Umass Magazine
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
S p r i n g 2 0 1 5 Amherst FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF THE FLAGSHIP CAMPUS Our Man at the State House Senate President Stan Rosenberg ’77 ALSO INSIDE: Heart and Music | A Voice from the Distant Front | Minimum Wage Debate Located in the heart of the picturesque Stay in UMass Amherst Campus, the Heart Hotel UMass blends the of the excitement of campus life Campus with a tranquil, countryside escape making it the ideal destination for your next trip to the Pioneer Valley. Whether you’re staying for business or leisure, Hotel UMass has first-class accommodations and services tailored to your needs. Voted #1 Hotel in Amherst by TripAdvisor, book your room today! www.hotelumass.com 877.822.2110 [email protected] S p r i n g 2 0 1 5 Amherst FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF THE FLAGSHIP CAMPUS Departments Features Inbox .........................................3 Our Man at the State House Around the Pond ......................4 18 Massachusetts Senate President Stan Rosenberg has Office Hours ............................12 strong ties to UMass Amherst. Sports Minutes ........................14 Research Notebook ................16 UMass People .........................36 24 Heart and Music Bookmarks ..............................42 Department of Theater connects creative neurons in A New Brain. Back in the Day .......................45 In Memoriam ..........................46 32 A Voice from the Distant Front ZIP/Postcode ..........................48 Robert Chapon, the first collegiate casualty of World War I. JOHN SOLEM Wearing his “focus hat,” MFA student James Horban sings out lighting cues during the tech stage of the musical A New Brain. 26 On the Cover Stan Rosenberg at the State House on Beacon Hill, Boston. 20% Photo by John Solem. SFI-00993 Read UMass Amherst magazine online at www.umassmag.com. Squares-Print ad.07.as.pdf 1 1/22/15 10:14 AM C M Y CM MY CY CMY K 2 umass amherst Amherst In Box FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF THE FLAGSHIP CAMPUS Naiads Forever and affecting dopamine production just Vol. 19 | No. 2 | Spring 2015 like a narcotic). It was great to see the Naiads in your fall If a computer addict invests 40-plus Executive Editor issue. Actually, back in 1949, when I ar- hours a week in a “fun addiction” that Robert Lindquist rived on campus, Miss [Ruth J.] Totman, is 40 hours not spent on school work, Mary [Nutting] Harmon, and Maida volunteering, working, spending time Managing Editor Riggs ’36 comprised the entire Women’s with family, and otherwise engaged in a Patricia Sullivan Phys. Ed. Department. healthful lifestyle. I suggest finding the Editorial Staff Mary Harmon, a recent BU grad, engineers who use their computing skills Elizabeth Adams ’74, Judith Cameron ’75 started the club and taught us all the to enable better medicine, safer trans- Andrea Comerford ’16, Laura Marjorie Miller tricks and stunts of synchronized portation, etc. and celebrate them! John Sippel swimming. Those were the days when Laura Fitch Art Director it was a requirement for graduation that Amherst, Massachusetts Matt Jasiorkowski everyone pass a beginner swimming Designer test, so the pool was in constant use. I Jack Cavacco ’82 worked there for four years and formed More Campus Love Chief Photographer Naiads and Junior Naiads from the girls John Solem who tried out. There was a lot of interest After reading “Love in the Lounge” (Fall since Esther Williams, a Hollywood star, 2014) I felt compelled to write and share popularized the sport. our story. I transferred into UMass in the We put on two or three shows a year fall of 2002 and lived on the 11th floor of UMass Amherst Magazine and learned to do all the costuming and John Adams tower. My future wife, Nicole 101 University Drive synchronization to current instrumental (D’Amour) Pelletier ’06, lived on the 16th Slobody Building, Suite C1 Amherst, MA 01002-2385 music. Every year we went on the road floor. After a few months of batting eyes 413-545-0123 with at least one themed show and trav- on the elevators as we came and went [email protected] eled around to New England schools from the building, she broke the ice when UMassMag.com with our routines. she noticed that my jacket said “Andover.” We made many good friends in the She informed me she was from Middle- Address Changes: Naiads and it would be fun to see the ton, only two towns away back on the Records Office club revived. North Shore. We started dating shortly Memorial Hall, UMass Amherst Amherst, MA 01003 Elinor (Gannon) Lowe ’53 after, and never stopped. Roughly a year 413-545-4721 Clinton, Massachusetts and a half after graduation, with tickets [email protected] in hand to the UMass vs. BC basket- UMass Amherst magazine is published three times ball game at the Mullins Center, I took a year by UMass Amherst, the flagship campus of No Fun in Addiction Nicole back out to Amherst. We grabbed the University of Massachusetts system. an early dinner in downtown Amherst Copyright © 2015 by the University of Massachusetts I read “Fable Makers: Meet the artists and I asked if she wanted to take a walk Amherst. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole and engineers behind your screens” around campus to visit some of our old or in part without permission is prohibited. (Fall 2014) with particular interest as haunts. While undergrads we would I had just finished readingHooked on often meet at People’s Market between Games: The Lure and Cost of Video classes, buy a bagel and sit by the campus University of Massachusetts Game and Internet Addiction, by Andrew pond. So as we strolled around the pond Amherst P. Doan and Brooke Strickland. Your headed toward the Campus Center I Chancellor article makes several light references to dropped to one knee. I was so nervous I Kumble R. Subbaswamy addiction, without any recognition that don’t remember a word I said—all that I addiction is a serious disorder that can remember is she said Yes. Vice Chancellor, University Relations ruin lives. Addiction is a costly social In May we’ll have been married five John Kennedy ’86 issue not a trivial adjective to be coupled years, and we are hard at work raising with “fun.” our future UMass students. Vice Chancellor, Development and Alumni Relations The evidence is now coming in that Nick Pelletier ’06 Michael A. Leto computer games are physically addictive North Andover, Massachusetts (feeding the reward center in the brain Assistant Vice Chancellor, Alumni Relations JC Schnabl Please send your letters to: [email protected]. Letters may be edited for clarity and length. spring 2015 3 Around the Pond KEITH TOFFLING ’05, ’12G ’05, KEITH TOFFLING 4 umass amherst Chocolate 101 Students sample the world’s best chocolate. ASTRY CHEF and Bake Shop Manager PSimon Stevenson bakes for 30,000 peo- ple a day in the UMass bake shop below the Hampshire Dining Commons. A few times a year, he takes an afternoon to instruct 15 lucky students on what he’s learned about chocolate in more than 20 years as a pastry chef and through advanced European train- ing in cooking with chocolate. In a recent session of Chocolate 101, students learned how chocolate goes from pod to bean to chocolate liquor to bar. They tasted 12 different chocolates to educate their palates, including the variety that has been judged the world’s best—Felchlin Maracaibo Grand Cru, made in Switzer- land from Venezuelan beans. The students made chocolate lava cake and ended the class wrist-deep in chocolate as they dipped strawberries and rolled truffles. Students learned that vanilla brings out the natural flavor of chocolate; that dark chocolate must be exactly 90 degrees to temper properly; that a white “bloom” on old chocolate occurs when the fat separates; that water is chocolate’s greatest enemy. Chef Stevenson demonstrated how to blend chocolate and hot cream in small, slow circles to make a velvety smooth ganache. Stevenson, whose own enjoyment of chocolate is as noticeable as the Union Jack of his native Britain that he wears on the sleeve of his white jacket, wraps up the class with instructions on how to eat a truffle. “Remember that so much of tasting is about contrasts, “ he says. “Do not nibble. Pop the whole truffle in your mouth. The dryness of the cocoa powder coating is al- most shocking. Then crack cleanly through the hard shell to the sweet ganache center. It’s incredibly creamy as it dissolves on your tongue. Notice the interplay of flavors—cof- fee, caramel, fruit, floral, burnt, nutty.” As Stevenson says, “This is why people get excited about chocolate.” —Patricia Sullivan spring 2015 5 Around the Pond Onions and Outreach How Mass Aggie helped Slavic farmers. OLKA MUSIC played a rollicking part of the Precent 100th birthday party held on campus to celebrate UMass Extension and the national founding of the Cooperative Extension Service. The polka tunes were a fitting accompaniment to the event because just over a century ago Massachusetts Agricultural College invited Con- necticut River Valley farmers of Polish descent and their families to campus to learn about such topics as growing onions, raising dairy animals, UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES and canning. The 1912 Polish American Farmers’ Day program. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE POCUMTUCK VALLEY MEMORIAL MEMORIAL OF THE POCUMTUCK VALLEY COURTESY PHOTOGRAPH MASSACHUSETTS. DEERFIELD, MEMORIAL HALL MUSEUM, ASSOCIATION, The outreach was especially significant be- An early 20th century cause UMass Extension was the first institution Day for the centennial celebration. onion shovel. to educate immigrant farmers in their own lan- “These families did yeoman’s work that boost- guage, says John Skibiski ’54.