Rochester Review

May-June 2010

Volume 72, No. 5

Editor

Scott Hauser

Associate Editors

Karen McCalley ’02 (PhD)

Kathleen McGarvey

Contributors

Melissa Greco Lopes

Becky Jones

Design Supervisor

Stephen Reynolds

Editorial Office

22 Wallis Hall

University of Rochester

Box 270044, Rochester, NY 14627-0044

(585) 275-4121

Fax: (585) 275-0359

E-mail: rochrev@rochester.edu

Design

Steve Boerner Typography & Design

Published six times a year for alumni, students, their parents, and other friends of the University, Rochester Review is produced by University Communications. Opinions expressed are those of the authors, the editors, or their subjects and do not necessarily represent official positions of the University of Rochester.

Copyright © 2010 University of Rochester

Credits

Alumni photographs, courtesy of the subjects. Unless otherwise credited, all others are Rochester Review photos.

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Contents

The University in the Digital Age

Letters

Mock Trial . . . Real Success

Building an Inclusive Community

And the International Winner Is . . .

Spring Fling (Part 1)

Community Connections

‘World’s Biggest Science Experiment’

Design Time

A New Look at Ancient Earth

Mobile Type

Putting Patients First

Celebrating the Power of Innovation

Storied Sculpture

Record Seasons

End of an Era

Neer Numbers

A Worldly View

‘We Went Far and Wide’

101 Things to Do before You Graduate

Making Our List

What’s on Your List?

Drawing Readers In

Resolution: Mission of Burma is a Rock Legend

In the News

Something to Smile About

Leaders and Benefactors: Gilbert McCurdy and Max Farash

Frank Shuffelton: A Lifetime of Achievement

Books & Recordings

Glass Works

The University in the Digital Age

By Joel Seligman

In 1455, printing effectively began in the West with the Gutenberg Bible produced by movable type, some 400 years after movable type earlier had been developed by Pi Sheng in China.

It took until 1621 for the first newspaper to be published in England and until 1702 for the first daily newspaper to be published there.

If one takes the first telegraph in 1844 as a consequential date, nearly 400 years transpired between the time Johann Gutenberg modified a wine press into the first Western printing press and Samuel Morse commercialized the telegraph, making possible near simultaneous news delivery on a regional and national basis.

Contrast the past 100 years, in which we have seen a communications revolution, including the popularization of photography, the telephone, radio, the motion picture, television, the fax machine, the mainframe computer, a myriad of personal communications devices, and the Internet.

We now are predisposed to rapid change. It took 35 years, for example, for telephone landlines to reach 25 percent of our population; 16 years for the personal computer to do so; 8 years for the World Wide Web.

We also are increasingly predisposed to rapid obsolescence. In the age of cell phones and iPhones, how much longer will any of us use landlines?

At the University, the digital age already is having a profound impact:

- The Medical Center has begun a $49 million project to create an inpatient electronic medical record (EMR), which by 2011 is scheduled to be employed by 7,500 faculty and staff at Strong Memorial Hospital and later employed at Highland Hospital.

- Our Communications Office has taken the lead, along with Duke and Stanford, in directing Futurity.org, an online research news magazine that currently involves 54 research universities in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

- Guided by Provost Ralph Kuncl and with University IT leaders, we launched the Center for Research Computing in 2008. Since then the computing power of our system has grown from 1 teraflop (about 1 trillion operations a second) to 23 teraflops. What does the power of 23 teraflops mean to a Rochester scientist? It means our faculty can explore planetary nebulae to understand how stars and planets form or analyze the genetics of disease by predicting how the structure of RNA changes over time.

These and many other initiatives substantially amplify access and use of information. But technology also is changing the nature of the University itself. Information is no longer limited to a notebook, a lab, or an office, but is available universally. Collaboration operates not just on a floor of an academic building, but across continents.

Rochester English Professor Morris Eaves, for example, has jointly worked with colleagues from the universities of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and California at Riverside to create the William Blake Archive, an international online public resource devoted to the work of the 18th-century poet, painter, and printmaker. Drawing on the collections of 27 institutions, including the Tate Collection in London, the British Museum, the Louvre in Paris, the New York Public Library, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and the U.S. Library of Congress, the archive’s editors are restoring a unified picture of Blake. Scholars can study electronic copies of all of Blake’s 19 illuminated works—with fully searchable and continually updated bibliographic information—an achievement that would have required a scholar to conduct years of travel just a decade ago.

Our challenge in the 21st century will be to combine the highest quality education and research for our students and faculty, which often involves one-on-one relationships, with progressively more global and powerful systems of information technology. Three key themes in our strategic plans are likely to be pivotal in our ability to achieve the most effective balance:

- Partnerships led by the government, industry, and research universities will often be necessary to take on projects of ever greater scale, such as those in the domains of energy or the recent support for the medical school’s Clinical and Translational Science initiative.

- Interdisciplinary research spanning basic research in the life sciences and medicine, applied research in fields such as engineering, professional fields such as business and education, and creative fields such as music and other creative and performing arts.

- Academic excellence, academic freedom, and diversity and inclusiveness, which I believe will be vital to attract and retain the finest faculty, students, and staff.

History is littered with examples of those who confidently and inaccurately predicted the future. The research university, in contrast, has proven to be society’s most resilient recent social institution in part because of the freedom it allows for faculty and students to think, invent, and create without direct command.

Letters

Alien Languages? And Piano

When I received my copy of the March-April issue of Rochester Review, I was surprised to see Paul Frommer ’65 on the cover. My mind drifted back to our undergraduate days at the River Campus when Paul was one of three gifted pianists who performed with Steve Moshman and the University Baroque Ensemble. The first performer was the late George Schlein ’64, who was a French major. He played the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 24 and later had a career in music. Then there was Paul, who played Mozart’s 22nd Concerto with the group.

Finally there was Jim Dee, originally in the Class of 1965 but who graduated with the Class of 1966 after switching his major to linguistics. He went on to become a professor in that field. Jim played Mozart’s 23rd Concerto in his own edition in the spring of 1966, just before we graduated.

Three Rochester undergraduates, all within a year of each other in age, all interested in languages, and all good pianists. It was a great pleasure to be associated with such an intelligent group of individuals.

H. E. (Kit) Crissey Jr. ’66

Elkins Park, Pa.

Recommended Reading

I was pleased to see an announcement for the book Becoming Me: The Memoir of an Erudite, Music-Loving, Left-handed Woodworker, by David Rosenbloom ’68 in the March-April issue.

I met David about five or six years ago on a golf course here in L.A., and we have become good friends, sharing not only our U of R connection but many other interests. I received my PhD in biophysics in 1975, and so David and I did not know each other in Rochester but since meeting David our paths have crossed several times.

I watched David in his struggle with dialysis and his kidney transplant as well as on the golf course. I also saw his evolution from corporate PR savant, to woodworker, and now to a patient advocate for transplant candidates at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, where I have been on the faculty for 30 years.

Having had the privilege of reading David’s book, I can say that the man is very accurately revealed in the book, and it’s a remarkable journey described therein. I heartily recommend it to anyone who is either personally struggling with medical issues or who might be close to someone having these problems.

Thanks for keeping me up to date about the University.

Robert Farley ’75M (PhD)

Los Angeles

Death Penalty: A Personal View

I realize that Review is not usually a forum for debate on controversial moral issues, but your full-page story about David Atwood ’63 (“Defying Death,” Alumni Gazette, March-April) and his crusade against the death penalty in Texas compelled me to respond with my very personal view.

Our son, New York state trooper Andrew (A. J.) Sperr was murdered on March 1, 2006. He was unaware that a bank robbery had occurred in Chemung County, New York, when he pulled up behind a pickup truck in what he thought was a routine traffic stop. The two robbers were changing vehicles to complete their escape. A. J. was shot twice through the window of the truck as he approached it. While on the ground, he returned fire and wounded both robbers before they shot him twice more, fatally.

During trial testimony, Anthony Horton, A. J.’s murderer, was quoted as saying to his accomplice that he was going to shoot the cop, knowing that there was no death penalty in New York. Subsequent testimony convinces me that our son would have survived had the death penalty been in place.

In the United States in 2006, 145 law enforcement officers died in the line of duty; more than 175 in 2007. Many were killed by felons who had been incarcerated for violent crimes, including murder.

I believe in the U.S. jury system. The additional protection provided by DNA testing and modern technology would protect the innocent against unjust prosecution. The murder of a police officer during the commission of a crime deserves nothing less than the death penalty.

While Sister Helen Prejean and Mr. Atwood may make compelling arguments against the abuses of the past, I firmly believe there are a number of law enforcement officers’ lives that would be spared in the presence of the death penalty. My exposure to many stories since March 1, 2006, convinces me of this fact.

Andrew Sperr ’52

Greece, N.Y.

Appeal of Poetry?

The most surprising thing about the article Poetic Appeal (March-April) was that the University actually teaches poetry writing.

I am a well-read Rochester type of guy and do the Times crossword in ink, but I can only rarely decipher any meaning from the poetry in the New Yorker. And I don’t think I am alone on this.

I realize it’s fuddy-duddy to think Henley and Holst were the last greats, but to read that the U of R devotes time and talent to teach folks to write modern verse is astounding.

David Sutliff ’59

Burley, Idaho

Picturing Boar’s Head

The nice photo taken at the Boar’s Head Dinner (In Review, January-February) brought back fond memories of one of the nicest events in our campus life.

In former days, the dinner was strictly a stag event held in Todd Union. The Men’s Glee Club members served as waiters while they entertained us by singing Christmas music. The Eastman String Ensemble also entertained. It’s nice to see that the ladies are also included to enjoy the event.

As I recall the program included a brief history of the legend on which the event was based. To the best of my recollection, a professor was walking along a road through the woods and was attacked by a wild boar. A student happened along and killed the boar, saving the life of the professor.

They carried the carcass back to campus and roasted it for a feast. Perhaps you could print the history in a future issue?

Buzz Williamson ’56, ’64M (Res)

Diriamba, Nicaragua

Review welcomes letters and will print them as space permits. Letters may be edited for brevity and clarity. Unsigned letters cannot be used. Send letters to Rochester Review, 22 Wallis Hall, P.O. Box 270044, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627-0044; rochrev@rochester.edu.

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Mock Trial . . . Real Success

Rochester Mock Trial team goes to national championship for second time in four years.

By Melissa Greco Lopes

PHOTO MOCKUP: Mock Trial team members include Charles Edwards ’12, Konstantin Nadirashvili ’13, Travis Talerico ’13, Alina Rozenfeld ’13, Hannah Sherry ’13, Amanda Rosemore ’12, Jason Scheff ’10, Yoni Bokser ’12, Peter Dierkes ’11; Conor Reynolds ’12, Dinisha Fernando ’10, Andrew Cashmore ’10, Brittany Crowley ’10, Andrew Debbins ’12. (Photo: Adam Fenster)

You can’t mock success.

That could be the unofficial motto of the University’s Mock Trial team, some of whose members earned a place among the top contenders at this spring’s national championships. After placing in the top six during the opening round of the American Mock Trial Association’s championship, the team finished 17th nationally.

The achievement marked the second time in four years that the undergraduate team, which doesn’t have a faculty coach, qualified for the national championships.

“We’re really trying to get our name out there and solidify longevity for the program,” says Brittany Crowley ’10, who has been a team member since her freshman year.

A total of 17 undergraduates participate in the organization and represent themselves as two teams at regional and national competitions throughout the year. The competitions feature a hypothetical case scenario to test each team’s knowledge of courtroom procedures, mastery of case facts, and ability to examine witnesses and deliver opening and closing remarks. Teams must prepare both prosecution and defense arguments and practice by acting out courtroom proceedings, taking on the roles of witnesses, prosecution lawyers, and defense lawyers.

Both Rochester teams advanced to the opening round of the national tournament and one group of eight represented Rochester at national finals in Memphis, Tenn.

At the national championships, Jason Scheff ’10 and Dinisha Fernando ’10 received All-American Witness honors.

Melissa Greco Lopes writes about student affairs for University Communications.

DIVERSITY

Building an Inclusive Community

Rochester leaders commit to creating an inclusive campus during the first University-wide conference on diversity.

By Kathleen McGarvey

Community Conversation: Ernest Hicks of Xerox Corp. answers a question during the first University-wide conference on diversity. Joining Hicks for a panel discussion were (from left) life trustee Jerry Gardner ’58, ’65 (Mas), Augustine Melendez of Eastman Kodak Co., trustee Carl Williams ’75S (MBA), trustee Thomas Richards of the City of Rochester, trustee Cathy Jones Minehan ’68, President Joel Seligman, trustee G. Robert Witmer ’58, and trustee Francis Price ’74, ’75S (MBA). (Photo: TK)

How does an organization as big as the University—with roughly 20,000 employees—focus on an institutional goal like diversity? The first step is to begin a conversation—and make a commitment to continuing the conversation over time.

That was the goal of the first University-wide conference on diversity, held this spring in what organizers expect will be an annual gathering to talk about issues surrounding inclusiveness.

“You can’t get anywhere unless everyone’s rowing in the same direction,” noted Cathy Jones Minehan ’68, a University trustee, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and a panelist for the day-long Diversity Conference: Building a Stronger Community.

Minehan joined an eight-person panel of trustees, top administrators, and guests from Xerox, Bausch & Lomb, Kodak, and the City of Rochester who discussed the importance of diversity as an institutional goal during an afternoon session. The gathering, held on the River Campus, also included three concurrent morning sessions centered on faculty recruitment and retention, community outreach, and organizational change.

Sponsored by the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity, the conference was designed as a learning opportunity and as “a step on a road forward, not an end in itself,” President Joel Seligman said.

He said diversity is a core University value that’s essential to attracting the finest faculty, students, and staff. “Our ultimate goal is to create as welcoming, diverse, and inclusive an environment on this campus as we can.”

Panelists noted that the University faces challenges in focusing its talents when it comes to initiatives such as diversity.

Thomas Richards, also a trustee and the corporate counsel for the City of Rochester, cautioned that, by their nature, universities are designed to achieve only a certain level of coordination.

Provost Ralph Kuncl acknowledged the University’s tradition of decentralization, noting that it can result in “fragmented anecdotes rather than a coherent story.”

The conference, he said, was created to foster such communication.

LITERARY TRANSLATION

And the International Winner Is . . .

A novel originally written in Hebrew and a collection by a Russian poet are the winners of the 2010 Best Translated Book Awards, sponsored by Three Percent, the online arm of Open Letter, the University’s literary translation press. The prizes are the only awards of their kind to honor the best original works of international literature and poetry published in the United States in the past year.

Fiction

Winner

The Confessions of Noa Weber by Gail Hareven, translated from the Hebrew by Dalya Bilu (Melville House Press)

Finalists

Ghosts by César Aira, translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews (New Directions)

The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker, translated from the Dutch by David Colmer (Archipelago)

Anonymous Celebrity by Ignácio de Loyola Brandäo, translated from the Portuguese by Nelson Vieira (Dalkey Archive)

Wonder by Hugo Claus, translated from the Dutch by Michael Henry Heim (Archipelago)

The Weather Fifteen Years Ago by Wolf Haas, translated from the German by Stephanie Gilardi and Thomas S. Hansen (Ariadne Press)

The Discoverer by Jan Kjærstad, translated from the Norwegian by Barbara Haveland (Open Letter)

Memories of the Future by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, translated from the Russian by Joanne Turnbull (New York Review Books)

Rex by José Manuel Prieto, translated from the Spanish by Esther Allen (Grove)

The Tanners by Robert Walser, translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky (New Directions)

Poetry

Winner

The Russian Version by Elena Fanailova, translated from the Russian by Genya Turovskaya and Stephanie Sandler (Ugly Duckling Presse)

Finalists

Selections by Nicole Brossrard, translated from the French by Guy Bennett, David Dea, Barbara Godard, Pierre Joris, Robert Majzels, Erin Moure, Jennifer Moxley, Lucille Nelson, Larry Shouldice, Fred Wah, Lisa Weil, and Anne-Marie Wheeler (University of California)

The Brittle Age and Returning Upland by René Char, translated from the French by Gustaf Sobin (Counterpath)

If I Were Another by Mahmoud Darwish, translated from the Arabic by Fady Joudah (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)

Killing Kanoko by Hiromi Ito, translated from the Japanese by Jeffrey Angles (Action Books)

KB: The Suspect by Marcelijus Martinaitis, translated from the Lithuanian by Laima Vince (White Pine)

Scale and Stairs by Heeduk Ra, translated from the Korean by Woo-Chung Kim and Christopher Merrill (White Pine)

Dark Things by Novica Tadi¢, translated from the Serbian by Charles Simic (BOA Editions)

Lightwall by Liliana Ursu, translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter (Zephyr Press)

In Such Hard Times by Wei Ying-Wu, translated from the Chinese by Red Pine (Copper Canyon)

CAMPUS LIFE

Spring Fling (Part 1)

(Photo: Adam Fenster)

DISC DAYS: Raphael Benjamin ’10 (Take 5) takes advantage of an unusually early burst of summer-like weather in April with the campus tradition of catching a Frisbee on the Eastman Quadrangle. The flinging of flying discs has long been a sign that spring has arrived on campus. For more, see Spring Fling (Part 2) on page 35.

VISTA VOLUNTEER

Community Connections

Recent graduates help build connections with local communities as part of a national program to alleviate poverty.

By Kathleen McGarvey

YOUTHFUL YEAR: In a program designed to match students and young graduates with programs in the community, Ferdous Zannat ’09 is working with refugees from Burma, Bhutan, and other countries. (Photo: Adam Fenster)

When Ferdous Zannat ’09 was preparing to graduate, she knew she wanted to go on to medical school—but she didn’t want to start right away.

She had worked hard on her chemistry degree and, although eager to continue her studies, she was also ready for a break from student life. “I wanted to do something different for a year,” she says.

And so she has, working with women refugees in Rochester as a Rochester Youth Year fellow.

Begun in 2007, the program is run by a consortium of seven Rochester-area colleges and funded in part by the national AmericaCorps/VISTA program. It aims to alleviate youth poverty (Rochester has a child poverty rate of almost 42 percent), strengthen communities, and promote civic engagement and community-centered leadership.

“Rochester Youth Year contributes to our efforts to connect students and, in this case, recent alumni with the community,” says Glenn Cerosaletti, director of the University’s Rochester Center for Community Leadership. “The program allows graduates to remain in Rochester, contributing their talents full time” to those in need in the local area.

The fellows—since the program began, there have been 17, all graduates of the consortium colleges—have generated almost $200,000 in resources for the groups they have worked with and mobilized 1,000 volunteers to serve more than 2,000 youngsters in the community. Several have ultimately taken positions with their host organizations.

Four of this year’s nine fellows are University graduates: Kaitlin Fitzgerald ’09, who is working on a program to provide alternatives to suspension at the city’s Center for Youth; Kyvaughn Henry ’09, who is collaborating with Writers and Books, a literary center in Rochester, to provide outreach to city youth; Matt Merriman ’09, who is working on an entrepreneurship program for youth through the city’s parks and recreation department; and Zannat.

Through Westside Health Services, a health center that serves the northwest and southwest quadrants of the city, Zannat works with women from Burma, Bhutan, the Congo, and other countries to help them become health promoters in their own communities. Rochester is a refugee host city, and Zannat spent the first several months of her fellowship getting to know the newcomers to Rochester and those who provide services to them.

Eventually, Zannat assembled a group of women interested in becoming health promoters. They chose the topics about which they wanted to learn, and Zannat has worked with nurses and health educators to provide information sessions for them.

“They’re bridges to the community, from the health providers’ point of view,” says Zannat.

“The refugee communities in Rochester see Ferdous as a teacher whom they respect and admire,” says Louise Bennett, a clinical assistant professor of family medicine and a physician at Westside. She developed the project that Zannat is carrying out. “They benefit from her ability to synthesize complicated health information using her strong analytical and computer skills and translate it into a form they can both understand and have fun learning, her passion for advocacy, and her ability to reach out to women of many different cultures.”

Zannat’s connection with the women is fostered by her own experiences as an immigrant. She came with her family to the United States from Bangladesh when she was 11 years old.

“I understand the need for, and the urgency of, these programs,” she says. “I almost know what these families are going through, because we came as immigrants. As a child, you become an adult, because you pick up English faster.”

Zannat aims not just to arm the women with critical health information for themselves, their families, and their neighbors, but also to help them develop their own leadership skills.

“The program doesn’t do something for them—it builds their own capacities,” she says.

Zannat’s work is also institutional, as she builds volunteer connections between the University and the clinic and as she strives to help make Westside more effective in working with refugee populations.

“Everything I’m doing has to be self-sustaining,” says Zannat, whose fellowship is just for one year.

Zannat plans to stay involved as a medical student and, eventually, as a doctor.

Cerosaletti says Zannat work with the refugees exemplifies the engagement young people can bring to a program. “She’s such a great match, not only because she can strongly identify with that experience, but also because of her plans to pursue medicine and her academic studies here at the University.”

“It’s fascinating to see the ways that students take their academic studies here and translate them into service through this program,” says Cerosaletti.

BY THE NUMBERS

‘World’s Biggest Science Experiment’

(Photo: CERN)

The Large Hadron Collider, a circular tunnel straddling the French-Swiss border near Geneva, began operation on March 30 this year. During its initial run, “the world’s biggest science experiment” set a record for energy as protons collided at almost the speed of light. By studying the byproducts of such collisions, scientists—including Rochester researchers—will investigate the fundamental building blocks of matter.

- 7 trillion electron volts of energy released in collisions between two protons

- 10 billion dollars spent to build the collider

- 30 Rochester scientists involved, from faculty to undergraduate researchers

- 25 years to build

- 17 miles around the tunnel

- 6 continents represented by the many thousands of scientists working on the project

- 2 crucial parts of the Compact Muon Solenoid, one of four main detectors collecting data from the collisions, were designed and built by Rochester scientists.

- 1 2010 J.J. Sakuri Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics awarded to Carl Hagen, a professor of physics and astronomy, for his 1964 paper theorizing the existence of the Higgs boson—a particle scientists hope the Large Hadron Collider will help them find.

IN CLASS

Design Time

Senior biomedical engineering students design medical devices for hospitals and industry.

By Kathleen McGarvey

Problem Solvers: “The students create the solution,” says Amy Lerner, an associate professor of biomedical engineering who helps lead a course in which students design medical devices for area hospitals and health care companies. (Photo: Adam Fenster)

When Lynn Wood at Unity Health System in Rochester used to help patients rehabilitating from strokes and traumatic brain injuries to improve their walking gait, she paid a physical price.

“The work was taxing on our bodies,” says Wood of her team of physical therapists. “We’re bent way over and have to lift the limb, and we could only do it for a short time.”

So when Amy Lerner and Scott Seidman, associate professors of biomedical engineering, asked if the therapists might have a project for Rochester’s senior design course, the answer was an emphatic yes.

The students—supervised by Seidman—went to work, consulting with Wood over six months as they proposed solutions, developed designs, and manufactured prototypes for a chair that today is in constant use at Unity Health.

“I love it,” says Wood. “We use it for rehabilitation, but it could also be useful for older people, or for gardening.”

The chair also caught the attention of a local company, which is in the process of licensing the students’ design.

“It was a lot of fun—to have this thing that worked, that did what we wanted it to do, and that people would pay for,” says Brian Flynn ’09, a member of the team, called Therassist.

Flynn’s experience is what a yearlong, capstone course required of all biomedical engineering majors aims to provide. Senior Design is built around hands-on experience in designing medical devices or research instruments. “Our goal is for students to apply as much as they can of what they’ve learned in biomedical engineering to a real-world problem,” says Lerner.

“We try to make it a realistic experience for them,” Seidman says. “What’s not real is the nine-month time frame. These things can take years. But the frustrations they encounter are very real.”

Students collaborate in 15 four-member teams, and apply to work on specific projects by demonstrating the skills and experiences that they bring to the group.

Collaboration is a critical skill, says Kevin Staton ’09, a Therassist team member and now a research specialist at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. “When you’re interviewing for biomedical engineering jobs, one of the questions employers will ask is, are you comfortable working on a team?”

Ideal projects, Lerner says, are “backburner” ideas that need brainstorming, significant improvements, or a fresh look.

“For some projects, they just have a need,” she says. “Other times, there’s an existing device that needs to be refined. And it’s open-ended. The customers aren’t married to a solution. The students create the solution.”

Customers typically come from the Medical Center, the community, local industry, and area hospitals. But they needn’t be based in Rochester. This year’s projects include three carried out with students and faculty at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú in Lima, Peru.

Among this year’s other projects are a portable and cost-effective E. Coli detector, a dynamic brace to extend chronically contracted arm and wrist muscles in patients with traumatic brain injuries, a radiation exposure detection system for urban populations, and improvements to a childbirth simulator for training medical professionals.

“We’re thinking about real people and how our project will affect them,” says Nicholas Vavalle ’10, from Binghamton, N.Y. He’s on one of this year’s design teams, called Lens Metrix, which has created a device for Bausch & Lomb to test the material properties of soft contact lenses.

Renea Faulknor ’10, from New York City, and her teammates met with representatives of Becton, Dickinson and Co.—a New Jersey–based medical supply, device, and technology company—to compare ideas on an injection test device that nurses and EMTs could use to learn how to draw blood.

Faulknor and members of Injector Perfectors designed a simulator that reproduces the challenges medical technicians and others often encounter.

“We’re trying to model venous system complications such as collapsible veins and small or fragile veins,” Faulknor says.

Students are treated in the same manner as faculty and staff with respect to intellectual property, and “the University is very supportive of their being inventors and holding patents,” Seidman says.

Corine Farewell, the director of the University’s Office of Technology Transfer, meets with the students to discuss intellectual property, confidentiality issues, and the disclosure process for commercially viable projects.

The course also covers what Lerner and Seidman call “realistic constraints” on the design process, including economic, social, political, ethical, regulatory, environmental, safety, and manufacturing issues.

Ten years in, Senior Design is a signature element of Rochester’s biomedical engineering curriculum.

This year, Lerner and Seidman had so many interested customers they had to turn projects away.

“The community is realizing how valuable it is having a team of students working towards their goals,” Lerner says.

“Our students are interested in solving problems with a global impact.”

EARTH SCIENCE

A New Look at Ancient Earth

(Photo: NASA)

SOLAR STORY: About 3.5 billion years ago, Earth faced a bombardment of solar wind (shown here in a NASA illustration) that likely stripped much of the water out of the young planet’s atmosphere. That’s according to new research led by Rochester geophysicist John Tarduno that indicates the Earth’s magnetosphere, the boundary where the planet’s magnetic field shields the planet from the energetic particles released by the Sun, was once only half as strong as it is today. The work was published this spring in the journal Science.

ROCHESTER REVIEW

Mobile Type

(Photo: Adam Fenster)

Readers can download an electronic book version of Rochester Review for their Apple iPad, Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, or other electronic book-reading device.

For more about how to get Review on your mobile device, visit www.rochester.edu/pr/Review.

—Scott Hauser

HEALTH CARE

Putting Patients First

AMA president says goals for reform should focus on patients.

By Becky Jones

AMA: “Health system reform is just a step. It’s not the final step,” says Rohack. (Photo: Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images)

A key player in efforts to reform the nation’s health system knows that the legislation approved by Congress this winter isn’t perfect. But James Rohack, the president of the American Medical Association, told Rochester’s future physicians that the law is the first part of a historic effort that will help improve the system over time.

“The AMA’s goal with health system reform was to make the system better for our patients,” Rohack, a cardiologist, told a gathering of medical students during an April visit to the Medical Center. “And if you make it better for the patients, it’ll be better for physicians. . . . Churchill said, ‘America will get it right—once they’ve tried everything else.’ And that’s where we are. Health system reform is just a step. It’s not the final step. And we will continue to evolve our health care system.”

During his visit, Rohack, a native of East Rochester, spoke with audiences about reform, the AMA’s efforts to represent physicians in the reform process, and the future of health care. He delivered the Department of Emergency Medicine’s annual Shapiro Lecture, and he visited a kindergarten class at Rochester’s School 23, where his niece is a teacher.

While he acknowledged that the new law is not perfect—failing, for example, to address the way Medicare funding is calculated—he credited the Obama administration with bringing the AMA into the reform process early and in recognizing that including language to limit medical malpractice lawsuits was a key requirement for reform.

He said the AMA has long acknowledged the need to be involved in federal policy discussions. “The principle is clear: We have an obligation to respect the law, but also to seek changes in those laws that are contrary to the best interests of the patient.”

To view Rohack’s talk with Rochester medical students, visit http://tinyurl.com/y23nvyz.

PRESIDENTIAL SYMPOSIUM

Celebrating the Power of Innovation

Innovative Talk: Panelists (from left) Perez, Chesonis, and Hockfield, along with moderator Sonnenschein, focused on innovation during the Presidential Symposium. (Photo: TK)

As the president of MIT, Susan Hockfield ’73 has a unique vantage point in championing the role that research universities play in sparking innovative ideas, technologies, and economic policies.

During a special spring Presidential Symposium titled “Innovation in the 21st Century,” Hockfield emphasized that universities can do four specific things to support innovation: foster a culture of entrepreneurship; disseminate models of innovation ecosystems; accelerate a new wave of innovation by promoting basic research in emerging fields; and be active in discussions of national policy.

“It’s going to be important for this nation to run a new cycle of the innovation economy,” Hockfield said. And where will the new jobs in that economy come from? “Research universities.”

Hockfield, who was named president of MIT in 2004, was one of three panelists who shared their insights about innovation during the symposium, hosted by President Joel Seligman, who began the series in 2005. Joining her were Arunas Chesonis ’91S (MBA), ’99 (Honorary), a University trustee and chairman and CEO of PAETEC Holding Corp.; and Antonio Perez ’09 (Honorary), the chairman and CEO of Eastman Kodak Co. Trustee Hugo Sonnenschein ’61, the president emeritus of the University of Chicago, moderated the discussion.

MEMORIAL ART GALLERY

Storied Sculpture

The Memorial Art Gallery counts down to its centennial celebration in 2013 with a new sculpture park.

Park Place: A series of limestone sculptures (photo rendering) by noted artist Tom Otterness will be featured in a new sculpture park at the Memorial Art Gallery. (Photo: Bayer associates/Memorial Art Gallery (Photo Rendering))

An outdoor work of massive limestone sculptures and smaller bronze figures by the artist Tom Otterness will highlight a new sculpture park that’s designed to celebrate the Memorial Art Gallery’s 100th anniversary in 2013.

Scheduled to be completed in spring 2012, the work is the gallery’s largest acquisition and will be the centerpiece of a surrounding park—named Centennial Sculpture Park—located on the gallery’s campus at the corner of University Avenue and Goodman Street.

Otterness, who has completed several outdoor commissions in the United States, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands, is known for narrative works that are at once lighthearted and socially pertinent. He has multisculpture installations located in New York City, Indianapolis, Grand Rapids, Mich., and Beverly Hills, Calif.

His Rochester proposal—featuring limestone sculptures intended to echo the surrounding buildings as well as smaller bronze figures—is designed to tell the story of a sculpture from quarry to finished product. The work is also expected to serve as a gateway into the museum.

“The Otterness installation is the first site-specific sculpture in the gallery’s long history and, with its sense of whimsy and wonder, seems a fitting way to celebrate the gallery’s centennial,” says director Grant Holcomb. “The work will animate the site and serve as an enticing invitation to explore the grounds and, eventually, the treasures of the gallery.

“The installation even seems reminiscent of the old town square concept where people meet to carry on public conversations.”

Preparatory work will begin this year on several acres at the southeast corner of the gallery’s campus. Installation of the Otterness sculptures is scheduled to begin in summer 2011 and be completed in spring 2012.

The project will be underwritten by the gallery’s Maurice R. and Maxine B. Forman Fund for art acquisition.

In addition to the Otterness installation, the new park will showcase works from the gallery’s collection by such national and local artists as Deborah Butterfield, George Rickey, Tony Smith, and Albert Paley.

The sculptures and the park will be opened to the public as the gallery counts down to its 100th anniversary in 2013.

For more about the gallery, visit http://mag. rochester.edu.

NATIONAL TOURNAMENTS

Record Seasons

Squash team and women’s basketball finish their seasons with trips to national finals.

By Ryan Whirty

ACCOLADES: Melissa Alwardt ’11 (above) was named to the Final Four All-Tournament team, and Jim Bristow ’10 was the only squash player this year who earned All-American honors in each of the four seasons he played. (Photo: Stephen Haas/AP Images for Rochester Review)

The Yellowjacket squash team came within a whisker of ending more than 80 years of Ivy League domination this winter while the women’s basketball team’s season of upsets almost carried the Yellowjackets through the Final Four.

Both teams finished fourth in the country after posting stellar performances throughout their seasons.

Finishing at 10–4, the squash team beat Cornell in the quarterfinals of the national championship before falling to Yale in the semis and to Princeton in the third-place playoff. Season highlights included a third straight Liberty League title as well as victories over Princeton, Cornell, and Harvard.

The women ended the year with a 23–8 record, losing in the first round of the Final Four to Hope College and in the consolation round to Amherst. On the way to the national championship, the Yellowjackets snapped second-ranked Kean University’s 29-game Division III winning streak and defeated 10th-ranked Christopher Newport University. “This is the best we have played all year,” coach Jim Scheible noted after the Yellowjackets knocked off Kean and Christopher Newport.

Guard Melissa Alwardt ’11 was named an All-American by D3Hoops.com for her performance at the Final Four, where she also was named to the All-Tournament team.

The trip to the national finals was the second in a row for the squash team, and the first for the women since 2003–04.

Ryan Whirty writes about sports for Rochester Review.

End of an Era

Legendary men’s basketball coach Mike Neer ’88W (MS) announces his retirement.

By Scott Hauser

Trophy Life: With Neer as coach, the men’s basketball team won a national title in 1990 and reached the Final Four three other times (1992, 2002, and 2005). (Photo: Adam Fenster)

The last time the Rochester men’s basketball team tipped off a season without the familiar 6-foot-7 frame of legendary coach Mike Neer ’88W (MS) at courtside Gerald Ford was president, Rocky was the No. 1 movie, and Paul Simon was singing about “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.”

Since then, the Yellowjackets have won a national title, made four trips to the Final Four, earned 12 bids to the national championship—including four straight—and won 563 games.

It’s time to reset the record books as Neer, the winningest coach in Rochester’s history—and one of the winningest in all of NCAA Division III—is stepping down at the end of the academic year.

“It has been an honor and a privilege to lead teams representing the University of Rochester,” Neer said in making the announcement public this spring. “I am proud of our teams’ many accomplishments and of the manner in which we’ve competed. It has been equally gratifying to see our players continue their success in their personal and professional lives. In addition to these players, I want to express my appreciation and thanks to the countless administrators, faculty, and athletics department colleagues with whom I’ve worked since 1976.”

Since Neer took over the Yellowjackets for the 1976–77 season, he has compiled a career record of 563 wins against 326 losses (a 63.3 percent winning ratio). On January 5, 2007, he earned his 500th career coaching victory, a milestone that was marked with a University proclamation presented to Neer by President Joel Seligman, G. Robert Witmer ’59, then the chair of the University’s Board of Trustees, and George VanderZwaag, the director of Athletics and Recreation.

“Mike Neer’s coaching record at Rochester has been truly remarkable,” says Seligman

On and off the court, Rochester players have distinguished themselves through their hard work and achievement. Five of Neer's players earned Academic All-American honors. His alumni have found success in education, law, medicine, business, finance, telecommunications, and coaching.

As a team, the Yellowjackets have been honored four times with the Sam Schoenfeld Award from the western New York chapter of the College Basketball Officials Association. The award is presented annually to a college for outstanding sportsmanship.

“I want to thank Mike for his 34 years of service to the University and our students,” VanderZwaag says. “He is a true coaching legend, and his legacy at Rochester will endure.”

Neer Numbers

- 7 Number of presidential administrations since Neer started coaching at Rochester in 1976—Ford, Carter, Reagan, G. H. Bush, Clinton, G. W. Bush, Obama

- 1 Number of national titles (1990)

- 43 Number of points Rochester scored in its championship game victory over DePauw (Ind.) University (1990)

- 42 Number of points DePauw scored in that game

- 4 Number of Final Four appearances under Neer (1990, 1992, 2002, 2005)

- 3 Number of championship game appearances (1990, 1992, 2005)

- 97 Number of wins by the class of 2005 over four years—the highest win total for any class at Rochester

- 10 Number of JPMorgan Chase/Wendy’s Classic titles that Neer’s teams won (the most of any school)

- 12 Number of NCAA playoff appearances

- 12 Number of consecutive winning seasons (1998–99 through 2009–10)

- 25 Number of seasons above .500 in 34 years

- 8 Number of wins in his first season (1976–77)

- 1979–80 First winning season under Neer (15–9 record)

- 1980–81 First NCAA playoff appearance under Neer

- 1,242 Total number of victories in men’s basketball at Rochester since 1901–02 season

- 45.3 Percentage of those victories coached by Neer

- 9th Where Neer stood in victories among active Division III coaches at the end of the 2009–10 season

A Worldly View

The results of the second Rochester Review Study Abroad Photo Contest are in.

(Photo: Drew Alessi)

For this year’s edition of our Study Abroad Photo Contest, we asked students to send us their best photos of the people and places they encountered while taking part in an overseas academic program recognized by the Center for Study Abroad and Interdepartmental Programs.

In response, we received 123 photos from 31 students who traveled to 27 different countries during 2009. Students submitted their photos in three categories: people, culture, and the physical world.

This year’s grand prize winner receives a desktop printer from the Eastman Kodak Co. We also present prizes to the winner of each category and for each honorable mention.

You can see all of the entered photos at Review’s Web site at www.rochester.edu/pr/Review.

‘We Went Far and Wide’

What was it like to study in Paris in the 1950s? Ask Suzanne Jagel O’Brien ’59.

By Karen McCally ’02 (PhD)

Suzanne Jagel O’Brien ’59 chronicled her year studying in Paris in a collection of letters that she donated to the University’s Archives. (Photo: Adam Fenster)

Every few days, from September through June of the academic year 1957–58, Suzanne Jagel O’Brien ’59 wrote detailed letters to her parents in Queens, N.Y., describing her travels in Paris.

“I would catch them up on everything I had done—or almost everything I had done,” says O’Brien from her office in Lattimore Hall, where she is now an associate dean of the College.

For years, her parents kept the letters, before eventually handing them back to their daughter.

“The ink was fading,” O’Brien says. So she typed them up. And last fall, she handed the stack of letters and postcards, and a transcription of over 100 pages, to Rush Rhees Library’s Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation.

Nancy Ehrich Martin ’65, ’94 (MA), the John M. and Barbara Keil University Archivist, calls the letters “extraordinary.”

“We have nothing like this in the University archives,” she says.

The collection offers a striking portrait of what has changed. There was no formal study abroad program. Very few students went abroad, and those who did, like O’Brien and six other Rochester students that year, planned their years on their own.

“In those days, we didn’t just fly abroad,” O’Brien says. “We got on ocean liners and sailed for days. So you really knew you were going someplace far away and different.”

Sharing that voyage and almost every other adventure that year was Roberta (Bobbie) Kirsch Thomas ’58.

“There wasn’t a day that went by that we didn’t realize we were having a fantastic experience,” says Thomas. “We had such a sense that this was a miracle year.”

The women enjoyed a remarkable degree of freedom, roaming not only Paris, but cities across Europe, including London, Vienna, Florence, Munich, and Brussels—to which they hitchhiked in November, on Armstice Day.

“After much talking and discussion with French and Americans alike, we decided to hitchhike to Brussels,” O’Brien wrote home a week later. “Calm down—it’s quite accepted in Europe. So many wonderful people helped us (and we saved money besides) that we think it was really a marvelous experience.”

“We went far and wide,” O’Brien recalls. “Everything there was to see, we saw. I don’t know how we knew how to do all of that because we didn’t have anyone telling us the way. We ran into people. We met people. They gave us the benefit of their lives and experience. And we just ate it all up.”

For photos of O’Brien’s collection of letters and more about her year abroad, visit www.rochester.edu/pr/Review.

101 Things to Do before You Graduate

What defines the Rochester experience? Let us make you a list.

By Dana Hilfinger ’10 - Illustrations by Michael Osadciw

(Illustration: Michael Osadciw)

Maps don’t always give you the whole picture.

Looking at a layout of the Fraternity Quad won’t tell you what to do on a Saturday night (SAM’s Beach Party, anyone?). Perusing the guide to the Old Stacks in Rush Rhees Library won’t tell you which floor has the best view or help you find outlets you can plug into so that you can stay up until 2 a.m. working on that paper due the next day. And going on Google Maps to get a birds-eye view of the city of Rochester— well, that’s about as helpful as a Nick Tahou’s garbage plate is to your digestive tract.

In college, we’re taught to think outside the box. Maps are cookie cutter; Rochester students certainly aren’t. And neither are the things we do. In an attempt to capture some of that eccentricity, I drew the assignment of asking Rochester students—from student government leaders in the College and at Eastman to the crowds of kids milling around the Eastman Quad on a spring day—all the same question: What do all Rochester undergraduates need to do before they graduate?

With their help, we put together a handy list: The best of the best 101 things you have to do before you accept that diploma. The place to be on a given weekend night, the ultimate venue for an all-night stakeout during midterm week, your best bet for where to grab food at all hours—all are included. The method wasn’t scientific, and the order is a little random—but we hope the results capture the Rochester experience.

And, most important, this is certainly not a map.

So, in recognition that this is the season of Commencement, here’s the list. How many have you accomplished?

(Illustration: Michael Osadciw)

1. Eat a garbage plate from the Nick Tahou’s.

2. See a movie at the Little Theatre.

3. Take a course pass/fail.

4. Grab the only outlet on the 500M level of the Old Stacks in Rush Rhees Library.

5. Replenish your winter attire with free giveaways at Winterfest weekend.

6. Climb the “tree-of-life” in Genesee Valley Park.

7. Step up to the bar in the semi-authentic English Pub, the Old Toad, for Trivia Night or a free birthday dinner.

8. Enjoy the snow—start a snowball fight on the Quad, build a snowman on the field at Fauver.

9. Feel the beat at a UR Bhangra concert.

10. Pull an all-nighter in Gleason Library or the IT Center.

11. Follow the saga of the student, the scholar, and the wild boar during the “Reading of the Boar” at the Boar’s Head Dinner.

(Illustration: Michael Osadciw)

12. Take MUR 122: History of Jazz, with Paul Burgett, music professor, administrator, and advisor to a generation of Rochester students.

13. Buy cheese fries from Uncle Dickie’s.

14. Find the final resting places of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass in Mt. Hope Cemetery.

15. Discover that the Medical Center’s cafeteria is open 24 hours.

16. Have a “spot of tea” at La-Tea-Da on Alexander Street.

17. Dodge the flying squashes sent aloft in the Pumpkin Launch.

18. Infiltrate an Engineering Student Social.

19. Argue over which country— Canada or the U.S.—has the better view of Niagara Falls after a daytrip to the scenic landmark.

20. Fall asleep in the Welles-Brown Room.

21. Get on the air at WRUR.

22. Fully grasp the meaning of the term “wind chill.”

23. Stay late after spring semester to go to the Lilac Festival.

24. Indulge in a melt and milkshake at Jay’s Diner.

25. Walk or bike along the Erie Canal trail.

26. Take a wine tour in the Finger Lakes.

27. Join Wegmans Shoppers Club.

28. See The Vagina Monologues.

29. Catch a late-night laser show at the Rochester Museum and Science Center’s Strasenburgh Planetarium.

30. Tray down the hill behind Susan B. Anthony halls.

31. Tap your toes to an a cappella concert.

32. Get delicious food at Wilson Commons Wednesday.

33. Write an editorial for the Campus Times.

34. Listen to live music at Starbucks.

35. Fool around in the Stacks.

36. Have a picnic at Genesee Valley or Highland parks.

37. Ride the “mind eraser” roller coaster at Darien Lake theme park.

38. Do research with a professor during the summer or outside of class time.

39. Walk in George Eastman’s footsteps at the George Eastman House.

40. Meet Mr. or Mrs. Right (if only briefly).

41. See a production at Todd Theatre.

42. Read on the balcony of the Messinger Periodical Reading Room.

43. Hear—or better yet, perform in—a concert in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre.

44. Dig in at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que.

45. Explore the shops on Park Ave.

46. See an exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery.

47. Go to the Public Market and take advantage of the unlimited free samples at the European cheese shop.

48. Eat at Lento’s in Village Gate.

49. Cheer on the Yellowjackets at the Courage Bowl.

50. Get a food special named after you at the Orchestra Pit at Eastman.

51. Rent a City Cycles bike and ride to Lake Ontario.

52. Watch a game, drink beer, and eat wings at the Distillery.

53. Find out where your student fee money goes by attending a Students’ Association Senate meeting.

54. Catch up on relatively new releases at “dollar Tuesdays” at the Movies 10 cinema.

55. Paint the tunnel underneath the Eastman Quad.

56. Study abroad.

57. If you’re an Eastman student, make it through your jury examinations at the end of each year.

58. If you’re in the College, complete a cluster that you designed yourself.

59. Play intramural floor hockey.

60. Make friends with Dawn, the world’s nicest Dining Services worker.

61. Watch the basketball teams play Wash U.

62. Volunteer in the city of Rochester.

63. Enjoy the view from the top of Cobb’s Hill.

64. Stay in Rochester over the summer.

65. Go to “dollar dog and beer night” at an Amerks or Red Wings game.

66. Find the hidden elevator in Meliora Hall.

67. Check out the “Grand Canyon of the East” at Letchworth State Park.

68. Take a picture at Strong Museum of Play for your Facebook profile.

69. If you’re hungover, drag yourself to Danforth brunch and eat until you’re in a food coma.

70. Sit at Java’s coffeehouse until they kick you out.

71. Attend the keynote lectures at Meliora Weekend.

72. Go to ChiFriday at Chi Phi Fraternity.

73. Take a class with Jim Memmott in the English department.

74. Play Frisbee on the Quad.

75. Use the motto Meliora properly.

76. Tour architectural and historic sites in Rochester with Urban Exploring.

77. Rack up delinquent overdue status at Sibley Music Library.

78. Attend an academic conference about a subject you don’t really understand.

(Illustration: Michael Osadciw)

79. Walk through the herb garden at the Rochester Museum and Science Center.

80. Visit the Susan B. Anthony House.

81. Sunbathe outside the Miller Center.

82. Get cheap drinks at Senior Nights.

83. Attempt to understand a squash game.

84. Grab a bite to eat at John’s Tex-Mex Eatery, a burrito joint on South Avenue.

85. Waste the first day of sunshine in the spring doing nothing on the Eastman Quad.

86. Drink and schmooze with professors at Club Rochester.

87. Get really involved with a club, sport, fraternity, sorority, or student organization.

88. Change your major at least three times.

89. Find that watching Hour of Power on URTV has become a habit.

90. Take a test where the mean is 23 out of 150.

91. Try to explain the Eastman School to a Rochester resident.

92. Find the old pool full of desks in Spurrier Gym.

93. Climb up the fire escape on the side of Rush Rhees and stargaze.

94. Attend one presidential event at the Witmer House.

95. Enjoy the show—and the Indian food—at MELA.

96. Make it to the Fraternity Quad on Dandelion Day.

97. Park your car on campus and successfully avoid getting a parking ticket.

98. Be a part of a midnight pickup game of soccer or Frisbee at Fauver Stadium.

99. Take a class with Douglas Brooks from the Department of Religion and Classics.

100. Go to the top of Rush Rhees Library on Halloween for the best view on campus.

101. Say good-bye to good friends.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Making Our List

In order to come up with our list of 101 Rochester musts, Dana Hilfinger ’10 talked to several student leaders, interviewed students in the College and at Eastman, and drew on her own student experience.

Dana has packed a lot into her four years on campus. The English major from Ann Arbor, Mich., played varsity volleyball for two years, served as sports editor and editor-in-chief of the Campus Times, was a resident assistant, and has worked for both the sports information department and the Career Center.

In an effort to get even more of the Rochester experience, she’ll be a Take Five Scholar during 2010–11, focusing on environmental science and conservation.

For more about her personal favorites among the 101 items listed here, visit www.rochester.edu/pr/Review.

—Scott Hauser

FEEDBACK

What’s on Your List?

Burying calculus? Freshman beanies? Beers at the Rathskeller?

We recognize that our list of 101 things represents only a slice of the entire Rochester student experience. That’s why we’re interested in hearing from you. What would make it to the top of your list of key things to do before you graduated from Rochester?

Write us at rochrev@rochester.edu; Rochester Review, P.O. Box 270033, University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y. 14627-0044.

Drawing Readers In

Longtime editorial illustrator Jane Marinsky ’73 finds success in children’s literature, in collaboration with her daughter, Leah Sharpe.

By Karen McCally ’02 (PhD)

FAMILY TALE: Marinsky took on the project of The Goat-Faced Girl (above) after asking her daughter for a story to illustrate. (Photo: Courtesy of Jane Marinsky ’73)

Imagine the lively peasant village scenes of Renaissance master Pieter Brueghel, the whimsical folk scenes of modernist Marc Chagall, and the lush jungles of post-Impressionist Henri Rousseau.

How might an image look that borrowed from all three of these artists? Perhaps like the boldly colorful oil paintings by Jane Marinsky ’73 that decorate the pages of The Goat-Faced Girl, a retelling of a classic Italian fairy tale by Marinsky’s daughter, Leah Sharpe, and published by the Boston master printer, David Godine.

A prominent editorial illustrator—for years, her pencil drawings graced the editorial pages of the Washington Post, Detroit News, the Chicago Tribune, as well as other newspapers and magazines—Marinsky is a relative newcomer to children’s literature. While teaching art at Daemen College, near Buffalo, she decided to take a course herself, in children’s book illustration, and asked Leah if she had a story for her to illustrate.

“She had loved fairy tales from the time she was little,” says Marinsky. “When she babysat as a teenager, she would retell the stories, because she didn’t like the way they ended.”

Sharpe, who was busy pursuing a doctorate in conservation biology, had just the right story in mind: The Goat-Faced Girl, in which a fairy disguised as a lizard takes a peasant daughter off the hands of her parents and raises her in riches.

“I was rooting for my mom to do a fairy tale,” says Sharpe, who transformed the classic to give it a distinctly modern twist, and finds her mother’s “fantastical” style to be well-suited to the fairy tale genre.

“With illustration, you have the responsibility to enhance the word,” says Marinsky. “There is a sort of conscious, deliberate way of drawing, like making the arms smaller than they would be and the hands tiny,” she says. And she strives for “a roundness” to her figures. “It brings a certain emotion to it that I’m trying to get, a sort of an intimacy, a way of bringing readers in.”

MIXED MEDIA: Marinsky cites the masters Brueghel, Chagall, and Rousseau as influences, but she adds her own touches as well, a style that can be seen in the opening illustration (above) for (Photo: Courtesy of Jane Marinsky ’73)

Marinsky says her passion for drawing dates back to her adolescence, when she found inspiration in the pencil drawings of Italian Renaissance masters Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. A Buffalo native, she followed the path of her older sister, Elyse Marinsky Friedman ’67, enrolling at Rochester, where she could major in art while getting a broader education. She married Dan Sharpe ’70 and established herself first as a graphic designer, then later, as an illustrator.

Illustration is a fast-changing field, in which the ability to use a variety of computer software programs at times can seem to overtake “old-fashioned” tactile skill with a pencil or brush. But Marinsky finds a place for both.

“If I want to do a quick color sketch, I scan in my hand drawing and use Photoshop to try to get an idea of what colors I want to use and where.”

She teaches her students marketable skills, such as how to create animatic storyboards.

But in the end, she says, “I love having the tactile ability to draw these little patterns. And I think people still respond to hand drawn things.”

Resolution: Mission of Burma is a Rock Legend

Clint Conley ’77 is a cofounder of one of the most influential bands of the post-punk era. Or so says the Boston City Council.

By Karen McCally ’02 (PhD)

Double Major: “I majored in English and minored in House of Guitars,” says Conley (center), referring to the Rochester specialty guitar shop. (Photo: Diane Bergamasco)

Be it resolved: Whereas some bands make the charts, Mission of Burma makes waves.

At Rochester, Clint Conley ’77 could be seen often on River Campus, playing at dances in the funk bands Mocha Shake and the Broad Street Stroke. But after graduating with his degree in English, the self-described “music wonk” moved to Boston to try his hand at his greater musical love: punk rock.

“As a career move, it was ridiculous to graduate from college and want to join a band and make this kind of music that the world made plain it had no use for,” says Conley. But three decades later, people are still talking about the music Conley made—and still makes—with the band Mission of Burma.

The band’s career began in sweat-filled basement clubs in Boston, and culminated three decades later with the Boston City Council’s formal declaration of October 4, 2009, as “Mission of Burma Day”: a day to recognize the band that has inspired the likes of R.E.M., Nirvana, U2, and the Pixies, and has helped bring renown to Boston’s music scene.

“We’re referred to as post-punk in that we came in the years after that initial noisy beginning, after the Ramones and the Sex Pistols,” says Conley, referring to two pathbreaking punk groups of the mid-1970s.

But he finds the label awkward. And so too do some of the band’s admirers, such as John Covach, a professor of music with a joint appointment at the Eastman School and the College of Arts and Sciences.

“Mission of Burma is a lot more like the Velvet Underground or early Pink Floyd than like the Sex Pistols or the Ramones,” says Covach, who is also a classically trained rock guitarist and author of What’s that Sound?: An Introduction to Rock and its History (W. W. Norton). “The music has plenty of raw punk power, but there’s also a level of sophistication to the tracks that makes them an interesting blend of punk and avant-garde music. It’s like they set out to employ the simplest possible musical textures but in the most unconventional manner possible.”

Michael Azerrad, a bestselling author and rock journalist who included a chapter on Mission of Burma in his 2001 book, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981–1991 (Little Brown & Co.), strikes a similar chord. “Their volume and speed connected them to some bands, their occasional pop hooks tied them to others,” he wrote. “But no one else combined the two.”

The group recorded and played live from 1979 to 1983, then disbanded, until 2001 when, for reasons neither Conley nor his bandmates can pinpoint, three of the four of them reunited. Since then, they’ve produced three studio “albums” (“I still call them albums,” admits Conley), including most recently, The Sound, The Speed, The Light (Matador Records, 2009).

But there’s no question the band’s reputation is firmly rooted in their initial years.

“It was just a tremendously exciting time in rock music,” Conley says of the late 1970s and early 1980s. “Most of the world didn’t know it, because it was a very, very small scene at that time. But there were so many new ideas flying around.”

The band attracted a strong fan base in Boston, with clusters of followers in Washington, D.C., and on the West Coast. But in those days, before home computers were widespread (to say nothing of the Internet and digital music) the numbers were never large.

Conley doesn’t regret that he didn’t have access to those tools. Describing the life of an underground music connoisseur in those days, he says: “You’d hear about something that was cool out in Cleveland, and you’d write a letter, and you’d wait a month, and maybe you’d get the 45, or maybe you wouldn’t. And it sounds so old-fashioned, so clunky, and so Pony Express. But there’s this undeniable romance about the drive it took and the personal investment one had to make to find this rare, obscure music, and it was really like finding little gold nuggets in the stream.”

Today Conley is an Emmy Award–winning field producer for the magazine show, Chronicle, at Boston’s ABC-affiliated station, WCVB-TV.

And he lives in the Boston suburb of Concord, along with his wife, Deborah, and their daughter, Caroline, 14. Their older daughter, Brinna, 18, is a freshman at Greensboro College in North Carolina.

While the group has been prolific, it’s not a full-time job, says Conley. “We go out once every couple of months, on average. We’re weekend, for the most part.” The band will perform in Europe twice this spring.

The crowds are a mixture of young and old. That said, Conley notes that at a festival in Kentucky last fall, “We crossed a benchmark: our first fan with a walker, with a gray ponytail. He was rocking away, and we thought, ‘well, it had to happen some day.’ But what a wonderful thing.”

For now, Burma plans to stay the course. But, Conley adds, “I hope we stop before the snickering starts in the wings.”

In the News

Honors: University of Pierre and Marie Curie recognized Susan Hockfield ’73. (Photo: Adam Fenster)

French University Honors Rochester Alumni

In March, Susan Hockfield ’73, the president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Dennis Curran ’80 (PhD), a Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, were two of eight scientists worldwide to receive honorary doctorates from the University of Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris, the leading scientific and medical research institution in France. Prior to becoming the president of MIT in 2004, Hockfield, a neurobiologist, conducted groundbreaking research on brain development, including the discovery of a gene linked to the spread of cancer in the brain. Curran, who holds over 30 patents and is the founder of Fluorous Technologies, is noted for developing a process by which complex molecules can be developed from simple organic materials, allowing for faster generation of new chemical compounds. The process, known as fluorous synthesis, has led to several anticancer agents, including one undergoing clinical trials.

Michael Spivey ’96 (PhD) Wins Research Society’s Highest Honor

Michael Spivey ’96 (PhD), a professor of cognitive science at the University of California at Merced, has been awarded the 2010 William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement by Sigma Xi, an international honor society for research scientists that provides grants, publishes American Scientist magazine, and whose past and present membership includes over 200 Nobel Prize winners. Spivey won the Proctor Prize, the society’s highest award, for his research on the link between spoken language and visual perception, which is considered pathbreaking across the fields of psychology, linguistics, and cognitive science.

Bruce Pauley ’67 (PhD) Recognized by Austrian President

Bruce Pauley ’67 (PhD), professor emeritus of history at the University of Central Florida, has received the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, First Class. The award, established in 1955, is bestowed by the Austrian president on both Austrians and non-Austrians who have made extraordinary contributions in the arts and sciences. Pauley is a recognized authority on Austrian history and the author of five scholarly books, including Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century (Harlan Davidson, 2009), From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (University of North Carolina, 1998), and The Hapsburg Legacy, 1867-1939 (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972).

Sol Solomon ’62M (MD) Honored for Research on Type II Diabetes

Sol Solomon ’62M (MD) has won the Southern Society of Clinical Investigators’ 2010 Founders’ Award. The society is a regional affiliate of a national professional organization, and the award is the society’s highest honor for research and academic accomplishments. Solomon, a professor of medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis and the chief of endocrinology and metabolism at Memphis’s Veterans Administration Medical Center, has made several notable contributions to diabetes research, including an explanation of the biochemical and molecular mechanisms of diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening complication in diabetic patients caused by insulin shortage.

Something to Smile About

The 110th annual gathering of the American Association of Orthodontists, in Washington, D.C., this spring, showcases a bracing cast of Rochester expertise.

The alumni of Rochester’s orthodontic residency program, which graduates only a half-dozen candidates a year, form a tight network. Robert Bray ’75M (Pdc), ’76M (MS), the president of the 16,000+ member organization, called upon a host of fellow Rochester alumni to help him organize the event. They include committee general cochairs Natalie Parisi Bell ’95M (Pdc) and J. Anthony Quinn ’74M (Pdc), doctors’ scientific program cochair Stephen Kyrkanides ’95M (Pdc), ’99M (PhD), and local arrangements cochair Kolman Apt ’85M (Pdc).

Bray has also dedicated the conference to a couple of his Rochester mentors: Daniel Subtelny, who founded the orthodontics program at the then Eastman Dental Center, in 1955, and is the chair of the orthodontics division of the Eastman Institute for Oral Health, and the late Robert Baker, professor of orthodontics at the Institute for over 50 years, who passed away in October 2008.

“In professional school, there’s a lot of memorization,” says Bray. But professors like Baker and Subtelny “taught us how to think.”

Bray has plenty to think about at the helm of the profession’s major association, where he grapples with, among other things, the problem of insufficient access to affordable orthodontic treatment and the need for members to keep up with expanding technology and equipment needs.

That said, Bray exudes confidence in the field’s future. “I see nothing but upside,” he says.

Bray has a private practice, playfully named Brayces, on the South New Jersey Shore, where 40 percent of his patients are adults. “My youngest patient is three and my oldest is 83,” he says. “That’s a wide range of people to be able to help.”

—Karen McCally

TRIBUTE

Leaders and Benefactors: Gilbert McCurdy and Max Farash

ADVISORS: Businessman and Interfaith Chapel benefactor Gilbert McCurdy (left) and real estate developer Max Farash served as trustees over the course of three decades. (Photo: University Libraries/Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation)

Two longtime members of the University family—former trustees Gilbert McCurdy and Max Farash—died in February.

McCurdy, the grandson of the founder of the family’s downtown department store, served as a trustee from 1971 to 1993 and was elected a life trustee in 1997. He died February 16 at the age of 87. A noted leader in the business and philanthropic communities of Rochester, he served as chairman and CEO of McCurdy’s from 1962 to 1992. He’s remembered as a passionate booster of downtown Rochester, having been instrumental in the development of Midtown Plaza, the first downtown enclosed shopping mall in the United States.

For more than half a century, McCurdy and his family have been generous supporters of the University. The River Campus Interfaith Chapel was a gift of the family in the 1960s, and McCurdy and his wife, Katherine Babcock McCurdy, made many gifts to the Memorial Art Gallery, the Eastman School, and to Arts, Sciences, and Engineering.

Farash, the founder of Farash Corp., one of the largest real estate development companies in western New York, died February 28 at the age of 95. A trustee from 1982 to 1985, Farash was also a generous supporter of the University, with a particular interest in the Simon School and the Eastman Institute for Oral Health.

TRIBUTE

Frank Shuffelton: A Lifetime of Achievement

Shuffelton: His work included “one of the great resources in Jefferson studies.” (Photo: Courtesy of the English Department)

Last spring, the English department held a symposium to honor Frank Shuffelton as he became a professor emeritus after 40 years of teaching and scholarship at Rochester.

A distinguished panel of scholars discussed the importance of Frank’s work in the field of 17th- and 18th-century American literature. That work had earned him a lifetime achievement award from the early American literature section of the Modern Languages Association just two years before.

Many scholars also wrote to testify to their personal and professional debt to Frank, whose cheerful and encouraging presence and his willingness to assist younger scholars is something of a legend.

Frank, who died in March, was my colleague for 22 years, during which he taught me extraordinary lessons about how to produce engaged scholarship in my field of 19th-century American literature. Frank was focused on the American Enlightenment, and especially on the protean figure of Thomas Jefferson. His name became deeply associated with the best, most useful, and most interesting work being done on Jefferson. In addition to dozens of influential articles, he completed, in the early 1990s, one of the great resources in Jefferson studies: a two volume, comprehensive, annotated bibliography of writings about Jefferson that begins in 1826 and ends in 1990. Thomas Jefferson: A Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography of Writings about Him is a monument to scholarly commitment, generosity, and intelligence.

Frank was likely to enter rooms with a good humored wave and one of two signature greetings: either “Hiya, hiya, hiya” (which he once told me he adapted from the Howdy Doody Show, which he had watched as a boy); or “Greetings, scholars.” When Frank was chair of the department, he organized a conference in honor of the 50th anniversary of our graduate program in which many of our alumni, now members of the profession themselves, returned to give papers and share memories. One distinguished professor, teaching at the University of North Carolina, remembered how Frank had been the first person ever to call him a scholar. Frank’s greeting had been, for him, an important moment of self-realization.

—John Michael

John Michael is the chair of the English department at Rochester.

Books & Recordings

Books

Catholicism in Social and Historical Contexts: An Introduction

By Curt Cadorette

Orbis Books, 2010

Cadorette, the John Henry Newman Associate Professor of Catholic Studies at Rochester, examines the ways in which Catholicism has responded and adapted to social and cultural challenges in its evolution from a small Jewish sect to a predominant religion in the West.

Youth-full Productions: Cultural Practices and Constructions of Content and Social Spaces

Edited by Nancy Ares

Peter Lang, 2009

Ares, an associate professor in teaching and curriculum at the Warner School, edits a collection of chapters demonstrating the ways in which the experiences of impoverished and minority youths can enrich classroom learning. The nine chapters were written collaboratively with Warner School doctoral students. Joanne Larson, the Michael W. Scandling Professor of Education at the Warner School, also contributed.

Something Akin to Freedom: The Choice of Bondage in Narratives by African American Women

By Stephanie Li

SUNY Press, 2010

Li, an assistant professor of English at Rochester, explores stories by Harriet Jacobs, Toni Morrison, and others, in which enslaved women choose bondage in the South over freedom in the North. Li argues that these women experienced autonomy less as individuals than as members of family and community networks.

Multiscale Modeling of Particle Interactions: Applications in Biology and Nanotechnology

By Michael R. King ’95 and David Gee

John Wiley & Sons, 2010

King, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Cornell, demonstrates how new computational tools are advancing the understanding of particle interactions, leading to new applications in the biological sciences, chemical engineering, toxicology, medicine, and manufacturing.

In the Eye of All Trade: Bermuda, Bermudians, and the Maritime Atlantic World, 1680–1783

By Michael J. Jarvis

University of North Carolina Press, 2010

In a social history of Bermuda told through the eyes of its seafarers, Rochester associate professor of history Jarvis demonstrates the significance of the island to the 18th-century Atlantic maritime economy.

Almost Home: Stories of Hope and the Human Spirit in the Neonatal ICU

By Christine Gleason ’79M (MD)

Kaplan Publishing, 2009

Gleason, the chief of neonatology and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital, presents stories of the medical miracles, as well as the tragedies, she has witnessed in 25 years of caring for premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Difficult Topics in Group Psychotherapy: My Journey from Shame to Courage

By Jerome S. Gans ’67M (MD)

Karnac Books, 2009

Gans, a distinguished fellow of the American Group Psychotherapy Association, draws on more than 40 years of personal experience as a group therapist to explore the themes of shame, hostility, courage, and the relationship between patients and therapists as they play out in group psychotherapy.

Becoming White: My Family’s Experience as Slaveholders and Why It Still Matters

By Margaret Blackburn White ’68 (PhD)

Author House, 2009

Using her family’s slaveholding past as a lens through which to view the broader legacy of slavery, White, a professor emerita at Norwich University, argues that slavery created a longlasting and intractable history of racism in the United States.

Walt Whitman’s Democratic Vistas: The Original Edition in Facsimile

Edited by Ed Folsom ’76 (PhD)

University of Iowa Press, 2010

Folsom, the Roy J. Carver Professor of English and editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review at the University of Iowa, offers a new introduction and annotations in a facsimile edition of Whitman’s classic analysis of democracy.

A Sphere Maker’s Craft: A Systematic Review of Sphere Cutting: Notes and Comments

By Robert F. Ritchie ’60M (MD)

Stone Age Industries, 2009

Retired physician and lapidary artist Ritchie offers a guide for sphere makers and other artisans who work with stones. Illustrated with color photographs, the book covers grinding, trimming rough rock, polishing hard and soft stones, recommendations for equipment and tools, and other advice on the craft.

Jewels for my Granddaughters

Helen Conway Flynn ’69, ’69E, ’72W (MA)

Clareau Press, 2009

Educator, counselor, entrepreneur, and musician Flynn offers advice on how to recognize your talents and find the courage to address life’s challenges.

The Bacchus Claim

By Dorsey Price Salerno ’53

iUniverse, 2009

The thriller novel opens in 1939 as Ben Cantarini, son of a Jewish art dealer, finds the sketch of Bacchus by the Italian baroque painter Caravaggio.

Strip

By Thomas Perry ’74 (PhD)

Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt, 2010

A Los Angeles strip club owner searches for the source behind a masked gunman who robs him at the beginning of the novel. Award-winning crime fiction writer Perry is also the author of Runner (Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt, 2009), the latest in his Jane Whitfield series of mystery novels.

Sensibility and Sense: The Aesthetic Transformation of the Human World

By Arnold Berleant ’53E, ’55E (MA)

Imprint Academic, 2010

Philosopher and composer Berleant offers an aesthetic, social, and political critique of the built environment, based on his premise that aesthetic sensibilities are aroused not only through experience of the arts, but also through interaction with everyday surroundings.

Five Deadly Sins that Can Derail Your New York Worker’s Compensation Case

By Brian Mittman ’91

Word Association, 2009

Mittman, the managing partner of the New York City–area law firm Markhoff & Mittman, offers tips and pitfalls to avoid for injured workers dealing with employers, the Workers Compensation Board, and insurance companies in making a worker’s compensation claim.

The Goat-Faced Girl

By Leah Sharpe and Jane Marinsky ’73

David Godine, 2009

In the mother-daughter collaboration, the oil paintings of artist, art professor, and illustrator Marinsky complement her daughter Sharpe’s retelling of the classic Italian folktale.

The Art of J. Barry Hanshaw: Forty Favorite Works, with Reflections from the Artist

By J. Barry Hanshaw ’58M (Res)

HueleGordon, 2009

The coffee table book by pediatrician and artist Hanshaw includes reproductions of 40 oil and pastel paintings and an autobiographical segment noting the influences of his professional life, travels, and family of five children. Hanshaw is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts, where he has also served as dean of the medical school.

Women and the Shaping of British Methodism: Persistent Preachers, 1807-1907

By Jennifer Lloyd ’92 (PhD)

Manchester University Press, 2010

Lloyd, an associate professor emerita of history at the State University of New York College at Brockport, examines the impact of women preachers as well as laywomen in the development of Methodism in 19th-century Britain.

Recordings

Twenty-Six Minus X

By Chesley Kahmann ’52

Orbiting Clef Productions, 2010

Composer and pianist Kahmann performs a musical play with her longtime singing group, the Interludes. The recording is the fourth volume of the Kahmann Touch CD series.

The Music of Dan Locklair

By Marilyn Keiser

Loft Recordings, 2010

Organist Keiser performs works by Locklair ’81E (DMA), composer-in-residence and music professor at Wake Forest University.

Cascade of Roses: A Piano Bouquet

By Janice Weber ’74E

Dorian Recordings, 2010

Released on Valentine’s Day, the recording by Boston Conservatory pianist Weber includes over 20 selections of salon and other popular songs inspired by the rose.

Late Dates With Mozart: Three Late Sonatas for Piano and Violin

By Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio ’85E (MM)

MSR Classics, 2009

Violinist Sant’Ambrogio is joined by pianist James Winn in the performance of Mozart sonatas written in the last seven years of the composer’s life. Sant’Ambrogio also produced Klassics4Kids (Cactus Pear Music Festival, 2010), a CD that introduces children to classical music.

Books & Recordings is a compilation of recent works by University alumni, faculty, and staff. For inclusion in an upcoming issue, send the work’s title, publisher information, author, and author’s class year, along with a brief description, to Books & Recordings, Rochester Review, 22 Wallis Hall, P.O. Box 270044, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627-0044; or by e-mail to rochrev@rochester.edu.

MEDIEVAL ART

Glass Works

(Photo: Adam Fenster)

HISTORY BOOKS: A scholarly collection that explores some of the most famous works of stained glass in Europe—including (top to bottom) Buckinghamshire, England; Chartes Cathedral in France; and the Monastery of Batalha in Portugal—will soon be available to scholars and aficionados in the Rossell Hope Robbins Library in Rush Rhees. Helen Zakin, a retired art history professor at SUNY-Oswego, donated more than 400 books on the medieval art form to the library this spring. A highly regarded scholar of art in the Middle Ages, Zakin studied stained glass throughout her career, working on Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, a project to catalogue the medieval stained glass of western Europe.