dinner while dad reads a magazine and their daughter sets the table. “This one still makes me laugh every time I see it,” Roy said during an interview in New York.

But other illustrations are more sobering: a Collier’s magazine cover with a mushroom cloud entitled “Hiroshima, U.S.A.” and artist renditions of nuclear blasts destroying American cityscapes.

“The thesis started out being all about these structures,” Roy said. “Then I started wondering about the purpose, the history of civil defense.” Her project expanded, and she began to collect documents and information from the early days of Civil Defense.

In the early 1950s, “the government commissioned a study about how to communicate with Americans about the nuclear threat. At first they talked about what to do when the bomb hits. But then they decided to switch their approach to emotion management—getting people to think about how life would go on after the bomb hit. I looked at the archives. A lot of this stuff has never been published before.

“What the government was trying to do was basically a militarization of the population. It was a huge effort, and there is very little memory of it today.”

Roy believes the skills she learned at URI studying journalism with Professors David Anderson and Wilbur Doctor gave her the grounding to dig up the nuggets she found in all the documents and archives she sifted through and to tell a compelling story.

She called the early ’70s at URI, “a time when everyone was questioning the basic tenets of journalism. It was a lot of fun to be in journalism school then, as everyone was turning everything upside down.”

The Good 5¢ Cigar, which had replaced the more traditional Beacon as the campus newspaper, was part of the ferment. Roy immersed herself in chronicling the changing times with fellow staffers Anne Foster ’72, John Levesque ’72, David Bowers ’72, John Struck ’74, Catherine Winters ’73, John Pantalone ’71, John Geddes ’74, Larry Brusic ’73, Bill Loveless ’73, Alan Green ’74, and Marcia Holmes Green ’73.

“The Cigar was so much fun,” she recalled. “It was essentially an underground newspaper paid for by student fees. We had a women’s issue, I remember, and the state legislature tried to shut us down because that issue contained a controversial article with illustrations.”

Roy and fellow staffer Carol Cioe Klyman ’74 also did a gay issue, which she recalled was “quite a radical and daring thing to do” at the time. The writers did not use last names of their sources because “gays were completely closeted and faced massive discrimination and more.”

Roy recalls her days at the The Cigar as giving her the “the most editorial control of a publication I’ve ever experienced.”

“It was a great time to be studying journalism. Watergate happened when I was an undergraduate. There were a lot of other adventures too. A group of us drove down to New York to meet with the editors of Ms magazine, which had just started.” Roy also went to Washington to protest the bombing of Cambodia and to Boston to campaign for legalized abortion.

One big influence on Roy was Wilbur Doctor’s basic news writing class: “It was really great training because you had to do it in real time under the same conditions as an actual newsroom. It was great, practical, concrete, hands-on training.”

That training helped her forge a career in the Manhattan magazine publishing world and excel in the graduate work that resulted in Bomboozled. “One of the great things was that in journalism, you have to learn how to write clearly. Also, I was taught critical thinking in the URI Journalism Department.”

By David Gregorio ’80

The area around Green and Ranger Halls has a very green and inviting new look.

In the late 19th century, Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architectural Firm, designers of Central Park and numerous other high profile public spaces, drew up the original plans for the Kingston Campus. The rendering showed a grassy quadrangle in the Green and Ranger area that was never developed.

Until now. Designed to complement the main quadrangle, the area features a thick carpet of grass, flowering plants, newly planted trees, sitting walls, and wide walkways. “Elegant simplicity” is the way Robert A. Weygand, vice president for Administration and Finance, describes the area’s new look.

The University now plans to develop other small quads as gathering places around the campus, says Weygand. “We are establishing small nodes of academic excellence, where the URI community can celebrate the buildings in each area of campus.”

Thirty-two students from an accelerated high school in South Korea spent two weeks in July at the Graduate School of Oceanography learning the principles of oceanography and participating in hands-on science activities in and around Narragansett Bay.

The visit is part of GSO’s International Oceanography Explorers program coordinated by its Office of Marine Programs.

From July 4 through14, the Korean students conducted beach profile surveys, observed a fish trawl, collected plankton and sediment samples, conducted laboratory analyses, and toured a fish hatchery, a research aquarium, and other facilities at URI. They also went on a whale watch and toured the aquaculture lab at Roger Williams University.

“The students are here because of their interest in oceanography and their desire to learn in an international setting,” said Maryann Scholl, the program’s coordinator at the Office of Marine Programs. “They get to improve their English language skills while getting a solid introduction to the science and practice of oceanography.”

The teachers in the program are former GSO student and Roger Williams Professor Scott Rutherford, current GSO student Daniel Whitesell, recent URI graduate Christine Newton, and science educator Jill Johnen. The program was designed specifically to meet the interests and needs of the Korean students.

“There is a growing interest in oceanography in South Korea,” said David Smith, associate GSO dean, “and we have a number of informal collaborations with scientists and universities there.”

Jae-Hun Park, an associate marine research scientist at GSO who has recently taken a position at the Korean Ocean Research and Development Institute, plans to continue his collaboration with GSO. Smith noted that there are many more opportunities to collaborate with scientists at the Korean institute, and having Park there will facilitate these efforts.

Oceanography Professor Isaac Ginis has been collaborating with scientists in Korea on the study of tropical cyclones for more than 10 years. The Korean Ocean Research and Development Institute is funding Ginis’s research to develop a typhoon prediction model for the Korean Meteorological Agency, and he has organized two workshops in Korea on the interaction between typhoons and the ocean. As a result of this work, a Korean student came to GSO to work as Ginis’s postdoctoral researcher and now teaches at Jeju National University, and another student enrolled to earn his Ph.D. with Ginis.

Two other students from Korea are presently enrolled at GSO as well, and several faculty members are conducting research in the East China Sea adjacent to Korea. They are studying the circulation patterns of the Kuroshio current and extension, which carries warm water from the western South Pacific to the north, somewhat like the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic.

By Todd McLeish

Taking care of 9/11’s first responders

When Brian Bresnahan graduated from URI in 1982 with a degree in political science and communications, he envisioned a life in politics. His uncle John had served in the Massachusetts state legislature for 25 years; another uncle, Joe, for 14. “I came from a political family,” he explains. So it was no surprise that, degrees in hand, Brian moved home and launched a campaign for a seat as a state representative: “Eleven candidates were vying for the retiring incumbent’s seat; I came up second. Sue Tucker, the winner, was certainly more qualified.”

With campaign bills to pay, a job with Airborne Freight in Boston came at the perfect time. It wasn’t long before a competitor noticed him; 14 months later, FedEx offered him a position. “There was a three month break between jobs, so I went to Europe to backpack.” He visited eight countries, often meeting up with family and friends along the way.

Brian’s eight-year career with FedEx was a good one. He was eventually promoted to national accounts executive, a role that gave him the opportunity to take two top accounts, L.L. Bean and Digital, to the 1988 winter Olympics. It was a life-changing experience. “Taking those clients to the Olympic games and being at an international event watching U.S. athletes compete really solidified our business relationship. When my friend Dave picked me up at the airport, I told him I’d discovered what I want to do—start a company that creates events and experiences for corporations.

What he did first, though, was stay with FedEx, expanding its marketing programs with the Olympics, PGA, and other international sponsorships. By 1998, he was ready to go out on his own. He founded Intrepid Creative Events, a marketing and advertising agency in Atlanta that “specializes in creating blockbuster, proprietary, and original sales, marketing, and opportunities for brands, corporations, and individuals.” His first client: Coca-Cola. Today, the list includes a slew of equally familiar names: Smuckers, GTE, Uncle Ben’s, Johnson & Johnson, Lego, and U.S. Armed Forces Sports to name a handful.

By all accounts, Bresnahan excels at what he does, especially at experiential marketing. He explains experiential marketing as “creating a buzz, a marketing mix, a thunderstorm of activity around a brand to promote a company’s objectives and cause.”

For example, he orchestrated a partnership between Maxwell House® and Habitat for Humanity to “build 100 houses across the country in 100 weeks.” Maxwell House donated $2 million and supplied volunteers, bonding with Habitat staff and home-owners. “When clients moved into their new home, Maxwell House coffee was in the kitchen cupboard.”

Bresnahan recognizes the power of adding a philanthropic element to the mix, but he’s quick to add that it isn’t just about good marketing, “it’s about wanting to do the right thing for the right reason.”

And so, on September 8, 2001, Brian was in Boston, sponsoring a Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure fundraiser for a client, Uncle Ben’s®. The venue was part of a national mobile sampling tour to introduce the company’s new rice and noodle bowls with sales benefiting the Komen Foundation, a leader in breast cancer research.

Bresnahan had flown from Atlanta that morning to join his four-person team at the event: “It was a crystal clear day. I remember the Delta pilot coming on the speaker and saying, ‘Off to the left, ladies and gentlemen, is a beautiful view of Manhattan.’ I was sitting in the middle of a row, buckled in. I thought, ‘I‘m not getting up to look; I see this six times a year.‘”

From the Komen event, Bresnahan drove to Andover, Mass., to stay with his parents for the weekend. He had a business meeting scheduled for Monday, September 10, at Foxwoods negotiating an event for ice skater Brian Boitano with tickets to fly home the following day. “My Foxwoods contact had a personal emergency, so we rescheduled the meeting to Tuesday, the 11th. It gave me an extra day with my parents.”

He was in transit, listening to the radio, when an emergency announcement came on—something about a plane flying into the World Trade Center.

Auspicious Timing

Bresnahan’s one-hour meeting was condensed into five minutes. He got on the phone with his employees in Boston, “stay put.” Then, he called his client: “We’re four hours from New York City in a 42-foot mobile kitchen. We have 12 industrial microwave ovens, water, a generator, and a freezer trailer. We could help.” On the morning of September 12, Brian was given authorization with two conditions: “Make certain none of your employees gets hurt; two, this is not to be a marketing event for our company; this is only about helping.”

The next hurdle was getting permission to take the mobile kitchen to the first responders: “We were all on our phones—to Mayor Giuliani’s office, to FEMA headquarters—but we weren’t able to get through. So we drove to Shea Stadium.” Eventually, Bresnahan was able to convince a couple of cops to intervene: “We were escorted to 100 yards from where the Towers once stood. They were still smoldering. Within 20 minutes we had the generator powered up, the microwaves humming, and were handing out meals. There was a line 100-men deep waiting to get hot chicken and rice and beef and noodles.

“The scene outside was horrific. Buildings were burning, debris was falling, a thick layer of white ash covered everything, like a nuclear winter. Every time a siren went off [warning of possible building collapse], my staff would have to run toward the Hudson River, 100 yards away.”

Over the next 40 days, the kitchen-on-wheels would serve 60,000 free meals. Bresnahan’s admiration for his team is boundless: “We worked 18 to 20 hours a day, dashing back to the hotel to sleep for a few hours, timing it so we’d be working whenever the responders were on break.”

After nine days, Bresnahan flew home: “I had two young kids in Atlanta, my one-year-old son, Ben, and my six-year-old daughter, Meredith.” Two days later, he was back in New York. “I found myself going back and forth over the course of the 40 days my crew was there. One night I was giving a new relief person a little tour around the financial district. We walked by O’Hara’s Bar, off Liberty Street, and were greeted at the door by a steel worker with a menu in his hand, ‘table for two?‘ he asked. The place had been turned into a self-serve bar for steelworkers on break. We just stuck our heads in, but I took the menu. It’s one of the few artifacts I have. It’s a lunch menu dated September 10; they hadn’t had a chance to put out the September 11 menus.”

While Bresnahan and his team were hunkered down keeping the hot food coming, they had some surprise visitors: “Everybody was coming by the bus to lift people’s spirits: President Bush, Mayor Giuliani, Robert DeNiro. To be in the middle of the national movement to help those first responders was amazing.”

Fast forward to the one-year anniversary: “I was invited by some of the FDNY and NYPD to attend the memorial service. After a somber day of hearing the tributes to the deceased, I went back to O’Hara’s Bar with the police officers and firemen. They had this impromptu ceremony and started nailing their badges to the mahogany bar. A big burly fireman from Oklahoma came up to me and said ‘weren‘t you with us, feeding us out of that big orange bus?’ He pulled out a huge Bowie knife, cut my tie off my neck, and nailed it over the bar.

“On the way to my car, I passed Cokie Roberts of NPR interviewing people on the street, asking where they had been a year earlier. She turned to me, but I was not able to speak. We just felt so fortunate that we were in the right place at the right time with the right equipment to help.”

A Changed Perspective

Although Bresnahan rarely talks about it, those days in New York City changed him. “With an event like 9/11, your perspective changes. You start thinking about family, and leaving a legacy.”

A devoted dad who is active in his kids’ school life and sports activities (his daughter recently teased that he was “the only dad with a white board at home, like the teachers!”), it was a natural for Bresnahan to launch the Healthy Kids Across America Foundation last year. Dedicated to improving children’s nutrition, physical activity, and self-esteem, he has reached out to local and national figures (Michelle Obama is one) and has received enthusiastic support. For more information, go to healthykidsacrossamerica.org.

Bresnahan notes, “I’ve never been a small thinker. If you swing for singles, you get singles; if you swing for a home run you may get one—or at least a double.”

Martha Murphy ’80

Certainly, today’s national economic climate poses substantial risks for public higher education. Funding for students via Pell grants and subsidized loans may be significantly reduced, making access to higher education difficult precisely when more people are seeking to gain the knowledge and skills needed to compete in the global economy. Federal research funding will likely decrease, precisely when our nation needs new knowledge and discoveries.

Here in Rhode Island, as in many parts of our country, the economic recovery is slow and inconsistent. Unemployment remains high and the state’s business climate, which is a critical factor in creating new jobs, continues to lag behind the competition. Our state, and practically all of the cities and towns in Rhode Island, faces potentially catastrophic pension liabilities.

In such circumstances it would be understandable for URI to disengage, to stand pat and hope for better times. That would be a damaging mistake. As never before, Rhode Island needs URI, its public research university, to take a leading role in overcoming the challenges faced by the state and its people. In fact, I think that leadership should become the fourth component of the historic land-grant university mission in addition to teaching, research, and service.

Surely, our state and nation need the University of Rhode Island to do more research, to improve student learning and completion, and to provide more of our expertise to our communities, businesses, and organizations. Perhaps you have read, or heard me say, that meeting these needs will require URI to be more innovative and transformational in what we do. It is gratifying to see the progress that URI has made over the past two years. And we will keep at it! As you read QUAD ANGLES or follow us through our many other communication vehicles, we will continue to tell you about the astounding work being done by URI faculty and students.

Finally, I think that this University, and other research universities, ought to take on a stronger and more prominent leadership role in society. Whether the challenge is building robust and sustainable economies, or building diverse globally conscious communities, or bringing objective analysis to important public policy issues, universities like URI have (or can develop) the expertise and commitment to lead. Based on my experience here over the past two years, I am confident that our leadership would be broadly welcomed and viewed as transformational. As part of the URI community, our alumni can help provide that leadership. I am confident that you are prepared to do so.

In what it dubbed its “Payback Score,” the magazine assessed public and private colleges on their ability to deliver the best return on investment and sought to quantify the long-term value of a college education based on alumni salaries. When the survey was first published in 2008, URI was ranked 15th for its return on investment.

URI Dean of Admission Cynthia Bonn said, “We are pleased that once again the SmartMoney study has shown that the University provides its students with an excellent education at an affordable price, and prepares them for rewarding careers. It’s exciting to see that the return on the investment in a URI education has continued to improve in recent years, despite the difficult economic situation we are facing as a nation.”

◊ These digital natives are tech savvy—being connected is essential through IM, texting, blogging, pod casting, Facebook, and YouTube.

◊ They are also connected to their parents and struggle more than previous generations with taking responsibility for themselves.

◊ Cheating is more rampant than ever but hard to define as “collective knowledge” and group work is highly prized.

◊ They spend little time studying, 35 percent indicating that they spend about six hours per week on homework—the lowest percentage since this question was asked 25 years ago.

◊While nationally 50 percent of incoming students plan to work to help pay for college, the percentage is less at URI.

◊ These members of the millennial generation show increased interest in social and civic responsibilities.

◊ More than 70 percent socialize with someone of a different racial or ethnic background.

“This type of information helps us to know this ever changing population,” says Dean Richmond. “With it, we can better plan a curriculum and a support network that will facilitate our students’ success.”

“When you have been together for 13 years, you know that you love each other and will be there for each other,” says Coutu who is the assistant director of the Cumberland Public Library, as well as an adjunct instructor for URI’s Graduate School of Library and Information Studies. “At the same time, it was totally amazing to officially recognize our relationship and announce that we really are one in front of family and friends.”

The new state law creating civil unions for gay couples falls short for gay-rights advocates who have sought for full marriage recognition.

“The fact that there is a different phrase used to describe our union indicates that there is a difference, which means there is also inequality. Some in the community are holding out for full equality, but I feel that it can be helpful to take advantage of what is available now and keep fighting for the rest,” said Coutu who, while not an official advocate, worked for full equality in Burrillville where he and Daignault reside.

The new law allows many of the same rights provided as marriage law on the state level but none of the federal rights of marriage. Previously, Coutu and Daignault would have had to obtain those state rights, vital for medical considerations and inheritance rights, at great legal expense because same-sex couples could not be considered next of kin.

The new law, however, comes with exemptions for religious cause: “The law basically says we have similar rights unless someone is religiously offended by our relationship, allowing their right to freedom of religion to trump ours.”

Still the exemption didn’t dim the couple’s day or the congratulations that followed: “Everyone I have spoken to has been supportive of our union, and the good wishes are usually accompanied with the hope that full marriage equality passes soon,” said the new groom. “This has not only been from friends and family, but also patrons at the library, some of whom I don’t know well at all.”

Assistant professors Sue K. Adams and Tiffani S. Kisler head a team on two ongoing studies that examine the impact of technology use on physical and mental health, as well as interpersonal relationships in college students.

In a survey of 204 college students, the team found that 56 percent had received sexually suggestive images, and 78 percent had received sexually suggestive messages. Two-thirds of the group had sent sexually suggestive messages. While most of the messages (73 percent) were sent to a relationship partner, 10 percent were sent without the consent of the person who originally sent the message.

The prevalence of such activity combined with Gov. Lincoln Chafee signing a law this summer outlawing sexting by minors makes education on technology practices vital for college students say Kisler and Adams.

According to the law, minors who create and send sexually explicit images of themselves can be charged with a “status offense” and referred to family court. Minors and adults who possess or forward sexual images of anyone younger than 18 may be charged under the state’s child pornography laws.

“It’s a delicate situation with the new laws that are in place,” Kisler said. “While it‘s important to protect minors and help them recognize the short- and long-term implications of sending sexually explicit images, opening them up to something as serious as potential child pornography charges may not be the most effective course of action.

“It’s important to help everyone, especially students, understand the importance of setting boundaries around their use of technology,” Kisler concluded.

Three new majors in Chinese, health studies, and neurosciences help expand the University’s global reach, increase the number of interdisciplinary programs, and respond to today’s marketplace.

Health Studies

While some colleges and universities offer a health studies major that combines two or three disciplines, such as health policy and business, URI’s new health major brings together 28 departments across all eight colleges and the expertise of 130 faculty members.

This fall, the health studies major will begin to prepare a generation of students to succeed in non-clinical health careers.

“This is a prototype for developing interdisciplinary programs on campus,” said Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Donald H. DeHayes. “The Health Studies major offers an exciting new way for students to learn varied perspectives on health and prepare for careers that will make a difference in people’s lives. ”

Health care is one of the fastest growing industries nationally and globally, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that certain professions, such as health educator, epidemiologist, and health administrator, will grow even faster. The Bureau reported that health care will generate 3.2 million new jobs between 2008 and 2018, more than any other industry.

Mandarin Chinese

Students can now earn a B.A. in Chinese to give them the language and cultural skills to compete. URI encourages students to combine a second major with Chinese, a combination that propels graduates of the program to even broader international career opportunities.

The popularity of Chinese has skyrocketed. In the fall of 2004, thanks to student and faculty demand, URI offered its first classes in Mandarin. Thirty students enrolled. By the fall of 2010, 150 students had enrolled.

About 23 percent of students taking Chinese are enrolled in URI’s International Engineering Program (URI educates more bilingual engineers than any other university in the country). The program leads students simultaneously to two degrees: a B.S. in engineering and a B.A. in German, French, Spanish, or Chinese.

About 33 percent of the students taking Chinese are enrolled in the International Business Program. Modeled after the International Engineering Program, the business program provides the opportunity to earn simultaneous degrees: a B.S. in business administration with a major in one of the seven business disciplines and a B.A. in German, Spanish, French, or Chinese.

In both programs, students travel abroad, taking language, culture, and engineering or business courses in the host language. In the second semester they intern abroad with a leading firm.

The remaining 44 percent studying Chinese come from a variety of disciplines.

Neurosciences

URI has joined the quest to understand the brain by launching graduate programs in the neurosciences. A new interdisciplinary neurosciences program offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in the neurosciences with the goal of educating scientists and professors who can contribute to private and public sector research.

The potential growth in the development of the $10 billion-a-year neuro-device industry is expected to increase 22 percent annually.

“We have built a network of 15 departments at URI in which people are focusing on the neurosciences. We have many talented researchers in more than eight different disciplines working in this field,” said Graduate School Dean Nasser Zawia.

The program will produce researchers able to focus on some of the most debilitating brain disorders, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease), and schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.

The editors of The Ocean State Review decided to think big. The literary journal’s inaugural issue features Pulitzer Prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri and National Book Award-winner Julia Glass along with other distinguished writers and poets.

The Ocean State Review was launched at the June 2011 URI Ocean State Summer Writing Conference (OSSWC), and the first issue showcases the work of writers and poets who have presented at the University or its Ocean State Summer Writing Conference.

Assistant Professor of English and conference director Peter Covino initiated the idea of a literary journal that would be published to coincide with—and celebrate—the fifth year of the popular summer writing conference, which began in 2007 and attracts writers from Rhode Island and beyond interested in improving their craft.

The Ocean State Review will be published annually in June, and will feature fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Submissions for the 2012 journal will be accepted September 6 through February 12. The 2012 Ocean State Summer Writing Conference will be held June 21–23.

To learn more or obtain a copy of The Ocean State Review, visit the conference website at uri.edu/summerwriting.