The official magazine of the College of Arts and Sciences, Oklahoma State University

2012

STEERING A NEW COURSEBRET DANILOWICZ TAKES THE WHEEL OF A&S

Arts and Sciences Magazine is a publication of the

Oklahoma State University College of Arts and Sciences.

All communications should be mailed to

OSU College of Arts and Sciences

ATTN: Arts and Sciences Magazine

205 Life Sciences East

Stillwater, OK 74078-3015.

Oklahoma State University, in compliance with Title VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Executive Order 11246 as amended, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and other federal laws and regulations, does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion, disability, or status as a veteran in any of its policies, practices or procedures. This includes but is not limited to admissions, employment, financial aid, and educational services. Title IX of the Education Amendments and Oklahoma State University policy prohibit discrimination in the provision of services or benefits offered by the University based on gender. Any person (student, faculty or staff) who believes that discriminatory practices have been engaged in based upon gender may discuss their concerns and file informal or formal complaints of possible violations of Title IX with the OSU Title IX Coordinator, Mackenzie Wilfong, J.D., Director of Affirmative Action, 408 Whitehurst, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078, (405) 744-5371 or (405) 744-5576 (fax). This publication, issued by Oklahoma State University as authorized by the College of Arts & Sciences, was printed by University Printing Services at a cost of $9,000/9M. #4356 10/12

2 0 1 2 © O K L A H O M A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y

2012 v14

EditorDorothy L. Pugh ’83

Art DirectorPaul V. Fleming ’90/’00

PhotographersPhil ShockleyGary Lawson ’83

Associate EditorMichael Baker

C A S . O K S TAT E . E D U

COVER

Bret Danilowicz

is taking over the

College of Arts

and Sciences

as its 12th dean.

Story, Page 2.

Cover photography

by Phil Shockley.

WritersBrianna AutryMatt ElliottStacy Pettit ’09Lorene A. Roberson ’84Brittany Snapp

DesignersMark PennieRoss Maute

College of Arts and Sciences

Dean Bret Danilowicz

Senior Director for Development, Jason J. Caniglia

Communications CoordinatorLorene A. Roberson ’84

s t a f f

24

Singing itAdley Stump (above)

hadn ’t p lanned to

end up as a s inger,

but fa te ( in the

fo rm o f a soror i t y

s i s te r and Vars i ty

Revue) s tepped in .

30

Gaming itTwo a lums have made

a career out o f work ing

w i th sponsors fo r the

O lymp ic Games — and

the London 2012 Games

were no except ion .

37

Posting itWork has begun on the

new home for OSU’s

a r t co l lec t ion in the

Posta l P laza Ga l le ry.

p l a y b i l l

YEAR INDICATES OSU COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES GRADUATES.

GARY LAWSON / UNIVERSITY MARKETING

26

Giving itClaud ia Bar t le t t ’s

f i r s t g i f t to OSU was

on ly $50, but l i ke a

g rand t ree f rom a

t iny seed, her and her

husband’s donat ions

have grown might i l y.

Looking around the college, I see national recognition for our students and our faculty. Our students’ honors include such exam-ples as Fulbright scholars Joshua Damron and Alejandra Gonzalez Herrera, Goldwater scholar Rosa Yorks and the OSU Symphony Orchestra’s role as a finalist for the American Prize. Our A&S faculty are no less honored: Our physics faculty participated in the discov-ery of the Higgs boson, our faculty are attracting more federal research grants, and individuals work-ing in our Center for the Study of Disasters and Extreme Events are receiving national awards for their research and teaching in emergency management.

his is the first time I have lived in Oklahoma, so I am quickly learn-ing about its history, the Stillwater community and how to really pronounce “Miami.” It is also a perfect opportunity to take stock of the college from a fresh perspective.

Our major goals should include:

From the Dean’s Office

BRET DANILOWICZDEAN, COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

PHIL SHOCKLEY / UNIVERSITY MARKETING

Like these examples, many of our student successes are linked to our alumni support; alumni provided the scholarships that attracted these energetic students here, kept them here and gave them the materials and travel funds to advance their creative activities and research. Alumni support is so important at this time due to the intense competition our students are facing: More students are entering universities, and more are graduating to enter a strug-gling national economy that’s offer-ing fewer jobs and less opportunity. The public has begun questioning the value of a college degree, and books are criticizing the attention that college students receive from faculty during the first two years of study.

I was delighted to see our A&S faculty care deeply about getting students off on the right path as freshmen. Our college has created both the Mathematics Learning Success Center and a writing center that focus on ensuring that students learn from Day 1. Student learn-ing is, and will remain, an OSU advantage.

Those who have graduated from OSU can attest to that advantage. OSU’s alumni are among the most dedicated in the nation. You can see it during “America’s Greatest Homecoming Celebration,” when more than 70,000 alumni and family members return to Stillwater (this year, it is Oct. 20).

You can also see it in the dedica-tion of the graduates who are help-ing enhance the Boone Pickens School of Geology, giving it a rising national profile. These alumni connect the faculty and students into a diverse network of opportunities. Going even beyond the generosity of Mr. Pickens, they have secured four additional endowed research chairs and are pursuing another in geosci-ence education. Recently, alumni have also endowed several graduate student positions, attracting top-cali-ber students to the program. While this department is an excellent exam-ple of a fabulous alumni/faculty part-nership, alumni in many other A&S departments are also coalescing to support their former programs.

As you can see from these exam-ples and from the pages of this magazine, our alumni are inter-twined with our success as a college. So reach out and connect to your department’s faculty and students; working together, we can accomplish anything.

Although I have been here just a short while, I have learned one very important tradition at OSU: always close with …

… Go Pokes!

T

» Educating our A&S students to levels above their peers from other universities. Our students deserve no less.

» Garnering a higher national reputation. That recognition helps us attract a diverse faculty who are passionate about teaching and research, which in turns attracts students with a passion for learning and engagement with faculty.

2

BRET DANILOWICZ CAN COUNT A NUMBER OF GREAT EDUCATORS WHO INFLUENCED HIM WHILE AN UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT.

New A&S dean brings a world of

passion for teaching and research to OSU

An Education to Remember

STORY BY Lorene A. Roberson

CONTINUES

“Right now in my life I have a lot of energy and

passion, and I bring that with me to OSU. I am really

looking forward to attacking this job with vigor.”

PHIL SHOCKLEY / UNIVERSITY MARKETING

3

4

A botanist who brought in a variety of plants from every corner of the world gave Danilowicz the experience of hands-on learning.

A physiology professor showed him how to dissect animal corpses, teaching the young Danilowicz to compare a cat with a lion cub as well as trace the evolution of skull bones from reptiles into birds. “She chal-lenged us to a point where I still remember some of the compari-sons in muscles and skeletons to this day,” he says.

Danilowicz completed his undergraduate research proj-ect with a zoologist who loved marabunta — army ants. And that’s the teacher he remembers the most. “What I learned from him was intense compared to what I had learned in any other classroom setting at the time.

“I carry a passion for under-graduate research with me to this day.”

At 44, Danilowicz brings that passion to Oklahoma State University as its 12th dean of the College of Arts and Sciences since 1905.

While Danilowicz may be one of the college’s youngest deans in history, he downplays that nota-tion, saying, “My hair is gray early, so maybe I will fit in. Right now in my life I have a lot of energy and passion and I bring that with me to OSU. I am really looking forward to attacking this job with vigor.”

EARLY ENCOURAGEMENT

Danilowicz grew up in Utica, N.Y., in a home that encour-aged learning. His grandfather was a machinist who made parts for the first Apollo flights. His dad worked as a NASA theoret-ical nuclear physicist, designing engines for the future.

After 12 years at NASA, Danilowicz’s dad wanted to teach in a populated university setting versus conducting research in an isolated laboratory. “Dad wanted to share what he was excited about so he got into a new field called computer science.” That was 1976.

“It’s not so new now,” he acknowledges today.

With all that exposure to higher education, Danilowicz under-stood early on that he would need a plan. At 10, he announced that marine biology was his call-ing. At 16, he prepared for grad-uate school. At 17, he skipped his senior year of high school to enroll at Utica College.

In 1989, Danilowicz gradu-ated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in biology and a minor in computer science from Utica College. In 1994, he earned a doctorate in zoology from Duke University.

While completing his doctoral work in Hawaii, he met his future wife Katherine Shannon, a seventh-grade science teacher.

“Bret was smart enough to study a little fish found only in Hawaii,” says Kay, as she’s better known.

JASON CANIGLIA / OSU FOUNDATION

Bret Danilowicz shows off

his catch during a fishing trip.

We are settl ing into

Sti l lwater and finding great

opportunities for the family.

At this point, we are enjoying

infusing our wardrobes with

OSU orange.”

5

CONTINUES

The Duke University student gave her class a tour of the University of Hawaii Marine Lab where he did his research. “It was love at first sight,” she recalls. They married in 1993 and headed to Canada after Danilowicz completed his doctorate.

At the University of Windsor in Ontario, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow for the biological sciences department and the Great Lakes Institute.

Meanwhile, Kay earned a master’s degree in speech and language ther-apy. “Kay saw how much fun I had while earning my Ph.D., so she went back to school, too,” Danilowicz says.

In 1996, their son Torin was born after they raced across the Canadian border so he would be delivered in Detroit.

Although their son’s Celtic name was purely coincidental, it was a foreshadowing of events to come.

In 1997, the family moved to Ireland for Danilowicz’s job as a lecturer — equivalent to an assistant professor in the U.S. — in zoology at University College Dublin.

He rose through the ranks to asso-ciate dean in science at University College, which had more than 21,000 students and one of the larg-est research budgets in Ireland.

His noted successes there include improving student retention, emphasizing mentoring programs for first-year students and focusing on students who were at extreme risk of failing.

While Danilowicz worked tire-lessly at the university, it wasn’t his sole focus. He and his family spent an equal amount of time in their community of Enfield, Ireland, a suburb of Dublin known for its tradi-tional Celtic culture.

When they met neighbors whose child had Down syndrome, the couple put together an ice cream social in their neighborhood to bene-fit Down Syndrome Ireland.

“In Ireland, the support for Down syndrome was not as expansive as it is in the U.S.,” he says. “We wanted to make a difference.”

JASON CANIGLIA / OSU FOUNDATION

Bret Danilowicz (right) visits with

Boone Pickens during a June trip

to Pickens’ Mesa Vista Ranch in the

Texas Panhandle. Pickens invited

the incoming dean to visit with him

and other key constituents to get

feedback on the college before

Danilowicz started his new position.

ALL THE PREVIOUS DEANS

The 11 men who have previously led the

College of Arts and Sciences at OSU include:

Dean Years at the top

Robert H. Tucker 1905–1907

William W. Johnson 1910–1912

Lowery L. Lewis 1912–1922

Clarence H. McElroy 1922–1935

Schiller J. Scroggs 1935–1958

Robert B. Kamm 1958–1965

James R. Scales 1965–1967

George A. Greis 1968–1980

Smith L. Holt 1980–1998

John M. Dobson 1999–2003

Peter M.A. Sherwood 2004–2012

6BACK IN THE STATES

In 2004, the family of six (by then including Torin’s three younger siblings: Brynn, Teagan and Cullen) returned to the U.S., where Danilowicz would be an associate biology professor and associate dean for science and technology at Georgia Southern University.

Danilowicz has long demon-strated an aptitude for learn-ing. In 2004, he enhanced his education with a master’s degree in education focusing on lead-ership from Open University in the United Kingdom. While at Georgia Southern, he earned a master of business administration. Both would serve him well in his new position.

In 2010, Forbes maga-zine ranked Georgia Southern University as the 10th best college in the nation for minor-ity students in science, technology, engineering and mathemat-ics. Diverse Issues in Higher Education also recently said the college is fourth in the nation in graduating black students in the physical sciences.

Danilowicz also created the Center for Sustainability in 2007.

“Largely due to the actions of this center, Georgia Southern has been nationally ranked in Princeton Review’s Guide to Green Colleges for the past two years,” he says.

And he continued to indulge his passion for undergradu-ate research. More than 50 percent of the graduates from Danilowicz’s college had partici-pated in research projects during their years at school.

Meanwhile, the Danilowicz household remained involved in the community. The parents picked up running shoes and have not stopped since.

“We became avid runners in Georgia, and we were part of a large running club,” he says. That included organizing a marathon with about 30 runners out of their home each year.

“It was a lot of fun but we have left our running commu-nity behind. We look forward to building that level of friends here in Oklahoma.”

Bret Danilowicz

speaks to the Geology

Advisory Board at

the Mesa Vista Ranch.

“I want to make sure we focus on the undergraduate teaching

mission. I also want to make sure we are recognizing faculty

in teaching as well as research. Great educators are so very

important to the success of our students.” — Bret Danilowicz

7

ROLE’S HINT

In 2007, Danilowicz played the role of Ike Skidmore in Oklahoma at the Emma Kelly Community Theatre in Statesboro, Ga.

“We have had the opportunity to be in theater a lot,” he says.

After he accepted the job at OSU, his friends teased him about the performance. “Maybe it was a foreshadowing of our move out here,” he says now.

Oklahoma State’s rising enroll-ment and Arts and Sciences’ increasing interest in research opportunities were a couple of the factors that appealed to Danilowicz. He hopes to expand relationships and connections to allow these opportunities to be financially supported.

Students are equally impor-tant to both Danilowicz and his wife, who is a lecturer in the OSU Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.

“When I look at higher educa-tion nationally, there often is a disconnect about how a univer-sity works with its undergradu-ate students,” Danilowicz says.

“As a reputation for a univer-sity increases in research, very often teaching is left behind. At OSU, we have a lot of fabu-lous faculty who care about our undergraduates.

JASON

CANIGLIA / O

SU FOUN

DATIO

N

The Danilowicz family (from left): Brynn, Torin, Cullen, Kay, Teagan and Bret, with their dogs Siersha (black) and Sandy.

It was love at first sight”

— Kay Danilowicz

“I want to make sure we focus on the undergraduate teaching mission. I also want to make sure we are recognizing all faculty equally and that these professors are fully supported because their expertise in teaching and helping students is so very important,” he adds.

Meanwhile, Danilowicz contin-ues to brag about his family’s new community. “When I started wear-ing my Oklahoma State T-shirt, I met people in Georgia and New York who attended OSU, and they told me about these wonder-ful experiences they had here. The alums speak really well of OSU. That was a good sign.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: SMSC senior Jonathan L. Lacaba, an intern in the office of media and alumni relations for the College of Arts and Sciences, contributed to this story.

COURTESY / BRET D

ANILO

WICZ

8

9

NEWLY NAMED REGENTS PROFESSORS

IN THE COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

INCLUDE Frank Blum (FROM

LEFT), Robert Sternberg, Perry Gethner AND

Estella Atekwana. The College of Arts and Sciences is welcoming four Oklahoma State University professors to the ranks of Regents professors for 2011. The title is the university’s highest promotion for a faculty member. On the following pages, we offer a glimpse of their knowledge and expertise — and a bit of their personalities as well.

4 named Regents professors in A&S

CONTINUES

STORIES BY Matt ElliottPORTRAITS BY Gary Lawson

and Phil Schockley

10

Study of microorganisms gives Atekwana a big view of tiny matter

Little things,

enormous impact

The widely accepted perception is that no organism affects its environment more than man. After all, it’s easy to point out how we affect our surroundings: dams, pollution, mining and industrial agriculture.

OSU professor Estella Atekwana’s research shows that view may be a little self-serving. On planet Earth, it’s the little things that truly matter, says Atekwana, one of the College of Arts and Sciences’ four new Regents professors for 2011.

Microorganisms are believed to have been the first life forms on the planet. The byproducts of their biological processes, scientists believe, helped create the atmo-sphere. And today, the little guys are work-ing away in ways we can’t see.

“Sometimes they can transform their envi-ronments in a matter of hours, or minutes, days or decades,” says Atekwana, a pioneer of the field concerning such research, biogeophysics. “They work in coopera-tion, too. We could learn a lot from them if we weren’t spending so much time fighting about our differences rather than learning how our differences complement each other and make us stronger.”

Atekwana, originally from Cameroon, studies how microorganisms affect their environment, from the earth’s crust up into the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. She’s also a noted expert in plate tectonics, the study of how Earth’s plates shape the planet, creating continents, mountains, ocean basins, volcanic and earthquake belts.

Estella Atekwana believes

mankind could learn much by

studying some of the planet’s

smallest l ife forms.

11

Atekwana says she was honored to receive a Regents professorship, and she lauds OSU for support-ing the department where she and her husband, Eliot Atekwana, have been since 2006.

While OSU is often concerned with energy issues, Estella Atekwana focuses on biogeo-physics. Her first discoveries, that microbes can affect geophysi-cal properties, took place when she was an assistant professor at Western Michigan University.

In 1996, she was part of a team that visited a contaminated U.S. Air Force base, Wurtsmith, in Oscoda, Mich., after the site made the federal government’s Superfund list for cleanup. Team members were studying ground-water contaminated with oil and found the water was better at conducting electricity than it should be. They were able to link those changes in its proper-ties to organisms that were break-ing down the oil and producing organic acids and carbon dioxide as byproducts.

“These acids enhance the weath-ering and dissolution of rocks, releasing ions that go into solution and make the contaminated envi-ronment more conductive,” she says. “We used this information to explain our geophysics results suggesting that microorganisms can significantly impact the physi-cal properties of their environment, and biogeophysics was born.”

Today, her work takes her all over the world, most recently from the shores of a little island in Louisiana to an isolated valley in Botswana where two continen-tal plates are in the early stages of pulling apart.

She always takes her students on such trips and believes firmly in the role she plays in their development as much as she believes in the importance of her research. Most recently, she has been the lead principal investiga-tor on a $4.6 million multi-insti-tution grant from the National Science Foundation to study the Okavango Rift system in Botswana, which has trapped the Okavango River, forming the largest wetland complex in the world. Normally, massive volca-noes such as Kilamanjaro are a byproduct of developing rifts and dot the East African Rift Valley next door. But that’s not taking place in the Okavango Rift Valley, Atekwana notes, so she’s trying to figure out why.

She and her students travel to the region on the edge of the Kalahari Desert where they take core samples and examine magnetic and gravity field data to find magma circulation beneath the ground. They live in tents, often working in areas frequented by lions, zebras, giraffes, hippos and other large wild animals.

She spent last summer taking gravity measurements across the rift system to determine how the earth’s gravity fields are changed by the rifting, indicating changes in the thickness of the crust and other geologic features that will give them clues on how the rift works and how it began and developed.

In Louisiana, Atekwana is measuring naturally occurring Gulf of Mexico bacteria’s abil-ity to break down oil in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010. The spill was the world’s largest and sparked a cleanup that continued for months as well as ongoing research into its effectiveness.

That’s where Atekwana’s work comes in. She and her team placed electrical sensors next to an island near the spill site in the fall after the spill. Most of her readings showed much of the hydrocar-bons left by the spill were gone, and shifts in the bacteria commu-nity had occurred. Those tilted the tables toward a dominant organ-ism, which she suspects is breaking down the chemicals.

More work remains to be done, however.

“The truth is there are lots of spills in the gulf,” she says. “The island where our instruments are has been hit by multiple spills over the years.”

Atekwana attended Howard University for her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She has a doctoral degree from Nova Scotia’s Dalhousie University. She has taught at Western Michigan and the Missouri University of Science and Technology. She frequently pairs in her research with her husband, Eliot Atekwana, a geochemist at OSU and expert in areas including how environments dispose of contam-inants and environmental change in ancient times.

Estella Atekwana

Frank Blum credits the drive

to understand for his work in

chemistry: “I want to know how

things work — how the physical

things work.”

Frank Blum

12 Blum looks at the big picture when studying the smallest of materials

Erasing limits

Some professors prefer to guide students’ work carefully and hover over every-thing they do. Not so with newly minted Regents Professor Frank Blum: He prefers to give his students more of a free rein.

“The benefit is they will often take approaches you wouldn’t have taken, that you wouldn’t have advised, but that can be really

creative,” Blum says. “With that approach, I’m no longer limited by my own personal limitations. We’re only limited by the limita-tions we have collectively.”

Blum is one of four new Regents professors in the College of Arts and Sciences for 2011. As the Harrison I. Bartlett chair of chem-istry and department head, he delves into the laws of physics

and how they apply to molecu-lar systems, especially in polymers, which have components from natu-ral and synthetic compounds.

He advises seven doctoral students at OSU, including Bal Khatiwada, a Nepalese chemist who’s working with Blum on her project looking at how Plexiglas interacts with nanometer-sized particles of silica, the common component of glass.

13

“I always search for things I don’t know, and even if I do that, I can’t figure out things some-times,” Khatiwada says. “I can always ask him, and he’s always there. He’s extremely helpful. The other students view him as more of a parent than a professor.”

REMOLDING A DEPARTMENT

Blum came to OSU in 2010 to take over a chemistry department rebuilding after several retirements. By 2013, the department will have hired six new professors.

He says he is humbled by the chance to help remold the chem-istry department that has so many caring alumni. That and Stillwater’s friendliness adds to the campus he has come to love.

“Stillwater is a little bit of a small town,” he says. “The university has a family atmosphere complete with loyalty, support and even the occasional bickering. But by and large, faculty members, students and staff at this university really care deeply about it.”

Blum taught at Drexel University and the University of Missouri-Rolla before coming to OSU in 2010. He has a doctorate from the University of Minnesota and bach-elor’s and master’s degrees in phys-ical chemistry from Eastern Illinois University.

Always fascinated by how things work, Blum first took to chemis-try during his organic chemistry classes as an undergrad at Eastern Illinois University. He considers that drive to understand as the true mark of a scientist.

“That’s what sustains me,” he says. “It’s been my approach to science. I want to know how things work — how the physi-cal things work. How do atoms and molecules behave in order to make macroscopic things? There’s

a big divide between how an atom behaves and how a macro-scopic system behaves. It’s a big jump from something that’s on the Ångstrom or nanometer scale to how does a boat hull bend, or how strong is a composite golf-club shaft.”

Once he finished his doctorate in 1981, he was offered several great corporate opportunities, but the freedom of academic life called him.

His interest in polymers focused on how absorbed polymers behave and how polymer nanocompos-ites can conduct electricity. He also looks at how those materials work when they’re absorbed into another material called a solid substrate, such as glass.

For example, in fiberglass, small fibers of glass are mixed in with epoxy, which is a plastic. The glass fiber is hard and brittle, but the plastic layer is softer and more ductile. The melded material is harder to stretch and bend, provid-ing a gradual change from the properties of both the glass fibers and the polymer and creating something light, strong and useful such as a motorcycle helmet.

Characterizing how those mate-rials work with each other is extremely difficult, and Blum is an expert at understanding that at the molecular level using tech-niques such as nuclear magnetic resonance, something similar to an MRI for a molecule.

Once researchers under-stand that, they can make better composites. For example, they could devise a coating for the glass fibers to make an entirely different material or combine several mate-rials for another fashion.

That knowledge is useful in today’s age of booming consumer electronics. As products shrink, the functionality of the materials used in them usually increases.

“The thinner polymer layers gets, the more their properties change,” he says. “In some cases, we’re talk-ing about layers that are millions of times thinner than a human hair. Those properties tend to be different than bulk properties.”

Khatiwada’s project is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Blum also has a proj-ect with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory trying to find better materials for chemical sensors using ultraviolet light and liquid drops.

PROUD MENTOR

About his seven doctoral students, Blum notes how proud he is “they’re becoming functional and prolific in their own right. They’re now starting to be inde-pendent, being able to draft papers based on the research they’ve done. They’ve been able to try to fore-see problems and opportunities in a way that a mature scientist would with, in many cases, just a little guidance from me. And that’s really the exciting part of my job.”

In addition to his posts at Drexel and Missouri-Rolla, he has also taught at Sweden’s Lund University and IBM in San Jose, Calif., during his 31-year career. Blum has received numerous awards, including three awards from the Alcoa and Exxon Education foun-dations, and a distinguished alumni award from Eastern Illinois University.

Blum is a fellow of the American Chemical Society and its division of polymer chemistry. He is a past secretary and chair of the society’s polymer chemistry division and a former chair of the ACS commit-tees on nominations, elections and divisional activities.

Perry Gethner

14

One of the College of Arts and Sciences’ new Regents profes-sors, recruited a decade ago by the University of Oxford’s Voltaire Foundation to participate in its reissuing of all the French master’s works in new critical editions, recently published his edition of Voltaire’s last completed tragedy.

“Obviously, that’s an exciting element to my career,” says noted French scholar Perry Gethner, whose edition of Irene was published in 2010. Gethner, a French language and literature instructor, received his Regents professorship, OSU’s highest promotion for a faculty member, in November 2011. “I’ve been increasingly recruited by people all over the world doing the complete works of so-and-so, and they need me to be part of the team.”

Gethner, an OSU professor since 1984, is an expert in French drama and opera from the so-called early modern period, generally considered to be the 16th through 18th centuries. In addition to Voltaire, he has published critical editions and translations of other French authors, some more obscure than others, such as Jean Rotrou, Pierre du Ryer and Jean Mairet.

Gethner, OSU’s foreign language department head, remembers being enchanted by languages ever since he was a kid growing up on the northwest side of Chicago, where his father ran a local drugstore.

“I always enjoyed languages, and my teachers encouraged me,” says Gethner, who would go on to attend Yale University, where he obtained his doctor-ate in French literature in 1977. He nurtured a love of the art form as well as an appreciation for placing the works in their proper historic contexts, such as the French Wars of Religion during the 16th century. This contributed to the choice of biblical plays for the

Gethner has turned his enchantment into expertise that’s in global demand

Une affaire française

“I always enjoyed languages,

and my teachers encouraged me.”

15

subject of his dissertation (he also had an interest in the Bible, being a former pre-seminary student).

“The whole development of my career since then has been essen-tially finding things that I was good at, or that I was interested in,” Gethner says. “And this included a number of other areas in dramatic history. I’ve done a lot of work on hybrid plays, musical comedies and opera libretto since.”

A FRENCH BAROQUE?

He also wrote works question-ing whether there was a Baroque period of French literature, giving a lecture on the topic on campus at Oklahoma State. The debate was a controversial one that shook up ideas among French schol-ars about what was happening between 1580 and 1640. Works they had dismissed as worthless now are being rehabilitated as part of the Baroque period similar to other European countries at the time, he says.

Not much attention has been paid to French playwrights of that period. Gethner has set out in part to correct that by translating some of their works, an effort that began with his translation of drama-tist Antoine de Montchrestien, an author known for his religiously neutral work in a time when many plays were religious diatribes against either Protestantism or Catholicism.

That time period is intriguing, he says, because the English were producing William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, Gethner says, while the French had no similar writers. The greatest of their playwrights — Moliere, Jean Racine, etc. — came later, espe-cially during the second half of the 17th century.

Meanwhile, English writers at the time were reading French plays, Gethner says, but none of the French writers were reading the English. Widespread French love of English writers didn’t begin, he says, until Voltaire in the second half of the 18th century. French writers were reading Spanish and Italian at the time, but almost none of them could read English, he says.

“I find these sorts of things intriguing,” he says. “Who’s influ-encing whom, and what forms does that influence take? Because the French writers in Shakespeare’s day were nowhere near as great as Shakespeare, they’re usually dismissed, but I certainly thought some of them should be made available through translations.”

Translating is tough enough when working with modern forms of a language. But when it’s in an older version of the language, the text could have archaic words unknown to but a few academics, or words whose meaning may have changed considerably over the years.

There’s a lot of onus on the translator to get them correct, especially when scholars and students could be utilizing those editions for decades to come.

“You also have to deal with trying to figure out what the correct text is,” Gethner says.

“Some editions could be so muti-lated and so bad you can’t read them. Sometimes there’s more than one edition, too, and in some cases there are only the author’s manuscripts. For one project, I had to look at Voltaire’s own handwriting and make some valiant attempts at trying to read it. I was dealing with very beau-tifully written manuscripts done by his secretary. Voltaire would put stuff in the margins and often scratch it out. That was the part that was hard to decipher.”

Although he teaches regular undergraduate classes, he doesn’t get to direct the research of grad-uate students at Oklahoma State because his department doesn’t have a graduate program. Nor does he get much chance to present his own research in class. “You don’t get to teach it,” he says. “Research and teaching are almost completely unrelated in language programs.”

Most students who take French do so because they want to learn the language. OSU’s classes in French literature and drama just scratch the surface.

Gethner enjoys teaching, however, and is known among his students for being approachable, knowledgeable and easy to work with. Conferences and the academic community help keep him enthused about his work, he says.

PHI BETA KAPPA SUCCESS

Also, he chaired the commit-tee that applied for permission to establish a chapter of the national academic honor society, Phi Beta Kappa, at OSU. Part of an effort stretching back several decades, he and other faculty members trav-eled to Florida in August to be voted on by the national assembly, and they were successful.

“Getting that approval to start a Phi Beta Kappa chapter at OSU is really exciting,” Gethner says.

Outside of work, Gethner performs classical piano recitals in the Stillwater area and accom-panies singers. He is also a singer who was once in the chorus of an opera company.

He taught for six years at the University of Chicago before coming to OSU. He has also edited collections of works by early female French playwrights, and he has written articles on musi-cal comedies as well as drama and literary theory.

Robert Sternberg

16Sternberg explains psychology as ‘the interaction of who you are with the environment.’

A drive for mentoring

“I find students don’t much remember what they learned in classes,” Sternberg says.

“They remember a few profes-sors, students or staff members who changed their lives.”

The chance to provide that mentorship to students is what drives him today. It’s why he believes in Oklahoma State and its land-grant university mission. It’s part of why he earned the university’s high-est promotion for faculty members, a Regents professor-ship in 2011.

BUSY MAN

Sternberg received the Regents post three years after he was hired as provost. He took that job over from Marlene Strathe, who had been the provost for seven years. The provost is the senior member of the OSU president’s cabinet and admin-isters all of the university’s academic programs. His job includes planning policies, budgets, student and faculty development — the “whole enchilada.”

In addition to his admin-istrative work, Sternberg teaches an undergraduate course in leadership, which he notes received an overall student rating of 3.92 out of 4.00 last spring, and is teach-ing a graduate course this fall in one of his specialties, human intelligence. Before he came to OSU, he was the dean of arts and sciences at Tufts

University. For more than 30 years, he taught at his alma mater, Yale University, where he was the IBM professor of psychology and education and a professor of management. He is also the author or editor of more than 150 books and a prolific writer for the academic and lay presses.

OSU rolled out a new admissions process last July that he designed in collabo-ration with Kyle Wray, OSU’s vice president for enrollment management and marketing, and other personnel from the university’s admissions office. Called Panorama, it incor-porates prospective students’ leadership qualities into their evaluations, expanding them beyond the typical essays sent in with applications.

He also published a book on intellectual giftedness in 2011, the same year he and his wife had triplets, Samuel, Brittany and Melody (the latter two are identical twins).

It’s hard to imagine when he sleeps.

“I don’t have a lot of spare time these days,” he admits.

“I think it’s important for administrators to teach. It’s especially important if you’re in academic affairs to stay in touch with what’s going on with the students. And I think it’s important to publish because it’s awkward to eval-uate the research of others if you’re not doing any yourself.”

No one realizes the irony more than Robert Sternberg does.

OSU’s chief academic officer and one of four new Regents professors in the College of Arts and Sciences for 2011 doesn’t remember much of what he learned in class at Yale. And yet, thanks to hard work and caring profes-sors, Sternberg made himself into one of the world’s leading experts in how people think, love and hate.

Sternberg aims

to make OSU

memorable for

students.

17

EARLY DAYS

Sternberg was born in Newark, N.J., and grew up in the suburb of Maplewood. His father had dropped out of high school during the Depression and owned a button store to support his family. His mother had immi-grated to the United States from Austria in 1938.

Sternberg performed poorly on IQ tests when he was young, and his teachers didn’t expect much out of him as a result. That changed when his fourth-grade teacher saw his potential and challenged him.

His grades improved, but his frustrations with how the education system measures intelligence continued. With an amused expression on his face today, he describes the field as sometimes dominated by people who always performed very well on those tests.

“So, those tests were kind of a self-congratulatory sort of thing,” Sternberg adds with a wry smile.

Over time, he blossomed into someone who couldn’t help but question the status quo. As a seventh-grader, he came up with his own intel-ligence test after finding a popular intelligence test in his school library, the Stanford-Binet scales, an early such exam credited with establish-ing the field of intelligence testing.

The exam he came up with would later become the Sternberg Test of Mental Abilities. But it was the Stanford-Binet that he gave to some of his fellow students

as part of a science project he devised — all before his 15th birthday. In one case, he hoped to get a girlfriend by giving her the test — and learned that doing so wasn’t a way to appeal to females. He is quick to note he has never given his beloved wife, Karin, an intelligence test.

MENTORS’ HELP

At Yale, Sternberg met the man who became his mentor, Endel Tulving. Tulving is one of science’s leading think-ers in the field of memory and a noted contrarian who nurtured Sternberg’s drive to question authority. It was just the help Sternberg needed to enter psychology after receiv-ing a C in the introductory psychology course.

“It’s the interaction of who you are with the environment. Someone else might have stud-ied under him, and it wouldn’t have taken. But for me, it really took.”

He graduated summa cum laude and went to grad-uate school at Stanford University, where he stud-ied under another mentor, Gordon Bower. Ever since, Sternberg, a former president of the American Psychological Association and current pres-ident of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences as well as treasurer of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, has been on the

“academic fringes,” studying unpopular things or the things he finds the most challenging to understand.

Among his contributions to psychology are several influ-ential theories in thinking, ethical reasoning, love, hate, leadership, thinking styles and creativity, as well as his theory of successful intelli-gence, which states that intel-ligent behavior comes from analytical, creative, practical and wisdom-based abilities. He was listed by the American Psychological Association’s Monitor as one of the 100 most influential psychologists of the 20th century.

At OSU, he has emphasized that being smart in school does not necessarily mean that someone will be smart in life, and vice versa. Academic and practical intelligence are only weakly correlated. What is most important in life is wisdom and ethical behav-ior — making the world a better place by making a posi-tive, meaningful and enduring difference to it.

PERSONAL STYLE

The new Regents profes-sor brings his enthusiasm into his classroom, with a teach-ing style he calls very personal. He brings material from his job as provost to his leader-ship class, letting students in on the bigger decisions he made that week and asking what they would have done. He also brings in speakers who discuss their experiences as leaders and how they devel-oped from Oklahoma State undergraduates into impor-tant leaders in society.

One message Sternberg is quick to drive home is the importance of failure. Often

times, someone who has a great deal of success in life has had equally momentous failures.

At the OSU graduate commencement last May, he was the keynote speaker and he spoke frankly about many of his failures. It’s a message he drives home to his students in any way he can. A major key to success is resilience in the face of multiple failures.

“You have to learn how to take failures and rise above them,” he says. “When you’re young, you don’t see it that way. When you’re young, you sort of plot out a course that you think will help you always succeed; you’re going to be the guy with the lucky charm. I think that’s just really the important thing in life. I feel like I’ve had some bad breaks. And I have had some great breaks. I have wonderful, beautiful children. A fantastic wife. A terrific job. I live in a great house on beau-tiful land. I live in a wonder-ful community. But it hasn’t always been that way. You just keep working until you get to where you want to go.”

Sternberg lives just outside of Stillwater with his wife, Karin, who has an MBA as well as a doctorate in psychology from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. In addition to their triplets, he has two grown chil-dren from a previous marriage

— one the CEO of a dot-com business who recently sold it to Google and went to work there, and the other, a doctoral student in sociology at Harvard University. Sternberg enjoys hiking with his family, exer-cising, reading and collecting coins and watches.

18

19

Professor Jeanette Morehouse Mendez remembers watching the 1984 presidential election returns come in when she was all of 8 years old. This summer, she became the youngest person and first female to head the political science department, having been at OSU since 2005.

She teaches courses in American political behavior, with an expertise in elections, campaigns and the media. Her work has been published in such journals as Journal of Politics, Social Science Quarterly, Political Psychology, Politics and Gender, Journal of Women, Politics and Policy, PS: Political Science and Politics, Journal of Media Psychology, and Journal of Political Science. We’re chatting with her about the 2012 presidential election and OSU’s impact on its students, the state and the nation.

Election-year lessonsNew chief of OSU’s political science department offers her take on the 2012 vote.

STORY BY Lorene A. Roberson PHOTOGRAPHY BY Gary Lawson

This fall, you will teach a class on the current presidential election. Describe the class and the makeup of the class.

When I was thinking of courses I would

like to teach, I thought that a class focus-

ing on the current election would draw

interest from a variety of students — and

it did. I last taught this in 2008 and had a

full course of 35 students. The best part

was that the students were interested in

elections and government and that is why

they took this course, as opposed to a

required course. And most interestingly,

the class was well split in terms of parti-

sanship and ideology. And that meant …

some lively discussions!

In the course, what questions do students ask during election years?

The No. 1 question is which candidate

I will vote for! Of course, I never have

revealed this in any course and tell them

they can keep guessing. I feel my role

is to present the information and create

an environment for discussion and inter-

action, and not use this as a platform to

advance my own beliefs. But students

really want to know about my prefer-

ences, so they also continually ask me to

express my opinions on all of the content.

The students are smart and engaged and

ask great questions about the effects of

the election. And because many of the

students will be first-time voters, they ask

a lot about the past election and about

current politics to place this election in a

broader context.

CONTINUES

20

How does OSU prepare the next gener-ation of leaders in our state and nation to be creative, as well as ethical, crit-ical thinkers? How does OSU prepare its students to be critical thinkers in the democratic process?

OSU does a wonderful job in preparing

our future leaders — just look at our alums

across the state and the nation in leader-

ship positions. We are doing something

right. I think the courses we offer in polit-

ical science allow students to be creative,

based on the content, the assignments

and how our faculty members approach

the courses. Further, we all, in political

science, want our students to be ethical

critical thinkers, and we do all we can to

foster this in the classroom. In particular,

many of our courses include content on

democracy and the democratic process,

and students show a great capacity to

think about why the United States is a

democracy and what benefits there are to

this. Further, our comparative politics and

international relations courses, to name

a couple, explore democracy in a global

perspective. I think our students are given

all of the tools to succeed and become

effective members of society, members

who will be engaged in the process and

knowledgeable. There is a difference

between going to vote and going to vote

and being informed about the issues

and candidates. In political science, we

strive to make sure our students become

informed citizens.

OSU typically has a low level of involvement overall (at least since the 1960s) of the student body in politics in comparison to other campuses. Can you comment on why that might be? Agree? Or disagree?

I do agree with this overall; however, the

students I encounter the most are politi-

cal science majors, and these students are

involved in politics. I keep hearing within

There is a difference between going to vote and going to

vote and being informed about the issues and candidates.”

Oklahoma that there is no reason to vote

because we are a red state and that will

not change. So if you are a Republican,

there is no need to vote because others

will vote Republican for you. And if you

are a Democrat, your vote will not count. I

try to counter this in my classes, because

this isn’t quite true. At face value, yes,

Oklahoma is a red state. But so many elec-

tions occur in a four-year span, and many

local elections are decided by a few votes.

Still, I think students buy into this logic, and

this rhetoric gives them a disincentive to

be involved. I also think students don’t

feel connected to the process, the politi-

cians and the candidates. The issues that

students list as most important (for exam-

ple, student loans, access to education and

unemployment) are not the big-ticket items

that get discussed by the media and the

candidates. So unless students can relate

to the candidates and politicians, they will

not take the time to be involved because

they do not see a connection personally.

Students are an important part of the voting bloc. However, research dating back to the 1940s has consistently shown that young citizens vote at lower rates than older citizens. Describe the young voter situation in Oklahoma.

The youth vote has not been large in

modern-day elections, though much atten-

tion was focused on this in 2008 and

Obama was successful and generating

a large youth vote. In Oklahoma in 2008,

close to 51 percent of people age 18-24

registered to vote and close to 39 percent

of those age 18 to 24 did actually vote. This

is low compared with other age groups

in Oklahoma. For example, 68 percent

of those age 65-74 voted in the elec-

tion. Further, the number of youth voting in

Oklahoma is much less than other states,

where other states see 50 percent or more

of those age 18-24 voting. Again, part of

this comes back to the candidates and

the parties making themselves accessible

to young voters. But the fact that the

youth vote is so much lower in Oklahoma

comparatively is discouraging. It gives the

impression that the candidates and the

parties are purposefully ignoring this group,

and that can have longer range implications.

Voting is habitual and the earlier one begins

to vote in their life cycle, the more likely

they are to continue to vote.

In the fall, thousands of students on college campuses throughout the nation will attempt to register to vote and be turned away. The reasons are many: You have an out-of-state driver’s license. Your college ID is not valid here. You pay out-of-state tuition, so even though you do have a state driver’s license, you still cannot vote. Some state lawmak-ers are doing everything they can to prevent students from voting in the 2012 presidential election. What are your thoughts on this? What’s the situation in Oklahoma?

This is a hot topic right now as many

states are implementing identification

requirement that have the potential to

exclude valid voters. This type of debate

is not new, but it is very political. There

are reasons to believe that the Republican

Party would be advantaged by these types

of laws, and for those reasons, this is not

democratic. Voter fraud is not a large issue

in the United States so the risk of alienat-

ing potential voters is not high enough in

my opinion. Oklahoma passed the Voter

Identity Law in the 2010 election, and this

requires everyone to show proof of iden-

tity before they are able to vote. What

this means is that a person needs an

Oklahoma-issued identification card (driv-

er’s license or identification card), a feder-

ally issued identification card or a tribal

nation identification card. For college

students, OSU identification cards are

not valid because they do not have expi-

ration dates on them. But students can

21

register to vote and use their voter regis-

tration card instead of a state-issued ID.

So, while it seems the burden is higher

for some people to show proof of iden-

tity, all valid voters can meet these require-

ments with a few minutes of time. Further,

college students at OSU can choose to

vote absentee in their hometown, by filling

out paperwork more than 30 days before

the election, but they can also register here

in Stillwater since they reside here. Given

these types of laws, the burden really is on

the political parties and candidates to get

out the vote. Once parties and candidates

register voters, the state will send voters

the card that will allow them to vote.

What role will social media play in this election?

The role of social media is increasing in

the election. Each election we see a larger

impact. In 2008, the number of campaign

ads produced for online only, not televised,

changed the landscape. And the number of

candidates using Facebook pages contin-

ues to increase. Candidates are adapt-

ing to the changing social media climate,

and for college students, this is a great

way to involve them in the process. But I

think social media plays a larger role not

through candidate pages, but by people

commenting about politics and interact-

ing with politics among social groups and

networks. The level of political discus-

sion occurring among people within their

networks is increasing via social media and

I think these types of discussions and inter-

actions are influential. People learn about

politics and receive cues about the elec-

tion from their social networks, and social

media is the new way to connect social

networks together rather than face-to-face

discussion.

How does political behavior vary along gender lines? If so, how? If not, why? Are female leaders treated differ-ently than male leaders? Would you discuss gender, as it pertains to the politi-cal arena, in Oklahoma?

Politics has traditionally been viewed

as a man’s world, and it is no wonder that

gender differences are present. At the

most basic level, a gender gap exists in

voting, with women more likely to vote

Democratic and men more likely to vote

Republican. However, the gap has ebbed

and flowed in past elections, and specific

candidates can influence the magnitude of

the gap. Women have become more active

in politics, and we do not find differences

in voter registration and turnout rates. We

also have seen an increase in the number

of female candidates since the historic

1992 “Year of the Woman” electoral climate.

Subtle differences, though, still exist. My

co-author Tracy Osborn and I have stud-

ied the effects of gender in social networks,

and we find that women are perceived to

be less politically knowledgeable. Further,

women form their political social networks

with family and friends, while men are more

likely to discuss politics with co-workers,

and not family members. Further, women

are more likely to name their husband as

someone they discuss politics with, but

men are not likely to name their wives as

people they discuss politics with.

All of these subtle effects undermine the

role and legitimacy of women in the polit-

ical system. But this does not mean that

things are bleak for women. Some studies

show that the presence of women in office

serves as a role model for young females.

And in Oklahoma, it is particularly encourag-

ing that we finally have a female governor.

Further, the (Oklahoma) 2010 gubernato-

rial election had two (major party) female

candidates, which has only occurred in

the United States a handful of times since

1992. Female leaders and candidates have

an additional hurdle because they need to

overcome gender stereotypes of being too

compassionate and emotional, while also

being masculine enough. But being too

masculine triggers additional stereotypes

and intense media scrutiny. Because they

are under more scrutiny and media cover-

age often is superficial — appearance, etc.

— female candidates are more strategic

than male candidates usually and choose

opportune times to run, such as when

there is not an incumbent. Because of this,

female candidates tend to be successful

when they run.

The presidential election is just around the corner. What do you dub this election (for example, President Barack Obama has been dubbed “the first Facebook president”)? What’s your take on this election? Care to make any predictions?

This sounds like something my students

would ask me! And I would tell them

that electoral forecasting is a risky busi-

ness. The odds are 50-50, but many polit-

ical scientists get it wrong. What I think

this election will focus on is a referendum

on Obama. Obama cannot campaign on

change again, and instead needs to show

how he has achieved change in the last

few years. Romney, on the other hand,

has so far built a campaign on attack-

ing Obama, but offering little substance

on what he would do in office. I think this

got him through the primary season pretty

much, but I expect Obama to get tough

and press him more on specifics. In the

end, most elections with an incumbent

come down to simple retro-

spective voting — the

idea that you look

back over the

last four years

and evaluate

if you and the

nation are in

a better or

worse place.

CONTINUES

22

You grew up in Santa Rosa, Calif., in a one-parent home. What was the voting situation like when you were grow-ing up? Did your talk politics at home? Where does your love for politics come from?

My earliest political memory was watch-

ing the Reagan and Mondale election

returns at my grandmother’s house. And I

remember going to the polls with my mom

but sitting in the car. I would always ask her

who she voted for and she wouldn’t tell me.

But really, my interest in politics started in

student government in high school, where

I was student body treasurer my senior

year. More importantly, my interest in polit-

ical science was the result of a wonder-

ful professor, Jane Leftwich Curry, at Santa

Clara University. I was a combined science

major, with a natural science emphasis,

and I took her introduction to compara-

tive politics course and loved it — and she

encouraged me to pursue it. My love of

American politics grew out of an initial inter-

est in Russian politics but after a trip alone

to Russia in 1998, I decided I didn’t want to

travel alone for fieldwork and would rather

focus on American politics.

Given that you didn’t have as much of an interest in politics until high school, how important do you think it is to discuss politics at an early age?

Politics is definitely something that needs

to be discussed early — and the same

is true about voting. Most kids develop

a sense of partisanship in elementary

school; the attachment strengthens as kids

mature and learn more about the political

process. And since voting is habitual, it is

important to teach kids the importance of

voting even before they are 18. This year

in my Elections 2012 class, we are work-

ing with Sangre Ridge Elementary School

to develop a mock election for students

and parents on the day before the elec-

tion. The message we want to convey is

that voting is a civic duty, and it is important

to exercise your right to vote. If the projects

works and generates interest, I hope we

can do something similar districtwide in the

next election cycle. This gives my college

students a chance to become involved in

the community as well, which is a great

service we can provide and hopefully one

with many positive benefits for the elemen-

tary school, my class and OSU.

GARY LAWSON / UNIVERSITY MARKETING

Jeanette Morehouse Mendez lectures

her class on the 2012 presidential election.

To meet John & Jason and learn more, scan this QR code or visit: www.OSUgiving.com/Meet-John-Jason

JOHN STRAHSenior Director of DevelopmentCollege of Arts & Sciences405.385.5661 | JStrah@OSUgiving.com

JASON CANIGLIASenior Director of Development

College of Arts & Sciences405.385.5155 | JCaniglia@OSUgiving.com

They are here to help you connect your orange passion with the College of Arts & Sciences.

To meet John & Jason and learn more, scan this QR code or visit: www.OSUgiving.com/Meet-John-Jason

JOHN STRAHSenior Director of DevelopmentCollege of Arts & Sciences405.385.5661 | JStrah@OSUgiving.com

JASON CANIGLIASenior Director of Development

College of Arts & Sciences405.385.5155 | JCaniglia@OSUgiving.com

They are here to help you connect your orange passion with the College of Arts & Sciences.

24

Brianna Autry STORY Gary Lawson / UNIVERSITY MARKETING PHOTOGRAPHY

““I always remind myself

that this career was not

given to me to be selfish

with it.” — Adley Stump

Singing a Different TuneAdley Stump is following a musical path these days.

OSU alumna Adley Stump never envisioned a life of microphones, spotlights and record deals. But that appears to be the future for the jour-nalism/broadcasting major after her run on NBC’s The Voice whetted her appetite for a career in country music.

It started when she won best female performer for her version of Cee Lo Green’s

“Forget You” at the 2010 Varsity Revue, a contest among OSU’s Greek houses. Stump’s Pi Beta Phi sorority sister, Becky Wheeler, didn’t know what she was kicking off when she dared Stump to try out for Varsity Revue.

“When Adley sang at Varsity Revue, her voice left us in awe,” Wheeler says.

To hone her craft, Stump hit the stage at Willie’s Saloon in Stillwater — one of the places where 1984 journal-ism and broadcasting alum-nus Garth Brooks got his start. Stump’s parents, being staunch supporters, posted a video of her performance on Youtube that caught the eye of a Nashville investor, who offered Stump an artist devel-opment deal. She moved to the Music City after her 2011 graduation and tried out for The Voice.

The Tulsa native made it on the NBC show and prepared for it by releasing her first EP, Like A Lady. The EP — more music than a single but less than a full album — includes such self-penned songs as

“Crazy Dreams,” “One Way Ticket” and “Chocolate and Tequila.”

“I wanted to have my own music ready if people liked what they saw on The Voice,” she says.

On the show, Blake Shelton picked her for his team, but she was eliminated in March. Since then, she told the Tulsa World: “I’ve been all over the place. It’s been the coolest experience, and I’ve learned more about myself in the last year than I’ve learned in all my life.”

25

While she was working on The Voice, Stump also created Get Stumped, an online series that includes her performing such random acts of kindness in Nashville as surprise visits with grocery store employees, animal shelter volunteers and street vendors.

Stump is currently working on a new CD and planning a tour. Her summer included a gig at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa.

“It was the first time I had been home since The Voice,” she says.

Cain’s was filled for her show, with fans of all ages cheering her on. She explains how much she enjoys her audiences: “I always remind myself that this career was not given to me to be selfish with it,” she says. “It didn’t come out of nowhere for no reason. If I’m not working for the fans of my music and working to pro-vide something beautiful to them, I’m not doing my job. This was a gift. This was nothing I earned.”

Even so, she continues to work for her success: “With things hap-pening so fast, I learned you just have to believe in yourself. I have a lot of people believing in me and carrying me. I never thought I would be on this road.”

Brianna Autry is a senior in the OSU School of Media and Strategic Communications who plans to graduate in December.

Adley Stump, a 2011 A&S graduate,

performed at Cain’s Ballroom

in Tulsa over the summer.

Adley Stump met musicians Trisha Yearwood

( left) and her husband, Garth Brooks (‘84,

journalism) when they visited OSU in April 2011.

26Claudia and Bart Bartlett

take in OSU’s first home

football game of the 2012

season with their daughter,

Sarah, and son, “Trey.”

Donor’s $50 check was just the beginning of decades of giving back to OSU.

Growth of giving

It was the early ’80s when recent OSU graduate Claudia

Holdridge handed over her first donation to her beloved

alma mater. The $50 contribution brought a smile to her

face: Not only did she feel gratified in giving back to the

university she loved — she also secured a parking spot

in the Morrill Hall lot for her and her girlfriends during the

upcoming football season.

Over the next three decades, Claudia and her husband

Bart Bartlett watched the campus change and grow. The

zeros on the end of that original $50 gift grew, too: Two

$500,000 gifts for endowed chairs plus nearly $800,000 in

scholarships have been donated to the university through

the Edward E. Bartlett and Helen Turner Bartlett Foundation,

which was created by her husband’s grandfather.

GARY LAWSON / UNIVERSITY MARKETING

STORY BY Stacy Pettit Smith

27

“It’s one way of giving back,” Claudia Bartlett says. “You establish relationships when you go to school there. As the years go by … we all have this common goal that we want to see OSU become even better.”

Claudia, who graduated in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree in advertising and public rela-tions, and Bart, who began his college studies at OSU before transferring to the University of Illinois to finish his degree in ceramic engi-neering, both love to contrib-ute to the university because they “bleed orange,” Bart says. And orange has run through Bartlett veins for generations.

Edward Bartlett was an Oklahoma A&M chemis-try graduate in 1912, Bart says. Their financially success-ful lives allowed Edward and his wife to create the Edward E. Bartlett and Helen Turner Bartlett Foundation. Their estates became the perma-nent basis for the founda-tion, which donates to various nonprofit agencies, educa-tional programs and commu-nity development projects throughout Oklahoma.

In 1965, the foundation began awarding two scholar-ships to Sapulpa High School seniors headed to OSU.

“It’s the longest-running program from the foundation,” Bart says.

Currently, she sits on the OSU Foundation Board of Governors and the College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Advisory Board.

“There’s a lot to be said about the OSU family,” she says. “A lot of people are so proud of being a part of OSU.”

Although the Bartletts spend much time ensur-ing students get the oppor-tunity to experience OSU for themselves, they also find time to improve the lives of those outside the college age group. Seeing others of all ages and generations succeed is a driving force behind many decisions made by their foun-dation. Thousands of dollars have been donated to vari-ous Oklahoma communities to benefit a variety of programs ranging from art education programs to renovations at the Bartletts’ hometown library in Sapulpa to nonprofit agencies that serve senior citizens.

Claudia volunteers with Sapulpa Public Schools and is on the executive committee for the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence, which supports academic excellence in the state’s public schools. Her husband, a plant manager at McElroy Manufacturing Inc. in Tulsa, also serves on the board of the Boy Scouts’ Indian Nations Council.

“We try to touch a cross-section of ages within the community,” Bart says.

That passion for others is what led them to each other in 1992. They began dating while they were both serving on the board for an alternative school for at-risk children. In September 2012, Claudia and Bart celebrated their 18th anni-versary the way many couples do — focusing on their family.

“We (had) an exciting evening at a Boy Scout troop meeting with our son,” Bart says, laughing.

While shuttling their son, Harrison “Trey” III, a sopho-more in high school, and their 13-year-old daughter, Sarah, to band practices and football games, keeps them busy, the entire family still finds time to put on their favorite color and head to a football or basket-ball game at OSU — their second home.

“I’ve always felt comfort-able on campus,” Bart says. “I guess that’s part of it — you always feel welcome.”

“As the years go by … we all

have this common goal that we

want to see OSU become even

better.” — Claudia BartlettAlthough OSU has chosen the two seniors for more than four decades, Bart says the university has rules to follow when making the final decision. The candidates cannot qualify for financial aid or be receiving a hefty amount in scholarships, leaving a group of students who often have few options in covering college costs.

“We’ve always felt that these are the kids who fall through the cracks of the system,” Bart says. “They’ve done every-thing they’ve been asked to do to prepare for college, and statistically, they will do well and succeed.”

The Bartletts’ goal to aid OSU students did not stop with the scholarships. The couple donated $500,000 for an endowed chair in chem-ical engineering. Then, in 2007, the foundation donated another $500,000 to create an endowed chair in chemistry — the first endowed position for chemistry at OSU. This dona-tion met two of the Bartletts’ goals: to help bring in the best educators for future chemistry students and to honor Bart’s father Harrison, who studied chemistry at Oklahoma A&M in the 1940s.

Although Bart’s family history runs deep at OSU, Claudia is making sure that she, too, has an impact on future generations at OSU.

28

A 1950 Oklahoma State graduate continues to have an impact on his alma mater, even years after his death.

Born in New York City, Bossong spent much of his life in New England. He received master’s degrees in educa-tion from New York University and in hospital administration from Columbia University.

Bossong retired as administrator of the District of Columbia General Hospital in 1983.

During his retirement, Bossong coached youth athletic teams and was a basketball referee and softball umpire. He was scheduled to referee a game the day he died in February 2005.

Bossong shared his love of black and orange with his wife, although she hadn’t attended OSU. An Ohio native, Mrs. Bossong traveled the world through her nursing career and spent time as chief nurse at the Beni Messous Hospital in Algeria. She worked for the Washington, D.C., Department of Human Services for nearly 40 years before her retirement in 1986.

The Maryland couple often traveled to Stillwater to attend football games and homecoming activities.

Their son remembers his dad would look forward to such trips and always took his camera along.

“He would bring back pictures of how the campus was growing and changing,” the younger Bossong says. “It definitely had a special place in his heart.”

Couple’s generosity lives on at OSU

RIGHT

Frank G. Bossong III and his wife Kay were

strong supporters of Oklahoma State University.

After her husband passed away, Mrs. Bossong continued to display OSU memorabilia in her home, including watercolors of campus and the couple’s Heritage Society plate. Upon her death, she left an estate gift to the university.

Although Frank and Kay Bossong are no longer here, their commitment to education continues to assist students at OSU through the charitable remain-der unitrust established more than 20 years ago.

David Mays, senior associate vice president of gift planning at the OSU Foundation, says a charitable remain-der unitrust is a great way to make a significant gift to OSU while creating an annual income as well. Income can be paid over the course of a lifetime, or for a set number of years not to exceed 20 years. Once the trust terminates, the OSU Foundation uses the remaining funds in the trust for the purposes indicated, whether it be student, faculty, program or other campus support.

“As you can see, it can be an effective tool to achieve both your financial and charitable goals,” says Mays.

The legacy of Frank and Kay Bossong will continue to live on at OSU through the recipients of the scholarships.

Brittany Snapp is a master’s student in the School of Media and Strategic Communications.

Brittany Snapp STORY Frank G. Bossong IV / COURTESY PHOTOGRAPHY

/ COURTESY REDSKIN

Frank G. Bossong III, who built a successful career in health care adminis-tration, established a charitable remainder unitrust through the OSU Foundation in 1992 with a gift of more than $263,000. It provided Bossong with a steady income through quarterly annuity payments and added more than $417,000 to scholar-ship endowments.

It has provided more than $62,000 in annual scholarships and graduate fellow-ships for OSU students pursuing degrees in health care or health care administra-tion. The impact will continue to increase as the endowments grow.

In 1996, Bossong established another unitrust with a gift of $100,000. That fund gave Bossong an additional income until his death in 2005 and supported his widow, Kay Bossong, until she died in 2010. Remaining funds were placed in an endowment for general university support.

“He loved the university,” says his son, Frank G. Bossong IV. “When we were growing up, he always talked about the university. It was something special to him.”

After serving as an air traffic control-ler with the Army Air Forces in Guam during World War II, the elder Bossong attended Oklahoma A&M College through the G.I. Bill, obtaining a bache-lor’s degree in history in 1950 and excel-ling in his studies.

The May 19, 1950, edition of the Daily O’Collegian announced that Bossong had been chosen as one of 160 students for membership in the national honor society Phi Kappa Phi.

“He loved the university. When we were growing

up, he always talked about the university. It was

something special to him.” — Frank G. Bossong IV

29

30

Striking gold (and silver and bronze)Cowboys shine behind the scenes at 2012 London Olympics

OSU alumni Lynn Garrison and Tim

Ryan show off the medals for the London

Olympics. Both were working for Rio Tinto,

a Games sponsor that provided the metal

for all the gold, silver and bronze medals.

STORY BY Lorene A. Roberson PHOTOGRAPHY BY Timothy Ryan

31

For many, attending the Olympic Games may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. For two OSU College of Arts and Sciences alumni, it is all in a day’s work. This summer in London, Lynn Garrison (’84 history) and Timothy Ryan (’84 journalism/public relations) worked with Rio Tinto PLC, official provider of Olympic medals.

The childhood buddies first met in junior high in Oklahoma City. The Olympic Games reunited them 22 years later.

“We didn’t know that each of us had pursued a travel career until we ran into each other at the Athens Olympics in 2004,” Ryan says. Both had been hired by the same sports marketing agency.

Since then, that agency has hired them for every Olympics to manage on-site logistics for sponsors such as Rio Tinto. “Our job is to help companies lever-age sponsorship assets,” Ryan says. Garrison is a transportation expert; Ryan, a ticketing expert.

Other workers for the London-based mining company hailed from New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. “One of the best parts of working the Olympics is the teamwork required,” Ryan says. “There is an amazing international flavor. It’s more than just athletes coming together.”

As for Ryan — who has been part of the Olympic world since the Sydney Games in 2000 — what was the best thing about the London games? “Whenever you are on-site, you learn quickly who the promising local athletes are. It was great to see the British excel at their own games.

“And I always enjoy media coverage from the BBC. It provides a global view.”

Cellphone shooters were

everywhere at the London

Olympics, including on the

teams of athletes.

Sanya Richards-Ross celebrates her gold medal in the women’s 400-meter race.

32Competitors in the

3,000-meter steeplechase

include Donald Cabral

(center, leading) of the U.S.,

Ethiopia’s Nahom Mesfin

(right) and Italy’s Yuri

Floriani. None of those

three medaled; Cabral

placed eighth, with Mesfin

12th and Floriani 13th.

33Dmytro Dem’yanyuk competes in the

men’s high jump event, representing

Ukraine. The athlete, almost 30 years old

and standing 6-foot-7, was among three

competitors who tied for 16th place.

Sanya Richards-Ross

(center) of the U.S. takes

gold in the women’s

400-meter race with a

winning time of 49.55

seconds. Amantle

Montsho (left) of

Botswana placed fourth

in the race while Russia’s

Antonina Krivoshapka

was sixth. None of the

runners took more than

51 seconds to cover the

distance.

Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder was a

member of the U.S. basketball team at the London

games. The team defeated Spain to win the gold medal.

34

OSU senior nets a London internship — and a way to follow her grandfather’s footsteps

A glimpse of the Games

Matt Elliott STORY

A senior advertising major had the opportunity to be in London during the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Kellee Cooper, a native of Bristow, landed an intern-ship with the British company Bodymetrics during the biggest event in town since, err, well, the city hosted the Games in 1948.

Cooper isn’t the only OSU person in her family who has been to the Olympics. Her grandfather, Dr. Donald Cooper, was a physician assigned to the Americans for the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. He helped the United States to 107 medals at that year’s Games, the highest total of any nation that competed.

Cooper was also OSU’s team physician for more than 40 years and one of the nation’s leading experts in sports medicine at the time.

“He’s one of the biggest inspirations of my life because he sees what he wants out of his life and he does it,” Cooper says. “He knew he wanted to be a doctor ever since he was 4, and that’s what he worked for his whole life.”

In contrast to her grandfa-ther’s time with the Olympics, Cooper spent her time work-ing for Bodymetrics, which sells scanning technology to clothing makers to design better-fitting clothing.

In addition to “typical intern stuff,” Cooper says she assisted with photo shoots and helped with styling, help-ing others pick out what they want to wear. She also helped the company market itself using social media. Her back-ground as an American was very helpful, too, due to the fact that the company was expanding in the U.S.

“It was really cool to see the ins and outs of what all goes on,” she says. “I had never worked for a business before, so that was very enlightening.”

The only OSU student to participate in her intern program, she lived in a neigh-borhood near London’s historic Hyde Park with other students from the United States who were interning at other area companies.

“Now, I have friends all over the country,” she says.

“That was probably my favor-ite thing, meeting the other people who were in my program.”

It wasn’t a work-only summer for Cooper; she also attended some events of the Games, including the women’s triathlon.

Cooper, who graduates in May 2013, says she hopes to get a job in styling or copy writing for advertising. London also showed her she loved the fast-paced life of a big city (and public transpor-tation, too).

Whatever she chooses to do, her internship showed her the possibilities were endless if she put her mind to some-thing, just like her grandfather saw when the Americans took home 107 medals at the 1968 Olympics.

“He’s one of the biggest inspirations of my

l ife because he sees what he wants out of

his l ife and he does it.” — Kellee Cooper

35

Kellee Cooper and her

grandfather Dr. Donald

Cooper can compare

notes on the Olympic

Games. He was a team

physician for the U.S. at

the ’68 Games in Mexico

City; she attended the

London Games in the

summer of 2012.

PHIL SHOCKLEY / UNIVERSITY MARKETING

We at the Oklahoma State University Foundation want you to have the peace of mind that comes from knowing you have a valid estate plan. We want you to have a will that works well for you. And, frankly, one that works for us by including a bequest to the OSU Foundation.

People often say, “I never thought about making a charitable gift through my will. It just never occurred to me.”

When you name the Oklahoma State University Foundation in your will or living trust, you make a crowning gift to an organization you have supported during your life. Your Last Will and Testament declares that you believe in OSU’s mission and you want a portion of your assets invested in this worthy cause.

If you plan to share your legacy with the OSU Foundation through a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan or other estate provision, we invite you to join the Heritage Society. When we know about your generosity, we can meet your wishes for its use. We want to express our appreciation and we will honor requests for anonymity.

As always, we urge you to consult with an estate-planning attorney or other qualified advisor regarding a will, living trust or whatever best suits your needs. Sound professional help will contribute to peace of mind for you and your family.

For more information about opportunities to benefit the College of Arts and Sciences, contact Jason Caniglia or John Strah at 405.385.5617 or visit OSUgiving.giftlegacy.com.

DO YOU HAVE A CURRENT, VALID WILL THAT ACCOMPLISHES EVERYTHING YOU WANT IT TO DO?

Does your WILL work?

37

Postal Plaza Gallery will breathe new life into OSU’s collection

Bringing art out of the darkCONTINUES

PHIL SHOCKLEY / UNIVERSITY MARKETING

Louise Siddons and Bruce Crauder

visit the Postal Plaza Gallery as

construction continues to transform the

old post office into a new art center.

STORY BY Stacy Pettit Smith

38

So much of art depends on human interaction for its story to thrive. It is,

after all, a person who brushes colors across a white

canvas, who molds a lump of clay into a sculpture. And

for years, the stories of much of OSU’s art collection fell

silent as pieces were left in the dark — stored in closets

and basements, void of human interaction. Next fall, the

art once hidden across campus will regain its voice as it is

taken out of storage and moved to its new home in down-

town Stillwater. OSU’s Postal Plaza Gallery will breathe

new life into the art that has been sleeping in the dark

rooms across campus for decades.

years of art collected at

OSU will evolve into the

gallery within the former

post office building, which

will be equipped with two

separate display galleries

and a climate-controlled

storage space, says

Bruce Crauder, associ-

ate dean of the College

of Arts and Sciences. The

construction project will

revive what was once the

epicenter for Stillwater’s

communications as the

heart for OSU’s art.

For the opening exhibi-

tion, the gallery will shine a

well-deserved spotlight on

the 2,000-plus pieces of

the university’s permanent

art collection, Siddons

says. Once its doors open,

the gallery will offer visi-

tors an array of pieces

from the 17th century to

today. The diverse collec-

tion includes pieces from

around the globe rang-

ing from African sculptures

and Indian textiles to two

works by Salvador Dali.

Siddons discovered that

locating the various pieces

proved to be her first

challenge. After the 2010

announcement that the

former post office would

soon store and showcase

the university’s art, much

of Siddons’ time was dedi-

cated to the search and

rescue of various pieces

throughout campus.

“We spent the first six

months just finding every-

thing,” Siddons says. “It’s

not that no one knew

where they were, but you

had to find the right people

who knew.”

A portion of the collec-

tion was displayed within

the Bartlett Center for

Visual Arts, while other

pieces were hung in

hallways or entryways

throughout campus.

“Almost every build-

ing you go to on the main

campus has artwork

stored in it on the walls,”

Siddons says. “One of the

things you do when you

don’t have proper storage

is hang it out on the wall

somewhere. People are

careful about the art on

the walls, so it’s cared for.”

While some may have

seen it as bittersweet to

see blank walls where

art was once “stored” on

campus, others were a

little more thrilled to see

the artwork find a new

home in the gallery down-

town, Siddons says.

“We have this amazing

collection, and it doesn’t

just deserve to be shown,

but it needs to be taken

care of and properly

exhibited,” says Louise

Siddons, an art history

assistant professor and

OSU’s curator of collec-

tions. “There is a story of

rejuvenation here.”

With the opening of

the Postal Plaza Gallery

next fall, OSU’s perma-

nent art collection will

finally have a place to call

home. What began as a

search for proper stor-

age for the more than 70

“It’s so exciting because when we open the doors,

people wil l say this is museum quality and that

OSU really knows what it’s doing with artwork. And

they’l l be correct.” — Louise Siddons

39

TOP LEFT

Architectural rendering of

the Postal Plaza Gallery

LEFT

During a private event

where plans for the

gallery were unveiled,

attendees could view

renderings of what was

to come for the former

post office building.

RIGHT

The building on Husband

Street, a few blocks

south of Sixth Street,

was built 80 years ago

as part of the WPA.

“About a decade ago, the

library loaned us storage for

six months,” she says. “That

turned into 10 years. That

was lucky for us and proba-

bly unlucky for the library.”

But before the collec-

tion can be transported to

the new facility, the 1930s-

era building must undergo

a facelift. Originally built

as the city’s post office

by the Works Progress

Administration, the build-

ing has gone through

many different purposes,

most recently serving as

office space. Even through

decades of wear and tear,

Crauder says the building

has endured with a strong

core. “It’s a marvelously

solid structure,” he says.

“And it’s not a generic build-

ing — it’s a classic building

in itself.” The building needs

few changes aside from

knocking down walls that

were added in the 1960s

and updating the plumbing

and other essentials. In fact,

Siddons says, the architects

are focusing on the unique-

ness of the structure.

“The building itself is a

work of art and something

that was really thought

through,” she says.

The gallery will be a care-

ful blending of the build-

ing’s history and its present,

Siddons adds.

Much of the building’s

original ironwork and marble

has been tied into the design

of the art gallery. Additional

lighting has been added to

highlight special historical

features such as an origi-

nal cornice, Siddons says. A

mural depicting the history

of Payne County that was

painted on a wall in the

1960s has also been incor-

porated within the building.

Aside from the historical

relevance and beauty of the

building, Crauder says the

space is a perfect fit for the

university’s collection with

15,000 square feet of space.

Although OSU eventually

plans to have a museum on

campus, Crauder says the

gallery is a critical step in

preserving and cataloguing

pieces while also encourag-

ing learning. “It’s so exciting

because when we open the

doors, people will say this

is museum quality and that

OSU really knows what it’s

doing with artwork,” he says.

“And they’ll be correct.” Even

“It’s a marvelously solid structure.

The building itself is a work of art

and something that was really

thought through.” — Bruce Crauder

though the building will be

separated for exhibits and

storage, the entire building

can serve as a classroom

and teaching area, Siddons

says.

“Just having a space

where students can work is

huge,” she says. “It’s going

to change the way we teach

humanities.”

And she personally

understands the value of a

student’s experience in the

museum.

In fact, Siddons once

despised history as a

student and initially went

to college to major in phys-

ics. But while taking an art

history class as a general

education course, something

sparked Siddons’ curiosity in

the arts.

“One of the first things

they made us do was go to

a museum, and it changed

my life,” she says. “It was

incredible (to know) these

things are real, they’re

right here, and we get to

study them.” Now, she

says she hopes the Postal

Plaza Gallery will ener-

gize both OSU students

and the Stillwater commu-

nity. “I think it is a way that

you can capture that excite-

ment about discovery and

research,” Siddons says.

And with art donations to the

university doubling during

the year after the announce-

ment of the museum,

Siddons says she expects

there to be a variety of

pieces to encourage discov-

ery. To keep the creative

spark alive, the gallery will

also feature new exhibitions

regularly.

For now, Siddons says

she is excited to share

some of OSU’s best-kept

secrets.“You can talk

about art by looking at a

PowerPoint, or you can talk

about art while it is right in

front of you, and how excit-

ing is that?”

40

41STORY BY Lorene A. Roberson PHOTOGRAPHY BY Gary Lawson

Early admission program aims to improve doctor numbers in rural Oklahoma

Upping the care factor

THEY TAG ALONG ON PHYSICIANS’ DAILY ROUNDS IN SMALL TOWNS. THEY WATCH AS UNINSURED PATIENTS’ NEEDS ARE DETERMINED. THEY SCRAWL NOTES ON INDEX CARDS AND STUFF THEM IN THE POCKETS OF THEIR WHITE JACKETS.

THEIR JOB: OBSERVE PATIENT CARE IN COMMUNITIES WHERE DOCTORS ARE HARD TO COME BY.

CONTINUES

42JESSICA BRANSTETTER

This spring, four aspiring doctors were admitted to the Oklahoma State University College of Medicine through the Rural and underserved Primary Care Early Admissions Program. They will finish their undergradu-ate degrees at OSU in May of 2013, and begin medical school that fall.

The students are part of a new plan designed to provide a solution to a chronic problem in Oklahoma — the shortage of primary care physi-cians in rural areas.

“The Early Admissions Program has a specific mission, and that is to serve rural and under-served Oklahoma. Our four students want to help those communities in need. We are excited to see them tackle a critical issue in Oklahoma,” says Amy Martindale, director of student academic services in the OSU College of Arts and Sciences.

Juniors Jessica Branstetter of Perkins, Chá Reeder of Stillwater, David McVay of Tulsa and senior Maria Vachapittack of Stillwater are the program’s inaugural class.

Martindale says the four are passionate about the new endeavor. “Osteopathic medicine’s appeal to many of our students is its philoso-phy of taking care of patients holistically, not just focusing on the specific symptom presented today,” she says. “These students are also dedi-cated to primary care, to meet the general medi-cal needs in rural and underserved communities.”

EARLY RECOGNITION

The OSU College of Arts and Sciences in Stillwater and the OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine in Tulsa are collaborating on the plan. The OSU College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources also is taking part in the unique venture.

Under the program, students take pre-medical courses on the Stillwater campus for three years before starting medical training during their fourth — or senior — year. They earn a bach-elor’s degree in four years and an osteopathic medical degree in three more.

“We want to identify students who show early signs of interest in rural medicine. We want to keep their talents in our state and make sure they are successful,” says Dr. William Pettit, associate dean at the OSU Center for Rural Health. “It’s a phenomenal thing to start this program, and we are thrilled to be working with the College of Arts and Sciences.”

“Most of my family l ives in Oklahoma.

This is where I want to be.”

43‘GIVE THEM HOPE’

With Dr. Dustin Cupp, David McVay walked the halls of Cushing Regional Hospital, a 95-bed hospital that serves the Oklahoma communities of Cushing, Drumright, Ripley, Agra, Perkins, Yale, Oilton and Stroud.

The physiology major went to morning and afternoon clinics and on patient rounds with Cupp. On one Tuesday evening, they worked at the county’s free medical clinic. And while he could not treat the patients, McVay listened.

DAVID MCVAY

The curriculum took more than a year for the three units to develop, and at first glance, the requirements are standard pre-med.

In the summer between their sophomore and junior years, however, the requirements are stepped up, with the students required to complete a three-week externship with a prac-ticing osteopathic physician. In their junior year, students participate in primary care shad-owing experiences.

Students also join the OSU Student Osteopathic Rural Medicine Club — known as StORM, a name created by the group’s first set of officers in 2008. “The first officers wanted to be more than just a club; they wanted to storm Oklahoma by meeting with legislators, dignitaries, townspeople and new students to address rural health,” says Pettit, the club’s adviser.

StORM’s main goal is to serve as representa-tives on both the state and national level.

“In the long run, we want our students to become spokespeople,” Pettit says.

A LOVE FOR MEDICINE

A microbiology major, Jessica Branstetter externed in July with Dr. Jennifer Ferrell of Stillwater. The externship, which is shorter than an internship, was a natural transition for the 19-year-old. For the last five years, she has volunteered at Stillwater Medical Center, where she now works as a clerical assistant in the ER.

Branstetter says she always knew she wanted to be a doctor.

“I have always wanted to be in the medical field. I … wanted to get through high school quickly so I could do what I really wanted to do, which was medicine,” she says.

With that in mind, she graduated a year early from Perkins-Tryon High School as valedicto-rian of her class. OSU’s rigorous program does not faze Branstetter in the least.

“I am really excited about this medical program,” she says. “Most of my family lives in Oklahoma. This is where I want to be.”

CONTINUES

“Everyone has family

problems, so it’s good

when you can feel for your

patients.”

44

While in the various clinics, he heard stories from multigenerational households about caring for wounds, farming accidents and job losses. He met families who had no jobs, no insurance and little hope.

“We would talk about their physical, emotional and spiritual health, along with the importance of being a family,” McVay, 21, says. “Everyone has family problems, so it’s good when you can feel for your patients, and it’s OK to think about them the day, the week, the month after.

“It’s good to give them hope and encouragement.”

Cushing was McVay’s first rural experience after working with urban communities for more than four years.

During his senior year of high school, he dedicated each Tuesday to volunteering for Good Samaritan Health Services in poor areas of Tulsa. “The area was very rough; however, being there helped give me more compassion and a clearer vision,” he says.

“My experience with Good Samaritan was when I first decided to commit to a long-term vision of helping people through health care.”

‘FASCINATING’

The 20-year-old Chá Reeder, a microbiology major, tagged along with Ferrell in August. The doctor-in-training calls the experience fasci-nating. “I want to go into general practice, so it was great to observe patients with all differ-ent needs.”

Reeder, a Stillwater native and a self-proclaimed Cowboys fan since birth, says she has always wanted to stay within the OSU family. During high school, she toured the medical school once and later toured it as a college student — several times.

“I fell in love with the program and its family appeal. I also appreciate how none of the medi-cal students are fighting to be in a No. 1 spot, but rather everyone is working together.”

OSU’s osteopathic medicine approach appealed to Reeder, too: “Viewpoints are changing, and there’s more of a focus on preventative medicine,” she says. “Instead of being stuffed full of medicines, people are look-ing for better ways of living. And osteopathic medicine’s way of treating diseases and the entire body works with that.”

CHÁ REEDER

“I fell in love with the program and

its family appeal.”

45

‘EVEN MORE ENTHUSED’

Maria Vachapittack’s path differs from her younger colleagues. Her academic career started at the University of Nebraska, where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theater. At 25, while she was pregnant with her first child, she became enchanted with medicine.

“My doctor asked me what I wanted to do with my theater degrees. With deadpan humor, I said ‘go into medicine,’ ” she says. “I was very serious, though, and decided to give up a regular paycheck and follow my gut and heart and go into science.

“It is a gamble that has paid off.”At OSU, she is working on a degree in

university studies. This summer in Muskogee, Okla., Vachapittack externed with Dr. Michael Stratton of the Children’s Clinic, doing morn-ing rounds and attending Oklahoma State Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control Commission meetings, where Stratton is a member.

“I was impressed by the depth of knowl-edge Dr. Stratton possesses, his kindness and warmth toward patients and his good nature,” Vachapittack says. “He’s a great physician.”

Vachappittack admits she loves getting a jumpstart on medical school. “Who wouldn’t jump on this opportunity? I have a lot of higher education, and I wanted to get into the classes that I would really use as a doctor,” the 27-year-old says.

“OSU’s early admission program helped that decision, but both my husband and I have really fallen for Oklahoma’s charm. I’m drawn to the beauty of the land here.”

MARIA VACHAPITTACK

She’s also drawn to medicine — rural, to be specific. “There’s an extreme need for doctors in this area of medicine and in Oklahoma. I was overjoyed when the OSU Center for Health Sciences came to Stillwater with the news of this early admissions program.

“I would never take back this decision, and I bet if you talk with me in a year, I’ll be even more gung ho and even more enthused. I love people, and being a doctor seems the perfect choice for me.”

“I would never take back

this decision, and I bet if

you talk with me in a year,

I’ l l be even more gung ho

and even more enthused.”

46

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNUS 2012

Vincent G. Logan’79 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Investment management consultant Vincent G. Logan was named 2012 Dis-tinguished Alumnus for the College of Arts and Sciences at Oklahoma State Uni-versity on April 11.

Logan, a 1979 political science gradu-ate, was presented with the distinction at the college’s honors and awards banquet, where more than 200 students were rec-ognized.

“I’m very happy to call OSU my home and my university,” Logan said. At OSU, Logan was a member of the Native American Association and Pre-Law Club.

“You may not chair or head your student organization; however, being involved in any capacity will serve you well. At OSU, I learned how to be a team player.”

Logan is president of the Nations Group, an investment counseling firm in New York founded to help tribal nations design effective strategies for reaching financial objectives.

He was educated at OSU, the Univer-sity of Oklahoma College of Law and the summer law institute at Oxford University.

The College of Arts and Sciences Alumni Board is accepting nominations for the college’s 2013 Distinguished Alumni Award.

To receive a nomination form, contact Shane O’Mealey at shane.omealey@okstate.edu or 405-744-5647.

Nominations are due by Jan. 6, 2013.

GARY LAWSON / UNIVERSITY MARKETING

February 2012

OSU Hall of FameBenjamin Harjo Jr. (’74) was inducted into the OSU Alumni Hall of Fame on Feb. 17. Harjo earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts at OSU. The Oklahoma City resident is one of the nation’s leading American Indian artists. PHOTO BY GENESEE PHOTO SYSTEMS

47

October 2011

Distinguished AlumniJerry Gill (above) was one of two A&S recipients of the 2011 Distinguished Alumni Award presented by the OSU Alumni Association. Gill, a Stillwater resident, earned a bachelor’s degree in 1967, a master’s degree in 1973 and a doctorate in 1976, all in history. One of his jobs during his 36-year tenure at OSU, Gill was as associate director for the Office of High School and College Relations. PHOTO BY GENESEE PHOTO SYSTEMS

Vaughn O. Vennerberg II (below left), recipient of the 2011 Distinguished Alumni Award, receives an honorary doctorate from OSU/A&M Regent Chair Jay Helm at the spring commencement ceremony. The Dallas resident earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1976. He was president and director of XTO Energy Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas, until its merger with ExxonMobil in June 2010. He worked for 23 years with XTO when it was the nation’s largest domestic natural gas producer with more than 3,200 employees. PHOTO BY GENESEE PHOTO SYSTEMS

48A&S alumni board member Christopher Gafney

(’90) and his wife, Chere (’90)

The 50-year pins

are presented to

(from left) Earl

Folk, Priscilla

Decker, Joyce

Jamison, Melva

Wedge, Barbara

Peters, Dr. Tom

McDougal and

Mike McDowell.

From left: Marti Troy (’86), Rosemary Addy (’85), and Kristi Roberts (’85) and her husband, Greg

December 2011

Art at the Postal PlazaArt alumnus Carson Scott, a member

of the Class of 1959, (center) presents

a print of Frank Eaton’s workshop to

OSU President Burns Hargis and

his wife, Ann Hargis. The sculptor

donated the piece to OSU at an event

for the OSU Postal Plaza Gallery.

October 2011

A&S Homecoming ReceptionMore than 100 alumni and friends turned out for the A&S homecoming reception in Murray Hall. Alumni from 1961 and 1986 received 25- and 50-year pins from A&S alumni board President Dr. Tim Geib (’98) and Peter M.A. Sherwood, emeritus regents professor of chemistry and emeritus dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. PHOTOS BY CAM HOLMES AND MALLORY SCHRADER/SCHOOL OF MEDIA AND STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS STUDENTS

From left: Tom Wikle, A&S associate dean for academic programs; Lorene A. Roberson, A&S media and alumni relations; Lindsey

Brownlow, A&S student academic services; Rosalina Yorks (’12); Logan; Lauren Foley; Jamie Nix (’12); Jamie Vickery (’12);

Joshua Damron (’12); Amy Martindale, A&S director of student academic services; Grant Tinsley (’12); and Sherwood.

From left: Logan’s sister

Jeanine Logan (’77) with

student Sara McKiddy.

From left: Vincent Logan

with Jamie Vickery (’12) and

student Forrest Rogers,

and Regents Professor

Peter M.A. Sherwood, then

the A&S dean.

49

April 2012

A&S Honors and Awards BanquetInvestment management consultant Vincent G. Logan (’79) was named 2012 Distinguished Alumnus for the College of Arts and Sciences on April 11. Logan was presented with the distinction at the college’s honors and awards banquet. More than 200 students were recognized at the event as well.

April 2012

A&S Spring Alumni EventAlumni and friends enjoyed an evening of jazz at the Beacon Club in downtown Oklahoma City. OSU students and faculty who are members of the OSU Jazz Ensemble performed during the reception. Peter M.A. Sherwood, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, was recognized for his service to the college and university. He retired in July 2012. PHOTOS BY ANN SHERMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

Shirley and Herb Davis (’53).

From left: OSU students Jonathan Lacaba, Laura Lopez, alumnae Lorene A.

Roberson (’84) and Bonnie Cain-Wood (’99) and student Wes Haddox.

From left: Ana Scott (’11) and Bianca Cole (’10) From left: Jody Biggers with Kathy and Leo Noltensmeyer.

April 2012

Celebrating 40OSU’s Department of Theatre hosted an alumni event in honor of its 40th year. More than 50 alumni from throughout the United States attended the event at Murray Hall.From left: Brooks Powers (’07), Dawn Behrens

(’06) and OSU theater professor Heidi Hoffer.

50

51

COLLEGE OF

Arts & Sciences

College of Arts and Sciences Alumni: Stronger Every Day

This is an exciting time for the College of Arts and Sciences at OSU. Our College continues to grow, and we have more than 42,000 alumni today. The Office of Alumni Relations for the College of Arts and Sciences works with the OSU Alumni Association to strengthen ties among its alumni and friends. For more information or to join

the OSU Alumni Association,

visit www.orangeconnection.

org, or contact Shane O’Mealey,

alumni relations for the College

of Arts and Sciences, at 405-

744-5647 or shane.omealey@

okstate.edu.

Alumni Board of DirectorsPresident

Dr. Timothy Geib (’98)

National Board Representative

Dana Glencross (’82/’86)

Members

Carol Ringrose Alexander (’86)

Dr. D. Erik Aspenson (’89)

Claudia Holdridge Bartlett (’80)

Dr. Carla Britt (’83)

Matt Caves (’97)

Stacy Dean (’86)

Christopher Gafney (’90)

Brian Huseman (’94)

Theresa McClure (’78)

Pam Mowry (’04)

David Parrack (’80)

Timothy Ryan (’84)

Annawyn Shamas (’56)

The college’s spring alumni event

in Oklahoma City recognized the

contributions of Peter M.A. Sherwood

(third from left), who retired in July 2012.

With Sherwood are Matt Caves (from

left), Dana Glencross, Carol Ringrose

Alexander, Pam Mowry and Dr.

Timothy Geib.

Office of the Dean201 Life Sciences East Stillwater, OK 74078 (405) 744-5663

www.cas.okstate.edu

Dean

Bret S. Danilowicz, Ph.D.

Associate Dean for Instruction and Personnel

Bruce C. Crauder, Ph.D.

Associate Dean for Academic Programs

Thomas A. Wikle, Ph.D.

Associate Dean for Research

Ron Van Den Bussche, Ph.D.

Director of Student Academic Services

Amy Martindale, Ed.D.

Director of Fiscal Affairs

Renee G. Tefertiller

Director of Outreach

H. Walter Shaw

Senior Director of Development

Jason Caniglia

52

Monica Antionette Dudley, ’06/’08, political sci-ence, died in a car crash Feb. 1, 2012, at age 27.

Ms. Dudley was working toward a doctorate in educational lead-ership at OSU.

Ms. Dudley earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political sci-ence from Oklahoma State Univer-sity in 2006 and 2008, respectively.

She was named a visiting pro-fessor in political science at OSU after her 2008 graduation. She also had served as coordinator of the OSU Retention Initiative for Student Excellence and the Inclusion Lead-ership Program since July 2009. Ms. Dudley was a staunch advocate for ensuring students recognize their full potential in college.

Ms. Dudley is survived by her mother, Vickie Dudley; father, John Caldwell Sr.; sisters Chari Price, Janea Carter and Taira West; and brothers Domi-nique Dudley, Jawan Dudley, Kyndal Dudley, John Caldwell Jr., Tyrese Davis and Clarence Barnes Jr.

Don Childs, visiting theater professor, died Dec. 18, 2011, at age 68.

Mr. Childs began his career at the San Francisco Actors Workshop in the 1960s, working as a techni-cian, lighting designer and technical director. Following that, he earned a bachelor’s degree from the Uni-versity of Iowa and a master’s in fine arts from Indiana University.

Mr. Childs taught theater courses in many cities, including San Diego, Montreal and Stillwater. At the time of his death, Mr. Childs was teaching and designing at OSU.

He created more than 200 plays, musicals, dance concerts and exhi-bitions. He shared a Gold Medal for his  lighting design with sce-nographer Ladislav Vychodil at the Prague Quadrennial, an inter-national exhibition. He also show-cased his work at the World Stage Design, an exhibition of international performance design in Toronto. In 2007, the Texas Educational The-ater Association named him Artist of the Year.

Mr. Childs was chair of the South-west Chapter of the U.S. Institute of Theatre Technology. He founded the Stagecraft Institute of Las Vegas to provide hands-on training for the live entertainment industry. He was a member of several organizations, including the U.S. Institute of The-ater Technology, the United Scenic Artists and the International Asso-ciation of Auditorium Managers.

He is survived by his wife, Jane, and daughter, Tera Lynn.

In Memoriam

Dr. Alan R. Bandy, ’64, chemistry, died on Dec. 24, 2011, at age 71.

Dr. Bandy, an OSU alumnus and a faculty member in the chemistry department at Philadelphia’s Drexel University, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Okla-homa State University in 1964 and a doctorate from the University of Florida in 1968. After serving as a postdoctoral associate at the Uni-versity of Maryland, he joined the faculty of Old Dominion University. He later joined Drexel, serving as the R.S. Hansen Professor of atmo-spheric and analytical chemistry.

Dr. Bandy often served as principal investigator in studies funded by the National Science Foundation and the NASA Global Troposphere Program.

Dr. Bandy pioneered isotopic dilu-tion techniques, which were needed to probe the fluctuations in atmo-spheric dynamics. His research was equally rooted in analytical and physical chemistry. He was the author or co-author of more than 100 publications, adviser to 20 graduate students and mentor to 10 postdoctoral scholars.

Dr. Bandy is survived by his wife, Ellyn Gershon Bandy; four children; two stepchildren; 11 grandchildren; a brother, William; and a sister, Col-leen Fischer.

After college, he owned Lawson Printing in Stillwater before going to work for the U.S. Postal Service until retirement. 

Monty Lawson remembers his dad as a multitalented man: “Dad had a lifelong interest in music. He was not shy about trying his hand at playing the fiddle, mandolin, guitar and even singing,” he says.

Mr. Lawson’s survivors include two sons, Dr. Michael Lawson (’85), his wife, Kristi, and their son, Chris, of Kearny, Neb.; and Monty Lawson, his wife, Valerie, and their son, Colin, of Tulsa.

Richard Lee Lawson, fine arts, ’53, died April 27, 2012, at age 83.

Mr. Lawson was born April 27, 1929, in Queen City, Mo. In 1953, he earned his bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Oklahoma A&M College. He married Gloria Vinita Rutter on July 3, 1954, in Stillwater. She died in 2008.

Paul A. Montemurro, former OSU marching band director, died July 5, 2012, at age 79.

Mr. Montemurro served as the band’s director from 1972 to 1981, when he became director of bands until he resigned from OSU in 1985. In 1979, he and several former stu-dents formed an alumni band. His students often referred to him as “Prof.”

He was born April 20, 1933, in Chi-cago and married Margaret Dick-over on March 9, 1985, in Oklahoma.

Mr. Montemurro was an accom-plished trumpet, flugelhorn and piccolo trumpet soloist with 42 years of experience in band direc-tion, music education and church music work. He also was director of bands at Central Methodist Col-lege in Fayette, Mo., and directed instrumental groups at schools in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri.

In 1971, Mr. Montemurro was named an Outstanding Educator of America. Three years later, he received a Citation of Excellence from the National Bandmasters of America. He was named the National Association of Jazz Edu-cators’ Outstanding Jazz Educator in the Oklahoma unit in 1987.

MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIPSTo learn more about memorial scholarships, contact Jason Caniglia at 405-385-5155 or email jcaniglia@osugiving.com

Billy Joe ‘B.J.’ Smith, fine arts,’55, and emeritus art pro-fessor, died Jan. 26, 2012, at age 80.

Mr. Smith served as the director of the Gardiner Art Gallery, which he started in 1965, for 29 years before retiring in June 1994. A 1950 graduate of Guymon (Okla.) High School, he received a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Oklahoma A&M College in 1955.

After serving in the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers with a commission from OAMC’s ROTC between 1955 and 1957, he earned a master’s degree in fine arts in 1959 from the University of Oklahoma.

Mr. Smith lived in the San Fran-cisco Bay Area between 1959 and 1961 and attended the University of California, Berkeley’s College of Education in 1961. Returning to Oklahoma, he worked at the Oklahoma Art Center, now the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, as its assistant director from 1961 until 1965. In August 1965, he was hired by OSU’s Department of Art to start its first full-time gallery. He ran OSU’s gallery as a staff of one, hanging 11 shows a year until his retirement.

Mr. Smith’s painted artworks are in the permanent collections of the Fred Jones Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma, Norman; Oklahoma State Collection of Art-ists and Craftsmen, Oklahoma City; Oklahoma City Museum of Art; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Neb.; and numerous private col-lections. Since 1978, he has been listed in Who’s Who in American Art. He also is included in Who’s Who in the South and Southwest and Men of Achievement.

Mr. Smith is survived by a brother, George Smith and his wife, Marion of Westminster, Colo.

His professional affiliations included Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, National Patrons of Phi Beta Mu, College Band Directors Association, Music Educators National Conference and American Bandmasters Asso-ciation. He was a member of two honorary band societies, Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma. He was also a member and served as president of the Oklahoma unit of the National Association of Jazz Educators.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by five children: Pamela Reding and her husband, Chris, of Still-water, Paula Lindon and her hus-band, Darin, of Colorado Springs, Colo., Frank Montemurro and his wife, Ashley, Millicent Montemurro and Megan Montemurro, all of St. Joseph, Mo., and a sister, Antoi-nette Castelvecchi and her hus-band, Leroy, of Dundee, Ill.

You may not be thinking about coming back

home today.

OKSTATE.EDU

CAS.OKSTATE.EDU

TWITTER.COM/OSUARTSSCIENCES

ORANGECONNECTION.ORG

OSUGIVING.COM

 until then, CONNECT  with us at

BUT YOU WILL.

NON-PROFIT

ORGANIZATION

U.S. POSTAGE

P A I D

STILLWATER, OK

PERMIT NO. 191

Oklahoma State University

College of Arts & Sciences

201 Life Sciences East

Sti l lwater, Oklahoma 74078-3015

Donors support OSU many ways, including outright cash gifts, donations of property and estate-planning tools such as wills and trusts.

An opportunity that isn’t as well known is the gift of mineral rights. Oil and gas royalties could help you achieve your charitable goals. Whether the gift is an entire or undivided fractional interest, it can significantly impact many areas, including scholarships, faculty, facilities and programs.

Isn’t turning something in your backyard into a gift that helps students an exciting thought?

For more information, contact Jason Caniglia or John Strah at 405.385.5617 or visit OSUgiving.giftlegacy.com.

BAC KYAR D SUPPORT