Return Service Requested YEARS of GRAND VALLEY ORDER NOW: www.ubs.gvsu.edu GRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY 50 TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION 50TH ANNIVERSARY STEERING COMMITTEE The following people are members of the 5 0th anniversary steering committee: Thomas J. Haas Ken Kolbe Don Paton President and Honorary Chair Executive Producer, WGVU Alumni Association Representative Arend D. Lubbers Karen Libman Dave Poortvliet President Emeritus and Honorary Chair Professor of Communications Web Manager for Institutional Marketing Teri L. Losey Karen Loth Samhita Rhodes Special Assistant to the President and Assistant Vice President for Assistant Professor of Engineering Committee Chair University Development Nancy Richard Chris Barbee Rhonda Lubberts University Archivist, Director of Alumni Relations Assistant Vice President for University Libraries Institutional Marketing Robert Beasecker Scott Richardson Director of Special Collections and Bill Lucksted Associate Vice President for University Archives Manager of Operations, Human Resources Pew Campus and Regional Centers Cheryl Boudreaux Tim Selgo Assistant Professor of Sociology Mary Eilleen Lyon Athletic Director Assistant Vice President, Connie Dang News and Information Services Bob Stoll Director of Office of Multicultural Affairs Director of Office of Student Life Henry Matthews Mick Doxey Director of Galleries and Collections Mike Stoll Director of Business Services Office Student Noreen Myers LeeAnn Frees Trustee Tim Thimmesch Student Assistant Vice President for Roberta Osipoff Facilities Services Thomas W. Hiller Project Coordinator Member of GVU Foundation 50th Anniversary Celebration Pat Waring Community Relations Coordinator Jon Jellema Shelley Padnos for Office of the President Associate Vice President for Trustee Academic Affairs Diane Paton John Kilbourne Alumni Association Representative Professor of Movement Science 4 FALL 2010 WWW.GVSU.EDU/ANNIVERSARY Editorial Staff Mary Eilleen Lyon, M.S., ’05 Assistant Vice President for News and Information Services, Executive Editor Michele Coffill Editor and Writer Dottie Barnes, M.S., ’05 Contributing Editor and Writer Brian J. Bowe, B.A.,’97, M.S., ’04 Contributing Editor and Writer Mary Isca Pirkola Departments Contributing Editor and Writer Bernadine Carey-Tucker, B.A., ’99 Photography Services Manager and Contributing Photographer 6 Letters & Books Amanda Pitts, B.S. ’05, M.S. ’10 Photographer Elizabeth Lienau, B.S. ’05 7 Campus News Photography Coordinator Sherry Bouwman 12 Donor Impact Editorial and Circulation Assistant Susan Proctor, B.S., ’98 18 Athletics Alumni Editor Matthew E. McLogan Vice President for University Relations 30 Arts Design Staff Jacqueline Cuppy, B.F.A., ’87 40 Q&A | Stephen Rowe Creative Director Christine Parkes-Schaw, B.S., ’06 42 Alumni Profile Graphic Designer Contact Us Grand Valley Magazine is a publication of News & Information Services. Comments and suggestions are welcome. E-mail [email protected] Write Grand Valley Magazine Grand Valley State University 1 Campus Drive, 133 LMH Allendale, MI 49401 Grand Valley State University is an affirmative action/equal opportunity institution Look for daily campus news updates at gvsu.edu/gvnow. Grand Valley magazine See the entire magazine online at www.gvsu.edu/gvmagazine. On these pages: photo courtesy of University Archives Phil Buchen, Grand Valley’s first executive officer, checks a barn on the Allendale Campus in the early 1960s. The barn was later removed and reconstructed at the Blandford Nature Center. The Grand Valley Magazine is printed on paper manufactured with electricity in the form of renewable energy (wind, hydro, and biogas), and includes a minimum of 10% postconsumer recovered fiber. Trees used to manufacture this paper are certified from sustainably managed forests. GRAND VALLEY MAGAZINE 5 LETTERS & BOOKS Dear Editor: Thank you for recognizing the work of John McIntire Editor’s Note: The spring issue featured this photo in your summer 2010 issue of Grand Valley Magazine. While I was of David Ihrman, which prompted a letter from a student at Grand Valley I worked in the mailroom and had the Justin Adams who criticized the magazine staff honor of working with the individuals who are behind the scenes to for promoting trophy hunting. Here is Ihrman’s ensure the campus runs smoothly. response. Staff like Mr. McIntire deserve the admiration and gratitude of students, staff members and alumni. Dear Justin, Margaret Van Alstine, ’03 Having more than an arm-chair experience Dexter, Michigan with big cats, I can tell you that in areas where they are sport-hunted lion populations are healthy or increasing. This is due to the high cost of hunting license fees, a large portion of which go to local communities making the game animal worth LETTERS TO THE EDITOR CAN BE MAILED TO: more alive than as nyama (meat) or predator, and for anti-poaching patrols. Grand Valley Magazine Please include your name, Hunting dangerous big game is a magnificent adventure and not 1 Campus Drive, 133 LMH class year (if applicable), unrelated to reading Melville! Have an adventure! Allendale, MI 49401 hometown and phone number David Ihrman or sent via e-mail to: (not for publication). Letters Associate Professor of English [email protected] . are subject to editing. Bookmarks Looking for a good book? Check out these recommendations from Grand Valley staff 2010-2011 members: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks A Thousand Splendid Suns Dalva (Crown Publishing Group, 2010) (Penguin Group, 2007) (E.P. Dutton, 1988) by Rebecca Skloot by Khaled Hosseini by Jim Harrison Skloot captivates readers with the story of Gisella Licari, affiliate professor of Modern Dale Schriemer, associate professor of Henrietta Lacks, a poor African American Languages and Literatures, said this novel music, highly recommends this early book woman who went to Johns Hopkins for presents the female world through deep by Michigan native Jim Harrison. He treatment for cervical cancer. Her cancer emotions and experiences. “It portrays said he loved the historical aspects of the cells, taken during treatment and without daily life situations beyond the geographic novel, including stories from the Civil War her knowledge, became the first immortal boundaries of its setting in Afghanistan by to Wounded Knee and Vietnam, and the line of cells and the first commercialized engaging the reader with an enchanting seemingly effortless complexity of Harrison’s cells used extensively in cancer research. journey from slavery to freedom,” she said. writing. “The vividness of the writing takes “The power of the book isn’t simply the The author magisterially gives voice to those me into the world of Dalva as if I were seeing narrative, but the complexity of research, who do not have a recognized role in their the movie of her life,” Schriemer said. ethics, medicine and humanity,” said Susan society. The importance of being a life-giver Mendoza, director of Integrative Learning. in a world entrapped in individualism and It has been selected as the sixth annual selfishness stands out throughout the pages, Community Reading book at Grand Valley. she said. The University Bookstore is offering a 20 percent discount on these titles. 6 FALL 2010 WWW.GVSU.EDU/ANNIVERSARY CAMPUS NEWS Officials break ground for ‘game-changing’ library Grand Valley and community Wolters also said supporting leaders symbolically broke the library was important to her ground September 21 for a family and she is proud to have new library that speakers called it named for her mother. “My both a “game changer” and the father said this day is not about “intellectual heart of campus.” us, it’s about Grand Valley. I A crowd of about 400 agree with that, but it is also gathered to watch President about my mom and the legacy Thomas J. Haas, Provost Gayle she leaves,” Wolters said. R. Davis and others turn shovels The Pew Library will provide of dirt and celebrate the start of approximately 1,500 seats construction on the new Mary for student study, 20 group Idema Pew Library Learning study rooms, and offices and photo by Amanda Pitts and Information Commons. support areas for faculty and From left, Kate Pew Wolters and President Thomas J. Haas lead others in Davis said it may be surprising staff members. There will be breaking ground for the Mary Idema Pew Library Learning and Information to some that in this information room for 150,000 books on Commons on September 21. age college students still need a open shelves and 600,000 library. “The more information books in an automated West Michigan and the state. million is left to raise. “We’re we’re exposed to, the more storage/retrieval system. DeVos also read a note counting on continuing the we need training to use it Dan DeVos, a co-chair of the from his father, Richard M. generosity of alumni and critically and use it well,” she Shaping Our Future campaign, DeVos, who apologized for others who have supported said. “When it opens, this drew laughter from the audience his absence at the ceremony this campaign,” he said. library will symbolize the when he said the Pew Library that kicked off the start of Construction will begin intellectual heart of campus.” will be quite unlike his college constructing a library that will in earnest this spring and Kate Pew Wolters, chair of library. He added that as an be a “game changer” and unique the library is expected to be Grand Valley’s Board of Trustees, employer, he understands among university libraries. completed in 2013. Visit spoke on behalf of