MAGAZINE SPRING 2014 Securing the future ‘Hurst trains next generation of intelligence leaders Also inside: 2 Sisters of Mercy still on staf Chittister Archive opens Chapel to get facelift A message from the president I came to Mercyhurst full time in 1997, so I don’ t personally remember the days when the Sisters of Mercy were everywhere on campus – but I’ ve always felt that Mercy spirit. Even though the number of Sisters here was dropping by the time I arrived, you couldn’ t miss the legacy they had built here. You felt it everywhere, and I continue to be grateful for it. There are only two Sisters of Mercy working with us full time now. I’ ve told both Sister Lisa Mary and Sister Pat that they ’re not allowed to retire, but there’ s a real possibility that at some point there might not be any Sisters left on our staf. The question that needs to be addressed is: How can those of us who follow them ensure that the Mercy spirit and tradition live on at the university the Sisters created? One school of thought is that we need to create a “Mercy community” to take on that responsibility. I hope you’ll take a moment to read the story on page 15 that outlines this idea, as well as profles of our two remaining Sisters. I thought I knew our Trustees pretty well, but I learned a bit more about 15 of them who are Mercyhurst alumni in Mary Daly ’s feature story in this issue. Mary, who very capably handles Board of Trustees matters now, is also Mercyhurst ’s longest-serving employee. She remembers all these Trustees from their student days and has some interesting stories to tell. It ’s fun to look back, but of course most of our time is spent looking forward, positioning Mercyhurst for the future and working to ensure that our students get the kind of hands-on, real-world experiences that prepare them to succeed. You’ll read about these eforts in this issue, too. We’ re especially proud that Erie native Tom Ridge has agreed to lend his name to an exciting new initiative for our intelligence studies department, already one of our best-known and most successful programs. We ofered our frst January-term (J-term) at the beginning of the year, and many of our faculty developed and taught exciting new courses for this intensive, three -week time frame. For some, it was the perfect time to lead groups to destinations all over the world. We opened an archival center this spring to help make the works of Joan Chittister, OSB ’62, one of our most distinguished alumni, available to our students and to the public. We’ re extremely grateful to the family of another Mercyhurst graduate, Helen Loebelenz Boyle ’34, for helping us honor Helens’ very dear friend. There’ s much more inside, including stories about just a few of our alumni who are impacting the world in all sorts of ways. I hope you’ll enjoy reading their stories, and will let us know about other stories we can tell in future issues. God bless you, and God bless Mercyhurst University. Thomas J. Gamble, Ph.D. President, Mercyhurst University ON THE COVER: Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge chats with Justine Chopp (left) of Billings, Montana, and Olga Bugera of Erie during the announcement of the Tom Ridge School of Intelligence Studies and Information Science. Both women are completing master’s degrees in applied intelligence at Mercyhurst. 1 The Ofce of Marketing and Public Relations publishes Mercyhurst Magazine twice a year. What’s inside Editor Susan Hurley Corbran ’73 [email protected] this issue (814) 824-2090 Contributing Writers Abby Badach Susan Corbran ’73 Mary Daly ‘66 3 TOM RIDGE LENDS NAME TO NEW INTELLIGENCE SCHOOL David Leisering ‘01 Deborah W. Morton Allison Seib 5 STUDENTS EXPLORE THE WORLD DURING FIRST J-TERM Mary Hembrow Snyder, Ph.D. 7 FIFTEEN MERCYHURST GRADUATES NOW SERVE AS TRUSTEES Design/Photography Jennifer Cassano 13 TWO SISTERS OF MERCY REMAIN ON FULL-TIME STAFF [email protected] (814) 824-3022 15 WHOLE COMMUNITY CALLED TO PRESERVE MERCY SPIRIT Contributing Photographers 16 FUNDS SOUGHT TO BRIGHTEN CHRIST THE KING CHAPEL Breanna Bertolini ‘09 Matt Durisko ‘14 17 TAKE A CLOSE LOOK AT THAT ICONIC CHAPEL MURAL Rich Forsgren ‘84 Ed Mailliard 19 NEW ARCHIVE HONORS JOAN CHITTISTER, OSB ‘62 Vice President for 21 ADULT STUDENTS CHANGE CAREERS, LIVES External Afairs Monsignor David Rubino, Ph.D. [email protected] 23 CHRIS ANDERSON ’08 TACKLES IRONMAN FOR A GOOD CAUSE (814) 824-3034 23 SANDI ZOBREST ’70 DEVELOPS LINE OF EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS Associate Vice President for Advancement 24 WILL URSPRUNG ’76 CREATES ART FROM UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE Ryan Palm ’07 [email protected] 25 TRUSTEES RETIRE AFTER DECADES OF SERVICE (800) 845-8568 (814) 824-3320 26 ‘HURST ARCHAEOLOGISTS EXPLORE ICE AGE SITE IN FLORIDA Director, Alumni Relations 27 MEGHAN AGOSTA-MARCIANO ’11 BRINGS HOME ANOTHER GOLD Tamara Walters [email protected] (814) 824-3350 27 MIKE FOLGA ’86 FINALLY GETS TO HOIST STANLEY CUP Class Notes Editor 28 SOME HIGHLIGHTS FROM FALL AND WINTER SPORTS Debra Tarasovitch [email protected] 29 HONOR A FACE OF MERCYHURST – (814) 824-2392 AND OTHER WAYS TO HELP YOUR ALMA MATER We’d love to hear from you. 31 CLASS NOTES Send your story ideas, suggestions and comments to 33 ‘HURST LOSES TWO LONG-TIME SISTERS OF MERCY [email protected]. 34 RAYMOND KRESS ’00, JESSICA FIDEN ’11 HONORED FOR HEROISM Send changes of address to: Alumni Relations 34 WHY WE GIVE BACK: MIKE AND OLGA POLISHCHUK LYDEN (BOTH ’07) Mercyhurst University 501 E. 38th St. Erie, PA 16546 34 JOHN LANGER ’95 APPOINTED TO BOARD OF TRUSTEES [email protected] 2 Making sense of ‘big data’ RIDGE SCHOOL PIONEERS NEW APPROACH TO INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS By Debbie Morton “In recent months we have witnessed the disappearance of a large international airliner, the annexation of Crimea by Russia, the rapid spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa, an alarming number of heroin deaths from Vermont to western Pennsylvania, a cyber-attack on a major American retailer, and a landslide in Washington state. All these events were preceded by warning signs, signals that would indicate a certain likelihood of occurrence.” So how do you make sense of all this, asked James Breckenridge, Ph.D., in delivering his remarks to a full house gathered for the April 11 dedication of The Tom Ridge School of Intelligence Studies and Information Science. How do you separate the signals from the noise and reach some understanding of what it means so that we are not continually surprised and, therefore, less competitive, less safe and less secure? The answer, he profered, is in the interdisciplinary approach that the new Ridge School will take in merging the skill sets of the intelligence professional, the mathematics and computer systems expert, and the communications specialist to produce a career professional comfortable in all three domains. The intel hybrid – already a pioneer among academic institutions worldwide – has taken the name of another world-class pioneer: Tom Ridge, the nation’s frst Secretary of Homeland Security, the 43rd governor of Pennsylvania and Erie’s native son. In accepting the honor, Ridge told the crowd gathered in the board room of the Center for Academic Engagement in April that he was both humbled and fattered to be associated with a program that is already so well known. “This program is widely recognized and acclaimed in Washington regardless of who it is named after, and that’s a fact,” he said. Ridge credited the vision of Robert Heibel, who founded the program, and the ambitious new direction taken by Breckenridge, dean and architect of the Ridge School, as “revolutionary.” And in gratitude, Mercyhurst President Tom Gamble, Ph.D., said, “We are deeply honored that Governor Ridge is lending his name to an innovative program that has helped catapult Mercyhurst University onto the world stage, and we look forward to graduating individuals who aspire to combine keen analytic skills with a commitment to genuine human fourishing in the manner of Governor Ridge.” 3 Mercyhurst ’s intelligence studies program educates students for careers in national security, law enforcement and business and is the university ’s top major and leader in distance and online learning. It draws students from across the nation and abroad. From its European headquarters at Mercyhurst Ireland in Dungarvan to its role in educating partner nations of the U. S. Department of State in intelligence analysis, its reach is global. In recognition of its growth and as a vehicle by which it can best structure bold new objectives, the department recently reconfgured to become the university ’s seventh school, incorporating not only intelligence studies, but mathematics, computer systems and communication. The amalgam of disciplines is in direct response to the extraordinary volume, complexity and variety of data in the world today: from the billion social- media posts every couple days to the more than 1 million customer transactions Walmart handles every hour. There is a compelling need to assimilate, analyze and extract information from data to assist corporations, government and law enforcement in making critical decisions going forward. “Mercyhurst has the opportunity to fll an exploitable educational niche, provide exciting career opportunities for our students, and meet the security and business demands of the 21st century environment,” Breckenridge said. “Currently, no higher education institution in the United States has developed an equivalent initiative.” In closing, Breckenridge said, “We have only to look at 9/11, WMD, the recent fnancial crisis, disease outbreaks and an aggressively competitive global environment to know that the information and analytic skill set requires constant revision and new learning.