September–October 2014, Volume 77, No. 1

Editor

Scott Hauser

Associate Editors

Karen McCally ’02 (PhD)

Kathleen McGarvey

Contributors

Valerie Alhart, David Barnstone, Adam Fenster, Rachel Goldstein, Susan Hagen, Peter Iglinski, Megan Mack, Melissa Lang, Sara Miller, Dennis O’Donnell, Leslie Orr, Leonor Sierra, and Brandon Vick

Editorial Office

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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.

ISSN: 0035-7421

Copyright © 2014

Credits

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

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East High School

By Joel Seligman

The University, led by its Warner School of Education, has embarked on a noble initiative to help save East High School, the largest and one of the most historic high schools in Rochester. Because of its past failure to meet academic benchmarks, East was on the verge of being closed by the state. We began this work because of our commitment to our city and its K-12 students and because we believe there are few challenges more important to our country than revitalizing K-12 education in urban environments. This is a core mission for a school of education.

On June 30, I announced, together with Van White, chair of the Rochester City School Board, and the leaders of the four labor unions associated with East High, that an essential step had been taken to allow the school to remain open. Working with key stakeholders, the University submitted a plan to the State Education Department to administer East High School under a special statute that allows us to assume the role of an Educational Partnership Organization (EPO). This is the equivalent of becoming the superintendent for East High School. On July 9, the education department approved our plan.

I characterized this, quoting Churchill, as “the end of the beginning.” There are many key steps remaining.

The next key milestone will be the development of a full operational plan by December 2014. The intervening months will be dedicated to meeting with local partners, teachers, parents, and community members to refine the EPO plan for final submission to the state. The University will hold focus groups and a town hall meeting this fall to solicit input from the community as to how best to galvanize our collective efforts. These efforts will be led by Professor Steve Uebbing of the Warner School, who has over two decades of superintendent experience under his belt in the Canandaigua (N.Y.) City Schools and Fort Plain (N.Y.) Central School. Steve has been the key leader of this project and deserves special thanks for his hard work and patience.

The University’s EPO plan anticipates doubling East High School’s graduation rate from the current 42 percent to 84 percent over a seven-year period. This will be accomplished by incorporating best practices in school and district leadership, curriculum design and implementation, teaching, social and emotional support, and school-and-community partnerships. The approach will revitalize the school, doing so with unionized employees, fully protecting their economic security. The plan contemplates an upper (grades 10 through 12) school, a lower school (grades six or seven through eight), with a separate ninth grade academy and staggered arrival and departure times for the three programs. Students will be arranged into “families” of five to nine students who will meet with the same adult mentor every day.

We agreed to this undertaking under the principle of budget neutrality, meaning that we would proceed if our investment were not financial but based upon the expertise of our faculty. If the next milestone is also approved, we will become the EPO for five years, beginning July 1, 2015. At that time, Steve Uebbing will begin the role of superintendent of East High School.

I am encouraged by the support and contributions from all involved in this process to date, including State Education Commissioner John King; Rochester City School Superintendent Bolgen Vargas; Van White; Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Morelle, Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren; Rochester Teachers Association President Adam Urbanski ’69, ’75 (PhD) and union leaders Deb Ryder (Association of Supervisors and Administrators of Rochester), Dan DiClimente (Board of Education Non-Teaching Employees), and Marge Brumfield (Rochester Association of Paraprofessionals); East High School Principal Anibal Soler; and Wade Norwood ’85, a member of the New York State Board of Regents. Without key compromises by all involved, progress on our proposal would not be possible.

Our Warner School Dean Raffaella Borasi has been instrumental in harnessing the collective efforts of faculty members and educators on this important proposal. The University’s General Counsel Gail Norris also played a consequential role in reaching accord on the labor agreements.

Going forward this process will only be achievable with the support of East High School teachers, students, parents, and community members, including members of the University community. This proposal has the potential to become a new model by which public schools can transform, evolve, and succeed. I am deeply grateful to those in the Rochester community who have supported the University’s unprecedented endeavor to turn around East. But to quote a familiar line, if this experiment is to succeed, “Our work is but begun.”

Letters

lettersMODEL CAMPUS: Former University President Cornelis de Kiewiet holds a model of a proposed men’s dining center, a project that was eventually built near Rush Rhees Library. (Photo: University Libraries/Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation)

Kudos for Cornelis?

I really enjoyed the July-August issue, especially the profile of Cornelis de Kiewiet (“A Dynamic Attitude”). I had no idea he was responsible for so much of the University that I attended in the early 1970s. Moving the women’s college to the River Campus and hiring Richard Fenno, one of my favorite professors, were two initiatives I particularly appreciated!

For someone who had such an impact, I’m curious why there is so little recognition of him on campus. Has a building been named in his honor or is there a statue of him? In the photo in the Table of Contents, what is he holding next to the model of the Eastman Quad? Is that an early version of the Interfaith Chapel?

David Grossman ’75

Armonk, New York

A residence hall south of the River Campus is named for President de Kiewiet. Opening in 1965, along with another dormitory that was named for President Alan Valentine, de Kiewiet Tower is part of an area now known as the Southside Living Area. In the photo on page 1, de Kiewiet is holding a model for a new men’s dining center that was proposed as part of the merger of the men’s and women’s colleges. The photo was taken as part of a fundraising campaign to help support the merger. The new dining center was built and later renamed as today’s Douglass Dining Center, still feeding students—men and women—and located between Rush Rhees Library and what’s now the Goergen Athletic Center. —Scott Hauser, Editor.

‘I Was There’

Congratulations once more on a colorful and interesting issue of Review. So many bright and interesting faces. The University has come a long way since I graduated in chemistry in 1941.

My eye caught the snippet about Churchill’s address to the graduation ceremony of that year (“Campus Keepsakes”). I was there.

We were just beginning to appreciate the threat that Hitler was posing to the UK. The British ambassador was at the ceremony, and I remember how his face changed when Churchill intoned in solemn stanzas Britain’s resolve to resist any German invasion “on the beaches, on the land, and in the streets.”

Things did not look good at the time. Listening to Churchill, we had no idea how bad they were.

F. H. Kim Krenz ’41

Lakefield, Ontario

Something Doesn’t Compute

lettersIT’S A 1620: Readers noted that a photo of early computers at Rochester showed an IBM 1620, a model announced in 1959. (Photo: University Libraries/Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation)

The picture on page 44 of the July-August issue (“A Dynamic Attitude”) is that of an IBM 1620, which wasn’t announced until late in 1959, so it couldn’t have been the “desk-sized machine” alleged as installed in 1955 in the University’s “first computer center.”

The notion of a “computing center” was new in universities in the 1950s; UR had one of the first such centers established, with Tom Keenan as its director. The Institute of Optics was hugely instrumental in establishing the center at the urging of Bob Hopkins, an early believer and strong proponent of computing as a centralized utility.

The year 1955 was, thankfully, before my time, as was the Burroughs E101, which I believe was the first “real” computer installed at UR, replacing Marchant and Friden desktop (mechanical) calculators as a central computing resource for the University. The E101 was desk-sized.

I arrived as a freshman in 1959, and by that time (“sometime in the 1950s,” according to the IBM archives) the E101 had been replaced by an IBM 650. The 650 was not by any means a “desk-sized” computer, but with a large control panel of blinking lights and a room full of support equipment, it was sufficiently intriguing to undo any aspirations I had of becoming a physicist. I must have looked like J. Thaddeus Toad when he saw his first motorcar.

Centralized computing was not universally embraced at UR. The engineering school maintained a 1620 (later an IBM 1130), the business school went with Univac, and the Laser Lab got the mother of all scientific machines at the time, a Control Data Corporation (CDC) 6600—diversity at its finest. The central 650 was replaced in 1961 by an IBM 7070, and later by the 7070’s successor (the 7074) and, in the late 1960s, the IBM System/360. The Computing Center has used mainstream IBM computers ever since, as far as I know.

letters (Photo: University Libraries/Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation)

Who’s Getting on the Bus?

Class of 1958 members Dee Molinari, Nancy Kelts Rice, Joan Thornton Grimm, Paulette Rubin Rosenstein, and Dorothy Wynne were among the alumnae who wrote to identify the women getting on the bus in the opening photo of Class Notes for the July-August issue. The consensus is that the woman in the raincoat and holding her purse is Anne Gaffney Friday ’58. Behind her is Maryann Powers Pierleoni ’59, ’59N, and at the head of the line is Carol Spinuzzi Aceti ’58. As for the identity of the fourth member of the party, there’s some debate. Some say it’s Marcia Bernstein Anderson ’58, and some say it’s Nancy Kelts Rice ’58. Regardless, there’s agreement about why the women were getting on the bus. The photo was taken in 1954, says Molinari. “They were undoubtedly heading for Frosh Camp, I believe somewhere in the Bristol Hills.”—Scott Hauser.﻿

But those were, to me, the good old days of wooden computers and iron programmers. When I left the Computing Center in 1980, I felt I knew the room-sized computer systems thoroughly, from the hardware to the operating systems and most of the application programs. Now I carry a small computer in my pocket that has more memory and more computing power than all of NASA’s computers when they put Neal Armstrong on the moon, and I have no idea how it works. And it also makes phone calls.

Michael Armstrong ’63

Polk City, Florida

Engineering operated an IBM 1620 in Hopeman like the one shown on page 44. However, these were not announced by IBM until October 1959. The University at that time ran an IBM 650 that occupied much of Taylor Hall. I’m not sure what if anything may have preceded it, but it would surely not have been desk-sized.

Roger Ehrich ’65

Blacksburg, Virginia

Connected to South Africa

I was interested to read the article “Global Rochester: South Africa” (July-August) because I was born and grew up in South Africa. Sent by the South African Atomic Energy Board, I went to Rochester initially to participate in the joint program between the U of R and the Brookhaven National Laboratory to train health physicists for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Upon completion of that program, I returned to Rochester to study for a PhD in the Department of Radiation Biology and Biophysics at the School of Medicine and Dentistry under the late Dr. Paul E. Murrow. I went back to head the Health Physics Subdivision at the South African Nuclear Research Center in 1964, but I returned to the USA as an immigrant in March 1969. I assumed a position in the inhalation toxicology section of the biology department at Battelle Northwest in Richland, Washington, under Dr. William J. Bair ’54M (PhD). I spent about 14 years as an inhalation toxicologist in Richland and at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio. I retired from full-time work after more than 12 years as a toxicologist at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina. Douglas Craig ’61M (MS), ’64M (PhD) Ponce Inlet, Florida It is little known that the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, has strong historic links with the University. Cornelis de Kiewiet, the University’s president from 1951 to 1961 was a graduate of Witwatersrand for his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, while Cyril Myerowitz, a dental graduate of Witwatersrand was director of the Eastman Dental Center from 1999 to 2009. The connections continue with 18 Rochester alumni living in South Africa, and currently four undergraduates and one graduate student from South Africa studying at Rochester.

As a dual graduate of both universities, I elicit interest of possible other dual graduates of “Wits” and Rochester.

G. H. Sperber ’62D (MS)

Edmonton, Alberta

The writer is a professor emeritus at the University of Alberta. Write to him at gsperber@ualberta.ca.

Department of Corrections

Thank you for listing my book in the July-August edition of Review. I have already reconnected with the family of John Montean, my advisor during my graduate work in the then Department of Education. It was a wonderful outcome of the listing.

However, I must correct the information that you listed. My book, Bonnets to Boardrooms: Women’s Stories from a Historic College Town, is not based solely on interviews of women graduates of Oberlin College, but of the women who lived in the town of Oberlin, Ohio. The town of Oberlin, a community known for its progressive attitudes, provides the backdrop to these stories, but they could have originated in any small town.

Vignettes showcase those with national influence, such as Jeanne Pease, wife of a U.S. congressman, local figures, such as Oberlin’s first African-American public school teacher, Elizabeth Thomas, and others merely sharing everyday occurrences that give vibrancy to life, such as Mildred Chapin learning to drive an automobile in the early 1900s.

Eugenia Vanek ’74W (EdD)

Saint Petersburg, Florida

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.﻿

CLASS OF 2018

Lighting a Path

candle (Photo: Adam Fenster)

CAMPUS CANDLES: Students in the College Class of 2018 line the paths of the Eastman Quadrangle during the annual candle-lighting ceremony, an event designed to welcome the newest members of the University community. More than 1,300 new students arrived this fall at the College and at the Eastman School.

SUMMER SCENE

Jumpin’ Jazz Street

jazz (Photo: Adam Fenster)

Stage Presence: Wendy Eisenberg ’14E (left), the guitarist and composer behind Wendy Eisenberg’s Earth Science, performs with trumpeter Brandon Choi ’16E (right) and other members of her ensemble at this summer’s Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival. Eastman School of Music musicians—students, faculty, staff, and alumni, as well as students and faculty from the Eastman Community Music School—appeared in more than two dozen shows during the festival at venues within a short walking distance of Gibbs Street, which gets renamed “Jazz Street” during the week-long event.

OPTICAL SCIENCES

Moments of Refraction

refraction (Photo: Adam Fenster)

BLOCK PARTY: Three blocks of gradient index polymer demonstrate their differing indices of refraction in the laboratory of Duncan Moore ’74 (PhD), the Rudolf and Hilda Kingslake Professor of Optical Engineering at the Institute of Optics. As a three-color “white light” laser passes through the blocks, the light bends toward the side of each block with a larger index of refraction. Since each of the three colors bends at a different rate, the beam spreads out into its separate color components.﻿

MEMORIAL ART GALLERY

Rainbow Connection

rainbow (Photo: Adam Fenster)

Artistic spectrum: The tower of Cutler Union at the Memorial Art Gallery provides the setting for a rainbow after a summer storm.﻿

ADMINISTRATION

Leaders Named for Gallery and for Advancement

A noted curator arrives, and a highly regarded fundraising leader returns.

appointmentsLEADERSHIP ROLES: Jonathan Binstock (left) will lead the Memorial Art Gallery while Thomas Farrell ’88, ’94W (MS) will oversee the University’s Advancement operations. (Photo: Adam Fenster (Binstock); Brandon Vick (Farrell))

Rochester’s art gallery and advancement office are welcoming new leaders.

Memorial Art Gallery Director

Jonathan Binstock is the new Mary W. and Donald R. Clark Director of the Memorial Art Gallery. Most recently a senior vice president and senior advisor in modern and contemporary art for Citi Private Bank’s Art Advisory & Finance group in New York City, he brings more than a decade of curatorial work in major American museums.

Binstock succeeds Grant Holcomb, who retired in August after nearly 29 years in the position.

An expert in post–World War II art, Binstock joined Citi in 2007 as senior vice president and specialist in modern and contemporary art, working with clients and their families in the U.S. and abroad to build personal art collections. He also worked with Citi’s art finance program, ensuring the quality of artworks and assessing their value.

From 2000 to 2007, he was curator of contemporary art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and before that was assistant curator at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. His many exhibitions include the 47th (2002) and 48th (2005) Corcoran Biennials; Sam Gilliam: A Retrospective (2005); Atomic Time: Pure Science and Seduction (2003); and Andy Warhol: Social Observer (2000). His most recent curatorial project, Dan Steinhilber: Marlin Underground, was on view at the Kreeger Museum in Washington, D.C., in 2012.

Binstock is a board member of the American Federation of Arts and a scholarly consultant for the Visual Arts Gallery of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. He also serves as a peer reviewer for the U.S. General Services Administration’s Percent-for-Art in Architecture Program and served for a decade on the President’s Council for the Higher Achievement Program in Washington, D.C., an after-school educational mentoring organization.

He has taught art history at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan, from which he holds a master’s degree and a PhD in art history. He has written about artists as varied as Jeremy Blake, Ellsworth Kelly, Joan Mitchell, Alma Thomas, and Richard Tuttle. He has a forthcoming book about the artist Meleko Mokgosi.

Chief Advancement Officer

Thomas Farrell ’88, ’94W (MS) has been named to lead the University’s Office of Advancement, including the completion of The Meliora Challenge, Rochester’s $1.2 billion campaign.

Currently chief development officer for the University of Illinois and president/CEO of the University of Illinois Foundation, Farrell will begin at Rochester on November 1. He will replace James Osterholt, who has served as interim chief advancement officer since last fall.

Farrell will become senior vice president and James D. Thompson Chief Advancement Officer, a position made possible through a gift from University Trustee Larry Bloch ’75 and his wife, Cindy.

Farrell began his fundraising career at the University and brings more than 24 years of advancement experience. A class campaign fundraiser in 1990, he served as director of the reunion major gifts program from 1993 to 1995. He then led the fundraising program at the University of Buffalo School of Law before joining Dartmouth College as director of gift planning. In 2001, Farrell began a decade-long job at the University of Pennsylvania, where he managed Penn’s undergraduate and individual giving program and served as a member of its senior management team, responsible for coordinating all institutional advancement activity, including strategy for Penn’s recently completed $4.3 billion campaign.

In 2010, Farrell joined the University of Chicago as vice president for alumni relations and development, leading a staff of 450 advancement professionals from all schools, divisions, and units, and planning Chicago’s current comprehensive campaign.

At Illinois, he oversees development programs that span three campuses and the foundation, with a budget of $53 million and a combined staff of more than 400. As CEO of the foundation, he is also responsible for its investment office and the university’s core endowment.

At Rochester, Farrell earned a bachelor’s degree in history and political science, and an MS in education. In 2005, he completed his EdD at the University of Pennsylvania in higher education management.

GLOBAL ROCHESTER: PORTUGAL

Robert Sherman ’75 Named Ambassador

globalMR. AMBASSADOR: Robert Sherman ’75 (left) greets guests for a ceremony at the U.S. embassy in Lisbon. (Photo: U.S. Department of State)

Robert Sherman ’75 made his career as a Boston attorney for 35 years, serving in private practice and, in the 1990s, as assistant attorney general of Massachusetts and chief of the state Consumer Protection Division.

But now home is Lisbon, where Sherman is serving as the United States ambassador to the Republic of Portugal. He began his appointment in the spring.

Rochester and Portugal

People

13 alumni living in Portugal

5 students from Portugal (2013–14)

Connections

The Department of Modern Languages and Cultures begins offering courses in Portuguese this fall, adding to the department’s roster of courses in Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish. Portuguese is the principal language of Brazil and a number of African countries in addition to Portugal.

Conversation

Brazilian Portuguese may be heard on campus during regular sessions organized by the Center for Study Abroad, depending on interest among students in learning more about the language. The get-togethers are modeled on a set of “conversation hours” administered by the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures. The sessions are designed as relaxed settings for speakers to practice their language skills.

Historical Note

The Eastman Philharmonia’s first European concert took place in Lisbon in 1961, the first stop of a 93-day tour of 34 cities undertaken at the invitation of the State Department.

There’s strong continuity, he says, between his legal and diplomatic work. “As a lawyer, I was trained to solve problems by listening closely to the interests of the other party, advocating strongly the interests of my client, and seeking solutions that worked for both sides. That is precisely what the skill set of an ambassador is.”

Sherman is the 25th U.S. ambassador to Portugal, though diplomatic relations between the countries reach back to 1791, when the first American resident minister was appointed. He describes his job as being a “zealous advocate within Portugal of American interests both in the realm of business and also foreign policy.” Embassy priorities, he says, include enhancing military, law enforcement, intelligence, and economic cooperation.

“The latter is particularly important as Portugal is now emerging from its economic crisis and there are opportunities to foster entrepreneurship and business growth, all with an eye toward increasing transatlantic trade and investment,” he says.

A long-standing ally of the United States and a founding member of NATO, as well as a member of the European Union, Portugal has supported the U.S. in security operations in the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and joined the U.S. in condemning Russia’s involvement in Ukraine.

Sherman served on the national finance committee of Obama for America, and was appointed by President Obama to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council in 2013.

The president’s top trade priority, Sherman says, is the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which is designed to eliminate trade barriers and other obstacles to free trade between the United States and Europe. The treaty will bring particular benefits to small- and medium-sized enterprises, which describes 95 percent of Portugal’s businesses. Says Sherman, “Portugal will play a key supporting role among EU countries.”

A political science major at Rochester before going on to earn a law degree at Boston University in 1978, Sherman says he never lost his interest in politics and political institutions “as engines for improving the lives of the citizenry” and credits political science professors Riker, Fenno, Black, Niemi, and Regenstreif with continuing to influence his thinking today.

“I also believe that the U of R was critical in shaping my sense of ethics and notions of community responsibility,” he says. —Kathleen McGarvey﻿

Monkeys Believe in Winning Streaks, Too

discoverHOT HANDS: Like people, monkeys believe in winning and losing streaks in what are actually random series of events. (Photo: Sarah Heilbronner)

People have a well-documented propensity to see winning and losing streaks in situations that are random. Now researchers have found that monkeys appear to share that belief. The results of the study suggest that the tendency to see patterns that don’t exist may be inherited, an evolutionary adaptation that may have provided human ancestors a selective advantage when foraging for food in the wild, according to lead author Tommy Blanchard, a doctoral candidate in brain and cognitive sciences.

The study, coauthored by Benjamin Hayden, assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences at Rochester, and Andreas Wilke of Clarkson University, was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition.

To determine if monkeys may believe in winning streaks, the researchers had to create a computerized game that would hold monkeys’ attention for hours. They devised a fast-paced task in which each monkey could choose right or left and receive a reward when it guessed correctly.

The researchers created three types of play—two with clear patterns in which the correct answer tended to repeat on one side or to alternate from side to side—and a third in which the lucky pick was random. Where clear patterns existed, the three rhesus monkeys in the study quickly guessed the correct sequence. But in the random scenarios, the monkeys continued to make choices as if they expected a “streak.” Even when rewards were random, the monkeys favored one side.

Why do monkeys and humans share this belief in a run of luck even when faced with copious evidence that the results are random? The authors speculate that because the distribution of food in the wild is not random, evolution has primed human brains to look for patterns.

Understanding the “hot-hand” bias could inform treatment for gambling addiction and provide insights for investors, says Hayden. “If a belief in winning streaks is hardwired, then we may want to look for more rigorous retraining for individuals who cannot control their gambling. And investors should keep in mind that humans have an inherited bias to believe that if a stock goes up one day, it will continue to go up.”

—Susan Hagen﻿

Baby Aspirin? Despite Guidelines, Many Doctors Don’t Recommend

discoverDOCTOR’S ORDERS: Doctors often don’t advise patients to take preventive aspirin. (Photo: iStockphoto)

A majority of middle-aged men and women eligible to take aspirin to prevent heart attack and stroke do not recall their doctors ever telling them to do so, according to a Rochester study of a national sample of more than 3,000 patients.

Published online by the Journal of General Internal Medicine, the finding illustrates a common disconnect between public health guidelines and what occurs in clinical practice. The Rochester study is consistent with other research showing that physicians often do not recommend aspirin as prevention therapy to the general population, despite established guidelines by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

Several reasons might explain the reluctance, such as competing demands and limited time to properly assess a patient’s eligibility for aspirin, according to lead author Kevin Fiscella, professor of family medicine. Uncertainty about the benefits of aspirin therapy versus potential harms such as bleeding in the digestive tract also hinder physicians’ decisions, the study says.

None of the patients in the study had cardiovascular disease, but all qualified for aspirin therapy based on their 10-year risk score for factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, smoking, and use of cholesterol-lowering medications. Of the sample, 87 percent of men and 16 percent of women were eligible to take aspirin as a preventive measure, but only 34 percent of the men and 42 percent of the women said they had been instructed to do so.

Coauthor John Bisognano, director of outpatient cardiology services at UR Medicine, said most physicians can agree on approaches to medical care in immediately life-threatening situations, but have less enthusiasm to quickly embrace preventive guidelines, particularly when they involve wide-ranging interventions for a large segment of the population.

—Leslie Orr﻿

Bend in Appalachian Mountain Chain Explained

discover (Illustration: Steve Boerner)

The 1,500-mile Appalachian mountain chain runs along a nearly straight line from Alabama to Newfoundland, except for a curious bend in Pennsylvania and New York state. Researchers from Rochester and the College of New Jersey now know what caused that bend—a dense, underground block of rigid, volcanic rock that forced the chain to shift eastward as it was forming millions of years ago.

The findings, by a research team including Cindy Ebinger, professor of earth and environmental sciences, have been published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

When the North American and African continental plates collided more than 300 million years ago, the North American plate began folding and thrusting upward as it was pushed westward into the dense underground rock structure in what is now the northeastern United States. The dense rock created a barricade, forcing the Appalachian mountain range to spring up with its characteristic bend.

Ebinger calls the research a “foundation study” that will improve scientists’ understanding of the earth’s underlying structures. She says their findings could prove useful in the debate over the risks of hydraulic fracturing—popularly known as hydrofracking—in New York.

Hydrofracking is a technique to extract natural gas from deep in the earth. It involves drilling horizontally into shale formations, then injecting the rock with sand, water, and a cocktail of chemicals to free the trapped gas for removal. The region just west of the Appalachian Basin—the Marcellus Shale formation—is rich in natural gas reserves and is being considered for development by drilling companies.

—Peter Iglinski﻿

LIBRARIES

University Acquires Newly Discovered Anthony Letters

Department of Rare Books expands its women’s suffrage holdings with a historic collection.

By Megan Mack

anthonySUFFRAGE CORRESPONDENTS: Susan B. Anthony (seated) posed with Rachel Foster Avery and Avery’s daughters, Rose Foster Avery (left) and Miriam Alice Foster, in a circa 1890 image. Anthony called Avery her “most cherished young lieutenant.” (Photo: University Libraries/Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation)

Women won the right to vote with the formal adoption of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920. Now, a newly discovered collection of Susan B. Anthony letters will help show how.

Anthony wrote the letters to her “most cherished young lieutenant,” Rachel Foster Avery, from 1881 through the turn of the 20th century. Acquired in August by the River Campus Libraries, the historic collection will help bring to life the suffrage movement through the eyes of two of its most important members.

Anthony and Avery were connected through the National Woman Suffrage Association and the National American Woman Suffrage Association. The new collection includes more than 60 autographed and typed letters, signed cabinet cards and photographs, and other related material. The University purchased the items in August from two auction houses in Michigan.

Mary Ann Mavrinac, vice provost and Andrew H. and Janet Dayton Neilly Dean of the River Campus Libraries, calls the collection an “outstanding acquisition for the libraries and for the Rochester community. It augments what is arguably the nation’s strongest manuscript collection related to the long working and personal relationship between Anthony and Avery.”

Anthony, a Rochester resident from 1845 until her death in 1906, persuaded the University to admit women in 1900. The Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation already stewards important holdings related to Anthony’s role in women’s suffrage, including the existing Anthony-Avery collection, which was acquired in 1972 at an auction of Avery family papers. Reuniting the collections will provide new primary sources for teaching and research both on campus and more broadly. The as-yet unstudied letters are expected to help chronicle a critical chapter in the history of suffrage and women’s rights in the United States.

Plans are under way to begin digitizing the new materials this fall.

Materials from other Anthony-related collections owned or on deposit at Rush Rhees have been digitized and transcribed for the online exhibition Susan B. Anthony: Celebrating “A Heroic Life” (http://www.lib.rochester.edu/anthony).﻿

DIALOGUES

Keeping the Faith

Marking half-century milestones on the River Campus, two faith communities celebrate continuity and change.

Interview by Karen McCally ’02 (PhD)

protcath50thCOMMUNITY LEADERS: Reverend Laurie Tiberi and Father Brian Cool lead the Protestant Chapel and Newman communities, which celebrated 50-year milestones in the past year. (Photo: Adam Fenster)

At Rochester, the number of faith communities and student-led religious organizations housed in the Interfaith Chapel is in the double digits. Two of those communities—the Protestant Chapel Community and the Catholic Newman Community—begin the 2014–15 academic year having marked 50-year milestones.

Rochester, of course, was founded as a Baptist institution, and a Newman Club started at Rochester in the late 1920s. But in 1963 and 1964, Catholic and mainline Protestant student groups, respectively, gained full-time chaplains, creating full-fledged worship communities on campus. During the past

five decades, the two communities have experienced internal changes, and have been joined in the Interfaith Chapel by Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and other faith groups, as well as other Protestant communities. All groups at the chapel are self-funded and all take part in interfaith dialogue, notes the Reverend Denise Yarbrough, the chapel’s director of religious and spiritual life. Yarbrough was hired in 2012 to work with students and the chaplains to enrich interfaith programming.

The Protestant Chapel Community is led by the Reverend Laurie Tiberi and the Newman Community is led by Father Brian Cool.

How do you work with students?

Tiberi: The Protestant Chapel Community is sort of a full-service church on campus. We have worship on Sunday afternoons. One of our big programs is our Wednesday night “Dinner Dialogue,” where we serve a meal that the students cook and we have a theologically themed discussion. And it’s everything from, “What’s the relationship between faith and politics?” to “What is a soul and does my cat have one?” We do service projects, social events, Bible studies, and book discussions. And I spend a lot of my time talking to students one on one. The conversations can be anything from, “What do I want to do with my life?” to “Why did this tragic thing happen?,” to issues with parents, friends, boyfriends, or girlfriends.

Cool: A counseling role and a mentoring role is very much part of what I do. I have a background in counseling. I have some very intense conversations with students and help them to work through challenges and obstacles that they’re facing in their lives. We try to be present for the students and meet them where they’re at. Long gone are the days when students would come to mass or to services because of some sense of obligation. They do it because they find it interesting, they find it meaningful.

How have your internal dialogues changed over the years—both on college campuses, and in the larger Catholic and Protestant worlds?

Cool: During my college days, students were very engaged with social issues. There were questions about the role of women in the church, about gays and lesbians in the church, about nuclear arms, peace, and justice.

Those questions are still important and still asked, but in a different way. The question now is often, “What does it mean to be Catholic?” They want to be Catholic first, and to understand what the church means to them, and what the church teaches and why. And then from that vantage point, they’ll engage the theological, social, and political questions of the day.

Tiberi: Fifty years ago, I think people were much more attached to their own denominations. Students are still attached to the denomination they grew up in, but I know that one of the things they like about going to church on campus is that they’re not just hearing perspectives they grew up hearing.

One of the changes I’ve seen—and I’m just beginning my 10th year—is that when I came here, whether one was a more progressive or liberal Protestant or a more evangelical or conservative Protestant seemed to divide students more. It seems like students who get involved in Protestant Chapel Community are less concerned now about whether everybody agrees with them on certain hot-button issues.

What do you think has been the most important and most enduring contribution of your two communities to campus life over the past 50 years?

Cool: Our students use the phrase “home away from home.” We did a survey among our alumni, and those were the same phrases they used. To have students over these 50 years using those same powerful words is quite pleasing to me. I’ve been handed something sacred.

Tiberi: Likewise, the PCC is a home for our students. On the last Sunday of each academic year, I turn over my sermon time to graduating seniors. They say, “This is my home, this has been the most important community to me while I’ve been on campus.”

The University Is Back on the ‘Fringe’

inbriefFRINGE GROUP: The coed a cappella group After Hours is one of several University ensembles and organizations taking part in the First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival, Sept. 18–27. (Photo: Courtesy of After Hours)

The University is again a sponsor and major participant in the First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival, this year taking place Sept. 18–27 in Rochester’s East End. University students, faculty, staff, and alumni will take part in more than 40 of the festival’s 380 shows in 28 venues, which include Kilbourn Hall and Sproull Atrium at the Eastman School.

Established in 2009 by Erica Fee ’99, who previously worked with the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, the Rochester festival has doubled in size since its first year.

There are more than 200 fringe festivals worldwide, including 20 in the United States. The festivals closest to Rochester are in Toronto and Philadelphia. Last year’s Fringe Festival in Rochester was attended by more than 50,000 people.﻿

The University Updates Its Policy on Sexual Misconduct

The Student Sexual Misconduct Policy has been updated on the recommendation of a committee of faculty, staff, and students. The policy defines sexual misconduct, outlines student rights, identifies resources available to the student community, and guides the University’s response to reports of possible sexual misconduct, including sexual assault.

Important updates to the policy include full definitions of the terms consent and incapacitation in connection with sexual activity. The new standards are now in place and reflect the University’s ongoing focus on the prevention of all forms of sexual misconduct.

With the changes to the policy, the University has moved toward an “affirmative consent” model that requires explicit consent from both individuals engaged in sexual activity. The policy now mandates that consent be “informed, freely given, and mutual,” and that each participant obtain and give consent in each instance of sexual activity. According to the policy, silence does not constitute consent, and past consent does not imply present or ongoing future consent.

The new policy standards also more clearly define individuals’ responsibilities to determine if someone is not sober enough to give informed consent. Individuals must not engage in sexual activity with a partner whom a reasonable person would realize is incapable of giving consent.

The full policy and more information can be found online at www.rochester.edu/sexualmisconduct.﻿

Beth Olivares Appointed Dean for Diversity Initiatives

inbriefDEANSHIP: The Kearns Center’s Beth Olivares will help oversee diversity initiatives. (Photo: Adam Fenster)

Beth Olivares has been promoted to dean for diversity initiatives in Arts, Sciences & Engineering. She also serves as director of the David T. Kearns Center for Leadership and Diversity and as faculty development and diversity officer.

In the expansion of her current role, Olivares will work closely on faculty recruitment, continue to participate on the Faculty Diversity Committee, and develop new programs and initiatives addressing faculty and student retention issues. She will also create programs within the College that provide support to undergraduates in all areas of the curriculum.

Olivares, who holds a doctorate in English from Fordham, joined the University in 1994. She has expanded the Kearns Center, developing educational pipeline programs that work with students from middle school through doctoral degrees. In the past decade, the center has garnered over $10 million in support for its programs, and over 1,000 high school, undergraduate, and graduate students are currently served by the center.﻿

Rochester Ranked No. 6 Among ‘Best Colleges for Food’

The University’s dining services have been ranked sixth on the 2014 list of 75 Best Colleges for Food in America by The Daily Meal, an online publication that reports the latest culinary news and trends around the world.

In addition to food quality, the rankings were determined by the “food scene of the surrounding area,” as well as nutrition, sustainability, accessibility, events, uniqueness, and the “overall quality of the dining experience.” The results were based on a survey of more than 2,000 four-year college and university dining programs around the country.

According to Cam Schauf, director of Campus Dining Services and Auxiliary Operations, local food is a driving force for the program, with more than 48 percent of all items sold and served on campus grown, raised, processed, or wholly manufactured within New York state. The program has partnerships with local bakeries, coffee roasters, farmers markets, and more.﻿

inbrief (Photo: Courtesy of Neoscape Inc.)

New College Town Development Set to Open this Fall

GRAND OPENING: A 20,000-square-foot Barnes & Noble (shown here in an architect’s rendering) will become the University’s campus bookstore this fall. Scheduled for a grand opening during Meliora Weekend, the store anchors a new College Town development.

STUDENT LIFE

Knit, Purl . . . Boom

A student group brings “yarn bombing” to Rochester.

Interview by Kathleen McGarvey

socksTREE COZY: For the 2013 edition of Meliora Weekend, SOCKS created yarn installations incorporating the University’s mission statement, “Learn, Discover, Heal, Create—and Make the World Ever Better” (above). Bonnie Nortz ’15, Phil Moulton ’15, and other group members have been gearing up for this fall (below). (Photo: Courtesy of SOCKS)

socks(Photo: Brandon Vick)

The student group SOCKS, or Society of Knitting and Crocheting Students, is turning fiber art into street art with “yarn bombing”—a kind of needlework graffiti that has become a global phenomenon. SOCKS president Bonnie Nortz ’15, a double major in mathematics and linguistics from Fairport, New York, has helped guide Rochester’s take on the colorful and cozy practice since its beginning.

What is yarn bombing?

Contrary to what you might think, a yarn bombing is not strands of yarn thrown everywhere in a stringy mess. Instead, picture sweaters made for trees.

How do you do it?

The first step is to measure the tree—or lamppost, bridge, statue, car, etc. Then, we knit and/or crochet a roughly rectangular piece of fabric that fits those dimensions. To install the piece, the sweater is simply sewn around the tree.

What’s the biggest challenge for a successful yarn bombing?

It’s planning an event far enough in advance. Tree sweaters are around 5 feet tall and 30 inches wide for the trees we’ve been using, so they take a long time to make, especially if the pattern is complex. One tree sweater I made for our 2012 Meliora Weekend yarn bombing had over 30,000 stitches and incorporated a lace and cable pattern. It’s imperative to have the trees measured and the sweaters assigned to members well in advance, usually the summer or semester before.

Do you have plans for Meliora Weekend?

We are definitely yarn bombing for Meliora Weekend! We plan to replicate last year’s theme of the “Learn, Discover, Heal, Create” mission statement, with at least one lamppost sweater and, hopefully, some sort of bench sweater. It will be our third Meliora Weekend installation.

What makes it fun?

My favorite thing about yarn bombing is how unexpected a sight it is to most people. I think many people consider knitting and crocheting to be something that only grandmothers do, and only out of sheer boredom. I love to challenge that preconception. I love to show people that knitting and crocheting are fun and vibrant crafts. I love to brighten people’s day with something so colorful and out of the blue. I love the look on someone's face as they walk by and realize, “Wait, is that . . . yarn?”

Ask the Archivist

Questions and answers with Melissa Mead, the John M. and Barbara Keil University Archivist and Rochester Collections Librarian.

archivistTHAT SPELLS ’68: In fall 1966, the women of the Class of 1968 hosted Frosh Camp for the freshmen of the Class of 1970 in the nearby Bristol Hills, where the juniors posed for a photo. (Photo: Rochester Libraries/Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation)

The picture of the freshman women (“girls” back in those days) getting on the bus brought back fond memories of my orientation in the fall of ’64 (Class Notes, July-August). I remember we went to a camp (somewhere in the Finger Lakes I’ve always assumed), and I’ve always wondered what camp it was.—Ann Finger ’68

A mere two days after arriving on campus, the women of the Class of 1968 left for the Bristol Hills and Letchworth Camp, run by the 4-H. There they learned University songs and traditions, hiked, and played games, and were back on the River Campus by 11 a.m. the next day for registration.

Need History?

Do you have a question about University history? Email it to rochrev@rochester.edu. Please put “Ask the Archivist” in the subject line.

In 1966, the juniors of the Class of 1968 would host the freshmen of 1970 and pose for the photograph at the top of this page.

Freshman Week dates to 1918, according to a 1926 Rochester Review; the tradition of Frosh Camp began in 1924, when 29 freshman men, 11 upperclassmen, and one member of the faculty traveled to the YWCA’s Camp Cory on Keuka Lake.

At the same time, women students were attending a three-day “house-party” at Camp Wacona at the Sea Breeze amusement park on Lake Ontario, hosted by members of the junior class. In 1926, one feature of the event was a re-enactment of the history of the University with one junior portraying President Anderson, while another took the role of Azariah Boody’s cow.

In 1938, the Democrat and Chronicle reported that Frosh Camps for the men were to be discontinued, in the belief that the camp experience was unnecessary in light of the facilities available at the River Campus, then eight years old.

Camp continued for the women students, even after the colleges for men and women merged in 1955. The location changed for the women through the years, and included the Rotary’s Sunshine Camp and the YWCA’s Camp Onanda at Canandaigua Lake. Class of 1954 alumna Carol Cronk Stoesen wrote in her scrapbook, “Frosh Camp was really loads of fun. Really a terrific way to meet the kids who will become one’s life-long friends.”

There was a brief return to Camp Cory for the men in 1961 and 1962; 1967 saw the last outing to Frosh Camp for women students. A Campus-Times editorial reflected on the sobering events of 1968: “The simple, naïve ‘Hi Frosh’ is a meaningless welcome for the Class of 1972. Rather let us raise our hands in the sign of peace and welcome you to the frontier of the concerned.” The activities of the “week” were shortened to four days and the speakers included journalist Russell Baker and, for the convocation address, psychologist Bruno Bettelheim.

While the orientation activities of 2014 have different names, they have the same purpose as those on the schedule for Freshman Week in 1964: convocation, registration, faculty advisor meetings, a bonfire, theater presentations, traditions new and old, and plenty of chances to bond with new classmates. Even Frosh Camp has a modern-day counterpart in FOOT (Freshman Orientation Outing Treks), now celebrating its 10th year.

archivistFRESHMAN FESTIVITIES: As part of Freshman Week activities in 1970, National Review editor William Buckley (above) took part in a debate with attorney William Kunstler, and blues great B. B. King played the Palestra for a concert that drew an estimated 3,500 people, including freshmen who got in free with their Frosh Week 1970 buttons. (Photo: Rochester Libraries/Department of Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation)

I remember B. B. King played on campus: can you tell me who opened for him?—Elizabeth Chifari ’73

B. B. King was part of the Freshman Week events in 1970. His music was a far cry from the fireside songs of Frosh Camp.

Remembering a Library Patron

Barbara Keil, a longtime supporter of the University’s libraries whose contributions were recognized with the naming of the University archivist position, died this summer. She was 93. Established in 2002 in honor of the generosity of Barbara and her husband, Jack Keil ’44, a life trustee of the University, the position was first held by Nancy Martin ’65, ’94 (MA).

“It is my honor to be the second John M. and Barbara Keil University Archivist and Rochester Collections Librarian,” says Melissa Mead, who was appointed to the position in 2012. “I remember their generosity every day.”

In the Campus-Times of September 19, 1970, reviewer Michael Stephens reported that the opening act was Ferguson, Davis, and Jones, and that the playlist was “strictly Top of the Pops type numbers with an especially bad rendition of ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix.’ ”

By contrast, King, with back-up by Sonny Freeman and the Unusuals, did not disappoint, although the heat in the Palestra caused them to take a break: “. . . the crowd was still stomping and shaking the floor when the house lights were turned on . . . it was without a doubt the finest major show at the UR in at least two years.”

Tickets for the concert, attended by an estimated crowd of 3,500, were $3 for upperclassmen, and freshmen got in free with their Frosh Week buttons.

s part of their orientation activities, the Class of 1974 would also hear a debate between William Buckley, editor of the National Review, and William Kunstler, the attorney for the Chicago Seven; and a convocation speech by historian Daniel Boorstin, at the time serving as the director of the National Museum of Science and Technology at the Smithsonian Institution and later Librarian of Congress.

The Palestra and its audiences have welcomed many performers, including Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, the Goo-Goo Dolls, Peter Frampton, the Violent Femmes, They Might Be Giants, and the Grateful Dead. The Kinks played the Palestra as part of Dandelion Day in 1990, after appearing at several Rochester venues between 1978 and 1985.

SCOUTING REPORT

Yellowjackets Look to Build on Past Success

Varsity teams get ready for the 2014–15 seasons.

By Dennis O’Donnell

sportsSENIOR SCHEDULE: Seniors Alex Swanger (clockwise from left), Ally Zywicki, and Kevin Sheehy look to lead the Yellowjackets. The soccer season for the men and the women got under way in late August while the basketball season tips off in November. (Photo: Athletics and Recreation)

Many of the Yellowjackets who helped lead last year’s athletic success return this season, including 12 who earned All-America honors.

Here’s a quick look at the 2014–15 athletic seasons:

Fall

Men’s soccer﻿﻿﻿: All-Americans Alex Swanger ’15 and Keith Grafmeyer ’15 headline a returning group to defend the UAA title. Last fall, the team advanced to the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA championships. Women’s soccer:﻿﻿﻿ Facing one of the toughest schedules in Division III, the Yellowjackets face two opponents ranked in the preseason top five and could face five teams ranked in the preseason top 25.

Field hockey﻿﻿: Ranked among the best in the country last season, the Yellowjackets are looking to post their eighth straight season of 10-plus victories and return to postseason play.

Cross country:﻿﻿﻿ Among the elite teams in the Atlantic Region last year, both the men’s and the women’s teams expect to be strong this fall. Mark Rolffs ’15 will anchor the men, looking to follow in the footsteps of last year’s NCAA qualifiers Adam Pacheck ’14 and Yuji Wakimoto ’14, while Katie Knox ’16 leads the women.

Football: ﻿Hoping to build on the excitement of a team that won two games in the final minute—one on the final play of the game—the Yellowjackets have two dozen juniors on this year’s roster, including all–Liberty League wide receiver Derek Wager ’16.

Volleyball: Ten veterans return, including last year’s all–UAA setter Xiaoyi Li ’15, for a season that includes four early season tournaments, one of which is at home.

sportsHIGHLIGHT REEL: Junior wide receiver Derek Wager (clockwise from top left), senior pitcher Brittany Grage, junior outfielder Lance Hamilton, and senior swimmer Lauren Bailey return this year for the Yellowjackets. (Photo: Athletics and Recreation)

Winter

Swimming and diving:﻿﻿﻿ Emily Wylam, formerly at Case Western Reserve University, will debut as Rochester’s head coach this year. She leads a women’s team that includes returning All-Americans Lauren Bailey ’15, Vicky Luan ’16, Emily Simon ’17, Khamai Simpson ’17, and Alex Veech ’17. They’re joined by All-American diver Danielle Neu ’17. Rochester will host the Liberty League championships.

Squash:﻿﻿﻿ Three All-Americans—Neil Cordell ’16, Ryosei Kobayashi ’17, and Mario Yanez Tapia ’17—return to a team that finished seventh last year and sent five Yellowjackets to the individual championships.

Basketball:﻿﻿﻿ Led by senior guards Kevin Sheehy ’15 for the men and Ally Zywicki ’15 for the women, both teams look to be in the thick of the UAA race.

Indoor track and field: The rosters for the men’s and the women’s teams each include a half dozen or more of qualifiers from last year’s ECAC championships.

Spring

Softball:﻿﻿ Seven starters—including Liberty League Pitcher of the Year Brittany Grage ’15—return to a team that last year advanced to the Division III championship round for the first time in school history.

Baseball:﻿﻿﻿ Led by all–UAA and all– Liberty League outfielder Lance Hamilton ’16, much of the lineup returns for the Yellowjackets, who advanced last spring to the championship game of the Liberty League.

Lacrosse﻿﻿﻿: Bolstered by last spring’s strong freshman class, the Yellowjackets produced one of the top defenses in Division III.

Golf:﻿﻿﻿ Returning all-freshman team honoree Matt vanNiekerk ’17 is expected to lead the Yellowjackets, who shot their best four-man score ever at NCAAs, where they finished 12th nationally.

Rowing﻿﻿﻿: All-American Emily Widra ’15 returns to help build on the success of victories by two shells at the Dad Vail national championships in 2012.

Track and field﻿﻿﻿: Both teams are expected to carry strong indoor seasons to the outdoors.

Tennis﻿﻿﻿: Much of the lineup is back for the men, who were ranked 37th nationally last year. The women return with a young roster that finished seventh at UAAs last spring.

Dennis O’Donnell is director of athletic communications.﻿

Image Inventors

Two University engineers helped transform the early days of the digital revolution, setting off a “virtuous cycle” of research and invention that continues to be felt decades later. That’s the largely untold story of the blue noise mask.

By Alvin Powell

bluenoiseMASK TEAM: Focusing her dissertation on research that would dramatically improve the way computers produced images, Mitsa (above) worked with Parker, a member of the electrical and computer engineering faculty (opposite) who early on saw the potential of the discovery. (Photo: Adam Fenster)

Theophano Mitsa ’91 (PhD) walked into her advisor’s office one morning in the early 1990s. Mitsa was there to talk about finishing her doctoral dissertation, a highly technical project on something called a “blue noise mask,” whose aim was to improve images in printers, fax machines, and computer screens.

“He said, ‘You know what, Theo? You have to start thinking about philanthropy,’ ” Mitsa recalls. “I said to myself, ‘What is [he] talking about? I’m hardly scraping by. I need philanthropy.’ ”

Sitting across from Mitsa that day was Kevin Parker, a junior professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rochester who had long been intrigued by the intersection of computer technology, medical research, and imaging.

“I guess he had an inkling this was going to be big from the beginning,” Mitsa says. “I never thought that I had anything big. Never in my wildest dreams.”

bluenoise (Photo: Adam Fenster)

Judging from that day’s evidence, Parker, who would go on to become dean of the engineering school for several years, was also adept at fortune telling.

In the midst of Mitsa’s reams of equations and lines of computer code, Parker saw what would turn out to be one of the most lucrative patents in the University’s history. The blue noise mask—a deceptively elegant technological process that transformed how electronic devices in the early days of the digital revolution rendered images—turned out to be the kind of paradigm-changing discovery that academics live for.

Since that day in the early 1990s, the invention of the blue noise mask has generated some $30 million in royalties for the University, the second most of any invention in Rochester’s history. It’s surpassed only by a Medical Center team’s work that helped lead to vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV), now marketed as Gardasil by pharmaceutical giant Merck and as Cervarix by GlaxoSmithKline.

And while the blue noise mask was invisible to consumers and became a standard part of printer drivers and other software, the story of the invention played out as an often grueling, up-close education in patent law involving some of the biggest players in the computer industry of the 1990s and 2000s.

But as the patents for the technology expire within the next year and as the power of personal computer technology has advanced beyond the often bandwidth-deprived days of the 1990s, the story has shifted to one of legacy for the University and its inventors.

The dollars have allowed the institution to invest in new faculty, programs, and buildings, kick-starting what Parker describes as a “virtuous cycle” in which invention begets funding which—once reinvested in teaching and research—begets more invention. That, in turn, brings in more royalties, to the benefit of the institution, its faculty, and students.

“If you can generate good tech transfer outcomes, that generates new things back at the university,” Parker says. “That allows the teaching and research mission to get bigger and better, and generates another round of things. That’s the ultimate goal.”

Rob Clark, the dean of the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences and senior vice president for research, says that, in addition to the financial benefits that have followed from the invention, the blue noise mask illustrates that inventions—even ones narrowly focused to solve a specific problem—can have broad impact. Its success, he says, sends an encouraging message to faculty about the benefit of working to translate basic discoveries beyond the lab.

A Quirk in Human Vision

In many ways, the blue noise mask was the perfect invention at the perfect time. By the early 1990s, desktop computers had a firm hold in homes and offices. The dot matrix printers that accompanied them in earlier years could only print in black and white. But those printers were giving way to ink-jet and laser printers, able to render shades of gray in black-and-white images. They could also create a wide range of colors from just three basic colors using a process called halftoning.

Those early devices, however, were slow, consumed gobs of computing power, and turned out images that awed no one. Among the unimpressed was Parker, a medical imaging expert.

For him, the print quality problems went beyond mere aesthetics. Parker saw CT scans and ultrasound images so poor that there was the chance something important could be missed.

“The medical images that we’d put out were awful, really awful, because of halftoning,” Parker says. “So I was very interested in that aspect of it. Everyone had an ink-jet or laser printer by then and yet the renditions were terrible.”

Mitsa arrived on Rochester’s campus as a Fulbright fellow from Greece in fall 1986. Interested in imaging, she nonetheless agreed to do her early graduate work with Edward Titlebaum, a professor of electrical and computer engineering who was working on computer coding related to the Star Wars defense program, Mitsa says.

After receiving her master’s degree a year later, Mitsa looked at her situation from a practical standpoint. If she received her doctorate based on defense work, her most likely employer would be the U.S. government or a defense contractor. As a foreign citizen, she realized, she was unlikely to get hired for such sensitive work.

So Mitsa talked with Parker, an affable, thoughtful professor and a careful researcher, who was full of ideas. One colleague described him as “the kind of guy you hope to find at a university.”

Parker was interested in the problems of quality and speed plaguing halftone images, and set Mitsa to the task of improving them.

“All of the halftone techniques of the time left a pattern, what we would call an artifact, a mistake, a characteristic flaw,” Parker says. “You’re adding a weird pattern onto what should be a natural medical image, whether a CT scan or an ultrasound. If the artifact goes right through a small tumor, you may never see that it’s a small tumor.”

The process of halftoning creates images by using a limited palette to create an array of tiny dots whose composition and density render different shades and colors. In black-and-white images, for example, the printer prints only black dots, but creates shades of gray by altering the location and density of the dots. Fewer dots and more white space results in lighter shades, allowing the creation of complex images.

Similarly, color images can be made using a halftone process that changes the dot composition and density of just three basic colors: cyan, yellow, and magenta.

Parker learned that the quality problems might be solved by adding “blue noise” to the image, a technique that would shift otherwise distracting errors in the printing process to higher wavelengths where, because of a quirk of the human eye, they would be less visible. But the existing blue noise algorithms were slow and cumbersome to use for the computers of that time, and were not free of unwanted patterns. Parker suspected that a fixed array of numbers could be constructed in advance that would contain all the required blue noise patterns. The result, in theory at least, would be images that were more pleasing, more accurate and, potentially, could be rendered more quickly in a “paint-by-numbers” scheme that any computer could rapidly use.

“Blue noise is high-frequency noise,” Mitsa says. “You want blue noise in halftoning because it takes all the noise in the halftoning process and moves it to the high frequencies where your eye cannot see it. So your eye gets the big picture, the shapes . . . it’s not disturbed by the distribution of dots in high frequencies.”

In fall 1987, Mitsa set to work, reading everything she could get her hands on about halftoning and then experimenting, making run after run on Rochester’s mainframe—desktop computers of the time had nowhere near the required computing power.

“Generating a good blue noise mask is a really, really tough problem that requires lots of computer time,” Parker says. “Once you make a good blue noise mask, once you crack that nut, you have it. It’s a set of numbers for the computer . . . it can paint-by-numbers your image really quickly and better than other halftone techniques.”

Mitsa input data in the morning, letting programs run all afternoon while she went over the previous day’s results, and then headed back to the computer lab in the evening to collect each day’s output.

“There was just tons of experimentation, tons of it,” she says. “We knew we wanted blue noise and, at some point, we tried a lot of different things with blue noise.”

The breakthrough happened one day in late 1988, when Parker walked into Mitsa’s office brimming with excitement for an idea that he had the night before.

“Kevin walked in one morning, very excited, and said, ‘I had an idea last night,’ ” Mitsa says. “He started drawing on the board in my office, and that pretty much was the birth of the blue noise mask because it captured the main idea.”

Neither was sure the idea would work, but eventually, they developed a set of instructions contained in a 256-by-256 grid of numbers that would direct printer drivers and other software how to handle blue noise.

Because the mask was a fixed set of numbers, the computer didn’t have to constantly recalculate as it created each image. That allowed images to be produced between 5 and 45 times faster than existing techniques. And, at a time when phone companies levied charges on long-distance calls and the office fax machine was an important way to send images and documents, the blue noise mask could cut long-distance fax costs by 75 percent, according to one estimate.

“If I’m to describe the blue noise mask, I’d use two adjectives: it’s beautiful and it’s powerful,” Mitsa says. “It’s beautiful because it’s simple, and it’s powerful because, although it’s fixed, although you don’t have to tweak anything in the mask for any image in the world, the blue noise mask . . . guarantees you’ll get a very high-quality image.”

After developing the first mask, the two continued to tweak it until they had it right. Mitsa also worked on the theory behind the mask, publishing it as part of her dissertation in 1991.

“To put it in a nutshell, my PhD is actually an array of numbers, which is kind of unique and rare,” Mitsa says. “It is a theory, but it’s also a physical thing, an array of numbers, a fixed array.” In 1991, she and Parker published their first article outlining the work, “Digital Halftoning Using a Blue Noise Mask,” in SPIE Electronic Imaging Conference (Vol. 1452). In 1992, the U.S. Patent Office issued patent number 5111310, “Method and Apparatus for Halftone Rendering of a Gray Scale Image Using a Blue Noise Mask,” for the invention.

To Market . . . and to Court

Though Mitsa’s main focus was earning her PhD, Parker understood that the advance had potentially broad commercial applications and began meeting with Research Corporation Technologies (RCT), an outside consultant that, in the early 1990s, many universities used to bring discoveries to market.

RCT Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Gary Munsinger says the advance was so technical that, at first, RCT officials didn’t understand the value it might have. After the inventors explained it to them, they set to work finding licensees, a process that took a couple of years to bear fruit.

“It’s only real when you start getting customers . . . happy customers, repeat customers,” Parker says. “Then you really know, OK, this is actually working.”

As encouraging as getting those initial customers was, it became apparent that, instead of paying licensing fees, some players in the industry went ahead and developed their own versions. RCT filed lawsuits against Epson, Lexmark, Hewlett Packard, and Microsoft, two of which went to trial and all of which were eventually settled in RCT’s—and the University’s—favor.

But before settlement, Parker, Mitsa, and RCT’s legal team had to go through years of court action.

“We had a saying, that decades come and decades go, because things just took forever,” says Timothy Reckart, then an attorney for RCT and now a partner at Arizona-based Rusing, Lopez & Lizardi.

Though they’re pleased at the ultimate result of the suits, Reckart says the results weren’t easily achieved. Part of the challenge, he says, was translating the technology into terms judges could understand and finding experts who could testify.

While the attorneys were in their element, both Parker and Mitsa say the experience was grueling. Parker described their opponents’ legal strategy as first denying any violation took place. Losing that, they would argue that the technology they used was different in important ways. Then, when RCT prevailed on those points, they’d argue that the patent was invalid, sometimes attacking the inventors’ integrity to do so.

“It was just awful, quite frankly,” Parker says. “The years of the infringement legal issues were not only very costly and time consuming to all parties involved, but also they were very distressing, very stressful.”

But in the end, also very successful. HP settled with RCT in 1999, taking out a license to use the mask. Epson and Lexmark followed in 2001, the same year RCT filed suit against Microsoft. That case went to trial, with Microsoft prevailing in federal district court in 2005, but RCT winning on appeal in 2008 and 2010.

Whether licensed initially or only after lengthy court battles, the blue noise mask spread widely. Bobby Hunt, a retired University of Arizona engineering professor and imaging expert, says its impact has been extensive. It was in printer drivers and other software, and was important in the operation of the Internet because it cut the amount of data that had to flow over early, slow connections.

“The impact was immediate in the printer business,” Hunt says. “I think virtually all computer printers use blue noise masks or something derivative from that. But there was an impact in the software business, as can be seen in the fact that Microsoft was motivated to embed blue noise masks in the generic printer driver software used for the cross-platform support of printing in all the different printers that may use Windows.

“There was also impact in the Internet. To make color images requires the transmission of color bytes over a channel. Reducing bits in transmission is important to minimizing user irritation in waiting for an image to load, as well as making more bandwidth available for data shared through the bottleneck of Internet pipes. This is particularly true for images on a cellphone, given the huge growth of smartphones that invite everyone to consume more data.”

Kicking Off the ‘Virtuous Cycle’

Blue noise mask licensing ultimately generated millions of dollars in royalties from licensees. After legal fees, the remainder

was split between the University and RCT, with Rochester’s share further split with the inventors.

A ‘Virtuous Cycle’

One of the University’s most lucrative patents, the invention of the blue noise mask has left a lasting legacy at the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences.

In what inventor Kevin Parker calls a “virtuous cycle,” the royalties have established funds to support faculty positions as well as research projects in biomedical engineering and in electrical and computer engineering. The goal is that with such support, faculty and students will be able to conduct research, develop innovative ideas, and commercialize discoveries and technology. Ideally, that process of invention, research, and funding becomes a continual cycle.

Endowed Professorships

Funded with royalties from the blue noise mask, three endowed professorships have been established in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and two endowed professorships have been established in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Faculty Development

Licensing revenue has supported funds for faculty research, graduate students, and for innovation and education. The royalties have also supported the addition of three faculty positions in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Programmatic Impact

In 2000, the University created the Department of Biomedical Engineering, supported in part by grants from the Whitaker Foundation. Thanks to income from the blue noise mask, the University was able to match a Whitaker grant that was important for the growth of the department and for the construction of Goergen Hall.

Mitsa and Parker Scholarship

The Theophano Mitsa and Kevin J. Parker Scholarship Fund provides scholarships for students in the Hajim School. Established in 2011, the endowed scholarship was first awarded in 2012, and its first recipient graduated in 2014 with a degree in biomedical engineering. ﻿

Scott Catlin, associate vice president of technology ventures, says the blue noise mask was unusually successful for a faculty invention. The University gets more than 100 disclosures of discoveries from faculty each year, only a few of which ever get to market. He describes the blue noise mask as a once-in-a-decade—or more—discovery.

In an effort to encourage the next blue noise mask, the University is beefing up its technology transfer office, and has created an $800,000 fund to take discoveries through the initial steps of product development, something companies are increasingly reluctant to do, Catlin says.

“They [the companies] don’t want to start from ground zero, they want you to prove that it, at some level, will be a useful product,” Catlin says. “Blue noise mask is hugely valuable and important. It has produced not just money but also recognition for the University. We’d love to have more, and that’s certainly the plan: to maximize opportunities.”

Parker is doing his part, working to ensure the proceeds boost his envisioned “virtuous cycle.” Currently the William F. May Professor in Engineering at Rochester, Parker says he became both department chair and dean in part to ensure the proceeds from the blue noise mask were used in ways that would have a positive and enduring impact on research and teaching there.

Blue noise mask revenues endowed five distinguished professorships—three in electrical and computer engineering and two in biomedical engineering. Richard Waugh, chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, says the money has also allowed the department to hire several junior faculty members, almost doubling the department’s faculty to 15. During the same period,

biomedical engineering, with more than 300 undergraduate majors, has grown to be the largest undergraduate department in the Hajim School.

“It came at a critical time,” Waugh says. “It enabled us to reach a critical mass of faculty and grow into the department we are now.”

Mark Bocko, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, says the blue noise mask funds allowed the department to expand in similar ways, from 15 to 20 faculty members, and also endowed a research initiation fund of about $50,000 per year. That money can be used to help get a project off the ground and running, to the point where it can attract government or foundation funding.

The funds were also used to match a faculty development grant from the Whitaker Foundation, which also awarded Rochester a special grant to help build the Robert B. Goergen Hall for Biomedical Engineering and Optics. The building, which is home to biomedical engineering, was named in recognition of University Trustee Robert Goergen ’60, who committed $10 million for its construction.

Parker himself continued to work on the blue noise mask, guiding graduate students through aspects of research. The license funding also supported work in medical imaging based on biomarkers, which created a spin-off company, Rochester-based VirtualScopics Inc.

While Parker got his virtuous cycle moving, Mitsa just got moving. She took an assistant professorship at the University of Iowa, where she shifted her focus from halftoning to data analysis in medical imaging.

That led to a stint at GE Medical Imaging in Milwaukee and then to Boston, where she was on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth for a time and a consultant at Harvard Medical School. Along the way, she became interested in a type of data analysis called temporal data mining and wrote the only book in the field. Today, she consults, blogs, and is at work on a second book from her home in Massachusetts.

As the blue noise mask patents expire, the peak of halftoning research has passed, Parker says. While some work continues, the enormous processing power and high resolution of current printers make the speed and quality gains from the blue noise mask less important.

“In one sense, it’s like a chess game that lasted 20 years, a very complicated chess game,” Parker says. “I couldn’t be sure what the outcome would be, but I knew if we did everything right, we would be able to make very significant advances. Fortunately, we didn’t spill the pieces on the way.”

Alvin Powell is a freelance writer based in Cambridge, Mass.﻿

A Great Gathering

Rochester has become the No. 1 destination for graduates of a selective college preparatory program in South Africa.

By Rachel Goldstein ’13

alaCONTINENTAL REACH: Students from 32 African countries are enrolled at the University, including several from a college preparatory program in South Africa.

Senegal native Rose Mbaye ’16 is the first person in her family to leave the African continent. Entering her third year at Rochester, she’s studying biomedical engineering with the intention of using her knowledge and skills to transform health care at home.

“Many countries in Africa, including Senegal, are behind in health care infrastructure and access,” says Mbaye. “My number one goal is to become the person who revolutionizes health care in developing countries. Everything that I have been doing at the University since arriving here has been toward reaching that goal.”

One of the key stepping stones in Mbaye’s transition from Senegal to Rochester was the African Leadership Academy (ALA), a selective college preparatory program in South Africa. Founded in 2008, the academy identifies African high school students who demonstrate leadership potential and helps set them on a path to becoming African leaders and entrepreneurs through a rigorous two-year pre-university program.

Many of ALA’s graduates attend U.S. colleges, and about 10 percent of those graduates have enrolled at Rochester—more than at any other university in the world. In August, the University hosted ALA’s fourth annual indaba, meaning “gathering” in Zulu—the largest conference in North America for the academy’s graduates who are pursuing higher education in the U.S.

“We have become the top destination for African Leadership Academy graduates because we’ve not only been committed to having so many of their students, but those students also have done very well,” says Jonathan Burdick, dean of admissions and financial aid at the University.

Mbaye is one of 37 graduates of the academy who have enrolled at Rochester. When she first arrived at ALA, she spoke little to no English, but now speaks Wolof, her native language, French, English, and some Spanish.

She spent the summer of 2014 working at the Kwazulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV in South Africa, developing an automated image analysis program to analyze the dynamics of cells infected with a type of tuberculosis.

She also worked at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, helping design a paper-based diagnostic device that health care clinics in developing countries could use as a low-cost, alternative technology for detecting antibody levels in the presence of infectious or autoimmune diseases.

Burdick says that Rochester’s role in helping provide an education to students who return to their home countries makes a significant impact on African society.

“It makes a bigger difference for somebody to get an engineering degree from a place like Rochester and go back to Sierra Leone, than it does to go back to the San Francisco Bay Area,” he says. “It’s the same education, but the impact is significantly greater.”

The first cohort of six ALA students graduated this spring, four of them with engineering degrees. One of them, Daniel Bonga ’14, from Sierra Leone, plans to complete a master’s degree at the University, and five have returned to their home countries.

Incoming freshman Rafael Muchanga ’18, from Mozambique, is culture-shocked but excited to begin a new adventure. “I am not here just to study,” says Muchanga, “but to design what I want to do and become a well-rounded, open-minded person.”

The indaba gave him an opportunity to learn more about American culture, meet new people, and explore Rochester.

In total, the University has enrolled students from 32 different African countries, including those who have entered through other programs or on their own.

“It’s all an indication of how big we’ve become as a trusted partner among African educators,” says Burdick. “Hosting the conference is part of a larger effort to make sure we are well connected up and down the continent.”

Rachel Goldstein ’13 writes for University Communications.﻿

From the Inside, Looking Out

To write as an insider, novelist Stephen Schottenfeld immerses himself in unfamiliar worlds.

By Karen McCally ’02 (PhD)

schottenfeldSTREET SMARTS: Novelist Schottenfeld pounds the pavement like an investigative reporter to gather the material he reshapes into deeply researched, character-driven stories. (Photo: Adam Fenster)

Huddy Marr is having a tough time of it. The protagonist in Stephen Schottenfeld’s novel Bluff City Pawn, he’s a businessman who knows his products and his customers well. And he aspires to improve his inventory, raise his bottom line, and attract a better sort of clientele.

But it’s after the financial crash of 2008. He’s smack in the city of Memphis, a place still haunted by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. And the business Huddy is in is pawnshops.

Schottenfeld, a winner of multiple awards for short stories, spent five years on the faculty of Memphis’s Rhodes College before coming to Rochester in 2008. In 2013, he was named the James P. Wilmot Assistant Professor of English. Originally from tony Westchester County, New York, he’s an unlikely person to write convincingly about the Southern white working class. But he approaches the world of his characters like a journalist, writing not what he knows, but what he comes to know, through immersion and deep research, and to which he brings a strong dose of empathy and imagination.

“I don’t really go up and accost people on the street,” says Schottenfeld, who came to know quite a few pawnbrokers before embarking on the novel, his first, which was released by Bloomsbury USA in August. “If you come in, and you’re respectful, and you want to learn about their lives, most of the time they’re open to talking.”

The inspiration for the story came from a single street called Summer Avenue. He became acquainted with it on an exploratory drive—something he likes to do often, and did as soon as he arrived in Memphis in 2003.

“A lot of it was in disrepair,” he says of the avenue and its long stretch of commercial strips. “The nicest places were fast food restaurants.”

Pawnshops, check cashing joints, and used auto lots dotted the avenue.

“I like to write about work lives,” Schottenfeld says. “I like the way it brings a specificity of place, a specificity of language, a kind of code that I investigate. I tell them I want to write fiction, that I’m not a journalist, which always helps actually,” he says. “It makes them feel like I’m not asking for anyone’s name. I’m just looking for kind of the texture of what they do.”

Upon this texture, Schottenfeld invented a narrative of three brothers—the ever-striving Huddy, the itinerant Harlan, and the highly leveraged real estate dealer Joe—each of whom represents a different aspect of the economic lives of the contemporary white working class.

Schottenfeld has been praised for addressing social class tension in his work.

“I was thrilled to see that Stephen’s book adopts a pawn shop proprietor as a protagonist,” says novelist Anthony Doerr. “Huddy lives at the intersections between all sorts of economic classes, and his financial desperation—his yearning for a better future—is something I think a lot of Americans are feeling right now.”

Schottenfeld says the characters he created are not necessarily mirrors of the people he met and talked to on Memphis’s Summer Avenue. If they had been, he’d have been writing nonfiction. “I’m not a nonfiction writer,” he says, adamantly. “I’m interested in getting behind what I’m seeing to some sort of fictional truth—that truth about where these characters had grown up and where Memphis was in terms of race and class; what the suburbs represented to them, and what they are.”

Could he pull that off as an outsider? To Schottenfeld, that’s the wrong question to ask. “Not being from the South, in writing a book like this, what I said to myself was, ‘How could I live in Memphis and not write about Memphis?’ ”

Since his arrival at the River Campus, Schottenfeld has taught fiction writing and screenwriting, in addition to modern and contemporary literature. He relishes dialogue, and counts numerous playwrights—such as Harold Pinter, David Mamet, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Caryl Churchill—as among the writers he most admires.

Schottenfeld is a graduate of some of the most prestigious writing programs in the nation, including the master’s program in fiction writing at Johns Hopkins and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Yet he says he came to writing in a different way than you often hear writers describe.

“I feel like the typical writer narrative is that they were compelled to write stories to imitate this thing that they love, which is reading. Although I liked reading, it fit into a lot of other things I liked to do, like play sports and hang out with friends,” he says. He didn’t start “serious reading,” he says, until he began taking creative writing classes in college at the University of Michigan. “In some ways,” he says, “I got it all backwards.”

As he was completing the final work on Bluff City Pawn, Schottenfeld got started on a couple of short stories. He plans another novel. “I’d like it to be about Rochester,” he says.

Moving On Out

An excerpt from Bluff City Pawn, the debut novel by Stephen Schottenfeld, the James P. Wilmot Assistant Professor of English.

bluff_city (Illustration: John W. Tomac for Rochester Review)

A hollow boom outside—Huddy jumps, the shop rattles—then screeching metal. The two sounds, explosion and collision, confuse, and Huddy waits for more noises to point it somewhere, screams or curses, horns or sirens, and when he hears nothing he rushes out to see what accident or mess. He looks to his left past the grocery that’s gone, and instead of chaos and flames there’s a semi in the driveway, hydraulics raised, the offloaded Dumpster behind it.

Three Mexican laborers sitting on a truck bed, a contractor at the storefront. About time, Huddy thinks. The building’s been abandoned for over a year, so at least it’s activity. Maybe they’re putting in something helpful, like an auto-parts store, which always works perfect with a pawnshop, brings in the working man. Or maybe some neutral business, insurance, whatever, neither help nor hurt. But don’t let it be public assistance—or some nightmare like a methadone clinic, addicts hanging around pissing and crapping over everything. Once that scenario pops up, Huddy finds himself walking over there just to confirm what’s not going in. He goes straight to the contractor, who’s posting a permit on the wall, and then he sees another worker appear in the middle doorway, a set of plans tucked under his arm, looking like the superintendent, so he slides over. “What you putting in here?” Huddy asks.

The man untucks the plans, squeezes his hands over them. “XGC Services.”

“What’s that?”

The man squints. “Blood bank.”

Huddy’s face smacked with the news. “Blood bank?” he says, just sick to repeat it. This building, long and low, same size as his own, but now it’s a tower, grown colossal.

“Manny!” the man shouts, decisive. “Wreck out the front room!” He jerks his thumb behind him and Huddy watches the lead guy turn and translate instructions to the other two, who climb back to the toolbox. “Who you?” the man says, chin up-twitched, eyes fixed and narrowed.

“I run a shop next door.”

The man glances to his right, eyes passing around, then back at Huddy, annoyed to have searched. “Well, I guess you’re getting a neighbor.”

Huddy’s lips pinch together. He scans the building’s three doorways, the work crew going in to start the demo. “Where’s it going?”

“Everywhere,” Huddy hears back. “It’s the whole place.” And when he looks over, the man’s eyes are wide.

“We already got a blood bank downtown.”

The man shrugs. “Got another one now.”

Huddy thinks, Blood bank. A bunch of people with nothing. They’ll hang around and harass—need a drink of water, need the bathroom, need the phone. “When’s it going in?”

“Three months,” the man says casually, but to Huddy it comes out like a warning. “Gut it out, frame it. Could be six.”

Huddy winces, like he’s a donor getting his arm pricked without payment.

He hears the sledgehammer knocking down a partition wall.

The man’s teeth flash as he watches Huddy leave. “Guess you ain’t giving any blood.”

Half of his meal uneaten, but Huddy can’t touch it. It’ll take less than a week after the bank’s opened before it’s wall to wall in there. And then they’ll be here. On a rainy day, a crowd’s gonna be all up under his canopy. Two hookers stroll by, one in red spandex, bright and tight; the other in jeans, whale-tail underwear peeking out the back. A car honks, hips sway and turn, but the driver doesn’t stop, was only teasing.

He calls home again.

“Huddy, what you doing? It’s naptime.” Christie whispering mad.

But the clock says earlier. “I thought I was calling before that.”

“I put him down an hour ago. The time change.”

He shakes his head, forgot. “Why didn’t you turn the ringer off ?”

“I left it on, in case Harlan called. Was he in Florida last night or did he call you from the road?”

“They’re putting a blood bank in the next building.”

“Damn, he’s getting up. He’s always up.”

Customer comes in. “I gotta go,” Huddy says.

The man dragging his way over to the counter. He holds out a necklace that’s all kinked and damaged.

Huddy gets the scale, weighs it. Six pennyweights. “I can give you forty bucks.”

“Forty?”

“This has no value as a necklace. I can only sell its weight. It’s not a necklace anymore.”

“Come on now.” The man flings out a hand and glares. Points at the necklace like it was fine jewelry until Huddy smashed it and cheated with the scale. “That’s more than forty.”

“Not from this side of the counter,” Huddy says and he pushes the scrap back. “Thanks for stopping in.” The man’s anger spreads to confusion, then grief. “Maybe you got something else you can bring me,” Huddy says, and the man nods, slips inside himself, “Yeah, okay, might.”

Huddy wants to shut the door and unplug the phone and think about his worries—Barnes plus blood bank—figure out how to tell them both to Joe. He calls Joe, gets the voice mail, hangs up, tries the office, gets the secretary: “Do you want his voice mail?”

“Just tell him . . . not to forget about my lights.” But that’s not enough of his worry anymore. Tell him I’m tired of him getting his rent but me not getting my living. Joe with his monthly rent and his weekly cash. And his shopping sprees, cherry-picking the best jewelry from the showcases, only paying cost so Huddy can’t make a profit. Just saying, “Book it,” then stepping to the back to tape his name on sale items that haven’t cleared thirty days.

Huddy frowns at the bulky analog TVs on the shelf. He’s in no man’s land with televisions; the flats ain’t coming in yet, and he’s stuck with those.

Then a lever-action collector comes in, mentioning the L. C. Smith double-barrel he’s just seen at Liberty Pawn, over on Summer, a gun he knows Huddy would want for himself. “Your eyeballs gonna jump when you see it. Man named Keller—he’s got it locked away ’cause he ain’t letting the yahoos play with it. It’s so clean and smooth, you gonna think it’s a reproduction.” Huddy decides to close up and chase down a special gun.

Excerpt from Bluff City Pawn (Bloomsbury, 2014). All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Game Changer

lyonsDATA FIELD: Mike Lyons ’88S (MBA) will help bring a more data-driven approach to the Buffalo Bills’ game and business strategies as the head of the team’s new analytics department. (Photo: Adam Fenster)

Mike Lyons ’88S (MBA) will never forget January 3, 1993. The lifelong Buffalo Bills fan sat slumped in the stands of what was then Rich Stadium, his spirits dashed as halftime descended on his beloved team, already down by 25 points in a mild-weather matchup against the Houston Oilers.

Friends were packing up their seat cushions and coolers, sparing themselves the slow torture of a certain loss and bemoaning a sorry end to the regular season. They indulged in a little lighthearted heckling of Lyons and his cockeyed refusal to throw in the rowdy rag.

“Oh, they said I was out of my mind,” he recalls. “But I was an optimistic Bills fan then, and I still am today.”

Such stalwart support has had its rewards. Staying in his seat that day, Lyons watched as the Bills staged a history-making comeback—still the biggest single-game turnaround for a team in the NFL.

But for the past 15 seasons, the team has failed to make a playoff appearance, and Lyons hopes to be in on the start of a bigger turnaround.

He has parlayed his passion for the squad into a head-office position that he calls a “dream come true.” Named last November as director of the Bills’ first analytics department, he will collect and use data points from both the business and sporting sides of the franchise to optimize the team’s decisions on everything from draft choices to fans’ experiences to the performances of each player—all with the goal of increasing the team’s tally of wins.

Call it a career Hail Mary, Lyons’s opportune, why-not-give-it-a-shot vie for the job. His sister, Brigid Maloney, an attorney living in Buffalo, caught last year’s press conference during which team president and CEO Russ Brandon announced plans to create an analytics department—a move growing in popularity across the NFL, with about a third of the league’s teams by then already employing a more data-driven approach to team management.

Maloney knew, as head of such an effort, her brother could put to use the considerable information management skills he’d been honing the last 26 years at Xerox.

“I didn’t think this kind of job existed,” Lyons says.

Much of Lyons’s work will be done ahead of, rather than during the games, and he’ll travel with the team only occasionally. And he need not fret about stepping on any cleats; he’ll present objective analyses to the coaches, who will then make the delicate decisions about whether and how they’re applied on the field.

“Rather than using simple observations, we’re able to quantify characteristics,” he says. “It’s just a better way to understand likelihoods.”

Lyons, who earned a bachelor’s degree in molecular engineering at MIT before pursuing an MBA at Simon, hasn’t missed a Bills home game since 1989. And while the team last made the playoffs in 1999, he remains an undaunted optimist. Unlike that lonesome halftime two decades ago, these days he’s hearing the cheers of his friends and family, including his wife, Christine ’93 (MS), ’99S (MBA), daughter, Chelsea, and sons, Nate, Rochester freshman Zach, and Luke.

“Their eyes lit up,” Lyons says, remembering the moment he told his boys what their dad would be doing for a living.

Squad system analyst Peter Linton, who makes up the other half of the team’s analytics department, says his new colleague’s kids have good reason to be proud: Lyons’s addition to the roster strikes a robust balance for the Bills of brains and brawn.

“Mike knows how to get out of the data what nobody has before,” Linton says. “It’s just a great thing to do what you love and to see it manifest on the field.”

—Melissa Lang

Poker’s Newest Face

dimmigWORLD CHAMPION: Dimmig won the World Series of Poker, the ultimate poker competition, in Las Vegas in June. (Photo: Joe Giron)

Professional life began typically enough for Jonathan Dimmig ’05, ’06S (MBA). After earning two degrees at Rochester, he returned to his native Buffalo to take a job as a financial analyst. For 10 years he worked in the field, while pursuing a hobby he’d been introduced to by one of his roommates at Rochester: poker.

In 2012, Dimmig took a dramatic step. He left his job and moved to Las Vegas to make a go of it as a professional poker player.

“It was obviously a big risk,” he says.

And a worthwhile one, apparently. In June, he prevailed over nearly 8,000 competitors around the world to win the six-week-long 2014 World Series of Poker—and take home more than $1 million in winnings.

A lifelong hockey enthusiast and diehard fan of the Buffalo Sabres, Dimmig says the World Series of Poker is “like the Stanley Cup"—except in this contest, a Buffalonian came out on top. About 15 of Dimmig’s friends traveled to Vegas to watch him play at the final table, where he wore a Buffalo Sabres shirt with pride.

According to Alex Weldon, a game designer and poker player writing on the website pokerforums.org, “Dimmig came out on top of the second largest field in live poker history.” Yet, “Dimmig would not have been anyone’s pick when the final table first kicked off.”

He began the final table in sixth place. Moreover, while the final table is called the “Millionaire Maker,” Dimmig, a relatively young player, had never won more than five figures.

Dimmig says his poker prowess comes down to math.

“It’s a heavily math-based profession. So if you don’t have a background in math, you’re at a slight disadvantage. At Simon, they definitely teach you a math-based approach to solving problems. So that approach has given me a leg up on the competition.”

Las Vegas is the world’s center of professional poker. But London is another hot spot, and Dimmig hopes to travel there and elsewhere in Europe to play.

“Looking forward from a poker perspective,” he says, “I definitely want to play in some more tourneys. But one of the things I’m most looking forward to is, I’m actually writing a book.”

“I have no background in writing whatsoever,” he says. But he had an unusually vivid dream, and it became an idea for a novel. He’s completed several chapters. “I think it can be very successful,” he says.

—Karen McCally ’02 (PhD)

Where the Wind Blows

bertschSMOOTH SAILING: Bertsch, a competitive balloonist, won the women’s national championship title in August. She competes in Poland in September. (Photo: Steve Pope/AP Images for Rochester Review)

Growing up in Indianola, Iowa, Christine Bertsch ’00 was entrenched in the world of ballooning. A town of about 15,000 residents, located in central Iowa just south of Des Moines, Indianola is host to the annual National Balloon Classic, as well as home to the National Hot Air Balloon Museum and to the U.S. Ballooning Hall of Fame.

“I started crewing when I was seven,” says Bertsch. Accompanying a pilot, reading data off a computer, she was captivated by the experience of being in the air. “It was very peaceful,” she says. “The only noise you heard was the burner.”

After graduating from Rochester, she returned home, earned a balloonist’s pilot license, and began ballooning competitively. This summer, she rose to new heights, winning the women’s national champion title at the 2014 U.S. National Hot Air Balloon Championship in Longview, Texas.

For the uninitiated, Bertsch explains that balloon “races,” as they’re called, aren’t a test of speed, but of accuracy. Balloonists follow a course consisting of several on-the-ground targets. The goal is to fly over the targets, dropping a beanbag at each one. Points are assigned depending on how close each bag comes to its target.

In the four-day Longview competition, rainy weather caused delays and overcast skies made flying a challenge. Balloonists are required to stay below the clouds. “If there’s a wind direction that you want above the clouds, you can’t go through the clouds to get it,” Bertsch says. “You have to plan your flight to always be below the clouds.”

Guiding a balloon under any set of conditions is a complex task that Bertsch calls “an art form.”

“We don’t have a steering wheel. All we have is the wind. It’s an art form to be able to find the right winds.”

Like all artists, she works with a few tools. Her balloon’s basket is outfitted with two altimeters—one to measure height above sea level and another to measure height above ground level—a variometer to measure vertical velocity, and a GPS.

Then there’s the balloon itself. Bertsch calls hers Champagne Supernova, after a 1996 hit by the band Oasis.

She designed it herself, drawing up the plans on computer-aided design software. There are two types of balloons—balloons designed for recreational flying and those designed for racing. Hers is a racing balloon. “Racing balloons are a new trend,” she says. “They’re very slender, allowing you to go up and down extremely fast.”

Bertsch says her balloon can take her up or down nearly three times as fast as a recreational balloon—as far as 1,800 feet a minute.

It’s enough to make even a spectator dizzy.

“I won’t lie,” she says. “I’ve thrown up before.”

To obtain her flying license, Bertsch took the same ground school course required to become a private or commercial aircraft pilot. She learned about aerodynamics, weather, navigation and instrumentation, and Federal Aviation Administration regulations. The FAA administered her in-air test.

The process was rigorous, but not especially difficult for Bertsch, who earned two separate degrees in her four years at Rochester—a bachelor of science in biomedical engineering as well as a bachelor of arts in English.

These days, she teaches engineering at Indianola High School. After working as an engineer for a private company, Bertsch says “I had the opportunity to teach and thought it would be a great way to get more students excited about engineering.”

In September, she’ll miss a few days of school as she travels to Leszno, Poland, for the first ever Women’s World Championship. “It’s like our version of the Olympics,” she says.

—Karen McCally ’02 (PhD)

Getting in the Tablet Habit

hansenLOOKING FORWARD: Hansen is headed to Stanford to develop a model for profitable digital versions of regional newspapers. (Photo: Hyunsoo Leo Kim for Rochester Review)

Recent years have not been easy ones in the newspaper business, but for journalist Louis Hansen ’89 those challenges simply underscore the need to find ways to keep regional papers profitable and engaging—because they are critical to their communities, he says.

That’s why he’ll spend this academic year at Stanford, as a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow, developing a model for regional papers to produce afternoon tablet publications with exclusive content.

“The irony of online news and online publications is that more people are consuming the work that daily newspapers do, but newspapers are making less money,” Hansen says. That’s because advertising, more than subscriptions, is where newspapers have found their profits, and as advertising has migrated online, it has brought less revenue than print advertisements once did.

Last August Hansen’s paper, The Virginian Pilot, launched an iPad equivalent of an evening paper, for which Hansen is an enterprise and investigative reporter. While most papers have tablet apps, they’re really a recreation of their website. What the Norfolk, Virginia, paper was doing was unique at the time of the launch: “We were delivering stories you wouldn’t find anywhere else in our publication,” says Hansen.

And the stories found in regional papers are news covered nowhere else, he says. When it comes to city councils, local government, and other regional institutions, newspapers are still the source for investigative journalism and other long-form, quality writing.

Through his Knight fellowship, Hansen—who was once sports editor at the Campus Times and earned a master’s degree in journalism from NYU—is hoping to develop a model for other newspapers to follow. He’ll take classes at Stanford in business, design, and other departments to find ways to make tablet publications work better. His goal is to help newspapers publish profitably on tablets and to produce quality journalism that appeals to readers, serves the community, and supports the newspaper.

“I hope it’s something practical,” he says, “something that really can help improve what newspapers do.”

—Kathleen McGarvey

Sportswear With Zip

petersRE-OUTFITTED: Thanks to Peters’s magnetic zipper, wearers of some Under Armour sportswear will be able to zip with one hand. (Photo: Adam Fenster)

peters (Photo: Adam Fenster)

Modern athletic apparel incorporates some fairly high technology—usually in the form of sophisticated fabrics engineered to keep the body warm in the cold, cool in the heat, and dry year around. But one feature of sportswear—the zipper—has remained virtually the same for more than a century.

That may change. This summer, the popular sportswear manufacturer Under Armour began to roll out clothing outfitted with “MagZip”—a magnetic zipper, operable with one hand and minimal dexterity, invented by engineer Scott Peters ’01, ’02 (MS) with design help from his friend Dave Lyndaker and guidance from his mother, Nancy Peters, an occupational therapist.

Peters came up with the idea watching his uncle struggle with a standard zipper. His uncle has myotonic dystrophy, a degenerative muscle disease. MagZip features a unique catch design, and the ends of the zipper are magnetic. “They pull together and lock together,” Peters says. “If you’re standing up and the zipper is straight, you can essentially pull” with one hand.

The three partners filed for a patent, formed a company called DNS Designs, and approached “about a half dozen” companies, Peters says, before Under Armour approached them. “They’d been looking at doing some innovative zipper work. So they were out there searching patents on the Internet,” Peters says of the company.

The magnetic zipper has advantages for all kinds of users, including users wearing bulky gloves or carrying items.

DNS Designs is only one of Peters’s enterprises. After earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemical engineering, he worked for Intel, General Motors, and Progressive Machine and Design, doing processing and manufacturing engineering, before founding Construction Robotics, in Victor, New York, outside Rochester. For now, DNS Designs is his part-time gig. But w

hile MagZip is exclusive to Under Armour sportswear for the time being, Peters has begun working with other companies. “We continue to develop ideas on the side,” he says.

—Karen McCally ’02 (PhD)

Network News

What’s at stake in the debate over net neutrality?

Interviews by Kathleen McGarvey

Since its inception three decades ago, one of the hallmarks of the Internet has been its openness. But as traffic has grown and demands for broadband speed have increased, the issue of “net neutrality”—that all traffic on the Internet should be treated the same—has become a matter of public debate. Last winter, an appeals court ruled against Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations that protect net neutrality. In response, Tom Wheeler, commissioner of the FCC, in May made public a plan, still under discussion, that prevents Internet service providers (ISPs) from blocking websites but also allows for a “fast lane” to which companies could buy access to ensure speedy delivery of their content.

The FCC collected more than a million online public comments on net neutrality over the summer.

Two Rochester alumni who are experts in technology share their analyses.

Dikran Kassabian ’92 (MS)

Senior technology director at the University of Pennsylvania

Preserving the ability to innovate is what’s at stake. Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu, who coined the term “net neutrality,” likes to say that net neutrality lets anyone with passion and creativity take their shot, opening a business on the Internet where small startups can compete with major corporations.

Think about it. At one time, Google was a start-up competing against AltaVista from Digital Equipment Corp., the dominant web search engine at the time. If Google gave better results, but those results were slow to be returned because Digital had somehow purchased faster or better access, or because ISPs were slowing or blocking Google responses, then Google might never have made it. As consumers, we want competition, and we want the best ideas and technologies to win in the marketplace.

Today the interesting example is probably Netflix. While Netflix once competed against your local video rental store, today they more often compete against on-demand access from your local cable TV company. But that cable TV company is quite likely to also be your home broadband ISP. We want to be very careful here. On the one hand, we don’t want to over-regulate, and we want to let home broadband ISPs manage their networks—and even offer commercially viable services, perhaps including expedited network traffic. At the same time we have to recognize the risk to Netflix and others in this situation. It isn’t hard to imagine situations in which the business arrangement is too expensive to be practical to young start-up companies or in which a lack of competition results in the broadband ISP wielding undue influence. Would we want the broadband ISP, especially if it were the only game in town, to be permitted to slow Netflix traffic in favor of its own on-demand offering?

The FCC proposal for allowing “fast lane” business arrangements is probably the key net neutrality question right now, and unlike some net neutrality advocates, I think it probably can be compatible with net neutrality. In fact, in 2010 I argued in favor of fast lanes as long as the ISPs were transparent about such arrangements, as long as they were available to all and reasonably affordable, and as long as adequate competition existed. It’s that last point that has me concerned in 2014. With greater home broadband ISP market-share held by a small number of players, competition is reduced. The small number of providers could conceivably have disproportionate influence.

If there were more competition in the home broadband ISP space, no single ISP would be in a very strong position to demand expensive traffic handling arrangements from the companies that provide application services on the Internet. That would be a built-in check in the system. Lacking competition, I think the risks we are discussing here are amplified. These are certainly interesting times for the Internet.

Tracy Beth Mitrano ’81

Director of the Institute of Internet Culture, Policy and Law at Cornell and principal of Mitrano and Associates, a consulting firm for higher education and information technology

The good news is that this is now a conversation that consumers and citizens are willing to have. Net neutrality used to be a specialist’s term. The not-so-good news: it’s a difficult concept because it involves technology, business models of somewhat different industries—Google, Facebook, communications companies—and what the public wants the Internet to be, which is open, accessible, and free. And it’s caught up in an area of law that’s translucent at best.

I support Commissioner Wheeler’s recommendations, which include “fast lane” provisions and also net neutrality rules. And here’s why: right now there are no net neutrality rules. There have been two significant cases, and they’ve established pretty clearly that the FCC may not, with its current degree of authority, impose net neutrality rules on companies. So what I see Commissioner Wheeler doing is creating a Solomonic response to the current situation.

The fast lane is more about the financial relationships between communications companies and the new Internet giants, such as Netflix, Facebook, and Google. It has been misinterpreted, I think, to be about a slow lane for consumers. I am not so sure about that as an automatic conclusion from the basic concept; moreover, were that to be the case, it is what the net neutrality rules counterbalance. There is also a question about who’s going to pay for the infrastructure. The United States now ranks about 31st internationally for broadband service. If Internet giants begin to pick up some of that cost for deployment, I am OK with that.

Finally, social policy should be developed to remove the obstacles to accessibility. We did that for electrification and telephone service. And here’s where people say we don’t want to classify the Internet as a public utility with those regulations. But why confine ourselves to 20th-century categories? Congress should be creating a whole new communications law, with an understanding of the Internet as a new cultural phenomenon that requires new law to conform to its potential, not restrain it.

Mitrano is working on a book titled Culture, Law, and Politics of the Internet 2.0: Communications, Commerce, Content, and Communities in 21st-Century Cyberspace.

TRIBUTE

John Illig ’86: Coach, Writer, Outdoorsman

tributeLEADER IN SQUASH: Illig was president of the men’s division of the College Squash Association. (Photo: Courtesy of Middlebury Athletics)

John Illig was a boisterous evangelist for the oeuvre of the late David Foster Wallace; he sent copies of Wallace’s books to friends, spammed our email inboxes with links to his essays, and annually harangued me to set aside a summer to wade through Wallace’s novel Infinite Jest. So in late July, as I rode an escalator out of the Washington, D.C., Metro, I thought of John when I saw a young woman, dressed for what might have been her first job, carrying a copy of that very book. I imagined she was a recent Middlebury College graduate, a member of one of the squash teams John so masterfully coached, marching through the giant novel at his insistence. I wish I had stopped her so we could have made the connection and punched up John’s number on one of our phones to let him know. He would have loved it.

A week later, John had died.

Having been the bearer of the tragic news of John’s death to much of the squash community, as well as to the friends John and I shared growing up in Rochester, I found myself in the best place to be in the wake of his passing: on a squash court, teaching a group of kids many of the techniques John had taught me. A member of the varsity tennis and squash teams as a student at Rochester, John pursued a career as a tennis and squash coach that lasted 23 years, taking him to Colby and Bates Colleges, and then to Middlebury in 2007. Last year, he was named president of the men’s division of the College Squash Association.

I set my racquet aside and told the kids about John. I told them about the rare amalgam of exuberance, thoughtful consideration and insight that made John such a brilliant teacher, and about his delight in finally meeting Lolly, the woman of his characteristically unbounded dreams, whom he married two years ago.

John majored in English at Rochester and spent summers during his youth at a wilderness camp in the Adirondack Mountains. He wrote extensively about his love of hiking and the majesty of the outdoors. His published accounts of his travels along the great trails of North America—the Appalachian, the Pacific Crest, and the Continental Divide—reveal his insatiable curiosity, his determination to complete a task, and his infectious sense of humor, especially in regard to himself. John had been working on a novel at the end of his life.

Although we communicated frequently, the last time I actually saw John was at the women’s college squash championships at Yale, about a year and a half ago. He was busy coaching, but as he descended from the gallery to advise one of his athletes between games, John stopped and called back to me “Hey, how’s the writing going?” In the midst of a critical moment, and completely out of context, something had reminded him that I was beginning a big project, inspired, in no small way, by his own published work. This, ultimately, was the thing about John: he wanted us all to know, with the entirety of his great enthusiasm, that he remembered what each of us wanted to be when we grew up.

—Jim Moore

Moore is a teacher and squash coach at Blair Academy in New Jersey. His daughter, Emma, is a member of the College Class of 2016.﻿

Books & Recordings

Books

Russian-Ottoman Borderlands: The Eastern Question Reconsidered

Edited by Lucien Frary and Mara Kozelsky ’04 (PhD)

University of Wisconsin Press, 2014

Kozelsky, associate professor of history at the University of South Alabama, coedits a series of essays exploring the long-term consequences of the violence, population dislocations, and rebellions in the 19th century in the borderlands between Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The collection draws on new material from Russian and Ottoman archives.

The Spirit of Josephine

By Florence Ladd ’58 (PhD)

Côte-d’Or Press, 2014

Ladd tells the story of an African-American singer in Paris who renews her ties to her home and family in Louisville, Kentucky, after decades of separation. Set in Paris, the novel explores the expatriate experience, social mobility of African Americans, and the dynamics of family reunions.

The Heavenly Casino

By Carl Filbrich ’72

Five Star Press, 2014

Filbrich tells the story of an amateur Las Vegas detective who investigates the murder of a televangelist who had planned to open a Christian-themed casino.

Love Story: Anne and Wolfgang Titze Collection

Edited by Clayton Press ’71

Verlag für modern Kunst, 2014

Press, a partner in the art advisory service Linn Press, edits and contributes to the book accompanying the premiere exhibit at the Belvedere in Vienna, Austria, of the 130-work collection of international contemporary art of the French-Austrian couple Anne and Wolfgang Titze.

Music for the Melodramatic Theatre in Nineteenth-Century London and New York

By Michael Pisani ’96E (PhD)

University of Iowa Press, 2014

Pisani, professor of music at Vassar College, examines the multiple functions of music in 19th-century theater, the most common venue for music performance in England and the United States at that time.

A Handbook for Managing Strategic Processes: Becoming Agile in a World of Changing Realities

By Michael Lodato ’59 (MA)

AuthorHouse, 2014

Lodato brings his nearly five decades of experience in strategic planning to bear on a step-by-step guide for business executives to develop an agile strategic management process.

Bearing Fruit

By Leslie Neustadt ’71

Spirit Wind Books, 2014

Neustadt presents a poetic memoir based on her experience of leaving a demanding career in law following a diagnosis of an incurable form of blood cancer.

The Mystery of the Milton Manuscript

By Barry Libin ’65

Urim Publications, 2014

Libin tells a story of an Oxford University graduate student who takes up the quest to find the alleged lost manuscript of English poet John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Blue Moon

By Dale Dapkins ’68

Whiz Bang Publications, 2014

Self-styled social science fiction novelist Dapkins writes of “a world where all male babies have had their psych-deviator complex removed at birth,” resulting in almost no violence. “But before his operation, Albert Einstein escapes to planet Earth to sow mayhem.”

Cousins

By Linda Chalmer Zemel ’66, ’68W (MA)

CreateSpace, 2014

Zemel, publisher and editor of the literary journal Person, Place, Thing, and faculty member at SUNY Buffalo State College, explores “why cousins are like friends but more,” in a book for children ages three to eight. The book pairs answers with images of classic paintings of families across centuries and around the globe. Paintings are from the Smithsonian’s National Gallery of Art.

Chief of Diamonds

By Ira Lichtenstein ’78

CreateSpace, 2014

Lichtenstein tells a fictional story based on the life of Alexander Joy Cartwright Jr., a member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and often cited as the “father of modern baseball.”

American Past Time

By Len Joy ’73, ’74S (MBA)

Hark! New Era Publishing, 2014

Joy presents his first novel, a story of a major league baseball pitcher about to debut with the St. Louis Cardinals. Set in 1953, the story follows the player as he contends with the loss of fans and support.

Hanging by a Hair

By Nancy Cohen ’70, ’70N

Five Star Press, 2014

A couple moves into a new neighborhood to discover a murder next door. The novel is part of Cohen’s Bad Hair Day mystery series. Cohen has also released Warrior Lord (Wild Rose Press), part of her Drift Lord paranormal romance series.

Derelict

By Lisa Cohen ’84

Interrobang Books, 2014

Cohen presents a science fiction romance in which a precocious teenage girl, expert in computer code and stuck on a space station, seeks an escape from her controlling family.

Athlete, Not Food Addict: Wellspring’s Seven Steps to Weight Loss

By Daniel Kirschenbaum ’71

New Horizon Press, 2014

Kirschenbaum offers an approach to weight loss based on the premise that to lose weight sustainably, people must become “weight controller athletes,” training their bodies for health just as athletes do. Kirschenbaum is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern and president of Wellspring, a provider of weight loss treatment.

The Farmington Railroad Tragedy of 1900

By Reginald W. Neale and John M. Robortella

Finger Lakes Historical Press, 2014

Robortella, retired associate director of marketing and communications at the Simon Business School, coauthors a book exploring an infamous railroad accident in the history of Farmington, New York, in which a mother and four children were killed as a Lehigh Valley express train collided with their horse-drawn carriage. The book is edited by George Tomczyk, retired director of public affairs at Simon.

Never Be Closing: How to Sell Better Without Screwing Your Clients, Your Colleagues, or Yourself

By Timothy Dunne ’86, ’87S (MBA) and Tim Hurson

Portfolio, 2014

Playing on the sales adage “always be closing,” business consultants Dunne and Hurson argue that the best salespeople build long-lasting relationships with clients—a task that requires viewing the close of the sale as the beginning, rather than the end, of the business-client relationship.

An Accidental Abduction

By Roderick Cyr ’01S (MBA)

Roderick Cyr, 2014

Cyr tells the story of a Minnesota woman who is kidnapped by terrorists when she joins her church on a mission to Morocco.

Playing Smarter in a Digital World: A Guide to Choosing and Using Popular Video Games and Apps to Improve Executive Functioning in Children and Teens

By Randy Kulman ’77

Specialty Press, 2014

Kulman, a psychologist and founder and director of LearningWorks for Kids, provides a guide to digital media products that can help sharpen children’s cognitive skills. The book is especially targeted to the needs of children with disorders such as dyslexia, autism, and ADHD.

College Success: A Concise Practical Guide (Sixth Edition)

By David and Carol Strickland ’83N, ’99N (PhD)

BVT Publishing, 2014

The Stricklands provide advice for college freshmen to make a successful transition from high school. The guide is designed for use in mandatory, semester-long courses on college success offered to freshmen in a growing number of two-year and four-year institutions.

Recordings

Organ Works of Anton Heiller

By Mark Steinbach ’90E (DMA)

Loft, 2014

Steinbach, organist, curator of instruments, and lecturer in music at Brown University, performs Heiller’s recently discovered 1940 work, Passacaglia, among other compositions on the restored 1962 von Beckerath 4-manual/66-stop mechanical- action organ, in St. Paul’s Cathedral in Pittsburgh.

The Good Fight

By the Exchange

The Exchange, 2014

The five-man vocal pop group that includes YellowJackets a cappella alumni Jamal Moore ’12E and Aaron Sperber ’11, ’11E presents their first EP. The Good Fight includes six original tracks and marks the one-time a cappella group’s first step into music with instrumental backing.

Chinese Piano Music

By Joel Schoenhals ’98E (DMA)

Fleur de Son Classics, 2014

Schoenhals performs 16 representative pieces of Chinese piano music, and includes sleeve notes for each one, in a recording designed to introduce Western listeners to Chinese music. Schoenhals is a professor of piano at Eastern Michigan University and has been a guest professor of piano at China’s Nanchang University since 2012.

Books & Recordings is a compilation of recent work by University alumni, faculty, and staff. For inclusion in an upcoming issue, send the work’s title, publisher, author, or performer, a brief description, and a high-resolution cover image, 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.

Should Your Therapist Be a Dog?

According to therapy dog handler Patricia (Pat) Wheeler ’62, ’65W (Mas), some dogs are able to help people in ways many humans can’t.

Interview by Karen McCally ’02 (PhD)

When my husband died in 2001, I got a dog. I named him Lawrence—Lawrence the Livermore Lab.﻿ I’d been a volunteer at the VA Medical Center in Livermore for years and I’d seen therapy dogs working. I took Lawrence to basic obedience training, and I just thought he was a born therapy dog. The following year, I adopted a black Lab mix, Albert, who also became a therapy dog. Lawrence and Albert both died in this past year. I still have Maddie, whom I adopted in 2013, and she, too, is a registered therapy dog.

wheeler (Illustration: David Cowles for Rochester Review)

Therapy dogs must have the right temperament for what can be challenging work.﻿ To have a dog registered as a therapy dog, the handler and dog must be reviewed by a recognized therapy dog organization before starting work as a therapy dog team. I’ve gone all sorts of places with my dogs, all of whom were registered with Therapy Dogs Inc., which is a national group headquartered in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I’ve gone to a shelter for homeless and battered women and children, a center for men with mental health and drug- related problems, nursing homes, other senior care facilities, the VA, schools for adults with developmental disabilities, K-12 schools, and even colleges and graduate schools. Recently I spoke to clinical nursing classes about how therapy dogs can help them serve their patients better.

Therapy dogs are not service dogs.﻿ Service dogs go through a year of basic training and then go to a special facility for intensive training on how to do things like pick up items off the floor, open refrigerators, open doors, and turn out lights. They’re also assigned to one individual.

Patricia Wager Wheeler ’62, ’65W (Mas)

Home: Livermore, California

Occupation: Retired researcher, Educational Testing Service; current therapy dog handler, and author of Successful Tails: The Wonders of Therapy Dogs (AuthorHouse).

On Rochester: “I live in California, and we’re experiencing a drought. But I love seeing the dandelion in my front yard. I leave it there. It reminds me of Rochester.”

Therapy dogs can do more than just cuddle up to you and comfort you. I decided to write my book when Lawrence got a man who hadn’t left his room in years to get up and walk out.﻿ The staff at a facility had been trying for years to get the man to walk out of his room, and he wouldn’t do it. And Lawrence came to visit him one day. He said to Lawrence, “The doctor said if I don’t start to walk every day, I’m going to die.” And the minute Lawrence heard the word “walk,” he was wiggling all over the place. When you’ve got some dog sitting there with loving eyes watching you, you do things. You get up and walk. You do your physical therapy. Sometimes it’s very hard for the therapists alone to get patients to do things. The staff was absolutely stunned when they saw the man coming down the hallway with Lawrence.

Therapy dogs also work in schools and libraries.﻿ Children enjoy reading to a therapy dog. Even if the dog seems to be sleeping, it’s probably listening. And children will try words and select books they might not have otherwise. Their interest in reading grows, and their self-esteem improves.

How do they do it? I really don’t know. I’d be rich if I did.﻿ Part of it is their unconditional acceptance of people. They love us for who we are. And you know a dog is listening to you, because they perk their ears up and they look at you with an interested expression on their face. Are we that attentive when somebody’s talking to us? I don’t know. Some people are playing with their cell phone or doing something else. You wonder.

CAMPUS LIFE

Frozen Fundraiser

backcover (Photo: Adam Fenster)

ICE MEN: Football players Jordan Golinowski ’15 (left) and Farid Adenuga ’16 pour ice water on Jay Petsch, an assistant track coach, as part of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, this summer’s social media–driven fundraiser for research on Lou Gehrig’s disease.