winter 2010 EastThe Magazine of easT Carolina UniversiTy Masters of Critical thinking Doctor Basnight makes a house call viewfinder StuCk on eCu Lindsey Faithful from new Bern connects with the Velcro wall during Pirate Palooza, the traditional fall event welcoming thousands of returning eCu students with music, food and fun games. Photo by Cliff Hollis winter 2010 EastThe Magazine of easT Carolina UniversiTy 20 FeAtureS MASTers of CriTiCal ThinKing 20 ECU’s MBA program adopts new toolsBy Marion to teach Blackburn students more efficient ways to integrate knowledge and solve problems. YOU don’T KNOW JaCK 26 Whatever happened to Leo Jenkins’ baby boy,By Steve the Tuttleone who grew up in Dail House and excelled in college here? He went on to become Jim Hunt’s lawyer and 26 now is a judge. The hUMan eleMenT 32 This interior design professor challengesBy Spaine Stephens students to create living spaces good for people and the planet. a LOT on The Ball 36 Our Scholar-Athletes of the Year have Byone Bethany thing in Bradsher common: a commitment to excel on the field and in the classroom. DePArtMentS 32 froM oUr readers . 3. The eCU rePorT . 4. 36 winTer arTs CALENDAR . 18 seen aT hoMeCoMing . 40. PiraTe naTion . 46. CLASS noTes . 49. UPon The PAST . 60. froM The ediTor winter 2010 EastThe Magazine of easT Carolina UniversiTy Volume 8, Number 2 is published four times a year by East East Carolina University Doing our part Division of University Advancement East Carolina University is now well into its second year of budget cuts, 2200 South Charles Blvd. and tighter belts are evident everywhere around campus, from classrooms Greenville, NC 27858 that are a bit more crowded to landscaping that is much less manicured. ECU’s state appropriation is down by $19 million this year, which comes on top of the millions slashed from last year’s budget. News stories on h pages 11, 14 and 16 update you on the latest steps the university has taken EDITOR to match income and outgo. Steve tuttle ’09 252-328-2068 / tuttles@ecu edu. Everyone has been asked to cut costs, and magazine is no exception. East With this issue we debut a new format that saves more than $5,000 in ART DIRECTOR/DESIGNER printing and postage costs. We accomplish this by printing on thinner Brent Burch paper and abandoning the practice of using thicker, stiffer paper just for PHOTOGRAPHER the cover pages. Now, the covers and all the inside pages are printed on the Forrest Croce same paper. A concern I have about these changes is that the thinner paper makes it more likely that your copy will be creased and dog-eared by the COPY EDITOR time it arrives in the mail. If that happened to your copy, I apologize. Jimmy rostar ’94 This is the second time in as many years that we have taken steps to curtail CONTRIBUTING WRITERS the cost of publishing Last year, we rebid the printing contract to Marion Blackburn, Doug Boyd, East. Bethany Bradsher, kara Loftin, take advantage of more competitive pricing that emerged as the recession Steve row, Spaine Stephens first hit. That move reduced printing costs by roughly $5,000 per issue. The closer location of our new printer also allowed us to begin mailing CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS the magazine from the U.S. Postal Service hub in Greensboro and take Jay Clark, Cliff Hollis advantage of lower instate rates (the majority of readers live in North East CLASS NOTES EDITOR Carolina). Those lower rates more than offset a double-digit postage Joanne kollar increase imposed last fall on magazines and other such material. That was ecuclassnotes@ecu edu. about the same time as a first-class stamp jumped from 34 to 41 cents. ADMINISTRATION When more cuts were called for this time, the only reasonable option was Michelle Sloan to switch to printing on thinner, less expensive paper. But there is an upside h to this downgrade. Now that the entire magazine—including the covers— is printed, folded and trimmed at the same time, it’s actually cheaper to ASSIStant VICE Chancellor FOR UNIVERSITY MARKETING print more pages. This issue contains 60 numbered pages plus four cover Clint Bailey pages whereas our previous model was 56 numbered pages. What impacts have these changes had on the bottom line? The fall 2008 issue—the last one printed before we rebid the printing contract—cost East Carolina University is a constituent institution of The University of North Carolina. It is a public doctoral/ $45,552 for 60,000 copies, or about 75 cents each. This issue, with four research intensive university offering baccalaureate, master’s, additional pages, cost $34,590 for the same 60,000 copies, or about 58 specialist and doctoral degrees in the liberal arts, sciences cents each. That’s a 23 percent cost savings. and professional fields, including medicine. Dedicated to the achievement of excellence, responsible stewardship of the We strive for excellence in the quality of the magazine we deliver to you. public trust and academic freedom, ECU values the contributions of a diverse community, supports shared We believe we can continue to do that and save money, too. governance and guarantees equality of opportunity. ©2010 by East Carolina University Printed by Progress Printing U .P . 10-067 60,000 copies of this public document were printed at a cost of $34,590 or $ .58 per copy . 2 froM oUr readers For HigHer ADMission StAndards lived in Cotten dorm. She told me when she I was very happy with the recent article on our was in school she often saw a little old lady read East online at increasing entrance standards for freshmen in front of that very house always sweeping www.ecu.edu/east (“Panel Supports Raising Admissions the porch. That just affirmed our belief in Standards,” Winter 2009). I consider our the Sweeping Lady. She is probably still there freshman acceptance standards, and our cleaning after anyone that is a mess. overall academic perception by others, as Durham being or should be our No. 1 goal. I hope we —Lem Campbell ’92, will continue to publicize our positive strides WatCH tHoSe tyPoS! in this field. It really gives me talking points I I look forward to receiving each issue of can share with people about ECU. not only because it allows me to keep up East,with Deerfield Beach, Fla. the latest happenings at my alma mater, but —William B. Phifer ’71, also because it offers up gems about alumni such as Jim Dodson, who has left the world of big-money publishing to return home to North Carolina and take a job as a columnist How do i subscribe? for a small Sandhills newspaper to write Send a check to the eCu Foundation. about the things he loves (“Life’s Back Nine,” how much is up to you, but we suggest a minimum of $25 . your generosity is Summer 2009). appreciated . n 252-328-9550 But it troubles me greatly to find that the n www ecu. edu/dev. t writer apparently forgot to leave his n give2ecu@ecu edu. East manuscript on the copy editor’s desk. I Join the Alumni Association and receive At the end of the piece on campus ghost stories stumbled across at least eight or nine copy a subscription as well as other benefits in the last issue, we invited readers to share their errors. Some of the errors were minor—for and services . Minimum dues are $35 . n 1-800-eCU-grad spooky experiences at ECU. Here’s one: example, referring to a major publication n www .piratealumni co. m tHe “SweePing LADy” gHoSt as “ ” in one instance and as n alumni@Piratealumni co. m Golf Magazine This happened across the street from the “ magazine” in another; some were Join the Pirate Club and get the cashier’s office on the corner of Fifth and downrightGolf egregious—such as letting stand magazine as well as other benefits Rotary. My family owned this house while appreciated by sports fans . Minimum dues a paragraph that was a near duplicate of the are $75 . I was at school and I lived there with my one preceding it, or making a typographical n 252-328-4540 roommates. We had always heard sweeping error that rendered the sentence practically n www ecupirateclub. co. m n contact@ecupirateclub co. m noises like someone cleaning with a broom. meaningless (“[Dodson] wouldn’t take We called her the “Sweeping Lady.” The anything for his years in Greenville.” Say Contact us funny thing is, the sound of the broom was what?! Do you mean “ anything”?). n 252-328-2068 more prominent when we needed to clean trade n easteditor@ecu ed. u n www ecu. edu/eas. t the house. That being said, John Maginnes As if to add insult to injury—after all, this was a story about a writer and his art—one Customer Service and I were sitting in the front room watching To start or stop a subscription, TV and contemplating cleaning the house. of the headings read, “Learning the writing or to let us know about a change of craft.” Yes, indeed. I would suggest that the address, please contact lisa gurkin, The unplugged vacuum cleaner was in the gurkinl@ecu ed. u or 252-328-9561 middle of the room ready for action, when writer learn the copy-editing craft, or insistEast next time that his copy editor have a Send letters to the editor to all of a sudden it turned on without either easteditor@ecu ed.