UMass FALL 2008 VOLUME 11 NUMBER 3

MAGAZINE

Online Progr ams Boo st ‘Phenomenal’ Gro wt h of Conti nuing S tudies Page 22 A Message from the Chancellor

I am grateful for your extraordinary support during my first year as chancellor. Thanks to you, the University is abuzz with good news on many fronts and there’s a genuine feeling that UMass Lowell is on the move.

Enrollment is up more than 20 percent, including a 48 percent increase in students of color. These students are benefiting in unprecedented numbers from the scholarship programs funded with your support. Our hockey team is off to a strong start again, buoyed by the incredible attendance and encouragement given by alumni and friends last year. Ambitious plans are being finalized to build two new buildings to support teaching and research, renovate existing classrooms and laboratories, and expand student housing options.

But in the midst of all this good news, we have financial realities to face. The troubles of the broader economy have inevitably affected the funding we will receive from the state. As I write this letter in mid-November, we face the Governor’s 9C cuts that will reduce UMass Lowell’s budget by $4 million mid-way through the fiscal year. I have asked our senior management team to avoid across the board cuts so that we maintain momentum in meeting our core mission of teaching, research and service to the Commonwealth.

To ensure that we continue to move forward, I plan to launch a strategic planning initiative, UMass Lowell 2020, this spring that will provide a framework for strategic decision making into the next decade. Our new provost, Ahmed Abdelal, and Jacqueline Moloney, executive vice chancellor, will lead the strategic planning initiative with support from our new vice chancellor for Administration, Finance, Facilities and Technology, Joanne Yestramski, our new vice chancellor for Advancement, Beth Shorr, and Chief Public Affairs Officer Patti McCafferty. I encourage you to get involved in this initiative and would appreciate your advice and guidance as we shape our plan for the future.

I began by expressing my appreciation for your generosity. In fact, donors have endorsed our direction by giving in record amounts to our scholarship programs and annual fund. Your help on this journey is needed more than ever. Please consider making a gift to UMass Lowell using the envelope in this magazine or online at www.uml.edu/giveLowell. Every gift strengthens our ability to help students realize their dreams and make a lasting contribution to their communities and our world.

Marty Meehan

Chancellor Ta bl eofContents

FALL 2008 VOLUME 11 NUMBER 3

FALL 2008 Volume 11, Number 3 Campus News Arts & Sciences ...... 2 The UMass Lowell Alumni 28 Education ...... 4 Magazine is published by: Office of Public Affairs Engineering ...... 5 University of Massachusetts Lowell Health ...... 8 One University Avenue Lowell, MA 01854 Outlook ...... 9 Tel. (978) 934-3223 Outreach ...... 13 e-mail: [email protected] People ...... 13

Chief Public Affairs Officer Research ...... 16 Patti McCafferty Athletics ...... 35

Director of Publications Alumni Events ...... 37 and Publisher Class Notes ...... 40 Mary Lou Hubbell Alumni News ...... 43 Director of Programs Calendar of Events ...... 45 and Alumni Services Diane Earl 32 Features Director of Regional Alumni Programming The UMass Lowell-Lawrence Pa rtnership: Deme Gys 18 Building Bridges between People, Schools and Generations Editor Jack McDonough Cover Story Staff Writers Online Programs Boost ‘Phenomenal’ Edwin Aguirre 22 Growth of Continuing Studies Christine Gillette Geoffrey Douglas Renae Lias Claffey Face of Philanthropy Sheila Eppolito In Search of ‘a Simple Concept’: Jennifer Hanson 32 He Found it, After Much Questing, Morgan Hough and Made it a Career Elizabeth James Kristen O’Reilly Features Sandra Seitz 22 Graphic Design Management Event Raises $1 Million Paul Shilale 28 LIRA Program Proves to Seniors that The University of Massachusetts Learning Never Ends Lowell is an Equal Opportunity/ 34 Affirmative Action, Title IX, H/V, ADA 1990 Employer.

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Lowell Textile School • Massachusetts State Normal School • State Teachers College at Lowell • Lowell Textile Institute Lowell Technological Institute • Massachusetts State College at Lowell • Lowell State College • University of Lowell

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 1 CampusNews

The book, “Southeast Asian Refugees and Immigrants Colleges - Arts and Sciences in the Mill City,” includes essays and studies about the Cossé Bell’s Work Airs on PBS resettlement of Southeast Asian immigrants to Lowell that began thirty years ago in response to conditions in Historically, the Faubourg Tremé Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. neighborhood adjacent to the New Orleans French Quarter was home to History Department Celebrates the most prosperous and politically Publications by ‘Excellent Scholars’ active black community in North America. Five years ago, before In the space of a year, three UMass Lowell history Hurricane Katrina devastated the city, professors have published books, demonstrating the UMass Lowell History Prof. Caryn significant abilities and achievements of the department. Cossé Bell began work as research Department Chair Joseph Lipchitz describes them as “the latest achievements of three excellent scholars who director on a film project chronicling Caryn Cossé Bell the neighborhood’s rich culture. The have multiple books to their credit.” completed documentary, “Faubourg Tremé: The Untold The authors and their books are Asst. Prof. Chad Story of Black New Orleans,” produced by Pulitzer Prize- Montrie, “Making a Living”; Assoc. Prof. Michael Pier - winning musician Wynton Marsalis and filmmakers Dawn son, “Mutiny at Fort Jackson”; and Asst. Prof. Christophe Logsdon and Lolis Elie, will appear on public broadcasting Strobel, “The Testing Grounds of Modern Empire.” stations across the country beginning in February 2009. Montrie’s book examines work as a central part of Americans’ evolving relationship with nature, highlight - ing connections between worker’s rights and the rise of environmentalism. Pierson’s latest book tells the story of a group of Confederate soldiers in Fort Jackson, New Orleans who rose up against their officers and used the fort’s heavy guns on their commanders, resulting in the surrender of the fort to Unionists. Strobel’s most recent book examines the creation of colonial “racial order” on the American and South African frontiers, comparing efforts by white people to undermine Native American and African sovereignty.

The editors of “Southeast Asian Refugees and Immigrants in the Microsoft Chooses Holly Yanco’s Mill City,” are, from left, Sylvia R. Cowan of Lesley University, Lan T. Pho and Assoc. Prof. Jeffrey N. Gerson of UMass Lowell. Project for Research Funding Southeast Asian Influence and Microsoft Corp. has selected Assoc. Prof. Holly Experience Honored Yanco’s robotics project as one of eight proposals that will share $500,000 in research funding and advanced With a population of 20,000, Lowell’s Southeast Asian software applications. community is second only to that of Long Beach, Calif. The influence of this population — which numbers a fifth of the Yanco, who directs the Robotics Lab in the Computer city’s total — and its significant cultural contributions have Science Department, was selected by Microsoft from a been chronicled in a new book by author/editor Lan Pho, field of seventy-four researchers from twenty-four coun - director emerita of the Center for Diversity and Pluralism, tries. The company had requested proposals to examine and co-edited by Political Science Assoc. Prof. Jeffrey Gerson. the growing role of robots in society, from serving as human-operated tools to becoming “social” partners More than one hundred people attended a May book signing working with and alongside people. and recognition event at the Mogan Center in Lowell, includ - ing former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, who was UMass Lowell is sharing the funding with the honored for his work with immigrant groups. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University,

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University of California Researcher’s Work Ensures Safety Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon of Space Station Crew University, McGill Universi - ty, United Arab Emirates Dr. Ivan Galkin, head of the University and University UMass Lowell Center for Atmospheric of South Florida. Research’s Software Systems Section, has been helping NASA and Boeing, Yanco’s project, entitled the prime contractor for the Interna - “Multi-Touch Human-Robot tional Space Station (ISS), decide Interaction for Disaster whether it’s safe for astronauts to ven - Response,” came about after ture outside the Space Station, orbiting Hurricane Katrina exposed Ivan Galkin some 220 miles above the ground. technological gaps that, despite the prevalence of As the 270-ton complex travels through Earth’s tenuous satellite imagery, left many ionosphere, its huge solar-panel arrays continuously pick up emergency responders and accumulate free electrons, a process known as “spacecraft resorting to hand-drawn Assoc. Prof. Holly Yanco, right, and charging.” NASA and Boeing are concerned that when this student Amanda Courtemanche charge becomes too high, astronauts performing “spacewalks” paper maps to search for sur - demonstrate a prototype of the vivors in the aftermath of tabletop multi-touch panel display. could get zapped by the ISS, potentially damaging the the 2005 storm. Although robot cameras were in use, they astronauts’ sensitive communications or life-support were limited to sending video only to operators at the site electronics, or worse. and not immediately to the staff coordinating search and “In other words, the astronaut can get electrocuted rescue operations at the command center. during a spacewalk if the Station collects too much charge,” “Our proposed intelligent, multi-touch command and says Galkin. control display system will allow collaboration by multiple Thanks to Digisonde sounding data provided by Galkin, users on multiple levels,” she says. “Thus, informed discussion mission planners can predict plasma densities in the can take place, damages and risks can be properly assessed, ionosphere more accurately and can abort a spacewalk if the an action plan can be developed and resources efficiently conditions are not right. allocated. If a significant finding occurs in the field, the plan Digisondes are portable, ground-based transmitters that the can be quickly updated and modified.” Center built and installed in about seventy sites in the U.S.,

English Faculty Members Publish Three Books in Spring Semester Three members of the English Department faculty published books during the spring semester: two novels and one work of non-fiction. The three are Adjunct Prof. Dave Daniel, Asst. Prof. Andre Dubus III and Geoffrey Douglas, a writer in the Publications Office and an adjunct professor. Daniel’s novel, “Reunion,” follows the lead character’s trip from California to his boyhood home in Massachusetts and ponders the question: If we Andre Dubus III Dave Daniel Geoffrey Douglas could return to our high school days and somehow alter that past, would we? In “Classmates: Privilege, Chaos and the End of an Era,” In his novel, “The Garden of Last Days,” Dubus explores Douglas relives the often troubling years he spent at St. the days leading up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Ameri - Paul’s School in Concord, N.H., fifty years earlier. The ca through the eyes of intersecting characters, including non-fiction work relates the differing stories of several those of one of the terrorists, who is enthralled and classmates, including that of Sen. John Kerry. repulsed by a Florida strip club dancer.

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 3 CampusNews

Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, South America and Colleges - Education Antarctica. Each instrument is capable of automatically taking measurements of the ionosphere directly above its The School of Education: A Legacy of location and providing on-site processing and analysis before Foresight, Innovation and Growth sending the information in near-real time to space-weather Heading into its second quarter-century, the Graduate prediction centers. About thirty of these Digisonde sounders School of Education (GSE) is on the front line of education - send their results to UMass Lowell’s automated data al institutions, with a range of offerings deep and diverse repository at Wannalancit Mills. enough to meet the needs of almost anyone pursuing a career Computer Science Majors Honored in education, at almost any level. for Academic Achievement At the master’s level, candidates may receive their degrees and teaching licenses at either the elementary or Fourteen undergraduate and graduate students were secondary level. recognized for their academic achievements at this year’s Computer Science Academic Excellence Awards Banquet. “This degree provides teaching candidates with a variety of field experiences linked to their coursework,” says GSE “We wanted to reward and recognize the students’ Interim Dean Anita Greenwood. “We have a great reputa - academic achievements with merit-based cash awards,” tion for supervision of our teachers in the field while they’re says Computer Science Chair Jie Wang. “The awardees working on their master’s. During the twelve weeks a student were selected by the faculty based on the students’ GPA is in classroom teaching, we’ll conduct between six and eight and other academic performance measures.” visits, which is well above the norm.” A total of $17,100 in scholarships was awarded. For those who already hold a teacher’s license, master’s The honorees were Ryan Beaven, Ryan Buckley, Janice level and a certificate of Advanced Graduate Study (CAGS) Marie Cosentino, Christopher Deveau, Elizabeth Tran, are offered in curriculum and instruc - Daniel Gabriel, Victoria Kaercher, Ross Caisse, Zheng Fang, tion, reading and language, and educa - Beibei Yang, Mark Micire, William Wesley Gordon, tion administration. Matthew Ouellette and William Brendel. In addition to the master’s and Teachers Participate in Hands-On CAGS degrees, the School’s doctoral Science Foundation Workshop program is flourishing. Designed around the needs of students seeking Fifteen middle and high school teachers from Mas - to work in higher education, as well sachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Washington as K-12 school administration, the attended a summer workshop funded by the National program is research-based, requiring Science Foundation. Called “iSENSE: Internet System for that candidates write and defend their Networked Sensor Experimentation,” the workshop was a Anita Greenwood dissertations before being awarded collaborative project between UMass Lowell and Machine degrees. Three areas of concentration are available: Science Inc., a supplier of educational robotic and leadership in schooling, mathematics and science education electronic kits. and language and literacy. iSENSE trains educators on hands-on science using One of the School’s major recent initiatives has been networked sensor probes. Its goal is to develop a web-based the expansion of its online offerings. Although the initial system for collecting and sharing sensor data. Such a system teacher-licensing master’s degree program isn’t available will allow students to view, graph, analyze and export data online due to the importance of actual hands-on classroom from individual sensors and then combine them with infor - time for student teachers, other master’s degrees and the mation from multiple sensors to examine regional, national CAGS degree can now be earned through online instruction. and global phenomena. And this has been more successful, Greenwood says, than The workshop’s faculty included Asst. Prof. Fred Martin anyone anticipated: “When we started teaching online, of Computer Science, Assoc. Prof. Sarah Kuhn of the we were concerned that some of the collegiality might Regional Economic and Social Development Department, be lost. But instead, it’s created a whole different kind Asst. Prof. Michelle Scribner-MacLean of the Graduate of participation.” School of Education, and Sam Christy and Ivan Rudnicki of Machine Science.

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Colleges - Engineering $628,000 in Grants Gives Engineering Lab Unique Capabilities in Field of Measurement Five faculty members in the College of Engineering have been awarded grants totaling more than $628,000 for equipment that will have a significant impact on sound and vibration research. The National Science Foundation’s Major Research Instrumentation Program has awarded the researchers — Assoc. Profs. Christopher Niezrecki and Peter Avitabile, and Profs. Julie Chen and James Sherwood of mechanical engineering, and Prof. Pradeep Kurup of civil and environmental engineering — $491,575 with which they have purchased a three-dimensional scanning laser vibrometer system. Engineering Faculty Recognized for Service Learning Efforts And, with an Army Research Office grant of nearly $137,000, the team acquired an Aramis Chancellor Marty Meehan, right, awarded certificates of recognition to faculty members who, with the help of NSF grants, have contributed to the Digital Image Correlation Imaging System. SLICE (Service-Learning Integrated throughout the College of Engineering) These two new pieces of equipment will work program. With Meehan is Prof. John Duffy of the Mechanical Engineering Department. Duffy, together with other SLICE faculty, has included service in combination with a 64-Channel Microphone learning in one or more undergraduate courses every semester since Acoustic Mapping Array to provide remarkable fall 2004. Service learning is a hands-on educational approach in which research possibilities. students achieve academic objectives in a credit-bearing course by meeting real community needs.

Seventy Plastics Engineering Students Receive Endowed Scholarship Funds Seventy undergraduate and graduate students in plastics engineer - ing recently received financial support from twenty-six endowed scholarship funds for the academic year 2008-09. The monetary values vary, but most of the scholarships are in the range of $1,000 per academic year. “These funds have been created through the generosity of our alumni, corporate partners and even members of the plastics engineering faculty,” says department Chair Robert Malloy. He credits the program’s success to the efforts of the University’s Office of Advancement in working with the community in Nanomanufacturing Summit establishing these funds, which awards scholarships annually in Draws 200 Participants perpetuity. About 20 percent of the recipients are students from Provost Ahmed Abdelal, Dr. Ming Wei, center, of the other countries, including India, Indonesia, Thailand and Israel. Plastics Engineering Department and Prof. Joey Mead of the Nanomanufacturing Center chat during the third annual “We know many of our students struggle financially, and many Nanomanufacturing Summit that drew close to two hundred end up working an excessive number of hours,” says Malloy. participants to the Wannalancit Mill building earlier this year. “This really hurts their ability to do well in courses and impacts More than fifty posters were presented by some thirty researchers from the University, industry partners and allied our retention rates. Scholarship support is one way to limit the institutions such as Northeastern University, the University number of hours students work.” of New Hampshire, Seoul National University of Technology and the Army Natick Soldier Center.

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Colleges - Engineering

Students, Faculty Attend Milwaukee Plastics Conference Sixty-three UMass Lowell plastics engineering students, along with ten faculty members, participated in the 54th Society of Plastics Engineers annual conference held in Milwaukee earlier this year. The three-day event was the largest meeting of its kind, attracting plastics professionals from around the world for hundreds of presentations on the latest technologies in plastics materials, design

and manufacturing. The UMass Lowell Formula SAE Race Team at the Virginia International Raceway Faculty members who attended included consisted of, from left, Guy Crescenzo, Alexander Petrov, Michael Gagnon, Jason Galda, Justin Pekarek, David Cloutier, Peter Wason, Matthew Flynn, Samuel Finch, Profs. Bob Malloy, Nick Schott, Stephen Orroth, Justin Massei, Christopher Warren, Krithika Swaminathan, Zaccur Fettig and Stephen Driscoll, David Kazmer, Carol Barry, Troy Lundstrom. Daniel Schmidt, Stephen McCarthy and Formula SAE Team Competes in National Event Stephen Johnston of Plastics Engineering, at Virginia Raceway and Asst. Prof. Emmanuelle Reynaud of A group of UMass Lowell engineering students competed this year in Mechanical Engineering. the annual Formula SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) competition “Organizing and funding such a trip is always at the Virginia International Raceway in Alton, placing twenty-first out challenging, and we had to be creative in our of a field of forty-four. Formula SAE is a student design contest sponsored efforts to minimize the cost for the students,” by the Society in which teams design, build and compete in scaled-down, says Malloy. In addition to student car washes, open-wheeled Formula-style race cars. funds for the Milwaukee trip were raised through This was the University’s first entry into the event since 1996. donations by plastics alumna Debbie Hauser The River Hawks Racing Team, composed of more than twenty B.S. ’79, Prof. Amad Tayebi, George Kachen mechanical and electrical engineering majors, was pitted against schools of the UML Nanomanufacturing Center, the from across the U.S. and Canada in a series of races that tested the Plastics Graduate Student Organization, the performance and endurance of the cars and drivers. Society of Plastics Engineers Student Chapter, the Nanomanufacturing Club and the ACS “Everyone on the team worked really hard to get the project ready for Rubber Division Student Chapter. this competition,” says Justin Pekarek, the club’s vice president and leader of the car suspension team. “Completing all aspects of building a race car, On the way to the conference, the group from design and fabrication to assembly and final testing, was a great stopped in Racine, Wis., to visit the headquar - experience for us all.” ters of S. C. Johnson & Son (previously the Johnson Wax Co.). James Kimball B.S. ’82, The car was powered by a 1997 Honda CBR 600 F3 motorcycle engine Johnson Wax’s engineering director and a that produced about 75 horsepower. It could attain speeds well over 100 plastics engineering alumnus, arranged for miles per hour but, for safety reasons, cones were added on the course to a special tour of the facility, which is one create hairpin and other tricky turns to slow down the cars and require of architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s most more driver input, says Pekarek. famous buildings. “This project started with no financial support, no blueprint, no previ - On the second day of the conference, the ous car and no funding — only the dream of a few car enthusiasts and a group also hosted a reception and dinner at faculty advisor, Prof. James Sherwood, who inspired us to take on such a local restaurant for about 70 alumni from a huge undertaking. During the course of a year, we had literally carved the Milwaukee area and those attending out a home next to the wind tunnel at Ball Hall,” he says. In addition to the conference. the support from the University, various local sponsors contributed to the project.

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Colleges - Health

Doyle Named Interim Dean of the School of Health and Environment Prof. Kathleen (Kay) Doyle has been named interim dean of the School of Health and Environment (SHE), succeed - ing Dr. David Wegman, who resigned as dean and plans to return to the faculty after a one-year sabbatical. A national search for a permanent dean is in progress. Doyle has chaired the Department of Clinical Laboratory and Nutritional ISR Systems Commits $100,000 Sciences since 2004, and has directed for Future Engineers Center the Medical Technology program Goodrich Corporation’s ISR Systems has signed a four-year, since 1983. She has also been a visit - $100,000 commitment for UMass Lowell’s Future Engineers ing professor in biochemistry at the Center and its innovative DesignCamp program. Every UMass Medical School and a research summer, DesignCamp offers more than a dozen hands-on work - fellow in pathology at Harvard Medi - shops on the campus to more than five hundred students in cal School and Massachusetts General Kay Doyle grades 5 to 10. Gathered for the check presentation are, from Hospital. She received the National left, Goodrich/ISR Systems President Tom Bergeron, Dean Scientific Research Award from the American Society of John Ting, Goodrich/ISR Systems Vice President and General Clinical Laboratory Sciences in 1994 and in 1997 for her Manager Dick Wientzen, Human Resources Vice President work on the pathological effects of alcohol. Dan DeSantis, Future Engineers Center Executive Director Doyle is on the board of governors of the American Soci - Doug Prime and Chancellor Marty Meehan. Goodrich/ISR ety for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) Board of Registry, and is Systems designs and builds custom-engineered electro-optical a recipient of its National Service Award. ASCP is the old - systems for defense, scientific and commercial applications. est, largest and most respected professional organization for laboratory medicine. Last year, Doyle was nominated to the Tripathy Fellows Honored for ASCP Institute Advisory Committee, a “think tank” that Outstanding Research helps the executive board set the organization's agenda. UMass Lowell doctoral candidates Rahul Tyagi in the She also serves on the board of directors of the Greater Chemistry Department and Rahul Panchal in the Plastics Lowell Community Foundation, is a corporator for Lowell Engineering Department won the 2008 Tripathy Memorial General Hospital and is on the boards of advisors for the Endowed Graduate Fellowship Awards in recognition of their American Textile History Museum in Lowell and Girls Inc. academic accomplishments and multidisciplinary research in of Greater Lowell. She received the UMass Lowell Francis the areas of materials science and polymer science. Each award Cabot Lowell Faculty Award for Outstanding Service and consisted of a $6,500 research stipend for the summer. the Department Teaching Award in 2003. Tyagi’s research involves an environmentally benign approach As department chair, she has continued to teach to synthesizing polymeric materials used for delivering cancer Clinical Immunohematology (blood banking and transfu - drugs. Panchal is seeking a potential solution to the industrial sion medicine) and Human Biochemistry for undergradu - problem of monitoring and measuring polymer shrinkage, which ates, as well as Advanced Pathophysiology in the graduate is one of the biggest concerns in the plastics injection-molding program. Doyle played a major role in planning and process. The work has resulted in the filing of an application for developing the intercampus, interdisciplinary Biomedical a provisional U.S. patent. Engineering and Biotechnology doctoral program. Now in its sixth year, the fellowship is given in memory of She holds a B.S. in medical technology from the late Sukant K. Tripathy, an internationally recognized leader UMass Amherst and an M.S. in biological sciences and and renowned researcher in materials science and the founding a Ph.D. in chemistry/biochemistry from UMass Lowell. director of the Center for Advanced Materials. He was a profes - sor of chemistry and also served as the University’s provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs.

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Colleges - Health Sleep Disorders Seen as Factor in Onset of Diabetes Clinical Lab Sciences Celebrates 30th Anniversary and Other Diseases From its inception in 1978 to its recent 30th anniversary celebration, the Clinical Laboratory Sciences program has been growing and changing. Nursing Prof. Geoff Phillips McEnany thinks sleep is pretty important. And he isn’t After launching as a medical technology program, degree options have thinking about the kind of sleep that “knits expanded to include an undergraduate clinical sciences option, a master’s up the ravelled sleeve of care.” degree, a clinical pathology graduate certificate and the first graduate certificate for public health laboratory scientists in 2006. His concern is with the hidden and baleful effects of sleep disorders and dysregulation This spring, the Board of Higher Education approved a bachelor’s degree on major disease states such as hypertension, in nutritional science. diabetes, obesity and cancer. Recent “This has all been accomplished with a small, dedicated nucleus of research points to the strong connection faculty,” says Department Chair Kay Doyle. between disturbed sleep and the onset of The celebration included recognition of four founding faculty — many medical conditions such as those Alease Bruce, Mike Frechette, Jay Lam and Ted Namm. “I wanted to noted here. thank these four faculty members for their devoted service and outstand - “Though the science of somnology has ing teaching,” Doyle told those assembled for the celebration. “It was burgeoned in the past fifteen years, the their vision for our programs that helped make us what we are today.” education of health providers about the Doyle also recognized the contributions of Prof. Gene Rogers, graduate co-morbidities associated with dysfunctional program coordinator, and Assoc. Prof. Tom Wilson, academic coordinator sleep is inadequate,” says McEnany, who for the nutritional sciences program. Both Rogers and Wilson are program conducts research and maintains a clinical alumni. Professional technologists Donna Rogers and Nancy Grandbois practice with psychiatric patients. were recognized with “Above and Beyond” awards for their outstanding Sleep is easily overlooked as a contribut - service in Clinical Laboratory Sciences. ing factor to disease, because patients The celebration also included presentation of the first Clinical are rarely conscious of their own sleep Laboratory Science Distinguished Alumni Award to Gerald Martone ’79. disturbances. And, neither doctors nor Martone, who received an honorary degree at the University Commence - nurses routinely inquire about sleep as part ment in May, has had a remarkable career in international relief work. of a basic assessment and diagnosis. He is currently director of Humanitarian Affairs and U.N. Relations for McEnany has developed an educational the International Rescue Committee in New York. program for nurses, funded initially by a $135,000 grant from Sepracor, about sleep and chronobiology. Working with UMass Lowell’s Continuing Studies and Corporate Education program, he designed a twelve-module online course that covers a full range of sleep issues, from the science of sleep to behavioral assessment and intervention. The course provides thirty-six accredited contact hours toward a certificate and is offered at no cost to the members of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association and the International Nursing Honor Society, Sigma Theta Tau. Among those individuals and institutions honored at the Clinical Laboratory Sciences 30th Anniversary Celebration were, from left, Paul Inderbitzen, clinical laboratory education coordinator at Lowell General Hospital; Gerald Martone, ’79, recipient of the program’s first Distinguished Alumni Award; Linda Kilbride, clinical laboratory manager at Saints Memorial Hospital, and Michelle Bioe, an information specialist at the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Manchester, N.H.

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Overall, freshman academic numbers tial students and requests for Outlook improved slightly. Students’ average housing from one hundred former Campus Welcomes Largest high school GPA is 3.23, and their commuter students. Incoming Class Ever average SAT score is 1083. Solutions to the crunch included This was the first fall for which the increasing the residence life space in UMass Lowell welcomed 2,352 new Proximity Program was in place. Fox Hall, turning over a larger per - undergraduate students to campus Proximity offers a reduced tuition to centage of the East Meadow Lane this fall, a 20 percent increase over students from Southern New Hamp - apartments to undergraduates, housing the fall ’07 number and the largest shire towns located within twenty-five fifty returning students in rental group of incoming students in the miles of the Lowell campus. This pro - units located close to one another and school’s history. gram brought in ninety-nine freshmen housing two hundred forty students, Incoming undergraduates included and transfers from qualifying areas. including about sixty freshmen, at the 1,528 freshmen and 824 transfers. Thomas Taylor, dean of Enrollment Radisson Hotel in Nashua, N.H. Applications for fall ’08 admission Management and Student Success, What started as a lease arrangement were higher for both freshmen (15 per - identified a variety of factors that at the Radisson developed into a full- cent increase) and transfer students contributed to the increase in fledged residential community, with (13 percent), for a 14 percent overall enrollments. the hotel providing breakfasts and jump over 2007 numbers. “The admissions office implemented dinners seven days a week, the Applications to graduate programs some new strategies to interact more University providing transportation for also increased slightly over last year, with prospective students, we had an the 9.5-mile ride to and from campus, but enrollments were almost identical. award-winning viewbook to work with and a full complement of Residence This was offset by an overall enroll - and the campus has enjoyed greater Life staff. Costs for UMass Lowell ment increase in Continuing Studies visibility recently, primarily because of at the Radisson match those for and Corporate Education (CSCE) of the arrival of Chancellor Meehan.” on-campus housing and meals. more than 14 percent. Students in Taylor said they also focused on “We have asked for a lot of input graduate programs can register for putting together more competitive from students to make sure the trans - traditional classroom courses through financial aid packages for incoming portation schedule worked well, and the “day school” or for online courses students, and awarded merit-based that the food met students’ needs,” says through CSCE. scholarships earlier than previously, Director of Residence Life James Kohl. All together, according to prelimi - increasing their effectiveness as a “I think we’ve worked things out pretty nary reports, UMass Lowell’s fall recruitment tool. well at this point.” enrollment numbers increased by more There were also new scholarships to The Honors House at Eames Hall than 10 percent to 13,479 students. award, such as the $35,000 in grants opened this fall, with one hundred Among all new students, there was from the Martin T. Meehan Scholar - fifteen students opting in to a living a 27 percent increase in the number of ship funded by contributions made space that includes a faculty member applications from students of color, and during the Chancellor’s inauguration. in residence and a busy semester- a 39 percent increase in enrollments long calendar of activities. for this group. Demand for University Robert Grantham, assistant professor “One interesting aspect of this fall’s Housing Soars of sociology, who resides in Eames, launched a movie and discussion series numbers is that, in all categories, This summer, UMass Lowell experi - and has helped students organize an enrollments increased more than appli - enced the greatest demand for on- Honors House council and committees cations did,” says Kerri Mead, director campus housing in its history, with a that include a speakers’ bureau and of Undergraduate Admissions. “That waitlist of four hundred undergrads. programming group. indicates that students are increasingly The increase is the result of four phe - seeing us as a school of choice rather nomena: more incoming students than than a backup.” ever before, a higher percentage of incoming students requesting housing, a higher number of returning residen -

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 9 CampusNews

Provost Outlines Plans to Strengthen Academic Programs and Scholarship Ensuring the success of undergradu - “The basic premise is that you regis - ate students, strengthening graduate ter students based on their major or programs and research, and “interna - areas of interest. They will be registered tionalizing” the UMass Lowell experi - in cohorts to two or three classes ence were among the top priorities together so they can begin to connect articulated by Provost Ahmed Abdelal with one another, and with a faculty in a wide ranging interview concerning mentor who can describe for them their his plans for the University. area of interest and its possibilities. Abdelal became provost in mid May Half or two-thirds of the incoming after serving in that same capacity at freshmen in the fall will be in these Northeastern University since 2002. learning communities. As provost and chief academic officer (The learning communities were at UMass Lowell, he oversees long- launched in the fall, and more than term planning, curriculum, instruction, half of the 1,528 incoming freshman research, outreach and assessment, were enrolled in the program.) libraries and academic services. “In summary, I want us to do “There is considerable agreement Ahmed Abdelal everything we can to enhance the that there are certain areas we need to graduation rate — through learning concentrate on to further the success “These vice provosts will work with communities, through educational of UMass Lowell,” Abdelal said. the deans, faculty and other adminis - technology and through tutorials. Any trative units to see what they can do As part of the plan to achieve this time we find a course that has an unac - to advance the areas of their prime success, he said his office would be ceptable failure rate, we must look to responsibility,” Abdelal said. reorganized to include three vice see what kind of support is needed to provosts — one each for undergraduate Addressing the welfare of undergrad - help the students.” education, graduate education and uate students, the provost said, “We In order to increase undergraduate research. want to see that they get the highest enrollment, Abdelal said, deans and caliber of education, and to do this we (Not long after Abdelal’s interview, department chairs will have to help must identify and eliminate any con - Don Pierson was named vice provost the admissions office recruit students. straints that might appear to prevent for graduate education. Pierson, dean “I also want to see us recruit more this from happening.” of the Graduate School of Education, international students. They will be had served as interim provost prior to The best indicator of success, he said, part of the diversity we want to nurture Abdelal’s appointment. Several is graduation rate — the number of because of the different cultures they months later, Prof. Charlotte Mandell students who enroll as freshmen and represent. We also want our students of the Psychology Department remain through graduation. to go abroad. was appointed vice provost for “We have already begun a number undergraduate education.) of efforts aimed at increasing retention Abdelal said an internal search and, if we do this every year, we would be conducted for a vice provost ultimately will increase the number for research — a position that would of students who graduate.” have increased responsibility for To this end, he said, he had been matters such as technology transfer, working with Tom Taylor, dean of commercialization, and research rela - Enrollment and Student Success, and tions with corporations. Until that the academic deans to launch what he search is completed, Partha Chowdry called a number of “academic learning continues to serve as vice chancellor communities” for first year students. for research in an interim capacity.

10 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 CampusNews

Six ‘Smart Classrooms’ classes. Every day we access the Wiki cost-effective method of keeping our Created in Dugan Hall to keep class notes (no more chalk - lawns healthy while reducing green - This Year boards), view images and videos, and house gas emissions and reducing the discuss posted material.” amount of waste entering landfills. The The number of technically enhanced The smart classrooms have been used organic fertilizer program is an impor - classrooms in the University grew by this year by faculty from the English, tant part of Chancellor Meehan’s com - six this year with the introduction of a Art and Nursing departments. mitment to campus sustainability.” half dozen “smart classrooms” in Dugan As part of this sustainability initia - Hall on UML South. ‘Green’ Initiative Includes tive, a twenty-plus member “Green The six have been equipped with Organically Fertilized Lawns Team” has been appointed to develop podiums, called “Smart Sympodiums,” a comprehensive recycling program. Thanks to the growth of a pilot pro - that have DVD/ VCR, PC, document The team’s long-term goals include the gram launched by UMass Lowell and a camera and laptop/PowerPoint/thumb creation of sustainable reuse and local organic lawn-care expert, chemi - drive capability. The instructor works recycling programs, implementation cals are no longer in use on most of the from the podium’s computer screen of cost-saving waste management lawns on campus. which is operated by a mouse in four of methods, establishment of environ - the rooms and by touch-screen method The program, a cooperative effort of mentally sensitive purchasing in the other two. John Coppinger of The Green Guy in procedures, and full engagement of The second-floor rooms also have North Chelmsford and the UMass the University community. Lowell Office of Facilities, started on a been completely remodeled with new Green Team members represent pilot basis about four years ago. Since flooring, ceilings, newly painted walls virtually every facet of University life, then, it has grown to include most of and upgraded heating and air condi - including student affairs, dining, the grass surfaces at the University. tioning systems. grounds maintenance, athletics, “I love the new classrooms,” says Facilities Director Tom Miliano says, arts, public affairs, purchasing, facili - English Prof. Marlowe Miller. “I’m “By producing fertilizer on campus ties, residence life and students. using grass clippings and food waste using Wikis (a collection of web pages Rich Lemoine, assistant director of that would normally be trucked to a that enables anyone who accesses it to Environmental Health and Safety, says, landfill, we’re taking advantage of a contribute or modify content) in all my “This is a very encouraging beginning.”

Asteroid Named in Recognition of UMass Lowell’s Scientific Achievements The International Astronomical Union has christened in this manner. In the U.S., these include Princeton, UC minor planet No. 7806 as “Umasslowell” in recognition of Berkeley, Harvard, Brown, Caltech, MIT and Cornell. the University’s academic and scientific achievements. The The asteroid’s name was proposed by Edwin L. Aguirre, object, which circles the sun between the orbits of Mars and a former associate editor of Sky & Telescope magazine who Jupiter and measures 2½ to 5½ miles across, was discovered is now the science and technology writer at UMass Lowell, on October 26, 1971 by Czech astronomer Lubos Kohoutek and his wife, Imelda B. Joson, Sky & Telescope’s former from Hamburg Observatory in Germany. photo editor. “This is truly a unique honor for UMass Lowell,” says Chancellor Marty Meehan. “We’re grateful to the interna - tional astronomical community for this special recognition.” According to Dr. Brian G. Marsden, director of the IAU’s Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, of the nearly 14,700 names that had been given so far to asteroids, only about 300 have been bestowed to institutes, observatories and universities. Thus, UMass Lowell joins a small number of prestigious institu - This image of asteroid 7806 Umasslowell, circled, was captured on September 9 by astronomers Giovanni Sostero and Ernesto Guido tions of higher learning worldwide that have been honored in Remanzacco, Italy, using a remotely controlled 14-inch telescope and CCD camera in New South Wales, Australia.

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 11 CampusNews

Falcons Atop Fox Hall Take ‘Foster’ Chick Under Their Wings Of the fourteen known breeding pairs of peregrine falcons in Massachusetts, one of them can be found residing atop UMass Lowell’s 18-story Fox Hall on the East Campus. To help ensure the survival of these endan - gered raptors, the University’s Facilities Depart - ment, along with the state’s Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, provided a wooden nest box on the hall’s rooftop. In spring, state biologist

One of the falcons atop Fox Hall gives the photographer a wary look.

Lowell attorney Martha Howe, left, who encouraged the Desmarais family to consider donating the family’s house to the University, stands with Chancellor Marty Meehan and Linda and Paul Desmarais in front of 150 Wilder St. Desmarais Family Donates Historic House The gift of an historic house across the street from Coburn Hall on the South Campus could provide a home for one of many University entities looking for more space. Dr. Thomas French and his team discovered that eggs laid by the falcons had failed to hatch. They The 103-year-old house was given to the University by Lowell native then quickly transferred a four-week-old chick Paul Desmarais and his wife, Linda, as a tribute to Paul’s late aunt, from another pair in Lawrence to the UMass Berthe Desmarais, a Lowell high school teacher who lived there most of Lowell nesting site. her life. Fittingly, the life-long educator’s bedroom window overlooked Coburn Hall, the original home of the Normal School. “This year, the Lawrence falcons hatched two eggs, both males, but one was much smaller than “We wanted to give the house to the University as a legacy for the the other,” says French. “Since the larger chick family, and also to set an example to other people in the neighborhood,” was very aggressive about getting all the food, its says Desmarais. He was also reluctant to see the house sectioned into small sibling wasn’t growing well. I believe the smaller apartment units, which may have happened if he sold it to a latter wouldn’t survive to fledge. When we found private developer. that the Lowell pair had cracked all of their eggs He and his family now live near Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., but were still taking care of them, I knew that where he sees similar houses used for college purposes, such as alumni they would willingly adopt the smaller chick association offices. from Lawrence. This was his only good chance Chancellor Marty Meehan says he is grateful for the generosity of the to survive.” Desmarais family, and hopeful that other families in the same situation The adopted chick did well and has moved out also might think of the University. of the nest with its foster parents for the winter “Paul and Linda’s gift is very welcome as we continue to build our new season. The Fisheries and Wildlife staff and the vision for this campus. Our urban setting gives us limited room to grow,” Facilities Department plan to make improve - says Meehan. “We are in the middle of developing a master plan to ments to the nest box so that the Lowell address the many space needs on campus, and this property will be an falcons can successfully hatch their own eggs important addition to the mix.” next year.

12 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 CampusNews

companies, sought the help of a voca - TEAMS coordinator Donald Rhine. Outreach tional school for welding services, and In addition, Rhine says, two more lab petitioned their local fire department courses — in anatomy and nuclear High School Students Use for additional funds to purchase an energy — are being planned for the Assistive Technology to office chair. afternoons, assuming the funding Help the Disabled “The high quality of the projects, in is available. One hundred seventy four students combination with the positive impact The courses offered, taught by from thirteen high schools, along with that they had on their clients, really regional high school faculty and devel - their teachers, advisers and friends, highlighted the value of service-learn - oped through a collaboration between packed Costello Gym earlier this year ing based projects,” says Marcus Soule, them and UMass Lowell professors, are for UMass Lowell’s sixth annual Design Fair program manager. designed to supplement, rather than to Assistive Technology Design Fair. This year’s Design Fair was sponsored replace, advanced high school courses. A project of the University’s Future by Tyco Electronics, Philips Medical Their goal is to allow selected students Engineers Center, the Design Fair Systems, Medtronic Foundation, to explore applied concepts they offers students an opportunity to tackle 3M Touch Systems, and the Francis wouldn’t otherwise encounter until real-world engineering design problems College of Engineering. their college years. aimed at helping people with disabili - ties or special needs. TEAMS Program Continues People to Flourish, Expand Braunhut Named A new UMass Lowell program, barely University Professor a year old, designed to widen the scope of the region’s top high school students Susan Braunhut of the Biological while at the same time expanding the Sciences Department has been named University’s reach, is not only flourish - University Professor in recognition of ing but looking to expand. her esteemed teaching, research and service to the University. The fledgling TEAMS (Technology, Engineering and Math-Science) pro - Among her numerous accomplish - gram, which since September has been ments, Braunhut was recognized for her busing thirty-two specially selected work with colleagues in developing 11th- and 12th- grade students every techniques to detect cancers, and ther - morning from twelve local high schools apies to combat them. The research to take part here in hands-on labs, is also included studying factors that con - hoping to add as many as forty to that trol wound healing, which led to the number and to widen its offerings for development of the “smart” bandage. It Dracut High School sophomores Travis Martin, next year. is this research that led to her current Sean Falsey and Brian Maille developed a work on the regeneration of limbs in The funding for the 2007-08 program modified wheelchair for their client, Matt, mammals, a process that only a short as part of this year’s Assistive Technology — a one-year $650,000 legislative Design Fair. time ago was thought to be impossible. apportionment sponsored chiefly by This year saw several outstanding state Sen. Steven Panagiotakos — has “I am greatly honored to receive the projects. One of them, called the been renewed and increased by close to designation of University Professor,” “Lift Assist,” is a modified wheelchair a third, to $850,000, for the 2008-09 says Braunhut. “It is a lifetime achieve - designed by three Dracut High School academic year. ment and it has very personal signifi - sophomores for their client, Matt. cance for me. When I was a young The four morning courses offered to In school, Matt was unable to fully graduate student at Columbia Univer - the students — environmental participate in various activities due to sity in New York City, one of my key biotechnology, interactive robotics, bat the fixed height of his wheelchair. The mentors, Dr. Sol Spiegelman, received engineering design, and assistive tech - Dracut students salvaged parts from old the University Professorship. I remem - nology and electronics — will be on wheelchairs supplied by ambulance ber thinking at that time how I aspired the schedule again this year, says

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 13 CampusNews

NASA Award Recognizes Reinisch for Space Project Work Prof. Bodo Reinisch, director of the Center for Atmospheric Research, has received a NASA award for his work on the Radio Plasma Imager (RPI). The instrument, designed to character - ize plasma in Earth’s inner magneto - sphere in the radio frequency range, was flown aboard the agency’s highly successful IMAGE spacecraft, which University Professor Susan Braunhut, third from left, with Prof. Mark Hines, Prof. Robert Parkin, Chancellor Marty Meehan, Prof. Anne Marie Hurley and Interim Provost Don Pierson. operated from 2000 to 2005. to be like him and what a great scien - “reflection of honor on the College by Reinisch, the tist, teacher, humanitarian and intel - outstanding post-graduate success in RPI’s principal lectual he was. Being awarded this athletics or related fields of endeavor.” investigator, and his appointment links me in a way to one Moreover, the qualities of the nomi - team from NASA’s of my greatest advocates and mentors.” nees were considered “with respect to Goddard and character, sportsmanship and service The professorship runs through Marshall Space Flight Bodo Reinisch to the College and to the community.” August 2011. As part of the designa - Centers, Rice University and Stanford tion, Braunhut receives an annual Grinstein has been coaching for University, were presented with a salary supplement of $10,000 and one more than three decades, including NASA Group Achievement Award course reduction for each semester. She high school basketball in New York at a ceremony in Greenbelt, Md. also delivers a University-wide lecture City from 1967 to 1972, and soccer at The group was cited “for pioneering during each year of the appointment. Auburn University from 1976 to 1981. advanced space-based radio sounding and scientific advances achieved Grinstein Inducted into through its innovative application to Athletics Hall of Fame geospace science.” Computer Science Prof. Georges IMAGE was launched in March Grinstein has been inducted by the 2000, with the UMass Lowell payload Alumni Varsity Association of the City onboard. The spacecraft collected College of New York (CCNY) into its a wealth of scientific data until 2008 Athletics Hall of Fame. December 2005, when its telemetry A 1967 CCNY graduate, Grinstein signal suddenly stopped. An estimated was honored as the school’s lacrosse sixty publications in refereed journals scoring leader, with 48 goals in his and books have used the RPI data. senior year. “Georges still holds the “UMass Lowell researchers at the record and is the definition of a Center continue to hold NASA grants deserving Hall of Famer,” says Joshua for the ongoing analysis of the RPI Prof. Georges Grinstein, left, with Douglas data,” says Reinisch. Phillippe, the association’s program Marino, a member of the CCNY Alumni coordinator. Varsity Association board of directors. The Selection Committee nominat - ed inductees based not only on their “outstanding athletic achievement as an undergraduate” but also on the

14 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 CampusNews

Jacqueline Moloney Named Woman of the Year Executive Vice Chancellor Jacqueline F. Moloney has been named 2008 Woman of the Year by Girls Incorporated of Greater Lowell. The award recognizes women who demonstrate exceptional leadership and commitment; who have a strong work ethic, moral character and great compassion; and who work with dedication to enhance the quality Joan Barrett accepts an engraved vase from Chancellor Marty Meehan at a of life and effect change reception to honor her late husband, Richard Barrett, former director of in the greater Lowell Financial Aid. Jacqueline Moloney community. Memorial Endowment Honors Dick Barrett “I’m touched and surprised. I didn’t expect it Most scholarships are awarded before students arrive on campus, at all,” Moloney said. to help with the tuition and fees that are due before classes start. Carol Duncan, Girls Inc. executive director, Scholarships awarded from the Richard Barrett Memorial Endowment, said Moloney was a fine choice for the award. however, will be given throughout the year, to students who are in “Jacquie’s accomplishments — career, emergency financial situations and in danger of dropping out of school. community service, wife, mother — speak for Family and friends agreed this was a fitting tribute to the late Dick themselves. But what makes her extra special is Barrett, a 39-year employee of the University who retired as director of the fact that she downplays her own leadership Financial Aid shortly before losing his battle with cancer last year. Bar - role and gives credit to others. Her selflessness, rett was well known for his deep commitment to helping students suc - ability to engage others and make them part ceed, even if it meant bending a few rules. of her team is a key reason for her success,” “Dick was somebody who took to heart every student who walked Duncan said. through the door who had a problem,” said Chancellor Marty Meehan Moloney has been president of the House of at a reception to raise funds for the endowment. “Now, whenever a stu - Hope for two consecutive terms, co-chair of the dent goes through an emergency, the Dick Barrett Scholarship will be Development Committee at Girls Incorporated there just as Dick was there, for thirty-nine years at this University, to of Greater Lowell and has served on various make a difference to students who have something going on in their advisory boards, including Whistler House, lives. At the end of the day, what a legacy. Dick will live on doing what Lowell General Hospital and Saints Memorial. he cared about most. Helping students.” She is currently the vice president of the Greater Meehan also announced that proceeds from the reception helped the Lowell Community Foundation, and has been endowment pass the $25,000 mark, ensuring Barrett’s generous spirit responsible for establishing numerous will continue to help students for years to come. scholarship endowments at the University. “He would be really very happy to know that this scholarship was In her early career she served as a professional coming about,” said Barrett’s widow, Joan. “And I like that, rather than for several non-profits including the Indo- going to one person, it will be given in little chunks here and there to Chinese Mutual Assistance Association and someone who isn’t going to make it, to help them scoot along a little the Lowell Association for Retarded Citizens. further down the road.” To contribute to the Richard Barrett Memorial Endowment, contact Steve Rogers, major gifts officer, at 978-934-4803.

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 15 CampusNews

Research The clinical trials were coordinated by Nursing Asst. Prof. Ruth Reming - ton; Elizabeth Goodrow Kotyla, research associate with the Center for Health and Disease Research; BioMedi - cal/BioTechnological doctoral candi - date Amy Chan-Daniels; and by Dr. James Paskavitz, M.D., in association with the UMass Medical Center Dementia Clinic. The Alzheimer’s Association has awarded Shea a $240,000, three-year grant for further study to investigate whether the formulation can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s.

Baseball Research Lab Featured on

The Alzheimer’s research team includes, seated, from left, Ruth Remington, Thomas Shea and Fox 25 News Eugene Rogers; and, standing, Mark Hines, Robert Nicolosi and Elizabeth Goodrow Kotyla. The contributions of UMass Vitamin Study Shows Cognitive Gains in Alzheimer’s Research Lowell’s Baseball Research Center to the sport attracted a lot of Worldwide, researchers are working with late-stage Alzheimer’s disease held media attention this year. In on ways to delay the onset and progres - ground for six months, with no adverse addition to being featured in a sion of Alzheimer’s disease, and to effects.” summer baseball exhibit at ameliorate its terrible effect on patients The positive results match the per - Boston’s Museum of Science and and their families. formance of identical tests with the in a new Discovery Channel TV A research team at UMass Lowell most common drugs currently used to episode, which aired this fall, the has reported encouraging gains in treat Alzheimer’s. MemoryXL has been lab’s work was spotlighted on a human clinical trials using a particular licensed by a Boston-based company, Fox 25 News broadcast. neuroprotective formulation: a combi - according to Shea, and the product will The nearly three-minute-long nation of vitamins and nutriceuticals. be available within several months. segment showed Center Director Known on campus as the SmartPill, it FDA approval is not required, nor is a James Sherwood and Assistant will be marketed as “MemoryXL.” prescription necessary. Director Patrick Drane explaining Clinical trials were conducted Prof. Robert Nicolosi and Prof. the lab’s facilities and test equip - with healthy, normal adults without Eugene Rogers, both of the Clinical ment, including the high-speed dementia; with adults with early stage Laboratory and Nutritional Sciences pneumatic cannons used to check Alzheimer’s; and with adults in the late Department, contributed to the early the performance and durability stages of the disease. stage development of this product. of NCAA and Major League Base - ball bats and balls. The program “We have delayed the progression of Nicolosi has conducted extensive also demonstrated baseball/bat Alzheimer’s disease by two years so far,” research on nutritional supplements in collisions using super slow-motion says Prof. Thomas Shea of the Biologi - mammals. Rogers investigated the role videography. cal Sciences Department, who led the of folate in metabolic processes affect - research team. “People with early stage ing neurons. Early research efforts were Alzheimer’s showed actual improve - supported by institutional funding ment on four standard cognitive tests. and by the Alzheimer’s Association, a Normal adults show 10 to 20 percent national health organization in boost in memory and recall. People Alzheimer care, support and research.

16 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 CampusNews

Milton, Fabian Lead Flu Study on Airborne Virus Countries around the world are The new study, published in the online journal preparing for the possibility of a flu PLoS ONE, reports on the concentration of pandemic, but vexing questions remain influenza virus RNA – a marker for the virus – about how to prevent or reduce in the exhaled breath of people infected with flu. transmission of the virus from one Patricia Fabian The study team was led by Milton, Fabian and person to another. James McDevitt, all in the Work Environment Prof. Donald Milton, M.D., of the Department, along with colleagues from the Work Environment Department, is Harvard School of Public Health, the University directing a series of studies about the of Hong Kong and Queen Mary Hospital in fine-particle aerosols exhaled by Hong Kong. influenza-infected subjects and the effectiveness of masks in Influenza virus RNA was detected in the exhaled breath of reducing these aerosols. Patricia Fabian, a post-doctoral fel - 33 percent of the subjects, patients who were tested at three low, is lead investigator of the studies, which are funded by clinics in Hong Kong. The patients exhibited flu symptoms, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP). which was confirmed as influenza A or B virus by rapid test, In preparing for pandemic flu, the CDCP wants to know and the onset of illness was within three days. whether the virus particles exhaled during normal breathing “Other studies will investigate whether the airborne virus are more numerous and significant than during relatively actually results in transmission of the disease,” says Fabian. infrequent coughing or sneezing. If so, airborne particles may “Our research will evaluate the effectiveness of surgical masks be found to play a role in transmission. in reducing fine-particle exhalations, if worn by flu patients.”

UMass Lowell Team Doctor Exports Care, New Techniques to Beijing Scott Sigman fixes knees and shoul - the intricacies — some would say ever worked on cadavers before. ders. He does it for teenage athletes, even the basics — of Western-style Their only opportunity for training or arthritic seniors and middle-aged sales - orthopedic surgery. experimentation, says Sigman, came men who burn out their joints in week - The experience, he says, was “as on live patients. end tennis games. He has also done it amazing and revealing as probably “I’d expected that we’d be able to for some patients who depend on their anything I’ve done.” help, that there would be things they joints more than most: team members The four-doctor American team, didn’t know, things that we could teach of the L.A. Dodgers and Lakers, the them — but I had no idea, no idea at Anaheim Ducks, and — more recently alternating between lectures and surgical demonstrations carried out all, what a really profound difference — the UMass Lowell River Hawks. we’d be able to make.” And, starting this winter, he’ll be doing on cadavers, were able to pass on tech - it for members of the U.S. Olympic niques to their Chinese doctor-students If all goes as planned, a second China ski jump team. that had been virtually unknown in the trip is on the horizon. This one, sched - country before. Arthroscopic shoulder uled for the spring of 2009, with many Sigman, the UMass Lowell team surgery especially, says Sigman, was of the same doctor-students, will feature physician, is a nationally known ortho - almost never practiced. Only two live surgery. That, Sigman says, will pedic surgeon and specialist in sports doctors in the country, one each in bring the process full-circle. medicine, with a practice at Lowell Beijing and Shanghai, were skilled “We’re creating world peace and har - General Hospital. But for several days enough to perform it. this past summer, he took his practice, mony, one knee and shoulder at a time,” and his knowledge, to the other side “It was absolutely incredible. They he joked to a reporter last summer of the world. had almost no concept of it at all. before leaving for Beijing. By the time Only five hundred [shoulder surgeries] he returned, he had a far keener sense of In Beijing during the August done in China all of last year — and the truth, and value, of that message. Olympics, as part of a program under - that’s in a country with more than a “We had the chance to do something written by Olympic sponsor Johnson & billion people.” Johnson, Dr. Sigman collaborated with really important, to make a real differ - a U.S. medical team that helped train Even more remarkable: none of the ence for people. You don’t get that forty-five of his Chinese counterparts in doctors the American team trained had chance every day.”

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 17 Feature Story

The UMass Lowell-Lawrence Pa rtnership: Building Bridges between People, Schools and Generations

he city of Lawrence has had a In 2000, yet another superintendent administration, he turned his attention turbulent half-century. Once, was hired, a man named Wilfredo T. to the schools. The largest of these by Tlike Lowell, among the nation’s Laboy. Laboy, who had come from far, and therefore the most cumber - model industrial cities, its mills the Brooklyn, N.Y., where he had been some and impersonal, was the city’s core of a burgeoning economy, it began deputy superintendent of schools, came high school, which was attempting to a slow decline in the 1950s — as indus - close to not taking he job. serve roughly three thousand students try itself declined — that would leave “My first thought,” he remembers at the time. And it was decrepit. it, by the end of the century, among today, “when I first saw what I saw in Like some of the principals, it needed the poorest in New England. Lawrence, was to go back home imme - to be replaced. In demographers’ terms, it is a diately, to just get right out of there. It has been the replacement of “third-tier city,” a community of fewer It was wrenching, heart-breaking, to Lawrence High School — which than 100,000 with high poverty, a see a city’s schools in such shape.” wasn’t a replacement at all, but an shrinking economic base and a dwin - But he didn’t go home — and he across-the-board transformation — dling core of skilled workers. Like wouldn’t. Instead, he began cleaning that has most defined not only the many such cities, it has attracted a house. Principal after principal was tenure of Wilfred Laboy, but the tone large base of immigrants, most of them reassigned; others were “asked to and quality of education in that city unskilled. Of the 12,000 students who retire.” When he was done with the and the region. It has also transformed attended its public schools two years ago, 85 percent were Hispanic; barely one in five spoke English as a first language. Education, until not long ago, was a travesty. Fewer than half of the city’s high-school students were graduating on time (the state-wide average was just under eighty percent), test scores were near the bottom of the scale; through the decade of the nineties, four school superintendents came and went inside six years. Eleven years

ago, the city’s public schools lost their Assembled with a group of students and graduates of the Lawrence Leadership in Education accreditation. A year after that, the Program are, front row from left, Dr. Hector N. Torres, program coordinator; Donald Pierson, state took over the schools. associate provost of UMass Lowell; Dr. Wilfredo T. LaBoy, superintendent of Lawrence Public Schools; Asst. Prof. Charles Christensen of the UMass Lowell Graduate School of Education; and Sal Petralia, director of Human Resources for the Lawrence Public Schools.

18 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 Feature Story

By Geoffrey Douglas

students, it benefited the faculty who things became clear to everyone there: the traditional relationship between taught them, and it attracted qualified that this was something truly different; school and University, and — just people to the University. It was also and that success, if there were to be possibly — created a brand new model the anchor for the larger partnership success, was going to depend on a for secondary education itself. between the two schools.” strong and equal partnership. The roots of all this were in a The “larger partnership,” like a lot of “The way these sorts of things typi - partnership that existed already. The good things in life, owes at least some - cally work,” says Dr. Judith Boccia, College Prep program, a seven-week thing to timing. In late 2000, not long who was a key part of the process from summer intensive for Lawrence High after Wilfredo Laboy had come on the start, “is for the University to come School students, run by the Universi - board in Lawrence, he met Hector in and try to ‘fix’ the school — that’s ty’s Graduate School of Education and Torres at a conference in Boston. been the attitude, that’s usually the co-funded by the state, had been in The two men talked; a friendship was model. But it’s been nothing like that place since 1985. Four days a week for formed. And as it became clear that here. This partnership was founded on the duration of the program, students the city’s high school would need to reciprocal respect and trust. It’s been in grades seven through twelve were be replaced — and that, at least in mutual right from the beginning.” welcomed at the UMass Lowell cam - Laboy’s mind, the replacement should Other meetings followed the first pus, where they attended enrichment be transformative — it was to Torres one. Ideas were exchanged, chal - classes, career development workshops that he turned. lenged, revised and revised again. and educational courses and activities. “He told me what he was thinking, Lawrence teachers were brought into Roughly a hundred and fifty LHS then he asked me, ‘How can we the process; the deans went back students, at all achievement levels, build on this partnership? How can to the colleges and recruited faculty. had participated each summer. Faculty the University help to make this And by the time it all was over, a worked with them and with their happen ?’” remembers Torres today. model had emerged. parents, navigated them through the “So I made some calls, and we got In the place of the old high school, SAT process, and generally tracked people together — the Chancellor, there would be six smaller, intercon - their progress until they reached the provost, the deans — and we sat nected new ones, each one self-con - college — many of them, ultimately, down and we talked.” tained and each devoted to a separate accepted at UMass Lowell. And as the talks progressed, and theme or discipline. The names would “College Prep was an ideal partner - Laboy’s dream began to take shape reflect the themes — Math, Science ship,” says Dr. Hector Torres, the around the table — of several smaller and Technology; Humanities and University’s liaison to the Lawrence schools, each one thematically dis - Leadership Development; Health and Schools.“It benefited the Lawrence tinct, to replace the larger one — two Human Services; Performing and Fine

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 19 Feature Story

Arts; International Studies; and eligible, who will have the skills they’ll Business, Finance and Management — need for the 21st century. It’s a model, which would be roughly parallel to the I think, for the next wave of high line-up of colleges open to students schools in this country.” at UMass Lowell. As time has passed, the partnership All six schools would share a core between the two institutions has taken curriculum, which would diverge on new dimensions. While most involve designed to build a core group of increasingly from tenth through twelfth direct outreach to the students, others, principals and administrators to staff the grades. (In ninth grade it would be the aimed as much at the faculty or commu - new schools into the next decade and same for all schools.) All six would nity, are designed more to strengthen beyond. LinEAP, funded through the share a common dining room, basket - the institutions themselves or build Lawrence superintendent’s office with ball court and sports fields, but would leadership for the future. staffing and support from both the otherwise be separate. Where before district and the University’s Graduate there had been a single school shared “A nd it was a natural fit for School of Education, offers a UMass by more than 3,000 students, the new the University, a way to help Lowell master’s degree in education to model would serve six student bodies create students who are college- teachers from Lawrence who are willing of roughly 500 each. ready, not just college-eligible, to commit to at least three years of service following their graduation, who will have the skills they’ll as principals, assistant principals or need for the 21st century. supervisors, in the city’s public schools. — Wilfred Laboy Roughly forty such students have come One measure that addresses both of through the program so far. these goals is the dual enrollment pro - “It’s the whole idea of ‘giving back,’ gram. This option, open to LHS juniors says Don Pierson — who was dean of Construction began in 2002. Five and seniors who meet a grade-point the Graduate School of Education at years later, on October 28 of last year, minimum and are recommended by the time — of the LHS transformation, with school and University officials faculty, allows UMass Lowell faculty in which he played a leading role. looking on — Chancellor Meehan was to teach courses at the high school, “The expectation is that the among the main speakers — the ribbon and the students who take them to earn Lawrence students who [attend here] was cut on the new Lawrence High. credit at both schools — giving the will go back to Lawrence when they’ve students a head-start on their college It had been, and would remain, a col - finished, and work for the benefit of the career, while also building enrollment laborative venture. A UMass Lowell city. It’s one way of holding on to the for the University. office was set up at the school, giving gains we’ve made, of building for the the University a constant presence on “This is a tremendously valuable future — a key part of the whole pro - campus. UMass Lowell and LHS faculty program,” says Judy Boccia, who played gram, I think.” widened their collaboration on curricu - a big role in its creation. “For the The partnership continues to spawn lum. Research and grant-writing also students, most of them from families new initiatives. Last spring, alumnus now became collaborative, working to who have never sent anyone to college Henry J. Powell heard about the the benefit of both schools. before, it offers the experience of partnership and decided to endow a success in a college environment — in “The transformation was total,” says new scholarship for LHS graduates who addition to the credit. And the faculty, Wilfredo Laboy. “From a large, compre - are accepted to UML. Two 2008 LHS for their part, gain a keener understand - hensive school with thousands of graduates, Hector Guerrero and Jennifer ing of what a first-generation student is students — the model of the past — Franco, are the first recipients of the up against. So everyone learns some - to a collection of small schools, Powell Scholarship. Each received a thing. Everyone comes out of it better.” designed to suit the needs—personally, $5,000 scholarship to help defray their individually—of the students… Another creation of the partnership, UMass Lowell first-year tuitions. “And it was a natural fit for the this one clearly designed with the future “Don’t miss this opportunity to get an University, a way to help create students in mind, is the Leadership in Education education,” Powell told the two in mak - who are college- ready , not just college- Advancement Program, or LinEAP, ing the award. “Give it your all, study

20 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 Feature Story and work hard and get your degree. Grants in Nursing, Workplace Safety Round You will never regret it.” Out City-University Partnership Other funding has come from other sources. A $1 million National Insti - There are many dimensions to the tutes of Health grant will enable schol - partnership UMass Lowell shares arships for Lawrence students seeking with the city of Lawrence. One of these — at least as important as graduate degrees from UMass Lowell in the high-school-to-college bridge nursing; another grant, this one from the two have created — is the Motorola, brings UMass Lowell gradu - two-way street that has opened in ate students to Lawrence High to do the area of grants and funding. classroom experiments in physics. Two recent federal grants, A weather station on the roof of totaling close to $4 million, are the high school’s Math and Science especially notable. The first of The diversity nursing team includes, from left, Building was co-assembled by students these, for $2.7 million from the Karen Melillo, Mary Findeisen, Lisa Abdallah, from both schools. National Institute for Occupational Margaret Knight and Jacqueline Dowling. “The partnership is taking place on Safety and Health (NIOSH), will enable a new program to prevent workplace injuries multiple levels — social, educational, among Hispanic workers in Lawrence. The program, Protección en Consttrucción: financial — each group is contributing Lawrence Latino Safety Partnership, is a shared initiative among the University, the city of Lawrence, the JSI Research and Training Institute of Boston and the what it can,” says Judy Boccia. “And six-hundred-member Laborers Local 175. the better it works, the easier it is to secure funding for the next project, Lenore Azaroff of the Department of Work Environment, who was among those because you’ve got a track record that’s who spoke for the University in accepting the award, noted that workplace acci - dents, especially falls, are disproportionately common among Hispanic workers — showing good results. It’s an exciting more than nine hundred of whom died last year in such accidents in the U.S. thing to be part of.” “The results of falls are tragic,” Azaroff said. “This award will address the “I can only see it growing,” says human suffering.” former education dean — and now “It’s great that NIOSH recognized the issue and chose to fund the terrific vice provost for Graduate Education — partnership that has developed between…the city of Lawrence and Don Pierson. “I see increasing connec - UMass Lowell,” said June Black, regional coordinator for U.S. Representative tions between our students and Niki Tsongas. theirs, as well as between faculty A second pair of grants, totaling more than $1 million from the U.S. Department and students.” of Health and Human Services and the Massachusetts Department of Public But the even bigger connection, he Health, will fund a three-year initiative to recruit, train and graduate minority and says, and the most important one, “is economically disadvantaged nursing students, as well as to educate a more the bridge we build between the high diverse workforce. school and college experience. The outreach will take place in urban areas, particularly Lowell and Lawrence, That’s the one that, in the end, is with workshops, career fairs and other activities for participating schools and going to prove the most beneficial to organizations. The idea, say program planners, is to enhance diversity throughout the largest number of the University’s nursing program by involving faculty and students widely in the people— high school outreach activities. and University, students “The patient population is becoming more ethnically diverse every day,” says and faculty. That’s the Nursing Prof. Karen Devereaux Melillo, who led the team that secured the grant real value of what funding. “Our goal is to increase the diversity of professional nurses.” we’re doing here.” One way to achieve this, partly enabled by the grant, is to offer scholarship funds to minority nursing students, as well as access to academic support and counseling. “We are reaching out to students who would have to supplement with outside work,” says Melillo. “This is a major factor in retention, as many of our students are struggling with too many hours of employment as they work to complete a rigorous and demanding academic program.”

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 21 Cover Story Online Programs Boost ‘Phenomenal’ “Phenomenal.” students can take courses from home or They both use the word “phenome - anywhere else; and instructors can con - nal” when they talk about the Universi - duct classes from any location. Online ty’s Continuing Studies program. enrollment already has topped 12,000. In 2001, when she was dean of Moloney, who continues to oversee Continuing Studies and Corporate the program in her new role as execu - Education and the program was in its tive vice chancellor, says the online infancy, Jacquie Moloney said, “The portion accounts for 65 percent of growth has been phenomenal. Three both enrollment and revenue for all of years ago we offered three courses. Continuing Studies. Now we have sixty. We started with Seventy-five percent of the one hundred students. In the 1999- University’s online students live in 2000 school year we had 2,500 and this Massachusetts. The rest are everywhere year we expect to double that number.” Cathy Kendrick else. They come from forty states and That was seven years ago. the District of Columbia, and seven enrollments and whose revenue countries on four continents – North This fall, Cathy Kendrick, executive has reached $21 million in only a and South America, Europe and Asia. director of Distance Market Develop - dozen years. ment and Corporate Outreach, says, When the program was launched in “We’ve had continuous, phenomenal 1996, then Chancellor William T. growth since we started in 1996.” Hogan said the University was entering Since “phenomenal” means that arena because “we can’t afford not extraordinary or remarkable, it’s an apt to. Distance learning is the wave of the description of a continuing studies future.” That statement was prophetic. program that has grown to some 20,000 The greatest driving force behind Continuing Studies’ growth has been online learning — a program in which

22 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 Cover Story

Growth of Continuing Studies By Jack McDonough The Sloan Consortium, a grouping of institutions and organizations com - “E very year we have about one hundred fifty students mitted to quality online education, graduate from Continuing Studies. Out of that number, fifty said in a recent report that nearly 3.5 to seventy-five of them completed their entire degree online.” million students were taking at least — Jacquie Moloney one online course. The online growth rate of 9.7 percent, the report said, One important development is an Continuing Studies has four faculty “far exceeds the 1.5 percent growth innovation called “blended learning” developers dedicated to helping faculty of the overall higher education — courses in which students do most migrate their courses online. They student population.” of the work online but also come to provide a six-week online training the campus, perhaps once a month, to program that includes both pedagogy “It’s amazing if you go back and look participate in the classroom with the and technology. at our program,” says Cathy Kendrick, instructor and their peers. “how the growth has been sustained. Cathy Kendrick says these develop - A lot of factors go into it. For instance, “The beauty of this program is that ers “help faculty rethink how they will there are so many working profession - the students don’t have to come to teach their courses online, how they’ll als today trying to juggle work and class every week,” says Cathy Kendrick. engage students, and how they can family responsibilities. “With blended learning people might make their courses more interactive.” be willing to travel longer distances to “The only way that a lot of them The faculty developers also are avail - the campus if they had to do it only, can continue their education is able throughout the semester to help say, once a month. really through the online format. It’s troubleshoot problems and answer any extremely convenient. And from the “It’s all about customizing and questions the faculty may have. outset we made the decision that developing new products that can meet There also are faculty coordinators, quality had to be paramount.” the needs of different audiences.” which Pauline Carroll, executive But, while quality is paramount, The department is finding blended director of Academic Services, serious consideration also has to be learning especially effective in Enrollment Management and Admin - devoted to offering the right courses. programs that serve the healthcare istration, says serve industry, including a new one in which as liaisons to the “We have always tried to pick registered nurses can work toward day school colleges. programs that we feel are marketable,” bachelor of science degrees. Their responsibility, says Kendrick. “Before we put one on she says, is to ensure line, we determine whether there’s a And, perhaps equally important in academic quality and niche for it.” these times of growing fiscal restraints, online programs could one day help the make certain that the While the online University deal with the problem of Continuing Studies program has been how to accommodate a growing online classes are hugely successful, student population while classroom equivalent to those there still are Pauline Carroll space is at a premium. taught on campus. challenges to be met. Both Carroll and Kendrick report to One is what Jacquie First of all, though, Moloney says, Jacquie Moloney. Moloney calls “The biggest challenge is growing so “scaling” — manag - quickly in such a cutting-edge world. Sometimes the first thing to do is Jacquie Moloney ing its growth. There It’s a big job to develop an online convince a faculty member that he or is a constant need to train new faculty, course. We often take a year to develop she actually does need training. develop new courses and expand one, thinking it through, working with Moloney says, “One of the biggest the technology to serve students the faculty. The faculty members are challenges is often convincing the throughout New England and around very smart and they’re committed to faculty that they still do need training. the world. making the courses effective.” When we first started out in the late

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 23 Cover Story

’90s, the web was new and few consid - feel that online education has transformed adult education. ered themselves proficient in the use of “I computers. Now a lot of faculty assume It provides access for adults to continue their education. As an that because they know how to send e- administrator, I’ve never had so many rewarding letters from mail and use Google, that they will be students who say, ‘I couldn’t have done it without this online able to teach online. Once they program.” — Jacquie Moloney engage in the training, they realize there are entirely new pedagogies and instruction. These are local needs and A grant from the pharmaceutical technologies that they have to learn we’re responding to them with these company Sepracor is funding develop - to be effective in the online world.” blended courses that enable students to ment of an online course in sleep and have the best of both worlds — a rich chronobiology for psychiatric nurses. Then, too, there are faculty who are mix of face-to-face experiences and Prof. Geoffry McEnany of the Nursing still reluctant to enter the world of online learning. We’re really meeting Department received online teaching, especially if they’re the needs of healthcare professionals the grant and has invested in interacting face to face who can’t get to campus once or partnered with Con - with their students in the classroom. twice a week.” tinuing Studies to This is especially true in graduate develop the program, programs where faculty believe the Charmaine Hickey, director of the which consists of graduate students benefit from the Faculty Center and Co-PI on the grant, twelve modules of face-to-face experience. says, “The program has been very suc - cessful and has tripled enrollment in self-paced training. “In the past four years,” says several programs. The students and The self-paced fea - Moloney, “our biggest growth has been faculty have enjoyed working in this ture was important in the graduate program. However, the new environment.” because it allowed Geoffry McEnany graduate faculty were reluctant to give Continuing Studies to scale the pro - up their face-to-face classroom time. As part of the grant, the University gram to serve more than They didn’t want to sacrifice the rich is working with Winchester Hospital, twenty-five hundred nurses in a short dialogue and networking opportunities Lowell General and Yankee Alliance, period of time. that are an important part of the gradu - a healthcare collaborative that deals ate experience, and I can completely with a number of hospitals and health - In summary, Moloney says, “I feel understand and appreciate that. But care organizations. that online education has transformed it’s not the nature of life today that you can attend class every week at a certain time and place.” Students can access online classes from anywhere. That is why Moloney applied for and recently received a $650,000 Sloan Foundation grant to test the blended approach to teaching courses in the health management and health profes - sions fields. These programs include a master’s degree in health management and policy, and three graduate certifi - cate programs in health informatics, health management and health policy. Moloney says, “We worked collabo - ratively across the UMass system to develop a whole suite of blended health care programs. We know that these students need some interaction with patients, they need laboratory experience and they need classroom

24 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 Cover Story adult education. It provides access for “Every year we have about one adults to continue their education. hundred fifty students graduate from As an administrator, I’ve never had so Continuing Studies. Out of that many rewarding letters from students number, fifty to seventy-five of them who say, ‘I couldn’t have done it completed their entire degree online. without this online program.’ Not “I think the future promises to be only that, but they talk about the very exciting. There’s lots of new tech - interaction they’ve had. Our courses nology on the horizon that will make it are instructor-led they’re not just a more accessible. What’s fun for me is textbook on line. that the opportunities are unlimited.”

“I think the future promises to be very exciting. There’s lots of new technology on the horizon that will make it more accessible. What’s fun for me is that the opportunities are unlimited.” — Jacquie Moloney According to latest figures, nearly 3.5 million students take at least one course online.

University Wins ‘Prestigious’ Sloan Award for Autism Program

The UMass Lowell online program tal disorder. With a critical shortage of skilled early interven - in behavioral intervention in autism has tion professionals in the United States, UMass Lowell’s won a Sloan Consortium award “for program is meeting the growing demand for specialists in creating a rigorous, high-quality online this field.” graduate program that meets the Mandell is coordinator of an online program leading to growing need for individuals with board certification as Behavior Analyst. expertise in dealing with the chal - Enrollment in the program, which attracts students from lenges of autism.” around the world, has more than quadrupled since it was The Most Outstanding Online established in 2005. Teaching and Learning Program award Richard Siegel In connection with this program, UMass Lowell Psychology represents a joint effort that includes Prof. Richard Siegel has received an Outstanding Faculty the UMass Lowell Psychology Department, the Shriver Award in Continuing Education for the regional division of the Center at the UMass Medical School in Worcester and University Continuing Education Association. Siegel is coordi - UMass Online. nator of the autism program for UMass Lowell. Cathy Kendrick, executive director of Distance Market According to Pauline Carroll, executive director of Academ - Development and Corporate Outreach, describes the national ic Services, Enrollment Management and Administration, honor as “a very competitive and prestigious award.” “The University’s program provides professionals in psychol - It was also the fourth one bestowed on the program in the ogy, education, child care, speech and language disorders, last three years. The other three were for Excellence in Online mental health and human services with an understanding of Teaching, Excellence in Institution-Wide Online Teaching and autism and related developmental disorders. It also provides Learning Programming, and Excellence in Faculty Develop - an introduction to behavioral methods and how and where ment for Online Teaching. they can be used and evaluated. Prof. Charlotte Mandell says, “This program is one of the “The online bachelor’s degree in psychology is one of very few in the country available entirely online for individuals UMass Lowell’s most popular degree programs for students interested in expanding their knowledge of this developmen - interested in the social sciences.”

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 25 Cover Story

Students Praise Online’s Convenience, Flexibility and Career Enhancement

Thousands of people, young student has all the necessary had to settle for a degree not in line with adults and older professional tools to succeed in the program.” my career, and would have had to transfer, learners, enjoy the benefits of Nate Morris, a senior systems yet again, to another college when I moved UMass Lowell’s Continuing analyst with General Dynamics three years ago. Studies program and, in particu - in Helena, Mont., says, “I discov - “Since starting my degree with UMass lar, its wide range of offerings ered UMass Lowell’s distance Lowell, I've never considered researching available online. The program learning program by carrying other colleges or transferring. Lowell is the enables students to earn out my own methodical internet perfect choice for starting and completing degrees or certificates in search in 2002. I was specifically a degree online.” courses ranging from account - Nate Morris looking for an online degree Seth Friedman, who works out of his ing to a master’s degree in program that would allow me to health management and policy. Danbury, Conn., home as a consultant transfer credits from several other colleges, for a large midwestern insurance Cathy Spinney in Massachusetts, finish the degree entirely online, not require company, took a dozen online courses Nate Morris in Montana and Seth Friedman any kind of on-campus residency program to complete his bachelor of arts degree in Connecticut are three professionals who (even for a week or two a year), was fully in December 2007. have high praise for the quality and conve - accredited by one of the major accrediting nience of the University’s online learning institutions, was backed up by a traditional He says he has enjoyed a successful program. brick-and-mortar college, and could help career in financial services for more than me apply for my GI Bill benefits. The Uni - twenty years, adding, “My motivation to Cathy Spinney, senior vice president pursue a degree was more about a sense for Business Development with Yankee versity’s program fit those needs to a T, and I incredibly had found only one other of unfinished business from undergraduate Alliance, describes her positive experience years than any other reason. with the online/classroom blended college that did as well, but they were learning curriculum. twice the cost. Hence, I chose UML. “Getting a degree was more of a “I take the online classes because I live personal quest than about some sense “When I first enrolled in the Health of getting to the next level professionally. Management graduate program it was in Montana and my choice of colleges and degrees is seriously limited. I also travel a At the same time, there’s no question but your traditional classroom program and I that it helps.” attended each week for three hours,” she fair amount of time for my job and not says. “It was a great opportunity to build having mandatory classroom attendance He chose UMass Lowell, he says, relationships with other students and get lets me work on my course work when I because he liked the fact that it had the to know the professors. have the time — weekends, evenings, Massachusetts brand name behind it, lunch breaks. This has worked out very while a lot of other online degree programs “But travel is a big part of my job and well. If something comes up one week, I were “of dubious quality.” I was only able to take one course each can put my class ‘on hold’ and catch up The twelve online courses he took were semester. When the program evolved into the following week. This has come in the blended format, including Saturday “the best education experience of my handy in nearly every class I've taken over entire college career,” he says. “I learned sessions, it gave me the ability to take two the last five years. I've also moved once classes a semester, thus shaving two more than I ever did in my undergraduate during classes and I was able to work years. The basis was about knowledge, years off the time it took me to complete around such a disruption and keep up the course. not just about testing ability in a very with my class work. narrow way. The emphasis was on “The blended model offers flexibility, “I will graduate in December (2008) with writing, and if you can express yourself because you can be in any city and attend a B.S. in information technology, and in a written format, you can often display the online sessions, and face-to-face ses - having this degree (compared to a com - a greater and deeper knowledge than if sions where you can meet and network puter science degree) is paramount to me you simply took a test.” with other students and the professors. because IT is more in line with my career. The faculty in the program are accessible Were it not for UMass Lowell, I would have and flexible, and they ensure that each

26 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 CampusNews

Successful Fu ndraising Year Faculty and Staff Support Soars

Shatters Goals The number of faculty and staff UMass Lowell enjoyed a highly successful giving back to UMass Lowell fundraising year, raising a record amount for increased 75 percent in 2008, as scholarships and surpassing its endowment goal. those who know the University The campaign to double the University’s endow - best demonstrated their support ment, which began four years ago, met its goal a for the campus’s bold new vision. full year earlier than expected. As a result of these Almost 500 faculty and staff efforts, the University has doubled the number of donated $371,172 for the fiscal individual endowment funds – from 120 to 250. year that ended June 30, including These funds now generate $1 million each year in those who gave to the chancellor’s scholarship, research and department support. inauguration, the Honors Fellow “The campus community — alumni, friends, Endowment and the Richard Barrett faculty and staff — should be proud of these accomplishments,” says Chancellor Memorial Endowment, which hon - Marty Meehan. “Today’s students are benefiting now, and tomorrow’s students ors the late financial aid director. will continue to benefit, from the many scholarship and discretionary funds “When people give back to the created over the past four years. organization that they work for, “Scholarships are often the difference in whether it’s a clear endorsement of what our bright, hard-working students can afford a they see happening day to day,” UMass Lowell education. Some students miss out says Chancellor Marty Meehan. on the full educational experience because they “The University benefits from the are forced to work full time to pay the bills.” hard work of our faculty and staff, and also their extra commitment Fiscal year 2008, which ended on June 30, saw to keeping quality education the fruits of Chancellor Meehan’s emphasis on accessible to our students.” private fundraising efforts. His own inauguration in April raised $1 million for several endowment A great deal of faculty and staff funds, including the Chancellor Martin T. Meehan giving supports scholarships. Educational Excellence Fund and the Music More than 200 people bought Scholarship Fund. tickets to the concert and reception held the evening before Chancellor Other highlights of the year included two $1 million gifts for professorships Meehan’s inauguration. During the in green plastics, a gift from the Greeley Foundation that now funds the week of inauguration activities, the University’s first peace scholar, and a wildly successful fundraising event for University raised $1 million for music the Honors Program that raised $117,000, scholarships and the Chancellor breaking a record for the most money Faculty/Staff Giving Martin T. Meehan Educational raised from a single campus event. 506 Excellence Fund. The Honors Fellows Fundraiser, which supports scholarships for honors students, 287 also attracted strong faculty and staff support.

Fiscal 2007 Fiscal 2008

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 27 Feature Story Management Event

More than 400 people gathered at the Campus Recreation Center to celebrate 50 years of management education at UMass Lowell.

28 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 Feature Story

By Kristen O’Reilly Ra ises $1Million Donations Honor 50th Anniversary of Management Education

Mass Lowell celebrated fifty years of management University that prided itself on its strong engineering and education at a well-attended networking dinner on technology curriculum," said Chancellor Marty Meehan, USept. 20, and at the same time raised $1 million to noting there have been more than 13,000 management expand learning facilities, increase student scholarships and graduates since then, and that they represented about meet other educational needs. one-fifth of UMass Lowell’s 2008 graduating class. More than four hundred faculty, alumni and other Also speaking were Kathy Carter, dean of the College supporters gathered at the Campus Recreation Center to of Management, and UMass President Jack Wilson. celebrate the management college’s growth as the leading Anniversary sponsors who donated more than $100,000 business school in the region and hear about plans for the included: college’s future. Retired Marketing Prof. Stuart Mandell was Kathleen B. Allen ’77, former chief financial officer of honored for founding the first business program on campus Millipore Corp.; Mark V. Forziati ’78, retired managing fifty years ago. Also honored were seven leadership donors director of Tudor Investments in Boston; Richard L. Grande who each gave $100,000 to mark the anniversary, money ’72, senior vice president at Morgan Stanley in Boston; that will fund scholarship and help finance a possible new John F. Kennedy ’70, president and CEO of Nova Analytics building for the college. Corp. in Woburn; Robert J. Manning ’84; Gary M. Mucica Keynote speaker Robert Manning ’84, CEO, president ’71 visiting professor and director of the College of and chief investment officer of MFS Investments and Management’s graduate programs; and Bernard Shapiro chairman of the UMass Board of Trustees, spoke about the ’56, professor emeritus. College of Management’s effect on his life and career. “The character that I built here really gave me a competi - tive advantage when I went out to the business world to compete,” said Manning. “We call this place a repository of hope and opportunity. Nobody gets anywhere without someone helping them.” Manning announced at the event that he and his wife, Donna, are tripling their commitment to an endow - ment that supports management and nursing students at the University. University President Jack Wilson said that commitment will be matched by the system. “We are building this endowment because there are a lot of Rob Mannings here that need help. When I look into their eyes, I see Donna and myself,” said Manning. “This is the most rewarding thing I do in my life.” Mandell and many of the program’s original faculty members returned to celebrate the occasion, mingling with former students and reminiscing. Stuart Mandell, right, who founded the management program at Lowell Tech fifty years ago, shakes Chancellor Marty Meehan’s hand at “You are all here today because of the vision and the College of Management’s 50th Anniversary celebration. With them perseverance of one man, Mr. Stuart Mandell. He had the are keynote speaker Robert Manning ’84, center, and Gary Mucica '71. courage and dedication to found the first business program on this campus fifty years ago — not an easy task for a Additional photos from the event on the following pages.

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 29 Feature Story

Dean Kathy Carter, UMass President Jack Wilson and Chancellor Leadership donors were honored at the event, which raised $1 million for Marty Meehan present keynote speaker Robert Manning ’84 with management education. From left, Dean Kathy Carter, Stuart Mandell, Richard an image of Southwick Hall. Grande ’72, Kathleen B. Allen ’77, Mark V. Forziati ’78 and Gary M. Mucica ’71.

Guests enjoyed socializing and networking From left, Dean Kathy Carter, UMass President Jack M. Wilson, Chancellor Marty Meehan, before the program. Donna '84 and Robert Manning '84, Yana and Bernie Shapiro '56.

Carl Famiglietti, Cheryl Andronico, Trish Famiglietti and Carol Tran ’05, Ali Chrishty, James Sullivan, Joe Finch ’04 and Will Andronico ’89 enjoy the evening. Marcus Edward ’06 joined the celebration.

30 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 Feature Story

Some current and retired faculty members from the management program enjoyed talking to College of Management Dean Kathy Carter former students at the management celebration. From left, Santo Pullara, Russ Karl, Al Cederlund, presents a bouquet to Ada Mandell at the Charles Feeney, Stuart Mandell, Irwin Shapiro, Bill Burke and Chuck Thompson. Management 50th celebration.

From left, Profs. Stefanie Tate and Sherre Strickland join with Onelis Martinez, From left, Linda Carpenter ’89, Larry Ardito ’69, and James and Annalisa Donati ’08, Jo Ann Tamilio ’01 and Clementina Lucci ’01 at the Rosanne ’81 Toscano. management event.

Management program founder Stu Mandell, second from left, with, Guests enjoyed the networking reception before the dinner from left, three members of the Class of 1962, James Edward McCormack, and speaking program. G. Russell Knibbs and Peter Mitsakos.

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 31 Face of Philanthropy

by Geoffrey Douglas In Search of ‘a Simple Concept ’: He Found It, After Much Questing, and Made It a Career

Celia and Richard Grande are flanked by daughters Jessica, left, and Dayle, with son Mark stretched out in the foreground. hen he enrolled at Lowell Tech in the fall of virtue. He had chosen Lowell Tech, he says, because “it was 1968, Richard Grande , probably like most of his the only place I knew where you could get that great an educa - Wfellow freshmen, didn’t have any clear notion tion for $200 a semester.” So he knew the value of a dollar. of what he might want to do with his life. His father was an And he knew, long before college was over, that the world MIT engineer; one of young Richard’s earliest memories, as wouldn’t wait long on his choice of a career. a 7- or 8-year old, was watching the first Honeywell D-1000 In 1973, he was married — which raised the stakes even computer, which his father had helped build, being unveiled higher. So, needing an income but still not certain where he from behind a giant auditorium curtain (“It was immense ,” saw himself long-term, he embarked on what would turn out to he remembers, “about thirty feet long, with these big vacuum be a rocky short-term career: he refers to it today as “playing tubes coming out of it”). So it may not have surprised anyone around with real estate.” This got so dicey that, at one point too much when his early LTI course choices showed a bent — with nothing coming in and all the wedding money invest - for engineering. ed in properties –he had to borrow from a friend to meet his But those choices were remade within a year or so — and new wife’s $200 tuition payment. At the lowest stage of then remade again several times. The engineering course-track things, he remembers: “I was down to my last quarter, literally morphed into a major in industrial engineering, in which he my last twenty-five cents. There’s not much that’ll put things would earn his 1972 degree. Then, not long after, he began in perspective quicker than that.” thinking he could see himself as a dentist — until his father’s Somewhere along the line, he says, between all the false blunt judgment put an end to that. (“He told me, ‘You’d be the starts and close calls — probably in large measure because of worst dentist in the world. You have no patience, you pay no them — he had stumbled on an understanding of at least one attention to detail — believe me, that’s not the job for you.’ thing he enjoyed, and that might bring meaning to his life: And I thought about it and thought about it, and eventually “Making money grow. It just really appeals to me. I mean, came to the conclusion that he was probably right.”) think about it — everybody wants it, nobody wants to be with - He had grown up in Concord in the fifties and early sixties, out it, it’s never going to get obsolete. I think I needed a one of six siblings in a home where frugality was a serious simple concept, and that’s as simple as it gets: taking care of

32 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 Face of Philanthropy “You graduated with a work ethic. A work ethic and a great educatio n— that’s a pretty hard combination to beat.” — Richard Grande money, finding ways to make it grow. Once I saw that, and two daughters and a son, the last of whom graduated from thought it through, I knew it was what I wanted to do.” Bates College last spring. For a time some years ago, when With that piece in place, the rest was almost seamless. his kids were in their teens, he was a Division I soccer coach. In 1975, three years after his LTI graduation, he took his first He is expecting his first grandchild late this fall. career job, for Kidder-Peabody in Boston, where he would But he has not left behind his beginnings. And for all his manage portfolios, run the options desk, and become very good fortune, and all of the CEOS he lunches with and good indeed at making money grow — and by the end of his seven-figure buys he consults on — and though his own time there, training others to do the same. He would stay children have been educated mostly at private schools — there twenty-two years, the last sixteen as partner, before he remains staunchly loyal to the college where it all began, leaving in 1997 to go to Banc of America Securities, Bank forty years ago this fall, for $200 a semester. of America’s investment banking subsidiary, where he He has made a commitment — of $100,000 to the School would serve the next six years as managing director. of Management — which he is roughly halfway through Five years ago, in 2003, he made the move to where we fulfilling. The purpose of the money, he says, is as basic as it find him today: at Morgan Stanley in Boston, where, as is urgent: to raise the profile of the University by improving senior vice president in the firm’s Global Securities business, the experience of walking around it. he manages the financial portfolios of high net-worth ($2 “We need to have better facilities. The grounds, the class - million-plus) individuals. It’s a job he has been doing for rooms, everything. That’s what’s going to draw new students more than three decades — but never, he says, at a more and new teachers. That’s what will help them choose us over, perilous time than now. say, Merrimack College or some other nearby school.” “What’s happening now [in the financial markets] — But grounds and classrooms aside, he says, there is a larger the real estate market falling out, coming together with the message that is still too little understood: credit crisis — you could call it the perfect storm. I’ve never seen anything like it, in my thirty-three years in the business. “I enjoyed my time at Lowell Tech. I did my share of party - There’s just no way of knowing how far out this will take us, ing, but I hit the books pretty hard, too — I think I was on or where we’re going to land.” the Dean’s List most of the time I was there. But whatever it was we were studying, we were doing it out of the same texts But even at times like this, he says — maybe even they were studying at Yale or Harvard, and working under especially at such times — there are chances aplenty for professors who were every bit as bright and inspiring. making money grow. “And for some of us, for those who might have had a hard “The market is driven by two things. Fear and greed. time affording it, or were working and [going to a school] at Where there’s greed, where the markets are going up and the same time, you graduated with something else, too, everyone’s buying — that’s when the risks can be highest. something that didn’t always go with an education at Where there’s fear, as there is now, where asset-values are Harvard, Yale or Cornell. You graduated with a work ethic . dropping and everyone’s selling in panic — that’s where the A work ethic and a great education — that’s a pretty hard opportunity lies. But even knowing that, you’re still going combination to beat. to get it wrong a lot of the time. You’re going to make some wrong picks — I know, I’ve made my share. All you’re look - “And you know what? In all the years I’ve been in this ing for is a good batting average. That’s the best you can business, and all the people I’ve known — and there are a hope for. It’s a very humbling business.” lot of them around who went to great-name schools — I’ve never once felt I had to take a back seat, educationally, to He has done well — not only for the firms he has worked anyone at all. for and those others whose wealth he has augmented, but for himself and those around him. He lives today with his wife, “That’s an important message. It’s a message that needs Celia, in the family home in Concord, the town of his child - to be sold and resold — to students, prospective students, hood, where he has lived the last thirty-four years, since just alumni, to anyone who’ll listen. Because it’s a big part of the before that day so long ago when he was down to his last beauty of the school.” twenty-five cents. He and Celia have raised three children,

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 33 Feature Story

LIRA Program Proves to Seniors that Learning Never Ends Eight times a week, members of the group gather for class. Sometimes it’s a history course — American or Chinese, taught usually by Prof. Bob Forrant. Other times art and music, religion and science, economics, Shakespeare plays or Broadway musicals. Some - times it’s a book group, led by one of its members. From time to time, depending on the subject and who’s available to teach it, the class may rely on an instructional DVD. But always, no matter the subject or the teacher, the venue is the same: Fox Hall, Room 412. “We’ve been in other rooms in the past,” says group member and curriculum chairperson Toby Hodes A group of LIRA participants, most of them graduates of the University, gathered for a group photo ’58 (many, like Hodes, are graduates one day last winter following a class. Seated from left, are Al Seidel, Mary O’Connor, of the University), who also leads Constance Lanseigne-Case, and Simone Allard and, standing, from left, Ron Patershall, the book-group discussions. “And Elaine Jelefscheff, Don Pastershall and Jack Craig. we’re not sure where we’ll be after this fall — but I’m sure coming of planned construction there. While the curriculum they’ll find a place for us. It always works out in the end.” is designed around college-level material, there are no academic or age requirements. The yearly dues, for an The group, the Learning in Retirement Association unlimited range of offerings, are $100 per member. (LIRA), is a member-run, collaborative venture of about a hundred retired and semi-retired local residents with a shared “I t’s a social outlet — we make new friends, interest in continuing their education. Sponsored by the and learn to enjoy each other. And it keeps UMass Lowell Office of Community Service, LIRA was our minds busy.” — Toby Hodes founded twenty years ago by Prof. Mark Levine, at the time director of that office, who got the idea — and later the “It works in a lot of ways,” says Toby Hodes. “It’s a social program itself — from the head of a local nursing home. outlet — we make new friends, and learn to enjoy each other. And it keeps our minds busy. Maybe best of all, it “When after five years, it eventually became clear that offers the chance to learn things you might have wanted to the program made more sense than it would make dollars,” learn in college but never had the chance to, or to expand Levine would write later, ”[the nursing home] was comfort - your knowledge of what you already know. The choice able releasing the program to [us].” is yours.” LIRA operates on a two-semester plan, with classes “While LIRA was never to be highlighted in our Universi - running for two hours each in eight-week blocks in both fall ty catalogue,” Mark Levine wrote before his death in 2005, and spring. Course offerings run the gamut of the sciences “time and again the program has proved of great significance and humanities — film, opera, ethics, literature, biology, to local and distant folk, who tended it, nourished it, economics — with day-long outings to museums, plays, honored it…. concerts and historic sites complementing the academic schedule. Some courses are taught by UMass Lowell faculty, “Once in its place, LIRA would remain beloved and in full who volunteer their time; others are led, and often proposed, flower all these years, quiet in its presence, like a fragrant by the members themselves. The venue, until recently, has ground cover in the corner of the University garden.” been the room in Fox Hall, though that may change with the

34 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 CampusAthletics Platzer Named Rowing Head Coach Women’s Crew to Become Varsity Sport

Veronika Platzer, who led the develop a thriving rowing program women’s rowing to NCAA Division II University of Virginia women’s four and create a vibrant boathouse status will provide our students with rowing team to the 2004 NCAA environment, and we’ve done that another exciting varsity sport and Championship, has been named head with Veronika Platzer,” says Director of enable the University to take full coach of the River Hawks women’s Athletics Dana Skinner. “Veronika’s advantage of the Merrimack River rowing program and extraordinary background as an athlete, and the newly renovated Bellegarde director of the Bel - her passion for rowing, and her sense of Boathouse.” legarde Boathouse. optimism about future possibilities Platzer is a 1987 graduate of Platzer spent the made her the ideal candidate.” Grinnell College where she was a last two years at The goal is for UMass Lowell’s three-time NCAA Division III the University of women’s rowing program to return to champion in the discus. She was Michigan, which varsity status, ending a six-year hiatus inducted into the college’s Hall of followed four years as a club sport. Fame in 1991 and voted the NCAA’s at the University of In November of 2007, the University Female Track and Field Athlete of Virginia and stints Veronika Platzer received $1 million from the state the Decade (1980-90). at the University of for improvements to the Bellegarde Last May, Platzer was among five Wisconsin and Mercyhurst College. Boathouse. With the grant, Skinner men and women inducted into the She also has been a U.S. Junior says, reinstating women’s crew was a U.S. Track and Field and Cross National Team coach for the last natural progression. Country Coaches Association three years. “This is another positive step in the Hall of Fame. “The search committee’s goal was to University’s efforts to attract high-qual - identify the candidate best suited to ity students,” Skinner says. “Elevating

Stegnar Top Scholar in Hockey East Thirteen River Hawks Earn Hockey East All-Academic Team Honors Frank Stegnar was one of thirteen UMass Lowell hockey players who achieved Hockey East All-Academic Team honors at the end of last hockey season. This is the fourth straight year the River Hawks had at least eleven players named to the All-Academic Team. Student-athletes who earn a grade-point average of 3.0 or higher in each of the two academic semesters in which they competed receive all-academic honors. Champs from 1988 Donate $5,000 to Booster Club Stegnar was one of three players named as the Top Scholar Athlete in Hockey East, Athletics Director Dana Skinner and Head Basketball Coach Greg Herenda accept a $5,000 donation to the Sixth Man Club, the basketball booster organization, from earning a 4.0 GPA. In addition to making Gavin Cummins ’88, Leo Parent ’88, John Paganetti ’84, Bill Herenda ’88, and the All-Academic Team for the second former Assistant Coach Marc Kuntz, at the Athletic Department Golf Tournament in straight year, Stegnar was named to the June. The money was raised by the 1988 national championship team in honor of Coach Herenda. league’s Academic All-Star Team.

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 35 CampusAthletics

Game-Tested River Hawks Hope to Rank High in Hockey East Herenda Named Head Coach of Men’s Basketball Greg Herenda, an assistant men’s basketball coach at UMass Lowell from 1983 to 1985, has been named the River Hawks new head basketball coach. He succeeds Ken Barer who resigned after seven seasons at the helm. Greg Herenda Herenda, who most recently Team co-captains Ben Holmstrom, left, and Mark Roebothan was head coach at Division III “The team should be good,” says 34 games, 27 of them against Hockey Cabrini College in Padnor, Pa., Jonathan Albert. “They should be East opponents. The highlights, says brings to the program more than very good. Lots of talent, lots of Albert, will be the three games the twenty years of experience at all young leadership.” River Hawks play in January and NCAA levels. Albert, a media relations assistant February against reigning national- Prior to a year at Cabrini, he was in the Athletic Department, is one of champ Boston College; another high - head coach at Elgin Community many with the same sure prophesy — point, a two-game series Oct. 16-17 College in Elgin, Ill., and five years that this year’s UMass Lowell River against 2007 champion Michigan as associate head coach at East Hawks are going to have some serious State, ended in a split. Carolina University. He also success. The team, he notes, is long on The team is led by co-captains served as an assistant at Yale, returning players — only two members Ben Holmstrom, a junior center, and Seton Hall and Holy Cross follow - graduated with last year’s squad — as Mark Roebothan, a senior who plays ing a four-year period at his alma well as on game-tested talent, all of wing. Other standouts include junior mater, Merrimack College. which bodes well. wing Kory Falite, a second-team Athletics Director Dana Skinner “There are only three seniors,” he Hockey East all-star last year who led says, “Greg brings a breadth of says, “and thirteen juniors. They’re the league with 18 goals; and sopho - experience and a reputation for set up to be good the next two years. more defenseman Maury Edwards. building lasting relationships that It’s always tough to pick these things Ticket sales have been brisk. More will be beneficial as we attempt to because a lot of stuff can happen, than 800 club seats, at $299 each, had strengthen the program and broaden but I’d say, if all goes well, they been sold already as of press-time — its appeal to prospective student- should finish in the top four in equaling last year’s total — while athletes, alumni, and members of Hockey East, maybe the top 10 or 12 roughly 400 regular seats ($70-$199) the Merrimack Valley basketball in the country.” were spoken for. The average home community. We’re pleased to have The season opened Oct. 11 with a game last season drew just under 3,400, him back as our head coach.” game at Colgate. The first home game, roughly 400 of them students; the goal a sell-out victory, was Oct. 24 against this year, says marketing coordinator Providence. The full season — roughly Scott Donnelly, is to come close to halfway over as of press-time — will be 5,000 a game.

36 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 Alumni Events

Members of the Class of 1943 enjoyed lunch at Allen House to celebrate their 65th Reunion. Front row, from left: Plastics graduates in the greater Rochester, N.Y., area gathered on Aug. 11 for Phyllis Clemens McCormack, Natalie Johnson Gutridge, an alumni dinner. On hand were, from left, Mark Bissell ’07, Brett Blaisdell ’76, Louise Cavalieri Goni. Back row: Marie Pouliot Dumont, Karen Malburne ’82, Audra (Gavelis) Write ’96, Dan Barrons ’03, Dan Smith ’02, Catherine Hill Goodwin, Margaret Harkins, Lucille Charron, David Cameron ’94, John Davis and Prof. Robert Malloy. Alice Foley Hill.

In May, alumni in the legal profession gathered at Allen House for a reception hosted by Chancellor Marty Meehan. From left, Patricia Charlie Hoff ’66 was honored with the President's Medal at UMass Sullivan Talty ’75, Reynold Ilg ’80, Gilbert Nason ’08, Michael Harris ’08 Night at the Pops at Symphony Hall in Boston in May. With Hoff, and Prof. Frank Talty ’77, director of Academic Programs. center, are UMass Board of Trustees Chairman Robert Manning ’84, left, and UMass President Jack Wilson.

Mary Jo Leahey ’37, center, was honored before the final concert of the Mary Jo Leahey Symphonic Band At the Alumni Volunteer Appreciation Night at the Lowell Families enjoyed watching the Lowell Camp in August. With Mary Jo are Spinners in August, Bob Melillo ’73, left, with River Hawks Spinners in August at the Alumni Volunteer fellow music education alumna Basketball Coach Greg Herenda and Prof. Karen Dev - Appreciation night. Gertrude (Trudy) Hirsch ’42 and ereaux Melillo ’78, chair of the Nursing Department. Chancellor Marty Meehan.

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 37 Alumni Events

Los Angeles-area alumni greeted Chancellor Marty Meehan in Lowell State College alumni cheered on the Lowell Spinners on June 20 at Marina del Rey during his recent trip to California. Shown from left LeLacheur Park. First row from left: Bob Boehm ’70, Jack McSwiggin ’70 and are Vishu Shah ’72, John Crowe ’76, Michael Lesnever ’94, ’98, Joe Sacocco ’70; second row: Gary Hunt ’60, Doug Anderson ’68, John Moore Jean Demeo ’92, Bob Berwick ’58, Chancellor Meehan, Jamie ’67, Bruce Byam ’67 and Walter McGrail ’70; third row: Ralph Pearce ’66, Lesnever, Greg Eley ’80, Bill Wallius ’89, Marcia Ullal Rodriguez Leo Creegan ’65, Ralph Bennett ’67 and Roger Landry ’67. ’77 and Tom Giants ’61.

Plastics engineering alumni Johnathan Whitney, Melissa Alumni in San Francisco enjoyed a lovely evening overlooking the bay at the Egan, Kevin Kalish, James Biggins and Cristina Emphasis, home of Carole and Ned Barrett ’58. They included, from left, Ted Dudziak ’73, all Class of 2003, enjoyed a reception at Jillian’s Boston Ned Barrett, Brian Scappaticci ’79, Chancellor Marty Meehan ’78, Ed Borowiec before a Red Sox game. ’67, Ellen Murphy Meehan, Ron Jabba ’84, Lisa Rucks ’91, Dean Carson ’83, Bridget Sheehy ’99, Kunal Sampat ’04, Caroline Cote ’80, Kerry Howell ’80, Ellen O'Donohue ’72, and Sumita Sood ’02.

Richard Hoeske ’66, Chancellor Marty Meehan ’78, and Members of the State Teachers College Class of 1958 toured campus during Steve and Karla Rocheleau, sponsors of the Rocheleau reunion festivities in June. From left, Jo Ann (Moore) Elder, Deborah (McCarty) Plastics Blow Molding Laboratory, at Jillian’s Boston Harlan, Joseph Sexton, Maureen (Burke) Richard, Elizabeth (Conway) Sullivan, before a Red Sox game. Harriet (Rabias) Anagnostopoulos, Irene (Turilli) Bourne, Marjorie (Crossman) Signorelli, Joan (Cunha) Corey.

38 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 Alumni Events

Members of the State Teachers Class of 1958 gathered here are, front row, from left: Edward Barrett, Paul Sheehy, James McMahon, Beverly (Axon) Anderson, Mary (Gallagher) Quinn, Marjorie (Crossman) Signorelli, Robert Hunter, Joseph Sexton, Priscilla (Bancroft) Titus; middle row: Mary (Peroney) Bardzik, Elizabeth (Conway) Sullivan, M. Theresa (McGuire) Lambert, Judith (Brockway) Kavanaugh, Anne (Hayes) Parsons, Patricia (Witmore) Hughes, Anne (Garnder) Kaihlanen, Stella (Sperounis) Sutherlin, Irene (Tuilli) Bourne, Beverly (Peloian) Koltookian, Joan (Cunha) Corey. Back row: Maureen (Burke) Richard, Jo Ann (Moore) Elder, Dolores (DePetrillo) Smith, Carol (Yannalfo) Neville, Debora (McCarty) Harlan, Kathleen (McQuade) Riley, Ann (Miskell) Laforge, Harriet (Rabias) Anagnostopoulos, Florence (Blades) Gallaher, Patricia (Mooney) Parks, Anne (Seminatore) Guzzo, Rita (Lomard) Owen, Lois MacElhiney.

The Lowell Tech Class of 1958 gathered in June for its 50th Reunion. Members of the class enjoyed reconnecting with old friends and walking in the Commencement Ceremony. Front row from left: Paul Roussel, Kathryn Connors Tymorek, Toby Koffman Hodes, Albert Weil, AthenaG. Letsou, Leon Poirier, Paula Molloy Petrone, Donald Hornbeck, Sherman Spiegel, Preston Cooper. Middle row: Gerard Savarese, Donald Joyce, Jack Raymond, Robert Munroe, Paul Sutherland, Clifford Dallmeyer, Joseph Friedrich. Back row: Mario Santarelli, Morton Schneider, Ernest Glantz, George Lyna, Philip Swanson, Richard DeVito, Harold Neville, Arnold Forsch and Robert Mack.

Members of the Lowell State Teachers College Class of Members of the Lowell Tech Class of 1968 who celebrated their 1968 celebrating their 40th reunion in June were, from left, 40th Reunion in June included, from left, Steve Veno, Robert Perris, Kathleen DeRoche Desmarais, Beatrice Stankard, Tomas Reilly, Joseph Bellefeuille, William Ouellette and Ken Desilets. Gertrude Carey, Lynne McSheehy and Jean Corcoran Nelson.

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 39 Class Notes

Circuit and the 1950 state courts of Norman Gale and his wife, Pennsylvania. Peggy, who were married while She began prac - he was a student at Lowell ticing in Maine Textile Institute, recently in 2004 after celebrated their 61st wedding working for anniversary. Norman attended twelve years in LTI after serving in the armed personal injury forces in World War II. He is law firms in New retired as president of Sun & Jersey. She has participated in Surf, Inc. The Gales live in multimillion-dollar verdicts Ballwin, Mo. and settlements on behalf of patients and their families, 1958 drawing on her experience as Joining Chancellor Marty Meehan at commencement while a registered nurse. Alison is celebrating the 50th anniversary of their graduation from an associate at the law firm Lowell Technological Institute are, from left, Toby Koffman of Briggs & Counsel in Hodes, Paula Molloy Petrone, Athena Letsou and Rockport and she lives in Kathryn Connors Tymorek. Tenants Harbor.

1979 1964 1977 Thomas J. Soucy has been Michael J. Cahill, a music Alison Mynick has been elect - appointed an independent education major who went on ed to the board of governors member of the board of direc - to become director of music for the Maine Trial Lawyers tors of Nascent Wine Company, and/or bands at several high Association. She received her Inc., (dba Nascent Foodservice, schools and was assistant direc - undergraduate degree in nursing 1953 Inc.), the only nationwide tor of the UML marching band, from the University and her Don E. Finegold, who lives in distributor of imported products has been inducted into the law degree from Yeshiva Uni - Salem, Mass., and Boynton in Mexico. He also was 2008 Class of the Massachusetts versity’s Cardozo School of Law. Beach, Fla., has published four appointed to the board’s audit Drum and Bugle Corps and In addition to Maine, Alison is mystery novels, with a fifth due committee as a financial expert. Music Educators Hall of Fame. admitted to practice in the out in November. His website is Chief Executive Officer To be honored by this selection, state and federal Courts in www.donefinegold.com. Sandro Piancone says, “Tom is one must be nominated by New Jersey, the United States a great addition to our board of peers and approved by the Court of Appeals for the Third 1955 Hall of Fame board of directors. Bob Walshaw, an Oklahoma Over the years, Mike was a naturalist, maintains a 100-box director at Xaverian Brothers, Former Music Professor Turns to Crime Writing trail in rural areas surrounding Ursuline Academy and Quincy Susan Fleet, who taught trumpet and played in the Music Coweta, Okla., He has been high schools, and an assistant Department’s Faculty Brass Quintet from 1977 to 1981, has “bluebirding” for fifteen years director of the UML, UNH made a name for herself in the years since, not only as a and routinely fledges over three and Coast Guard Academy trumpeter, but also as a music historian — and lately a novelist. hundred birds per year. He gives marching bands. He says that Her 2008 New Orleans crime thriller “Absolution” was lauded thirty-plus presentations aside from having very success - by Kirkus Discoveries recently for its “sharp writing” and each year, reaching more than ful programs at each of these “relentless tempo.” of 1,000 individuals. He institutions, he is credited aggressively promotes House with starting the “corps-style” “Male writers tend to feature mobsters or hit men in their Sparrow control and is open to marching band in New Eng - novels,” Fleet says in explaining the seeming oddity of a new ideas to improve his trail land, which combines the styles feminist-turned-crime-writer. “Women writers are more aware results. Bob is very involved on of marching bands with that of of the violence against women in society. In real life, all too the All Experts website lending drum and bugle corps. He also often, the bad guys get away. In my novels, the bad guy always educational advice to all who was the percussion writer for gets punished.” inquire. He is a NABS member the Hal Leonard Publishing During a ten-year stint at the Berklee College of Music, where and is on the Speakers Bureau. Corp.’s Corp Impact Series. she created and taught a course featuring 20th-Century female He actively shares his He also has been an adjudicator musicians, she also made a 1993 solo CD, “Baroque Treasures for knowledge of bluebirds with at major drum and bugle corps Trumpet and Organ,” which received widespread critical praise. schools, garden clubs, and events nationally and has been retired/service groups. a percussion instructor.

40 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 Class Notes directors as he brings over the gold medal at the race thirty years of corporate that ascended Mt. Washington 1992 1994 finance and accounting in Gorham, N.H. Chris Brown writes that after Norm Bazin, former assistant coach and recruiting coordina - experience with public and Christopher Scholl, director graduating he worked in correc - tor at Colorado College, has private entities.” of health, safety and environ - tions for a police department been named the head hockey mental affairs for Saint-Gobain in northeast Ohio. He then coach at Hamilton College. 1983 High Performance Materials obtained his M.A. at Kent Norm played varsity hockey in Worcester, has been elected University in 1999 and was Kenneth M. Miles has accept - at UMass Lowell under then to the board of directors of hired by the FBI in January of ed a position as chief financial coach Tim Whitehead, a the Associated Industries of 2001. Since then he has been officer at the Regional Hospital Hamilton graduate who now Massachusetts (AIM). A native assigned to the San Francisco Company in Alpharetta, Ga. is the head coach at Maine. of Northboro, Chris is active field office and is now the coor - He lives in Cary, N.C., with Norm, who began his coaching in business and civic affairs, dinator for the FBI gang task his wife of twenty-four years career as an assistant to White - coaches youth sports, and is force in Oakland. The primary and their three children: Jeffrey head at Lowell, had been at president of the New England function of his job is the appre - 18, now a freshman at UNC Colorado College since 2000. Chapel Hill, Stephanie, 16, Chapter of the National hension of fugitives. He has and Darrel, 12. Environmental Management recently remarried, and has two Association. AIM is a children from his first marriage. 1995 1984 nonprofit, nonpartisan Kevin Cleary has been James M. Harris Jr. has joined employer association of more appointed to a two-year the Derry Medical Center as Karen J. Longo has been than 7,000 Massachusetts term as DPW commissioner director of Diabetes Healthcare appointed vice president of businesses and institutions. in the town of Whitman. of New Hampshire where he Fallon Communi - works with patients of Derry Brad Schott is the owner of Kevin, who has a bachelor’s ty Health Plan, a Medical Center and London - Schott Financial Services, a degree in civil engineering, nationally recog - derry Family Practice on all financial advisory firm special - is also a state-licensed nized health care aspects of diabetes manage - izing in retirement planning, construction supervisor. services ment. He earned his master of asset management and portfolio organization. She science degree in nursing and design. He divides his time 1993 will continue to has American Nurses Creden - between Nashua, N.H., and direct Summit Karen L. Dawson has put her tialing Center board certifica - Kennebunk, Maine, with his ElderCare ™, education to work for her, and tion. Prior to joining the wife, Andrea, and their two which, under her leadership, for the past fifteen years has Derry Center, he was with the children, Andrew and Abigail. has expanded to a multi-site been an IT analyst, primarily Cardiovascular and Diabetes program offering seniors an in financial and government Center at St. Joseph Hospital alternative to nursing home 1989 services. She returned to in Nashua, where he helped care through an integrated Kimberly Sawyer, who earned UMass Lowell to complete the develop a comprehensive program of services. In addition a master of science degree in Technical Writing program in diabetes care program. He also to her B.S. in health services applied mathematics at the the spring of 2001. She com - founded Diabetes Healthcare administration from Lowell, University, has been named pleted her M.B.A in August of of New Hampshire, LLC, a Karen also holds a master’s vice president of technical 2007, obtaining her education company dedicated to the degree in health care adminis - operations for Lockheed Martin without any commute. She management of diabetes. tration from Clark University. Maritime Systems and Sensors found that completing the mas - She lives in Sutton with her ter’s online really complement - (MS2). As head of MS2’s 1998 husband and daughter. largest functional team, Kim ed the way the world works Sean Gaffney has joined will partner with the company’s today — on virtual teams in nSight, Inc., a leading Boston 1988 line of business leaders to global corporations. She says she enjoys the flexibility and area communications services Stephen Peterson and former ensure successful program exe - variety of ways that her work as firm, as vice president of sales cross country and track team - cution, oversee all MS2 prod - a consulting business analyst and business development. mates Dave Quintal ’85, and uct development, develop provides, and plans to pursue Sean has fourteen years of sales, Dave Dunham ’87 were three engineering talent, and estab - adjunct teaching opportunities management and consulting of the five scoring members lish technology strategy to and grant writing. This year, experience in such high-tech for the Central Mass Striders ensure that the company offers Karen and her husband, Carl, areas as wireless technologies, (CMS) running club at the creative technical solutions to are facing the challenges of software, outsourced e-business 2008 USA Track and Field customers. She is based in preparing their 11-year-old son, development, business intelli - Mountain Running National Manassas, Va. Eric, for middle school. This gence and electronic data Championship. Competing July, Karen and Carl celebrated integration. At nSight, he will in the Masters age group (40 their twenty years of marriage. build and lead the company’s through 49), CMS captured new Sales and Business

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 41 Class Notes

Development group, estab - Paul Marino has joined says she has appeared in nine lished to further the company’s Fred C. Church Insurance in movies, including her favorite, 2005 growth in the IT, corporate Lowell as a commercial lines “My Best Friend’s Girl,” which and publishing markets. risk management consultant. starred Dane Cook and Kate He brings to the position eight Hudson. “I’ve met some 1999 years of loss control and risk great people and worked with management experience. great actors, producers and William F. Wyman IV, Paul earned his bachelor’s directors.” Her Internet director of health information degree in sociology. Movie Database is management and patient access imdb.com/name/nm2871160. at Lowell General Hospital, has been named a fellow of the 2001 American College of Health - Sophya Gudelman, who 2004 care Executives, the nation’s earned her degree in business David Sachs has been promot - premier professional society administration with concentra - ed to senior exchange system Kimberly Ducharme and for health care leaders. Wyman, tions in marketing and manage - administrator at Draper Labora - Lee Knesek were married in who has a master’s degree in ment, is now an actor. After tory in Cambridge. This year July 2008. Kim is assistant health services administration working at MIT for four years he volunteered at the director of the Lowell Fund in from UML, has been at Lowell and then forming her own Massachusetts State Science the University’s Advancement General Hospital since 1994. public relations company and Engineering Fair as a judge. Office. (EGIS Professionals), she says He goes on to say, “It was really Michelle L. Farrell is married 2000 she decided to go in a new great to see high school kids to her boyfriend of three years, direction and pursue her real excited about science projects. Thomas J. White of Roslindale. Christopher J. Bartley, head passion — acting. “I felt that I’ll definitely stay involved with Their wedding was held on men’s basketball coach at now was a perfect time to this organization. I received a Aug. 16 at Gladtidings Pente - Worcester Polytechnic Institute pursue this career since lot of encouragement at UML, costal Assembly in Mattapan. (WPI), has received the Insti - Massachusetts has become and I hope to pass it along.” tute’s Denise Nicoletti Trustees’ Matthew C. Roux has been Hollywood East.” Sophya Award for Service to Commu - employed by the city of Lowell nity. Presented during WPI’s for two years. On May 30, Honors Convocation this he bought his first home, in spring, the award recognizes Tewksbury. The residence is passion and action in serving currently undergoing renova - the needs of a community. tion and remodeling. He says In addition to Chris’s success his dog and long-time girlfriend as a coach, he has served on will be living with him once all the board of Big Brothers renovations are complete. Big Sisters of Central Mass/Metrowest and is a 2007 mentor to WPI students. Orlando M. Pena is pleased Michael Bosch and to inform the UMass Lowell Michell Ramos, who met community that he began while working on a group a job as a field engineer at project in a College of Manage - Double Engineering in June. ment class, have recently He says this is a great opportu - become engaged. Michell nity for his engineering career has earned an M.B.A. with as he looks forward to taking Distinction and is now an the Fundamentals of Engineer - assistant treasurer of the ing (FE) exam this fall en route Florida Municipal Power to obtaining his PE licensure. Agency (FMPA). Michael left 2002 In July, Orlando and his wife his career as a contract negotia - became parents of their first Plenty of alums were on hand this summer for the wedding of tor in the IT industry to tour as child, a healthy baby girl. Pat Smulligan and Jenn Richard ’03 , foreground. Joining them a guitarist and songwriter for in this photo are Alexandra Horelik, Jim Lemieux, Melissa Heroux, many well known artists. Mikins Elan, Brian Pendergast, Dan Donaghey, Kenneth Spinale, 2008 They are now living in Carolyn Rolfe, Pat Smulligan, Justin Zubricki, Kristin Zeman, Kevin Delaney, who graduated Florida. A fall wedding is Roger Lamarch, Jason LeBlanc, Nikki Zoufaly, Jenn Smulligan, with a degree in criminal planned for 2009. Amy Urbowicz, Jim Neville, Josh Smith, Alyson Renaud, Mark justice, has joined the Nashua, McDermott, Jason Corbett, Ryan Sawyer and Mark Kimball. N.H., Police Department as a patrol officer.

42 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 Alumni News

Gail Beaudoin ’83 ’92 Wins Elder Services Award Gail Beaudoin ’83, ’92 was one of the first female officers hired by the Chelmsford Police Department in 1985. During her career, she has investigated child, sexual and elder abuse cases, and was chosen as lead elder abuse investigator. “I investigate crimes against the elderly that involve emotional, Adam Ayan, recently in the physical and financial abuse, resulting in numerous convictions,” says company studios in Portland. Beaudoin, who has been an adjunct professor in the Criminal Justice Department since 2003. SRT Alum, Recent Grammy Her work was recognized recently by Merrimack Valley Elder Nominee, Piles up the Honors Services with the 2008 Heroes and Icons Award, presented annually Adam Ayan is a man who knows where he’s going. to a police officer who has made a difference in the lives of the elderly It seems he always has — and he’s getting there in their communities. pretty fast. “Since I was a small child, I’ve always been drawn to this population It’s been eleven years since he got his degree from – they are vulnerable, and are often forgotten,” she says. Beaudoin’s UMass Lowell, a graduate of the program in sound work with the elderly in Chelmsford is two-fold: she seeks justice for recording technology. For the last ten of those years, crimes committed, and, as a Chelmsford Housing Board member, she he’s worked for the same employer — the Gateway helps to coordinate important housing and medical needs. Mastering Studios in Portland, Maine — which, if “The elderly are misunderstood. Society doesn’t do enough for mastering albums is your thing, is about as good a them – emergency personnel need to be trained on issues facing elders, place to work as any in the country. especially those suffering from Alzheimer’s and dementia. I love the “We average [Grammy] nominations in the idea of creating more elderly housing – often the elderly are alone, but double digits every year,” Ayan told a reporter this by living near each other, they’d have someone looking out for them.” February, around the time he learned of his own most When asked about the best part of her job, Beaudoin says, recent nomination, for Album of the Year. The nod “If I’ve made a difference for the elderly, then I’ve done my job. was in recognition of his work on Vince Gill’s It’s very rewarding. It’s a way to give something back to a “These Days” album, which also won a nomination wonderful university.” — and ultimately, the Grammy— for last year’s Best Country Album. Colene Blanchet ’04 Has Designed Success Ayan, who won his first Grammy two years ago, for Best Historical Album — in tribute to his work on a “The graphic design professors I had while I boxed set of hits by jazz legend Jelly Roll Morton — earned my bachelor’s degree in fine arts were has also been awarded two Latin Grammys. He is so passionate about teaching – they were real currently at work, he says, on albums by Sugarland motivators for me and always kept me looking and the Foo Fighters, as well as by Canadian for new opportunities,” says Colene Blanchet, singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan. senior packaging designer for West Elm, a Williams Sonoma, Inc. brand. The University’s SRT programs, Ayan says, provided him with a “really incredible foundation” “I met some amazing people at UMass for the field he entered and the success he has Lowell – both students and faculty. The enjoyed: first, by preparing him for the rigors of relationships I built have lasted – I still talk the music industry; then — and perhaps even more to many classmates and professors, and really importantly, he says — by training his ear in how to value having made these connections,” she says. listen and what to listen for. In addition to her work at West Elm, Blanchet has started several “It opened [me] to listen to music as an audio engi - blogs (www.lamedrain.blogspot.com) and is launching a business neer as opposed to a lay listener, or even as a musi - specializing in handmade art, books, stationery and cian,” he told a reporter last winter. “You learn to self-published magazines. listen, as an engineer, in a very different way.” To view samples of Blanchet’s design work, go to http://coroflot.com/coleteillustration/craft.

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 43 Alumni News

Harish Hande Honored as Social Entrepreneur Harish Hande, managing director of innovative financing. “The Social Entrepreneur award SELCO India, based in Bangalore, has About 57 percent cemented our belief that renewable been named the Social Entrepreneur of of the country’s energy, poverty reduction and the Year for India by the Schwab Foun - population lacks sustainability can go hand in hand,” dation for Social Entrepreneurship and electricity, and for says Hande. “In the early 1990s the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation. many more the supply UMass Lowell was one of very few Hande, who received his master’s is unreliable. Since universities that was offering courses degree in energy engineering in 1998 1995, SELCO has on renewable energy and sustainability. installed more Professors Jose Martin and John Duffy and his doctorate in mechanical engi - Harish Hande neering in 2000 from UMass Lowell, than 100,000 solar and Dr. Bill Berg were the people has pioneered access to solar electricity photovoltaic systems and provided who pushed me to change my thinking, for rural families living below India’s lighting and electricity to more than from technology to the socio-economic poverty line through a combination of 500,000 individuals and businesses aspect. Their influence has helped customized home-lighting systems and in the southern Indian states of me to create SELCO in the form it Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. is today.”

ULowell Grad Breaks New Ground by Returning to the Old Thirty years ago, when George had returned them to respectability, paintings. Dismantling and reconfigur - Condo was still a student at the Uni - almost singlehandedly — but with an ing archetypes found throughout our versity of Lowell, the New York art almost entirely new twist. cultural map, from playboy bunnies world was being turned on its head Often referred to as “the artist’s to Queen Elizabeth and from Super - with the overnight arrival of the artist,” Condo, through his unflagging man to God, Condo questions and expressionist, often comic-book style, commitment to his personal vision in contemplates the underpinnings “New Image” school of painting. The the face of changing styles, has gained of our society.” a reputation as a model for younger, Following his time at ULowell in more iconoclastic members of the the late 1970s — where he studied art profession. That legacy began taking history and music theory — Condo shape as early as the mid-1980s, when moved to New York, where his work he reintroduced the Old Masters’ began to be exhibited at East Village techniques into contemporary paint - galleries as early as 1981. His first solo ing, mixing the methods of Raphael, exhibit was in Los Angeles in 1983. Goya, Velazquez and others with his Since then, he has been exhibited own distinctive style — a blending widely in both Europe and the U.S., for which he coined the term with museum shows at New York’s “artificial realism.” Whitney, Guggenheim and Museum It was in recognition of these of Modern Art, as well as in museums achievements that Condo was present - and galleries in France, Germany, George Condo ed with the prestigious National Artist Ireland, the Netherlands and Mexico. Award by the Anderson Ranch Arts Old Masters, though still venerated by “He sets a standard for sophisticated Center in Snowmass, Colo., earlier art school students, were viewed by fun that is pretty much unbeatable by this year. much of the rest of the art community any other contemporary painter,” a — when they were viewed as anything “Over the last two decades,” accord - Village Voice critic wrote in 1998, a at all — as vaguely comical. ing to a statement by the Center, year before he was honored with an “his work has consistently surprised Academy Award from the American Within ten years of this, Condo, and engaged viewers with its grotesque Academy of Arts and Letters. barely out of his twenties at the time, and often tradition-conscious

44 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 Alumni News

Raytheon Names Mark Russell ’83 to New Vice Presidential Post Mark Russell ’83, who credits his program, earning a master’s degree in involvement in University programs Lowell education for being “the founda - the same field. that promote education and opportuni - tion for my entire career,” has been “I was hired by Raytheon directly ties for middle and high school named vice presi - from Lowell, so one could say the students and encourage them to dent of Engineering, University provided the foundation for pursue STEM careers. Technology and my entire career,” he says. “I began as a “My favorite activity is my participa - Mission Assurance design engineer, and my education had tion in the Francis College of Engineer - at Waltham-based prepared me with an understanding of ing’s Industry Advisory Board,” he says. Raytheon. the importance of hard work. This “It gives me the chance to see every - In his new role, enabled me to take on new challenges thing that is going on across engineer - Russell provides with increasing responsibility and ing, and allows me to contribute to corporate leadership Mark Russell expand into the areas of operations, the University’s vision of high-quality in the areas of technology and research, field testing and project management.” engineering education.” engineering, operations, performance According to Russell, his education In addition to his professional excellence, Raytheon Six Sigma and helped him contribute to important accomplishments, Russell serves on Mission Assurance. This includes programs related to the country’s the Board of Directors of the National company-wide responsibility for national security, such as air and missile Action Council for Minorities in 45,000 people working on more than defense systems like the Patriot, the Engineering and is an associate 8,000 programs. THAAD (Terminal High Altitude fellow of the American Institute of Prior to this appointment, he had Area Defense) and the SBX (Sea-Based Aeronautics and Astronautics and a been vice president of Engineering X-Band Radar). “The requirement to senior member of the Institute of Elec - for the company’s Integrated Defense continually strengthen our nation’s trical and Electronics Engineers. He has Systems business. security is a major reason why we must been awarded multiple U.S. patents and Russell joined Raytheon in 1983, support STEM [science, technology, has published numerous peer-reviewed after graduating from the University engineering and math] education at technical articles. Russell received the of Lowell with a bachelor’s degree in UMass Lowell and throughout the Distinguished Alumni Award from electrical engineering. He then country,” he says. UMass Amherst in 2006, and was attended UMass Amherst under the Among the many ways Russell has inducted into the Francis Academy Raytheon Advanced Study scholarship engaged with UMass Lowell is his of Distinguished Engineers at UMass Lowell in 2001.

Bonnie Comley and Stewart Lane Honored With Drama Desk Award Bonnie Comley ’81 continues to rack up editors. This year’s nominations were judged awards in her successful career as Broadway in more than thirty categories, with Comley’s actor, producer and production company production besting four other shows in the founder. Comley and producer-playwright Unique Theatrical Experience category. husband Stewart Lane recently earned a Comley and Lane have received numerous Drama Desk Award for their production of awards and honors, including a 2007 Tony “The 39 Step s” on Broadway. “The Drama Award for Best Theatrical Event for producing Desk Award is special because the pool of “The Two and Only” – a play about ventrilo - talent is so diverse – this is the only award quism. Comley and Lane funded the renova - that includes productions from Broadway, tion of the theater in Mahoney Hall, and have Off-Broadway, and Off-Off-Broadway,” says created an endowment for its ongoing mainte - Comley. “To have our show chosen from such nance. They live in New York City, and have a wide pool of worthy productions is tremen - five children. For more on Bonnie Comley’s dous.” Drama Desk Award winners are Bonnie Comley ’81 and career, go to www.bonniecomley.com. husband Stewart Lane nominated by theater critics, writers and

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 45 Alumni News

Big Shoes to Fill, But She’s Coming Home to Fill Them She was captain of the 1998 UMass Lowell women’s basketball team, and before that the all-scholastic anchor of the team at Norwood High. After college she went on to coaching — first as an assistant at Braintree High and Wheaton College, then back to Norwood to take over, for the last two years, as head coach of the school’s JV team. And all the while, she has stayed in close touch with her old coach and mentor, UMass Lowell women’s coach Kathy O’Neil, who, she says, has been “an absolute godsend for me Maureen Jennings with her Norwood High basketball team. — I call her all the time.” years at the school, building a legacy of respect throughout Now, finally, Maureen Jennings has reached the peak she the state and leaving a trail of protégés behind him, includ - had aimed for from the start: to be named head coach of the ing several college standouts and at least one other head Norwood Girls varsity squad, following in the footsteps of coach. And she takes the stage at a difficult time: the team 35-year near-legend Giles Parker. loses six seniors from last year’s squad, which finished with “I’m so excited — almost delirious, really. This is what I’ve only four wins in eighteen games. always wanted, an absolute dream come true. I’m a Norwood “They’re going to be large shoes to fill,” says Jennings, who girl. I grew up here, I played for this team. I played under spent part of the summer setting up summer leagues to keep Coach Parker. I learned a lot of what I know from him. her team members sharp. “We’re going to have a lot of hard And now, to be able to come back and coach the team all work to do, and it won’t be an overnight process. But these years later — I just couldn’t ask for anything more.” [Coach Parker] instilled that Mustang pride in me — which It will not be easy, and she knows it. Parker amassed 462 goes a long way. Plus, I’m from Norwood. I know the town, wins and twelve league championships in his thirty-five I know the team and I know the tradition here.”

In Memoriam

1912 Marion Auty 1944 Eleanor Kfoury Hannoosh 1961 Donald Dean 1975 Raymond Janson 1987 Christine Albright Dahrooge 1914 Margaret Kearns O'Loughlin 1944 Charles Puliafico 1961 Frederick Rojak 1975 Theodore Kirkjian 1987 Nancy Holland 1923 Mary Devine 1945 Joseph Miranowicz 1962 Nora Harrison 1975 Raymond Pokornicki Jr 1988 Linda Ballard Scatamacchia 1924 Agnes Burns Meehan 1945 Melanie Mazur Simpson 1963 Bruce Fennessey 1975 Peter Rogers 1991 Roy Corbitt 1926 Mary Hogan 1945 George Viau 1964 Raymond Clermont 1976 Elizabeth Dickinson 1991 Lenore Robertson 1926 Dorris Vedder Lindsly 1947 Priscilla Turner Snell 1964 Jane Matwiejczyk 1976 Anne Drummond 1992 Dennis Rich Jr 1926 Mary Mylott Page 1949 Alexander Colman 1965 Ronald Brough 1976 Alma Libby 1992 Aracelis Toledo Roberts 1927 Mildred Meehan Bertrand 1949 Stephen DeMallie 1966 Brian Blackburn 1977 Ruth Freeland 1993 Thomas Costa 1927 Evelyn Lemkin 1949 Mary Brogan Sargent 1967 Frank Miller Jr 1977 Gail McNamara Twining 1993 Michael Dubois 1929 Mary Watson Garland 1949 Barbara Wilson 1967 George Tsouderos 1978 Maria Catanzaro Giuffrida 1993 Timothy Maher 1929 Gladys Harrington Kelley 1950 Donald Middleton 1967 Douglas Wilson Jr 1978 Mildred Boston McCormack 1993 Bonita Rugg 1934 Harriet Donehue Leggat 1950 Ann Rutledge Taylor 1970 Joseph Cortellino 1979 Everett Sholl 1996 Michael Grasso 1935 James Parechanian 1951 Robert Sumers 1970 Wilbur Kaslick 1979 Robert Townsend 1998 Thomas Theriault 1935 Pauline King Reilly 1953 Laurence Gilgun 1972 Robert Abbott 1980 Joseph Tomlinson 2000 Brandee Woodward 1937 Gustave Hakanson 1953 Patricia Daly Miller 1972 Steven Daicy 1981 Rosanne Kelly Hoff 2001 Di Wan 1938 Herman Buckley 1953 Maurice Richardson Jr 1972 Michael Finocchio 1981 Dennis McNamara 2003 Manuel Miana 1939 Elizabeth Crine DeMello 1954 Kenneth Hallas 1973 George Ballweg Jr 1981 Ara Nuyujukian 2003 Thu Phan 1939 Eleanor Casazza Houston 1954 Raymond Hebert 1973 David Grand 1981 John Sieg Jr 1940 Harriett Coombs Claridge 1954 Fulton Rindge Jr 1973 Erene Koukias 1981 Joseph Tylus Faculty 1940 Mary Neofotistos 1956 Margaret Madden Palmer 1973 Richard Madden 1982 Charles Dailey Jr Allie Scruggs 1940 Shirley Coughlin Oliver 1957 Richard Sawyer 1973 William Manning 1982 Philip O'Donnell 1941 Teresa Kennedy Clark 1958 Harry Adamian 1974 James Cournoyer 1982 Victor Rondeau Jr 1941 Charles Koulas 1958 Gerard Brunelle 1974 Jerome Czaja 1983 Teresa O'Toole Lapointe 1941 Joseph Lane 1958 Mildred Leonard Cassidy 1974 Lillian Kessler 1983 Walter Maxey 1941 Irving Wolf 1958 Queena Flomp Traggis 1974 Richard Lazazzera 1984 Peter Basque 1942 Penelope Zermas Demogenes 1959 Michael Markham 1974 Maureen Cody Purtell 1984 Helen Croucher 1943 Allan Kelly 1959 Hubert McQuade 1974 Gary Raymond 1985 Rene Gendreau 1943 Marjorie Waring Langdon 1959 Frank Robertson 1974 Robert Wells 1986 Robert Shanks

46 UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 Alumni News

Five Plastics Alums Featured in Industry Magazines Five plastics engineering alumni have well as custom balloon catheter subassem - been featured in cover stories for two lead - blies and extruded tubing.” ing medical-device industry magazines. Thatcher, president of TESco Associates Donna Bibber, B.S. ’88, James Dande - in Tyngsborough, says, “It’s especially grati - neau, B.S. ’80, Mark Saab, B.S. ’81 and fying to have been recognized for my work G. Lawrence Thatcher B.S. ’71, M.S. ’77, with bio-absorbable polymers and implants, were among those named in the article “100 as this exciting arena has provided opportu - Notable People: Who matters, and why, in nity not only for advancing biomaterials Donna Bibber and around the medical device industry” in and materials manufacturing technology the June issue of MD&DI. but also for continued teaching.” The list includes corporate executives, “I am very proud of the fact that health professionals, university researchers and representatives from government agen - these industry leaders are all cies, including the commissioner of the graduates of UMass Lowell’s U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Plastics Engineering program.” — Robert Malloy “This is quite an honor. I am In the MX interview, Hobbs, president James Dandeneau very proud to be listed in such and CEO of AngioDynamics in Queens - prestigious company.” bury, N.Y., talks about his company’s —Donna Bibber strategic market focus and its plans for Eamonn Hobbs B.S. ’80, was spotlighted continued growth. AngioDynamics is a in an interview in the May/June issue of leading provider of innovative devices used MX magazine. by radiologists, surgeons, and other physi - cians for the minimally invasive diagnosis “This is quite an honor,” says Bibber. and treatment of cancer and peripheral “I am very proud to be listed in such presti - vascular disease. “What I enjoy most about Eamonn Hobbs gious company.” Bibber is president and this job is the pride I take daily at how our CEO of Micro Engineering Solutions, a products help improve patient care, and consulting firm based in Charlton that spe - even save lives,” he says. cializes in the design, manufacture and assembly of miniature to micro components “I am very proud of the fact that these for the medical industry. industry leaders are all graduates of UMass Lowell’s Plastics Engineering program,” Dandeneau is president of Putnam says Department Chair Robert Malloy. Plastics in Dayville, Conn. “Our company “Our graduates are clearly very capable has been a leader in advanced extrusion engineers who have strong entrepreneurial techniques and has assisted many engineers Mark Saab spirit. This also speaks to the importance and medical device companies in their that plastics have in the medical device efforts to develop novel catheters,” he says. industry. Their versatility as a family of Saab is the founder and president of materials makes many of these life-saving Advanced Polymers in Salem, N.H. medical devices possible.” “Since its founding in 1989, our company continues to produce the world’s thinnest, strongest and smallest heat-shrink tubing,” he says. “Advanced Polymers is also a key OEM manufacturer of medical balloons, as Lawrence Thatcher

UMASS LOWELL MAGAZINE FALL 2008 47 UMass Lowell Alumni Gift Item s

Champion Heavy Weight Sweatshirt Golf Wind Jacket Champion Hooded Sweatshirt Tackle Twill Hooded Sweatshirt Screen-printed collegiate Gear For Sports durable navy 50/50 fleece hooded sweatshirt 50/50 blend fleece with wool patch sweatshirt available in gray only. embroidered wind jacket. Available Sizes: S/M/L/XL/XXL “UML” and 3-color embroidery. S-XXL. $49.98 Item #2 with Lowell Tech or University of Color: Gray $34.99 Item #1 Available in sizes S-XXL. (Available in November-January) Lowell logo. Available in M-XXL. $49.98 Item #8 Oxford gray. $49.98 Item #3

Baseball hat Our most popular cap. Wool blend, stretch-to-fit Club Colors Polo with embroidered Navy golf shirt with embroidered left Riverhawk on the back. University Chairs chest logo. Available with Lowell Tech, $19.98 Item #10 Lowell State or University of Lowell Black with cherry arms Champion Crewneck Sweatshirt logo. S-XXL. $29.98 Item #4 and back lasered seal Screen-printed logo on 50/50 blend fleece. Charcoal. S-XXL. $24.99 Item #5 Item #12A Armchair $409.98 Item #12B Boston Rocker $409.98

For UPS shipping to your residence, please add $25. Allow 6-8 weeks for delivery. Available with University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell Textile Institute, University of Lowell, Lowell State College and Lowell Technological Institute seals.

University Picture Framed picture available with picture of Southwick, Cumnock or Coburn Hall. Champion Alumni Tees Available in 10x12 pen Champion T-Shirt Grey tees available in Lowell Tech, & ink style for $85 or full UMass Lowell imprint. Available ULowell, and Lowell State imprint. color painted for $140. in gray, red, light blue. Sizes $14.98. M-XXL Item #7 Personalization is available S-XXL. $14.98 Item #9 on the pen & ink drawing for an additional $10. Item #6 Alumni Decals Alumni Keychain UMass Lowell Alumni River UMass Lowell logo alumni Hawk decal. UMass Lowell metal keychain. $5.98 Alumni square decal. Postage & Handling on this University of Lowell Alumni item is $1.95. Item #14 decal. $1.49 each Postage & Handling on this item is 50 cents. Item #13

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