uri.edu/summerwriting

Annual Scholarship Golf Tournament
Monday, June 4, 2012
Quidnessett Country Club
950 North Quidnessett Road
North Kingstown, RI

Available Sponsorship Levels for 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Contact Kathy Gianquitti at 401.874.4853 or email kgianquitti@advance.uri.edu

Read about the 50th Anniversary of the W. Alton Jones Campus

50 – years since the property was acquired by URI

2,309 – number of acres in the campus

4 – number of visits President Dwight Eisenhower made to the property

$350,000 – price W. Alton Jones paid for the property in 1954

18,000 – number of pheasants raised there each year in the Jones years

$59,686 – amount of cash Alton Jones was carrying when he died in a 1962 plane crash (including a $10,000 bill in a money clip)

25,000 – approximate number of frogs and salamanders trapped on campus in the 1970s by Professor C. Robert Shoop

1 – number of Rhode Island governors who crash-landed in a helicopter on the campus

100 – number of children who can sleep in the cabins at the Environmental Education Center each night

1,005 – number of species of plants and animals identified on campus in 2004 during the 24-hour Bioblitz

2 – number of state registered dams on campus

11,000 – average number of people attending a conference each year at the Whispering Pines Conference Center

1 – number of mob informants who were sequestered on campus by the State Police

50 – approximate number of weddings held each year on campus

14 – number of life-sized animal carvings on display at the Environmental Education Center, made and donated by members of the Mystic Woodcarvers Club

37 – years the Women’s Wilderness Weekend has taken place at the campus

Seen here with President David Dooley and Vice President for Advancement Robert Beagle are this year’s Alumni of the Game, left to right, Robert S. Russell ’75; Michael J. Lobdell ’96; Scott J. Asadorian ’89, M.B.A. ’91; Thomas J. Silvia ’83 and Shannon E. Chandley ’83; and …

… Christos S. Xenophontos ’84, M.S. ’85. Also honored this year were Gustin L. Buonaiuto ’53 and Laureen L. White ’81. Held during halftime at home A-10 men’s basketball games, the Alumni of the Game program honors URI alumni who have distinguished themselves through their careers and by their service to the University and/or their communities.

Alumni, Family, and Friends,

For making the URIAlumni Association Scholarship event a Roaring Success

The University of Rhode Island Alumni Association and the 2012 Big Chill Weekend Committee express their sincere appreciation to honorary chair

Laureen L. White ’81

and corporate sponsors

Bank of America

BankRI

Wonder what Green Hall, the monolith on the plaza of the Carothers Library, and the base of the URI Ram statue in front of the Memorial Union share in common?

All three structures on the Kingston Campus were created with granite quarried in nearby Westerly, R.I.

A sundial, a gift from the Class of 1903, serves as a focal point in the brick walkway to the President’s house. Its granite round base, yep you guessed it, comes from Westerly as does the stone entrance to the Deiter Hammerschlag Mall that leads to the Carothers Library.

Westerly residents John B. Coduri ’69 and Ellen L. Madison, Ph.D. ’86, in collaboration with Brown alumna Linda Smith Chafee, aptly captured the town’s proud granite history in their comprehensive book, BUILT FROM STONE, The Westerly Granite Story.

Green Hall was built in 1937. Restored in 2003 thanks to the efforts of Henry Nardone ’43 of Westerly (who spearheaded the fundraising campaign), the stately Georgian Revival building is located near the center of the Kingston Campus.

The Narragansett Monolith, a 12-foot granite block dedicated in 1994, is located on the west end of the library plaza. The monument’s inscription, NIPPENOWANTAWEM, NIPPENOWANTAWEM, MEQUANAMIINNEA, MEQUANAMIINNEA (I Am Of Another Language, Remember Me), is carved twice in raised letters of various depths that appear to emerge and then recede into the stone, symbolic of the emergence and decline of Rhode Island’s indigenous people.

The iconic Ram statue stands comfortably on a granite base donated by the late Angelo Gencarelli ’22 who was also from Westerly. The statue, a gift from the Class of 1958, often appears in photos surrounded by students.

—Jan Wenzel ’87

During a school assembly on Wednesday October 19, 2011, Pilgrim High School science teacher Michael Lobdell was initially preoccupied by all of the things he had to do that afternoon.

He was unaware that by the end of the assembly, the Warwick school gym would resound with cheers as he accepted a Milken Educator Award and check for $25,000 from the Milken Family Foundation while dignitaries like Gov. Lincoln Chafee and Congressman James R. Langevin (D-Dist.2) looked on.

During the ceremony, Gov. Chafee praised Lobdell saying, “he is always forward-looking and sees the opportunities for improvement in his own practice.”

For the past 25 years, the Milken Family Foundation has sought out and recognized outstanding elementary and secondary teachers like Lobdell across the country.

During the six years that Lobdell has been at Pilgrim High, he has developed a teaching style centered on inquiry, critical thinking techniques, and problem-solving strategies. Described as a “hands-on” teacher, Lobdell runs his classroom like a workshop, assimilating technology, film, and literature into his lessons.

But his commitment to his students doesn’t end when the bell rings. He started and runs a Homework Club open to all Pilgrim High students and participates in the School Improvement Team. During the summer, Lobdell works for a research program at Rhode Island College that gives high school students the opportunity to conduct DNA research.

Lobdell holds a bachelor’s degree in zoology and an M.A. in education from URI. He can still recall conversations with his undergraduate advisor that would eventually help steer him into a teaching career. He also credits the encouragement of his wife Sarah Howard Lobdell ’96, the associate director of Alumni Relations at URI.

During the ceremony, Lobdell thanked the students and his fellow teachers at Pilgrim High for their support. “My door is always open,” he promised. “I’ll continue doing my best for you.”

—Bethany Vaccaro ’06

Musician Mary Larsen seized the opportunity to audition to become the next co-host of The Rhode Show: “As a musician you have to work on your confidence and your performing skills, and that is what I worked on at URI,” said Larsen, who sings and plays many instruments.

“With all the different ensembles, I performed multiple times a month. As an RA and orientation leader, I had to be a leader and role model. Through that, I gained a lot of public speaking skills and self confidence I didn’t have in high school.”

Those traits work in her favor as co-host on the Fox Providence morning talk show. As part of the extensive audition process, Larsen suggested a new segment. Inspired by Discovery Channel‘s Dirty Jobs, Larsen’s If The Shoe Fits would take a close look at jobs throughout the state. Before pitching her segment idea, she spent the day with a local beekeeper: “I was in a bee suit! It was scary and it was great. I want to do stories outside the studio.”

Larsen and her husband, Blake, live in East Greenwich. A graduate of Toll Gate High School, she has been the youth ensembles coordinator and a branch coordinator for the Rhode Island Philharmonic. She remains a teacher for the organization. She was also Providence Country Day’s performing arts director and works with a local film production company, Verdi Productions.

Larsen was one of more than 100 co-host hopefuls to show up at Twin River Casino in October to give a brief interview on camera. Based on voting by judges from Fox Providence and online voting, 20 finalists were selected. A shocked Larsen was instructed to come to the studio for a job interview where she practiced reading off the teleprompter. Videos of the 20 finalists were posted online and another round of voting commenced.

The final five stood arm-in-arm wearing fancy dresses when the winner was named on live television.

—Ericka Tavares ’88

Nash’s holiday card featured her with her cat, Zoharet, and parakeet, Kailani.

Juliette Nash has worked with animals for as long as she can remember. The decision to start her own pet behavior modification business came naturally to this biology grad, for whom understanding animals has become second nature.

Nash launched Polly Wanna Solution two years ago in response to the lack of resources for frustrated bird owners in the San Diego area where she now resides. She specializes in cat and bird behavior, but also has experience working with dogs, wildlife, and other animals.

The animals Nash sees have behavioral issues, including separation anxiety, aggression toward their owners or other animals, or problem behaviors like excessive barking or obsessive grooming. Through a lifetime of working with pets, as well as exotic animals, Nash has learned how to identify the underlying issues and work with pet and owner to change negative behaviors and encourage healthy new ones.

Nash grew up outside of Boston surrounded by pets and local wildlife. “I like to say that I was trained by my cat,” she says.“From a young age, I paid close attention to what animals were doing and how they would interact with me, with each other, and with other species. I watched and I learned from them.” By age 15 she had moved from working with her own pets to handling owls, hawks, and other raptors at the Mass Audubon Blue Hills Trailside Museum in Milton, Mass.

In addition to running Polly Wanna Solution, Nash is a master’s student at the University of San Diego, where she is studying the social behavior and communication of killer whales. Nash says she wants to continue working in animal behavior, whether with pets or exotic animals: “It‘s a joy to watch an animal come around and begin to trust you and to be comfortable with its surroundings. It‘s just the most rewarding feeling in the world. I can‘t imagine doing anything else.”

—Mary Bates

Elaine Mack at the Neiman Marcus Group meeting in Dallas.

Elaine Mack is the head personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman. This former URI English major, who loved Professor Warren Smith’s Shakespeare classes, has excelled at Bergdorf for more than 37 years.

Elaine, who has been named one of New York City’s Best Salespeople, was trained in sales by Andrew Goodman, son of Bergdorf Goodman’s founder, at the store then located in White Plains, N.Y. She is the go-to person for women who desire up-to-date, beautifully designed clothing. Elaine shops for a coterie of diverse clients, knows their preferences, knows where they have to appear, keeps them advised on trends, and helps them to achieve their style.

Elaine works three fully booked 12-hour days a week, starting at 7 a.m. She favors clothing by Akris, Valentino, Oscar de la Renta, and many of the talented younger designers. She likes fresh takes on classic elegance, quality fabrics, superb tailoring, and meticulous attention to detail. When a designer comes out with something really great, Mack says she just has to select it for her clients.

Elaine’s work has been noted in the media. In a 2006 article about high-end retailers differentiating themselves through the work of personal shoppers, Business Week quoted her as saying that “personal shoppers save you time and make you feel like queen for a day.”

In an article on Jackie Kennedy Onassis, The New York Daily News quoted Elaine’s anecdote about receiving a request from Jackie to assist one of her friends select the proper clothing for an important appearance. Elaine still treasures Jackie’s note thanking her for her help.

In 2010, Harper’s Bazaar sought Elaine’s suggestions for unusual but inexpensive gifts for an article on post-recession gift giving. And in 2011, Elaine’s peers chose her to receive the Best of the Best award from Bergdorf Goodman’s parent company, the Neiman Marcus Group.

Ask and some of the most world’s most beautifully dressed women will tell you, “Elaine Mack is my long-time personal shopper.”

—Sally Adams ’66, M.A.‘68

Near the U.S.-Mexico border, in the south valley of El Paso, is a bookstore that has given away almost half-a-million books since its inception, spreading literacy and a lifelong love of reading to as many children as it can.

Paula Norton Madriles founded this 501(c)3 organization in memory of her daughter, Grace Elizabeth Madriles (hence GEM in the store’s name), who died in an automobile accident in 2002 at 16 years of age. Today, Grace’s love of reading and her brilliant smile are surely reflected in the happy smiles of children—proud readers who can select up to five free books a month at BOOKS ARE GEMS.

Initially, Paula, then an elementary school teacher in South El Paso, bought the books at yard sales and thrift stores. Eventually thousands of books were donated. GEM’s GEMS became BOOKS ARE GEMS. In 2010 the store moved to its current location where Paula now works part-time. Community volunteers—75 to 100 at any one time—help sort, pack, stock, and transport the books.

Books in the Children’s Bookstore are always free. Proceeds from new and used books sold in the General Bookstore (paperbacks for $1, hard covers for $2) are used to purchase more books to give away to children.

A teacher may select 25 children’s books for the classroom and take unlimited materials from the Teacher Resource Center that includes professional teaching literature, teacher’s editions, textbooks, and supplemental and “math manipulative” materials.

Community schools and agencies frequently distribute BOOKS ARE GEMS books to children at health fairs, parents’ days, teacher-training days, and even at baseball games.

In partnership with community institutions, the bookstore runs reading camps in June and July where children can work with well-trained tutors on programs specifically designed for them. There’s also a story hour on Saturdays.

Learn more about this inspiring literacy outreach project on the Web at booksaregems.org

—Sally Adams ’66, M.A.‘68

David Todd quips that he is a civil engineer by profession, a genealogist by avocation, an environmentalist by choice, and a writer by passion. He grew up in Rhode Island, attended public schools in Cranston, and majored in engineering at URI.

By day, Todd is a corporate trainer at CEI Engineering Associates in Bentonville, Ark., who frequently gives seminars on environmental engineering topics. He has been a corporate trainer for six years and has been with CEI for 20 years. He previously worked for engineering firms in Kansas City, Saudi Arabia, North Carolina, Kuwait, and Boston.

In his leisure time, Todd wrote Documenting America: Lessons from the United States’ Historical Documents, a book that blends U.S. history with politics. It’s available from CreateSpace (an Amazon company) and as an e-book from Amazon Kindle and Smashwords.

As Todd’s Web site, davidatodd.com, attests, since he began to write creatively about 10 years ago, he has completed one novel, Doctor Luke’s Assistant, a fictional telling of the writing of the Gospel of Luke (available as an Amazon Kindle book) and begun a second, In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, a baseball thriller.

He has also published nine poems and written a newspaper column and feature articles for a local weekly. His work has appeared in nine print publications and two on-line publications.

Todd has written about 200 poems. One of his sonnets, with some resonance in Rhode Island, explores his disappointment on learning that the bivalves he happily dug as a boy and called quahogs were actually clams. On a more serious note, another sonnet deals with the painful distance between the overheard chatter of funeral guests and the isolation and sadness of a boy whose mother has just died.

Todd has also experimented with cinquains (five line poems) such as the following poem:

An Old Man’s Amazement

Whirlwinds

Tug me along,

Distracted and amazed.

Do I hear right? Beauty dances

With me?

— Sally Adams ’66, M.A.‘68

Things are looking a bit different at Three Keaney Road, where a $1.4 million project to redo the indoor track in Mackal Fieldhouse and a $22,000 renovation of the Keaney Gymnasium floor were completed in January. Assistant Athletic Director of Management and Planning Art Tuveson oversaw both projects.

In Mackal, which opened in 1991, the track was upgraded from urethane surfacing to Mondo FTX surfacing. It’s the same surface that was used for the 2008 Beijing Olympic track and will be used for the 2012 London Olympic track. “The eight previous Olympics prior to Beijing were Mondo’s Super X,” Tuveson said. “Mondo FTX is the newest version of Super X. The fact that it’s been used in the last 10 Olympic games speaks yards.”

The Keaney floor gives a new look to the home of the women’s volleyball team. Boston-based O’Sullivan Flooring did the work, part of a complete renovation for Keaney, which opened in 1953. The gymnasium also has 20 new doors to the facility and, according to Tuveson, a new volleyball scoreboard will be in place before the start of the 2012 season. The new scoreboard will also handle basketball functions.

“Geoff is a real joy to work with because he is very focused,” U.S. Men’s Head Coach Jürgen Klinsmann said after the match. “He’s really dedicated to everything he’s doing, and we asked him to guide the back line, together with Michael Parkhurst, to push it high up and kind of develop his passes and play them straight into midfield and even into forwards.

“We’re impressed at how he’s doing that. We knew he had the talent, but then to implement it is another story. He did that tonight.”

Shoniker joined Olimpia GrGAU Grodno of the Belarus Premier League; she is the only American on the Belarusian team. As a senior at URI, she ranked 25th in the nation in scoring with 18.9 points per game.

James joined the NBA D-League with the Tulsa 66ers, an affiliate of the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder. He returned to the U.S. after playing briefly in Israel this winter for Bnei Eshet Tours Hasharon, where he averaged 16.1 points and 7.7 rebounds in 10 games.

Former URI football player Matt Hansen, the school’s all-time leader in tackles, ended the 2011 season on the Atlanta Falcons’ practice squad. Hansen signed a futures contract with Atlanta on January 9 and is expected to be with the team in training camp for the second year in a row next summer.

“Death likely occurred during a desert sandstorm. My guess is that the initial and present-day dryness contributed significantly to the superb preservation, not just of Protoceratops, but of all the fossils from this unit,” said paleontologist David Fastovsky, who is the lead author of the study.

“Finding juveniles in a nest is a relatively uncommon occurrence, and I cannot think of another dinosaur specimen that preserves 15 juveniles in its nest in this way,” the professor of geosciences added.

An analysis of the nest by Fastovsky and his colleagues found that all 15 dinosaurs—at least 10 of which are complete specimens—were about 6 inches tall and about a year old. The discovery also indicates that the young dinosaurs remained in the nest through the early stages of their development and were cared for by their parents.

The relatively large number of offspring may have been a way of ensuring the survival of the species. They lived in a stressful environment alongside other dinosaurs, including the notorious Velociraptor dinosaur, which probably ate young Protoceratops.

Of/By/For/RI: The Rhode Island Student Political Boot Camp is designed to foster stronger connections between Rhode Island’s college and high school students and equip them with the skills to become agents of change, whether they run for office, work on a campaign, or advocate for an issue about which they are passionate.

Howard Dean, the former six-term governor of Vermont, contender for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, and chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 through 2009, gave the keynote address. Other speakers included former U.S. Representative Robert Weygand ’71, ’76, URI’s vice president for administration and finance; Rhode Island Republican Party Chair Ken McKay; and Rhode Island Democratic Party Chair Ed Pacheco.

“The event wasn’t about ideology, it was about empowering youth with the skills to create change,” said Scott Andrews, president of College Democrats at URI, a political science major with minors in leadership studies and business.

“Students who have an interest in making a difference in their own lives or lives of those around them can find the skills they may need at the boot camp,” says James McMahon, president of the College Republicans and an Iraqi War U.S. Marine Corps veteran majoring in communication studies. “There is no handbook for how to get involved in politics, but we’re here and we are making one. Students will have opportunities to learn about the current state of affairs, how to create their own Web sites, recruit volunteers to a cause, develop issue advocacy, media and messaging skills, résumé building, and more.

An inaugural political boot camp was held last year at Brown University.

“I learned by osmosis,” she said, noting that her mother taught first and second graders and later taught children with learning disabilities: “We used to have many talks about teaching and modes of learning.”

Hollinshead was surprised to win the award: “I expect a lot from my students, but I see that as a matter of respect. That said, I also provide whatever support they need.”

Her current and former students sing her praises. Donald Rodrigues ’00, M.A. ’11, a teaching assistant in the English Department, said Hollinshead played a vital role in shaping and directing his academic and post-academic life.

“I often look to her each time I spot a promising, shy student sitting in the back row of my class. Mary has shown me that teaching is a political act in the truest and best sense of the term. It is a daily opportunity to challenge, engage, and empower even the least likely of minds, regardless of what major they choose upon exiting the classroom.”

Samantha Henneberry ’08, a graduate student in the History of Art Department at the University of California Berkeley, said: “Mary makes the past available to everyone, encouraging her students to see the study of ancient Greek and Roman art—which many see as out of reach, strictly traditional, or exclusive—as a field full of possibilities and open to anyone with a passion. I wouldn’t be where I am today if it were not for Mary’s encouragement, mentorship, and friendship.”

Book’s journey to the White House began in a small town near Cincinnati where, as a boy, he often pretended to be Jacques Cousteau, researching undersea biology in his backyard. The path veered to physics studies at the University of Missouri-Rolla. After graduation, he applied to several graduate schools, including our Graduate School of Oceanography. The GSO and oceanography was not his first choice, but all that changed when he visited the campus. You could say it was love at first sight—with the school and later that summer with Majorie Kelner ’96, his future wife.

Mark Wimbush was Book’s advisor for both his master’s thesis and his doctoral dissertation. “Mark’s teaching and mentorship has played a huge role in my early career, and I try my best to model his dedication to learning, teaching, and excellence in science,” said Book. “My training at GSO influences nearly all of my work, especially the emphasis on understanding ocean dynamics through observation.”

Starting full time at the NRL in 1999, one of Books’ first assignments was a continuation of his collaboration with Wimbush and the GSO’s Randy Watts in the Sea of Japan.

Book’s work as principal investigator for the Navy lab project, Dynamics of the Adriatic in Real Time with the NATO Undersea Research Centre and 23 other institutions, has led to an improved understanding of how waters of different characteristics interact when they meet at ocean boundaries and form complex flow structures that can affect activities taking place in the sea. Those observations can be used to evaluate our ability to predict the ocean in the short term with numerical models.

Book contributed to the development and use of new technologies to measure ocean structures and provide the data in real-time so it can be immediately used by prediction models to make more accurate forecasts of ocean conditions.

Book is continuing such work off the North West shelf of Australia studying the effect of strong tides on ocean predictability, but in 2012 he will shift gears for a case study on ocean fine structures off South Africa. “My recent work on the Agulhus Return Current has brought me full circle to my URI master’s thesis work on the Kuroshio current as once again I am working on western boundary current dynamics,” he says.

She remembers climbing the tower in Davis Hall to ring the bell after a football victory. He remembers that “almost no one had a car, and so when you were dropped off in September, you didn’t get home until the holidays.”

What childhood sweethearts Elizabeth Rodger ’33 and J. Albert Newton Jr. ’35, who grew up in Pawtucket, remember most is the beauty and intimate feel of the Kingston Campus of Rhode Island State College in the 1930s.

Husband and wife are both 100 years old, yet memories of their alma mater have not faded. Both attended school while the country was in the midst of the Great Depression. It was a time when freshmen wore beanies and women students were required to be back in their residences by 7 p.m. or face sanctions. Students remained on campus until June, so they organized their schedules to make room for frequent runs to Narragansett beaches.

Elizabeth, who earned her bachelor’s in business education, was honored for scoring 150 points from 1929 through 1933 with the women’s basketball team. She also played field hockey at what the couple affectionately calls “state.”

Both have great memories of watching legendary coach Frank Keaney’s teams play their “firehorse” brand of basketball in Rodman Hall. Albert said the 1,500-seat arena was always full and noisy.

The couple’s great-granddaughters Lindsay Pare ‘08 and Lauren Pare ’10 helped keep URI a family tradition.

“Dr. Hobbs brings a comprehensive and innovative approach to this position, which is critical in today’s world because communication and information technologies are all about mind boggling change,” said former president and CEO of Thomson/Reuters Richard Harrington ’73, who with his wife, Jean, established the school with a $5.5 million gift.

“Renee Hobbs has the knowledge, the expertise, and the creative entrepreneurial ideas to develop a transformative educational model here at URI,” said Dean Winifred E. Brownell of the College of Arts and Sciences, the academic home of the school.

Hobbs established the Institute on Media Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the first national program of teacher professional development in media literacy in the United States.

Before joining URI, Hobbs was a professor of communications in Temple University’s Department of Broadcasting, Telecommunication, and Mass Media, and School of Communications and Theater. In Philadelphia, Hobbs developed Powerful Voices for Kids, a university-school partnership that offers a comprehensive digital and media literacy program for students in kindergarten through high school. This year, the American Library Association named her an Office of Information Technology Fellow.

“Communication schools can no longer be confined to narrow vocational disciplines if they want to serve students well,” said Hobbs, emphasizing that verbal and written expression will remain at the heart of the Harrington School. “We are going to create a new vision that means thinking about students as global communicators and citizens in a democracy.”

Since Gerzevitz joined the board of directors of the United Kingdom-based Hospices of Hope a decade ago, she and other URI nurses have been sharing their knowledge of quality of life care for terminally ill patients and their families with their Romanian medical counterparts.

Last summer, Gerzevitz and 11 nurses from URI and Simmons College, including Clinical Associate Professor in Pharmacy Practice Margaret Charpentier, ran the first-ever American-Romanian symposium for palliative care.

“Even though there were language barriers, I was struck by the universal language of caring,” said Clinical Assistant Professor of Nursing Katherine Paquette, who accompanied Romanian nurses on home visits. “I may not have understood the words being said, but I could understand the reactions of the family members who were receiving care.”

Former Women’s Rowing Team Captain Grace Rignanese ’11 donated bone marrow this January at the Rhode Island Blood Center in Providence. Her marrow will be given to an 18-year-old woman.

“It’s pretty amazing to think that you have the opportunity to change somebody else’s life for the better,” said Rignanese, who lives in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. “When I found out that I was an exact match, the decision to donate was really a no brainer.”

Rignanese, who helped Rhode Island win the Atlantic 10 championship during her junior and freshman seasons, registered as a possible marrow donor during her sophomore year. It wasn’t until nearly three years later, on Dec. 20, that she learned she was a perfect match for the young woman.

Current URI football player Matt Greenhalgh, a senior from Chepachet, R.I, was honored during halftime of the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans this January for saving the life of a leukemia patient with his donation last April. He registered to become a potential donor two years ago.

He and Rignanese were found to be matches through the football team’s annual bone marrow registration drive on behalf of the National Marrow Donor Program.

URI Football Head Coach Joe Trainer has organized the marrow drive for the last three years. During that span, the football players have recruited more than 700 new registrants, including Rignanese and Greenhalgh. “To have two donors from our drive is just incredible,” Trainer said. “Hopefully this continues to raise awareness for our Marrow Donor Drive and the need for potential donors.”

This year’s Marrow Donor Drive will be held Thursday, April 26. For more information, contact Linda Brown, 401.874.2406.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama elevated the issue of the rising costs of higher education to a new level—a step that, in my view, was long overdue. America can certainly benefit from comprehensive and inclusive discussions of the critical social, economic, and public policy issues surrounding access to, and affordability of, higher education. Students, their families, colleges and universities, the federal and state governments, communities, businesses—all should be involved because everyone has a stake in the outcome. Indeed, one can argue that the President was responding to the growing popular demand, exemplified by elements of the Occupy Movement, for urgent attention to the questions of access and affordability.

An hour before President Barack Obama gave his State of the Union address last January, about 90 URI students, faculty and staff told a state commission how declining support for higher education has placed crushing financial burdens on students and has hampered innovative faculty.

The problem has been widely recognized for well over a decade. The costs of higher education have been rising at a rate that exceeds the consumer price index as a measure of inflation. For public colleges and universities, the underlying reason is the systematic disinvestment in higher education by state governments. The behavior of state governments in this regard is not fundamentally irrational. In the face of ever increasing costs for mandated entitlements, health care, public safety, corrections, and pensions, funding for higher education was increasingly viewed as discretionary. If colleges and universities needed funds beyond those provided by the state, they could always raise tuition. And they did.

For some time this strategy worked because in many states public higher education was inexpensive. But after several years of budget reductions and tuition increases, this is no longer the case for many students and families. Here at the University of Rhode Island two recent events highlighted the situation. The first was testimony presented by students, alumni, and faculty at a hearing on campus by the Special House Commission to Study Public Higher Education Affordability and Accessibility in Rhode Island; the second was the Occupy URI forum.

It is encouraging for us in Rhode Island that the multiple issues associated with the cost of public higher education are gaining increased attention. Crafting solutions will not be easy. There are several other problems facing our state that also require urgent attention. However, most of the problems we face, including access and affordability of higher education, could be addressed far more readily if additional resources were available. I believe that the best and most sustainable path to increasing our resources is to grow the economy. This growth must happen sooner than later, it must be substantial, and it must be based on innovation. Discovery, technology transfer, entrepreneurship, and a highly prepared workforce are essential to building a competitive 21st century economy. These are all things at which URI can excel. Access to affordable, excellent public higher education is a critical component of constructing solutions to the many challenges facing our state and nation.

—David M. Dooley

Shelagh Donohoe has seen the world, thanks to rowing. This summer, the URI women’s rowing coach has the chance to do the same for her team. In June, 20 team members and four coaches will head to England to compete in the famed Henley Women’s Regatta for the first time in school history.

NCAA rules limit programs to competing in international events just once every four years, making a trip to Henley truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Depending on how the team performs, it will either advance to compete at the world-famous Royal Henley Regatta, which has been held every year since 1839 (except during the two World Wars), or it will go on to compete at the Marlow Regatta at Eton Dorney. The Marlow will be held on the same course as this year’s Summer Olympics.

“A trip like this showcases what type of opportunities rowing can bring to the kids on the team,” Donohoe said. “This will be a worldly experience, both in terms of competition and culture.”

The experience goes beyond the competition. Team members will participate in several social and cultural activities during the trip. Donohoe said the cultural experiences would be just as important for the students as the international competition. “To get these kids out of the region, or even out of Rhode Island, and show them rowing on a global scale is huge,” Donohoe said. “This is a chance to open up a world of opportunities to them.”

Senior Kelley Woodacre will be among the team members making the trip. The Wellesley, Mass., native was part of URI’s 2010 Atlantic 10 championship team, but she understands heading to Henley will be a different experience altogether. “We are going to be going up against the best teams in the world,” Woodacre said. “Just being around Olympic-caliber competition means a lot to the URI program. We want to rise up and go against the best, and this is our chance to do that.”

Knowing that URI will move on to compete at either the Royal Henley or the Marlow Regatta was not lost on Woodacre: “Both are great opportunities. The Royal Henley is an historic event with so much tradition. Of course, knowing that we could race on the Olympic course just a couple of weeks before the best in the world get there is insane to think about. We also have the pressure of representing the University because we are the first URI team to participate. It’s a pressure that we want. It’s going to be an amazing experience.”

While the rowing team members will experience all that the Henley has to offer, getting the team to England has become a University-wide project. At the suggestion of Rev. Lynn Baker-Dooley, wife of URI President David M. Dooley, Donohoe connected with the school’s Department of Textiles, Fashion Merchandising, and Design to have outfits designed for the team.

“Having that kind of support and involvement at the top level is a huge boost,” Donohoe said. “President Dooley and the Rev. Lynn Baker-Dooley really got the blazer project going. She was the spark to turn this from an experience for the rowing team into something for the entire University, both academically and athletically.”

Fashion at Henley is as steeped in tradition as the regatta itself. Students from Karl Aspelund’s TMD 327 class in apparel design were charged with the task of designing several blazers, shirts, skirts, and accessories for the team to choose from. After spending more than a month researching the history of the culture and fashion of the regatta, the TMD students hosted a reception to unveil the recommended designs.

In all, the students presented 17 outfits. For the Henley, the team blazer is a focal point in terms of style, and the TMD students recommended a navy “boyfriend” blazer style, as the “boyfriend” offered a feminine look without being too form fitting.

“It was an amazing opportunity to be able to take what we have been learning in the classroom and apply it to real life,” said junior Jennifer Conway of North Kingstown. “Usually you work on theoretical projects for made-up clients. For us to be able to design outfits for actual people who will be representing our University was a huge deal.”

Conway said she and approximately 25 classmates took pride in knowing their work was having a direct impact on the experience of their fellow students: “What the women on the rowing team do athletically is amazing. They are going to Henley as representatives of URI, and that’s a big deal. We want them to feel good about themselves while they are there. When we conceptualized the different pieces, we wanted to show an artistic flair, but we wanted to also respect the history of Henley.”

The designs by the TMD students will be produced by fashion giant Jones of New York. URI alumnus Wes Card ‘70 is the CEO and Director of The Jones Group, Inc., and he agreed to have the company specially produce the designs. “There will be teams in England that have their outfits designed by large companies,” Donohoe said. “For us, knowing that we’ll be wearing the designs of URI students means more to us. They did an outstanding job, and knowing that Jones of New York is going to produce the clothing says a lot about the work of the students.”

Getting the support of the Dooleys, other departments at the University, and from companies like Jones of New York has helped the team stay focused on its upcoming season. Donohoe stressed that while the team is certainly excited about the opportunity that awaits this summer, it must first focus on its spring season.

Which is easier said than done. The rowing team must raise $60,000 to pay for the trip, an effort being spearheaded by Marnie Dacko, coordinator for development and marketing for women’s athletics. Dacko is working closely with Donohoe and Sarah Lobdell, associate director of Alumni Relations, to make it all happen. Dacko and Lobdell have been working on getting corporate sponsors for the team as well as reaching out to the University’s alumni base in Europe and Asia.

While in England, the team will hold two events at the exclusive Leander Club located in Remenham in the county of Berkshire. Michael Joukowsky, a member of the Leander Club, agreed to host a dinner and a champagne reception on behalf of the University: “With the work of Shelagh Donohoe and her staff, the program has shown promise nationally,” Dacko said. “They are moving up the ladder very quickly, and putting themselves against the best the world has to offer will only help.”

Now in her sixth season with the Rams, Donohoe has led Rhode Island to a pair of Atlantic 10 titles and has been the conference Coach of the Year three times. Dacko, a longtime women’s basketball coach in the college ranks, including head coaching tenures at the University of Massachusetts and Cornell, understands Donohoe’s need for support in this campaign: “This is a unique group of young women, and we want to establish the URI women’s rowing team on a national platform. That is a platform I can sell. We see how far this program has come in the last few years, and we see how far it can go.”

By Shane Donaldson ’99

Support the Team

There are many different ways to help make the rowing team’s experience at the Henley Women’s Regatta even more memorable. Supporters can make donations online by visiting uri.convio.net/donate.

There also are fundraising events and sponsorship packages listed below:

EVENTS

Yankee Cup Reception

Rowing boosters Diane and Stephen Sullivan and the Rowing Team will hold a reception on March 31 in Saunderstown. For more information email Marnie Dacko, or call 401.874.7443.

The Leander Club

While in England for the Henley Regatta, the URI Alumni Association and rowing team will hold a pair of events at the exclusive Leander Club. Located in Remenham in the English county of Berkshire, the Leander Club adjoins Henley-on-Thames and is one of the oldest rowing clubs in the world. Club member and URI supporter Michael Joukowski will host both events.

The first event is a dinner on June 14 at 6 p.m. The event is $250 per person and is limited to 110 attendees. The second event is a champagne reception on June 16 at 6 p.m. The reception is $100 per person and is limited to the first 40 registrants.

Interested parties can register online at advance.uri.edu/alumni/athletics or by contacting Sarah Lobdell at 401.874.2438 or slobdell@advance.uri.edu.

SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES

URI has established four different sponsorship packages for the rowing team.

Varsity 8+ $25,000

◊ Access for four people to accompany the coach in the coaching launch during a practice before the Henley trip.

◊ One table at the Leander Club Dinner in England on June 14, 2012.

◊ Four tickets to the champagne reception at the Leander Club in England on June 16, 2012.

◊ Recognition in the URI alumni magazine QUAD ANGLES, with distribution to more than 100,000 alumni.

◊ Four tickets to the 2012 Yankee Cup Reception in Saunderstown, R.I., on March 31, 2012.

◊ Recognition in all marketing literature.

◊ Corporate logo on travel bags and jackets.

Coaches Sponsor $10,000

◊ Access for two people to accompany the coach in the coaching launch during a practice before the Henley trip.

◊ Two tickets to the champagne reception at the Leander Club in England on June 16, 2012.

◊ Recognition in the URI alumni magazine QUAD ANGLES, with distribution to more than 100,000 alumni.

◊ Four tickets to the 2012 Yankee Cup Reception in Saunderstown, R.I. on March 31, 2012.

◊ Corporate logo on travel bags and jackets.

Pair Sponsors $5,000

◊ Access for two people to accompany the coach in the coaching launch during a practice before the Henley trip.

◊ Two tickets to the 2012 Yankee Cup Reception in Saunderstown, R.I., on March 31, 2012.

◊ Corporate logo on travel bags and jackets.

Individual Rower Sponsor $2,500

◊ Two tickets to the 2012 Yankee Cup Reception in Saunderstown, R.I., on March 31, 2012.

◊ URI women’s rowing sweatshirt and cap.

Jeffrey Rosenfeld ’68 has made a career as a sociology professor and author, but if he had to name one class that he would consider a touchstone of his student days at URI, it was art history with Professor Robert Rohm. “He opened my eyes to new ways of seeing, and one reason I was drawn to sociology at URI is that it too involves different ways of seeing.”

Like many other URI students of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s who went on to become writers, Rosenfeld also gained a lot from studying with English Professor Nancy Potter. He refers to her as his “role model” who gave him “the first serious feedback I ever received on my writing.” Those skills, along with the new ways of seeing he learned with Rohm, stood Rosenfeld in good stead when he was working on his latest book, Unassisted Living: Ageless Homes for Later Life (The Monacelli Press), which he wrote with architect Wid Chapman.

The coffee table volume deals with the ways baby boomers—the 75 million Americans born during the post-war years from 1946 to 1964—are changing the landscape of retirement living. The volume combines gorgeous color photographs of city apartments, wilderness retreats, multifamily compounds, functional home-offices and studios, and funky bungalows along with commentary on the architecture and the new philosophies of aging that inform the choices that boomers are making in designing their retirement homes.

The first generation to grow up with television and rock ’n’ roll, baby boomers spent their adult years riding the waves of countless revolutions including computers, the Internet, cell phones, and electronic commerce. They are entering retirement with the same innovative spirit, Rosenfeld said during an interview in Manhattan where he teaches Design for Aging Populations at Parsons The New School for Design: “Boomers are often in great condition, and they are planning for their later years very differently than today’s elderly did.”

The plans are as varied as the millions of boomers nearing retirement age. Still, Rosenfeld spotted a few trends that seem to be popular with large swaths of this age group, who are turning 65 at the rate of roughly 10,000 a day. Some of these trends are:

• Bistro Living: Moving out of large suburban homes into smaller dwellings near city centers with easy access by walking or mass transit to cultural, social, and recreational activities; “this interest in sophisticated living has kept surprisingly large numbers of boomers from relocating to planned communities,” Rosenfeld remarked.

• Three Generations Together: Multifamily homes and communities planned for boomers to retire near their children and grandchildren.

• Getaways: Turning vacation homes into primary residences.

• Living Off the Grid: Houses closer to nature or wilderness areas that are connected through technology to vital services and by easy transportation to family and friends.

The book identifies eight trends altogether and gives examples of homes designed with those goals in mind. One of the most surprising trends to Rosenfeld was the popularity of housing arrangements enabling several generations of the same family to live with or near each other: “One of the really surprising things was my discovery of multigenerational family houses. When I started the book I was expecting something else. But I discovered that many boomers are trying to live with three generations of their own family; that’s a celebration of family that I wasn’t expecting to see. I was expecting to see cooperative housing, and I did find that. I was expecting to see a lot of home offices, and I found that too.

“I also found that boomers are the beneficiaries of a lot of new technologies including telemedicine, telepharmacy, and robotics. It will allow many boomers to live by themselves as long as they want. There is a whole mythology of elderly people abandoned because they are old; this is the opposite—this is being isolated by choice.”

A sociologist specializing in gerontology, Rosenfeld, who earned a master’s from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, has written several books about aging. His first book, Legacy of Aging, grew out of his dissertation on the growing number of contested wills: “It was a look at why older people disinherit their children.” The book was featured in Psychology Today, and Rosenfeld appeared on TV to discuss it on The Today Show With Phil Donohue.

Rosenfeld said he was well-prepared for his career by a top-notch sociology faculty at URI, including Ralph W. England, “a talented criminologist whose course included a class trip to the state penitentiary,” and Robert Gardner, “the professor who encouraged me to go on for graduate work at UMass, Amherst.

“But if I were to acknowledge anybody at URI, foremost would be Nancy Potter. I had three different classes with her, including her fabled Faulkner seminar. The first serious feedback on my writing came from her. Along with my friend Robert M. Boyar ’68, I took the honors colloquium that she organized. I’ve kept in touch with Robert over the years; he’s an attorney in Morristown N.J., and we agree that Nancy Potter is unforgettable.”

He recalled that Potter “chose creativity as the theme for the 1967–1968 colloquium and invited artists, architects, writers, actors, and dancers to visit URI and speak on creativity. This included film critic Pauline Kael and the architects who designed Boston’s path-breaking City Hall. Students had to sign on for dinner with at least two speakers; I ended up dining with Nancy Potter and Susan Sontag!”

Rosenfeld fell in love with URI when he was still in high school and his parents drove him up from Long Beach, N.Y., for a visit: “The first time my folks drove me up to see the place, I just knew. While I was there, I grew to love the food, the folklore, and the spirit of Rhode Island.”

Rosenfeld has remained active in the URI alumni community, interviewing high school students for the Office of Admission and organizing reunions for his fraternity, AEPi: “I love to go back in autumn to see the fall foliage—it makes me feel like I’m 18 again.”

By David Gregorio ’80

It was February 1978 when civil engineering major David Simonelli ’78 attended a presentation on dredging by recent grad Jim Beattie ’77, who was wearing shorts and sporting a great tan.

Sold on the idea of working abroad in warmer climates, like recruiter Beattie, Simonelli and classmates Dan Urso and Dave McCarthy accepted job offers from Oak Brook, Illinois-based Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company (GLDD). “Engineers were in high demand,” Simonelli recalled. “ I had many offers, but Great Lakes gave me the opportunity to work on huge port projects throughout the world.”

The rest, as they say, is history. Simonelli’s 34-year tenure with the country’s largest provider of dredging services is akin to Amazing Race episodes that depict contestants crisscrossing the globe in heated competition.

Joining GLDD as a field engineer, Simonelli hit the ground running. After a few months of learning the basics on a project in New York, he found himself on a PanAm flight to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to work on Jebel Ali: “The Sheikh envisioned this port becoming the busiest in the world,” said Simonelli. The sheik’s premonition was correct. With 67 berths, Jebel Ali is the biggest port in the Middle East and the world’s largest man-made port.

GLDD’s success in Dubai not only helped the company establish a firm stronghold in the Middle East, it also successfully tested Simonelli’s aptitude for large, complex global projects. His subsequent assignments included a port improvement project in Mombassa, Kenya; the construction of a coal export facility in Colombia; and a large Middle Eastern reclamation project that brought the Simonelli family to Qatar for four years.

“It was an incredible experience. We lived in a compound with other expatriates associated with companies like Mobil Oil, Occidental, and Qatar Gas. Together, we were like family,” remarked Simonelli, whose responsibilities expanded along with the scope of the projects that he undertook. Advancing steadily through the engineering ranks, in 2010 Simonelli was named president of dredging operations, overseeing a Dredging Operations Group that includes estimating, engineering, plant and equipment, and domestic and foreign operations.

In this role, Simonelli ensures that GLDD’s state-of-the-art fleet—the largest and most diverse in the U.S. industry with more than 200 specialized vessels—is flexible enough to meet the nation’s needs of deepening and maintaining its ports and waterways. “We are constantly upgrading and modifying our specialized equipment, for example, to dredge the rock in New York Harbor more efficiently while also meeting the EPA’s Tier II Emission Standards,” he said.

Moreover, Simonelli is concentrating on guiding GLDD toward achieving its five-year goal of doubling its size by entering new international markets and expanding the company’s menu of services: “Early last year, we acquired Matteson Dredging in Iowa. Its focus is on the inland river systems, a market we were not active in. Now we have the tools to operate in shallower waters.

“We’ve also developed an environmental arm through a joint venture with Belgium-based contractor DEC. This partnership will allow us to participate in the removal and treatment of contaminated sediments and soils on such projects as the Hudson River PCB cleanup.”

Simonelli noted that while the Middle East continues to be a very important market for the company’s services, last year’s Arab Spring unrest temporarily interrupted operations there in March 2011. Division Manager and V.P. John O’Brien ’79 relocated staff and implemented security measures to ensure the safety of the company’s employees and assets.

In a twist of irony, the uprising served as the genesis for the $57 million East Hidd Reclamation Housing Project that a GLDD Joint Venture was awarded last November. “Shia protesters decried the lack of housing in the capital city, Manama, so this project that reclaims 618 acres of the Arabian Gulf will create suitable land for that population to move to.”

In the U.S., domestic beach nourishment and coastal reclamation projects are underway to protect the vulnerable shorelines along the East and Gulf coasts. GLDD’s hopper and cutter suction dredges mine sand from offshore borrow sites and hydraulically transport the material to shoreline locations: “In the Gulf of Mexico, we are creating barrier islands to protect Louisiana’s coastline from natural erosion and storm damage. When Hurricane Katrina swept through the area, the levee system failed, causing mass destruction. The lack of natural defenses to absorb the energy compounded the problem. Our work is replacing thousands of acres of lost marshland.”

Replacing jobs lost in the Great Recession is also among the advantages of dredging activity. Port expansions are expected to jumpstart the economy. East Coast ports hoping to capitalize on the Panama Canal expansion—scheduled for a 2014 completion—are racing to deepen their access channels and berths in order to accommodate the larger, deeper draft vessels transiting the expanded canal.

“Deepening projects are in the planning stages for the ports of Charleston, Savannah, and Miami; this will provide significant opportunities for utilization of the company’s dredging fleet,” said Simonelli. “These deeper ports have significant flow down effects. Larger ships capable of accessing American ports reduce the shipping costs of imports and exports. Increased trade means more jobs loading and unloading. Warehouses are built to store goods. Roads and tunnels are improved to expedite the transport of goods. I often say ‘it all starts with dredging!’”

Or, in Simonelli’s case, it all began with a presentation by an enthusiastic alum with a mid-winter tan. While travel to exotic locales was appealing, Simonelli says it was his URI education that inspired him to remain with GLDD: “I majored in structural engineering. After three years with GLDD, I was concerned about losing that skill set, and I struggled with that possibility.

“That is when I started to understand the value of my education. I realized that URI taught me to solve problems—to break them down into manageable components and think through viable solutions. And that’s what I was doing—daily tasks like quantity calculations and production analysis with multinational teams of engineers supporting dredging vessels on projects around the world.

“It gives me great pleasure to recruit from URI. Engineering graduates have the skills we need, and what’s more, given URI’s location, they are comfortable working on the water.”

By Maria V. Caliri ’86, M.B.A. ‘92

A winning partnership between Alex and Ani owner and chief designer Carolyn Rafaelian and CEO Giovanni Feroce ’91 came about through their connection to URI.

When Carolyn Rafaelian got in trouble as a child, her mother, Lucy, would send her to work with her father, Ralph Rafaelian, at Cinerama, the family jewelry factory in Cranston. “It gave me a great work ethic,” Rafaelian laughs. “Always be productive!” She would start by carding jewelry but would often end up firing up a torch and soldering her own jewelry together.

Perhaps it is no surprise to her parents that today Rafaelian sits at the head of Alex and Ani, the Cranston-based positive energy company that is currently the fastest growing business in Rhode Island. With nine retail locations and 24 more scheduled for 2012 and an international presence, Alex and Ani is rapidly becoming a top name in accessories. Numerous Hollywood celebrities have been spotted wearing the signature expandable bangles, and the brand is regularly featured in magazines such as Vogue and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition.

Since launching in 2004, the company has distinguished itself with an eco-friendly approach, using recycled metals from local vendor partners as components for the jewelry. For Rhode Island, this is good news as Rafaelian is committed to continuing to produce the jewelry in Cranston.

Rafaelian, who named the company after her first two daughters, aims to share the power of positive energy—what the company also refers to as “vital force”— with everyone who wears her designs. She defines her life’s work as inspiring her customers to relish what is unique and authentic about themselves. Her products are known for their symbolism, bearing designs ranging from the tree of life to the peace sign to a paw print.

“I made a business out of my own personal preference and style because I was passionate about it,” says Rafaelian. “When you truly love what you do, you can’t stop doing it, and you do it with a lot of energy behind it.”

That passion has taken Alex and Ani on an explosive journey. In 2010, the company recorded revenue of $4.6 million; in 2011, it finished at $17.5 million. The rapid growth and growing popularity trace back to the partnership between Rafaelian, the owner and chief designer, and Giovanni Feroce ’91, the CEO, a collaboration brought about through their connection to URI.

Rafaelian studied marketing at URI from 1987 to 1989 before leaving for a more hands-on experience at The American College in Los Angeles. Feroce graduated from URI with a degree in political science. But it wasn’t until October 2009 that they ran into each other at a URI fraternity/sorority reunion. Feroce, an optical industry executive who founded and previously owned the optical center in the Memorial Union, was reintroduced to Rafaelian, who was building her jewelry business. “When I came to Rhode Island in March 2010, I decided to stop and say hello to Carolyn,” Feroce recalls. “When I saw her operation and realized there was real substance behind her business, I basically never left. Within a short time, we had decided we should work together.”

Before taking the helm at Alex and Ani, Feroce served as the nation’s youngest state senator. He is also a retired U.S. Army field grade officer and an Operation Iraqi Freedom combat veteran. Feroce credits his unique background with aiding him in piloting the company forward: “Alex and Ani is following a path to make us a pillar business of the community to be recognized in the same breath as CVS, Hasbro, or GTECH. For that to happen, one has to understand the political landscape. My experience allows us to do that.”

“A URI graduate can compete with anyone,” Feroce smiles. “I grew up in West Warwick, then went to public schools and to our state university. I think that’s a good example of what can be achieved even when you don’t come from the best economic conditions.”

Rafaelian agrees: “There’s nothing but opportunity for kids in college today. We didn’t have half of what is at their disposal now. I initially had to deal with buyers and middlemen just to get my product out to the consumer. Now I would just set up a Web site. Anybody can be an entrepreneur!”

Both Feroce and Rafaelian identify the relationships they formed at URI as one of the keys to their success. “If your business is based in Rhode Island” explains Feroce, “going to URI allows for the connectivity to last your whole business life. You will definitely cross paths with a URI grad if you are in business. If you succeed at URI, you’ll succeed in Rhode Island.”

Alex and Ani interns Samantha Primavera ’12 (standing) and Janelle McGovern ’12 will join the company after graduation

To date, Alex and Ani has had six URI interns and has hired three of them into full-time jobs. Samantha Primavera, a senior art history major who began as an intern in the merchandising department, was recently hired to work as assistant merchandiser after her graduation. “My favorite thing about Alex and Ani is the love and positivity that is put into each piece,” says Primavera. “It’s so much more than jewelry. Our collections are made up of pieces that inspire our wearers and represents what is special about each of them.”

Guided by that vital force, Alex and Ani continues to evolve, explains Rafaelian: “We’re working on a line of beauty products, perfumes, body sprays, lip balms, and lotions. The line, under the name Scent Seven, is scheduled to launch late spring. They all relate back to our positive energy message. Each one has a formulation that cleans and balances the environment, energetically speaking.”

“Alex and Ani is a lifestyle brand,” says Feroce, “and we’re still at the beginning. You should not be surprised if three years from now, we look very different from what we look like right now. But the message will always be the same. We’re a positive energy lifestyle company. Someday you’ll sit on an Alex and Ani chair, and it will feel better. Or you’ll eat off of Alex and Ani plates, and the food will taste better.”

By Bethany Vaccaro ’06

Mehul Sheth ’86 and his wife, Vipashi Trivedi-Sheth, with their daughter Opal and son Saager.

Mehul Sheth’s life story is a classic American tale: Boy sets out to make his fortune with nothing more than a can-do attitude. He works long hours, takes menial jobs, learns everything he can, picks himself up when the chips are down, and keeps on going. He never gives up.

Our country was built on these principles: With hard work, tenacity, and an unwavering belief in yourself you will ultimately find success and riches.

I have to admit that I didn’t recognize these qualities in Sheth when we were both students at URI. To me he was a skinny Indian guy with a friendly smile and high energy. Sheth was majoring in accounting, and what’s more, he was excited about it. This was incomprehensible to me, a dreamy music major. Hanging out all those years ago in Bonnet Shores, watching football (Sheth was a huge sports fan), and drinking beer, I had no thought for the future.

Reconnecting with Sheth after 26 years, I didn’t immediately comprehend the magnitude of his achievements. In actuality I was amused that he was traveling from his home in California to New York City specifically to attend a Jets game, an annual pilgrimage for him.

Not surprisingly in this era of digital socializing, he found me through Facebook. In retrospect it says a lot about Sheth that he looked me up. An extroverted networker, he understands the power of connections. Sheth’s interest in people is genuine and is probably the secret behind his success.

Today Sheth is president of VMS Aircraft Company, Inc., a supplier to the aircraft industry. The company recently broke the $8 million mark in sales, an impressive feat in a down economy when so many airlines have been hard hit.

The story of the company’s creation is even more impressive: Sheth started the company from a desk in his parent’s basement. He had no contacts, no customers, and nothing to trade.

“I had just been fired from my job,” Sheth recalled. “I had been working for a company located in the World Trade Center. I had a job on the trade desk in gold options, and while I was there I met this guy on the 55th floor. He was teaching a course in how to export products, and I decided to take it.

“After six months at my job, my boss let me go because he said I was no good. But I was still taking this course, so I went to my last meeting and then went home and told my dad I’d been fired. He said, ‘you have a desk, you have a company, so you have a job.’”

After his firing in 1991, Sheth focused his efforts on his career: “I spent all my time working on leads and looking at various products. For three years I tried out different things. I was completely broke and was delivering food as a roadrunner to make money. You know those warmer bags with food? I had to do it to survive.”

In early 1994 he finally got his first break: “My dad had a close friend in India, a real genius in every way. I’d just met a Fel-Pro representative who said they were looking to export so I said I had this major contact in India. I guess the Fel-Pro guy liked me because he connected me to a guy looking to sell solvents to the Italian air force. It took some time, but their first order was for $20,000. The order came in a week before I married my wife, Vipashi.”

From there on, Sheth’s story progresses from New Jersey, where he and his wife were living with his parents, to California: “We were completely broke, but I knew we needed to move out. I’d always wanted to live in California so I convinced my wife to move to San Diego.”

Because his first customer had been in the aircraft business, Sheth decided to change the company name to VMS Aircraft Company—V for his wife, Vipashi, and MS for himself. Sheth spent the next 18 months calling on a factory in Tijuana, Mexico, to get his second big customer. He succeeded, landing a $50,000 contract with an ex-Chicago policeman he met there. That satisfied customer helped Sheth land a major customer in Asia who was looking for a business that could supply directly to airlines.

Sheth’s days of being broke are far behind him. VMS Aircraft Company just celebrated 17 years in business, has 15 employees, is an authorized distributor for companies such as 3M, Bostik, and Permacel, and supplies aerospace and aviation chemicals for both military and commercial aircraft.

After years of hard work, Sheth is now truly flying high.

But Sheth has never followed a straight path. As a teenager he was torn between his love of sports and his desire to be a businessman. In high school he had broadcast football reports over the school PA system and written sports columns. He was accepted into Syracuse (the same school that produced Marv Alpert and Bob Costas) for sports journalism, but his dad urged him to consider other options.

Originally Sheth enrolled at URI to study journalism and business, but knowing the stellar reputation of the College of Business Administration, he decided to concentrate on business: “My uncle owned two youth hostels in London, and I spent summers in England helping out. That’s when I decided I would like to own my own business.”

Sheth was a marketing major until he took his first accounting course: “I did really well, and decided accounting is a better background for business.” Besides, Sheth already knew that he had a knack for marketing: “When I was 13 years old, my family went to the Montreal Summer Olympics. My dad wanted to see the field hockey game between Pakistan and India. We bought three tickets, but no one else in the family wanted to go. So my dad turned to me and said, ‘what are we going to do with this single ticket?’

“I took the ticket and sold it on the side of the road. That is the only time my father gave me a compliment. He said, ‘you will never starve; you are a born salesman.’ I believe that with sales you either have it or you don’t; accounting you need to learn.”

By Jennifer Gaul ’89

Web Extra: W. Alton Jones Campus—By the Numbers

The campus, located 25 miles from Kingston in the town of West Greenwich, is a site like no other. Its 2,309 acres of forests and lakes and farm fields is almost three times as large as the city of Central Falls, and its acquisition by URI in 1962 tripled the size of the University’s landholdings, giving it more land than any other of the six New England state universities.

The property was originally a group of farms that were purchased by William and Sophia Louttit, owners of several laundry services in the state, who named their weekend retreat Hianloland Farm. When it became too much for them to maintain, it was put up for sale in 1954 and purchased by oil company executive William Alton Jones, who wanted the property for periodic hunting and fishing weekends.

According to a story about Jones in Newsweek, accepting an invitation to relax with him was often a strenuous experience. “Jones got us up at 6 a.m. for one of his typical breakfasts: Five kinds of fruit, three eggs, ham, bacon, biscuits, coffee, milk, pie, and cheese,” said one friend. “Then we rushed through 36 holes of golf before stopping for lunch about twice the size of breakfast. He worked lunch off with a 3-mile horseback ride, an hour of tennis, and a swim. Next he drove us 40 miles to a roadhouse for dinner. When we got back to his house, he suggested we go night fishing. Nobody would go, so he talked us into an all-night session of bridge. It started all over again at 6 a.m. I haven’t recovered yet.”

Highlighting the Jones years were four visits to the property by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who frequently vacationed in Rhode Island. An important supporter of the Republican Party, Jones had met and become friendly with the president in the early 1950s. The president visited Jones at Hianloland Farm in 1958 and 1960, when the pair engaged in fishing, duck hunting, and skeet shooting.

“It was a hectic time,” said George Wheatley ‘51, who managed the property for Jones and later served as manager of campus operations for URI. “We didn’t know he was coming, and one day I was near the cow farm and these two guys get out of their car. They told me they were Secret Service, just checking the place out because Eisenhower might want to visit.”

President Eisenhower wasn’t the only famous guest at Hianloland Farm. In May 1960, His Majesty Mahendra Bir Bikram Shah Deva, the king of Nepal, and his wife visited at the end of a 36-day tour of the United States and Canada. In thanks, the king gave Jones a pair of large coffee tables that incorporate bronze engravings of cultural scenes of Nepal, both of which are still in use today.

On March 1, 1962, Jones was en route to Los Angeles for a fishing date with President Eisenhower when his plane crashed on takeoff at Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport) in New York City. All aboard were killed.

Not long after the fatal crash, Wheatley heard that the property had been put up for sale, and there were rumors that it might be donated to Brown University. “So I called Mrs. Jones and asked if there was any way of giving it to somebody,” Wheatley said. “She said yes, so I asked her about URI, and she said yes.”

A formal dedication of the property, including speeches by Gov. John Chafee and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall, was held in April 1964. By that time, plans were already underway to designate 1,000 acres of the property as a research reserve. Dozens of faculty members have conducted research at the site since then: C. Robert Shoop spent decades tracking the movement patterns of salamanders and other amphibians at the campus; Stanley Cobb conducted numerous studies of the aquatic life in the campus ponds; and Irene Stuckey surveyed the property for wildflowers and led public wildflower walks for more than 30 years. Others led studies of white tailed deer, erosion control, soil moisture, caddisfly larva, and colors that elicit avoidance behaviors in mallard ducks, among many other topics. The Rhode Island Department of Health has used the campus to monitor ozone levels in the state since 1975.

During its 50 years of operation by URI, the campus has been caught up in some rather strange events. Perhaps the most famous of these occurred in 1976 when then-Gov. Phillip Noel planned to visit the campus to speak at a meeting of the Providence Newspaper Guild. As the governor’s helicopter was approaching campus, its tail rotor malfunctioned and flew off the aircraft, causing the helicopter to plunge into the forest below. According to Wheatley, the helicopter went straight down and was impaled on a tree trunk that went between the seats occupied by the governor and the pilot. Neither were seriously injured.

Lesser known is the story about the day when the State Police used the conference center facilities as a safe house to hide an important organized crime informant. The conference center received a call from State Police Superintendent Walter Stone, who was looking for an isolated place to use as a temporary hideout. “They kept him here for about a week, and they strung trip wire around the building to keep everyone out,” Wheatley recalled. “One of our workers walked over there and accidentally tripped it, and they came out with their machine guns.”

The first construction project at the campus—a youth science center (now called the Environmental Education Center)—was completed in 1966, and an extensive variety of camps and educational programs have been offered ever since. Accredited by the American Camp Association, the camp program at the Alton Jones Campus has repeatedly been rated as one of the top three camps in Rhode Island and one of the 15 best in New England.

Even before the first camps got under way, the facilities were being used as a conference center where managers could get away from the distractions of their urban offices to think and reflect and plan. Thousands of organizations have held conferences there, from major corporations like IBM and Polaroid to religious organizations, government agencies, and other universities. The coaches of the National Football League’s Pittsburgh Steelers even gathered there for a meeting in 1964, the first of three years that the team held its training camp at URI’s Kingston Campus.

In the early 1980s and continuing into the 2000s, Alton Jones was the site of an executive M.B.A. program that targeted those with significant business experience who were rising to the top of their organizations. Part of the program’s allure was that it was scheduled as a residential program on weekends to accommodate busy professional calendars. “Alton Jones was an ideal setting for this program,” said Richard Scholl, who directed the program. “The residency component was important because there was a lot of work that got done after class at night, and that’s when a lot of the bonding happened.”

In more recent years, Alton Jones has marketed itself as a wedding destination. Today the campus is the site of about 50 weddings per year, one nearly every Saturday and Sunday from April through October. “We like to create the impression that the wedding is being held at the bridal couple’s private estate,” explained George Lewis, assistant director of the campus. “It’s modeled after Alton Jones’ philosophy of bringing friends and family to a private place to build relationships.”

Looking ahead, Alton Jones Campus Director Thomas Mitchell hopes to expand campus facilities to attract larger conferences, more campers, and bigger weddings. But he doesn’t anticipate making any major changes.

“We’re a unique facility in New England,” Mitchell said. “Nowhere else can you go that combines a research forest with a retreat for adults and an environmental classroom for children. We embody all three venues in one.”

— By Todd McLeish

February was a great month for senior Track and Field standout Marissa Norman, who won two pentathalon titles—first at the Atlantic 10 Indoor Championships, and then at the New England Indoor Championships.

Norman is a psychology major who has been accepted to graduate programs in sports psychology at both Springfield College and Barry University. She isn’t sure where she’ll decide to go, but she plans to eventually complete a doctoral program in clinical psychology and pursue a career in sports psychology with a college or professional athletic program.

UPDATE: In March, Marissa was named to the A-10 All-Conference Team and was also honored with the URI 2012 Althea Gibson Scholar-Athlete Award.

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.