In this issue F A L L 2 0 0 9 2 Message from the President 3 Commencement 4 Alumni Spotlight 5 Connected Learning 12 Campus Update 13 Class Notes 25 Alumni Relations 29 Special Gifts Where the Classroom 30 Annual Fund Leaves 31 Sports Is The Real World Board of Trustees Approves Project Making the Center for Creative and Applied Arts a Reality asell is an institution with a history and Cultural Center for other uses. The building has already received L of innovation — continually The two buildings will be the hub of approval from the Auburndale Historic changing and growing to meet the the arts on the campus. District Commission and is proceeding needs of its student population. through the City’s normal zoning and Currently the College’s student The Center will contain over 19,000 building approval processes. enrollment is at its highest peak, square feet and will specifically add A glass gallery runs along the despite the current economic climate. the following spaces to the Lasell “The project makes sense from a entire front of the Center. But, with burgeoning enrollment comes facility inventory: thousand perspectives,” says Director the critical need for more classroom of Development Katharine Urner-Jones. and faculty office space. • Four large studios for fashion “It will not only give our arts programs design, studio art, or music courses much needed space but, via the The Center for Creative and Applied • Two smaller classrooms domino effect, it will free up other Arts will be located immediately space across campus and enable the • Seventeen faculty offices adjacent to the Yamawaki Art and College to place related departments Cultural Center. Its construction has • Gallery exhibition space close to each other. The Center is not a been under consideration for some • A display and climate controlled nice-to-have. It’s a have-to-have.” ❦ time and is listed as a priority in the storage area for the College’s College’s Strategic Plan. Historical Clothing Collection • Conference rooms “The cost of the project is relatively modest,” explains President Michael • A carpentry shop Alexander, “but it will have a great impact on students, faculty, and the NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION POSTAGE U.S. PAID MA BOSTON, 51347 PERMIT academic program.” The opening of the Center will immediately give Lasell’s largest academic department, Fashion Design and Merchandising, much needed studio and classroom space. It will advance studies in the arts, music, and drama at the College by not only providing new space but also by freeing up the classrooms in the Yamawaki Art The north side of the Center faces and completes the Bragdon quad. Lasell College Recognized in Chronicle of Higher Education’s 2009 Great Colleges to Work For Survey asell College has been recognized in The LChronicle of Higher Education’s 2009 Great Colleges to Work For® program in the Teaching Environment category. One hundred and fifty colleges were recognized in the results of the publication’s second annual survey, announced in a special supplement of The Chronicle on July 6, 2009. The Chronicle’s Great Colleges to Work For® program recognizes small groups of colleges (based on enrollment size) for This issue highlights artists specific best practices and policies, such as compensation and benefits, faculty Sandra Beraha ’78 and administration relations, and confidence in senior leadership. More than 300 Livy Hitchcock ’68 four-and two-year colleges competed in this year’s program, and 247 went Lasell College Lasell Advancement Institutional of Office Avenue Commonwealth 1844 02466-2716 MA Newton, through the entire survey process this spring. ❦ Turn to page 4 Message from the President Lasell College Announces Appointment of New Overseers Dear Lasell Community, Sally M. Andrews of her faculty with both efficiency Once again the excitement on campus is is a healthcare in departmental operations and palpable as we start the Fall semester. While and educational the vigorous promotion of new we welcome the largest class of first-year administrator with departmental and institutional students in our history, we are also delighted more than 30 years initiatives, many of which have to have 130 more returning students than experience in the Boston academic become prototypes of excellence ever before. This excitement takes tangible community. Since 2002, she has for all departments. Dr. Gordis was form in the opening of two new residence been the executive director of the awarded the Ph.D. in Developmental halls — named East and West Halls — on Harvard Medical School Osher Psychology at Teachers College, Woodland Road between Forest Avenue and Research Center and Division Columbia University, in 1970. Studio Road. They form a quadrangle with for Research and Education in She retired from Lasell in May 2009 Van Winkle and McClelland Halls that creates Complementary and Integrative and received the distinction of a dramatic interior courtyard, the likes of Medical Therapies. In that capacity, Professor Emerita. which we have not seen before on our she is responsible for all strategic Michael B. Alexander. campus. Now that the east end of campus planning and operational and On July 1, 2009, has six residence halls on one block, we have financial management of the Dr. Robert H. added a brand new fitness facility in McClelland Hall that augments the facility in the organization. For over 22 years, Huntington became Edwards Student Center. Sally worked at Children’s Hospital the fourteenth Boston, a Harvard Medical president of These are just a few, among many, indicators of the health and vitality of Lasell School-affiliated academic institution, Heidelberg University College. For example, in a year when most colleges were delighted if their Annual finishing her career there as vice in Tiffin, Ohio. Prior to this, he was Fund was equal to the year before, our Annual Fund ended up 19% ahead of last chairman for administration and Vice President of Enterprise Support year’s amount. We achieved this felicitous result because of the leadership of Trustee chief administrative officer for the Services for Dunkin’ Brands, Inc., a Adelaide Van Winkle ’36/H’96, who created the Van Winkle Annual Fund Challenge, Department of Medicine. She joined company he worked with for more which matched increases in gifts over contributions from the prior year. The challenge Lasell’s Board of Overseers in 1993, than 22 years. Rob is a former did its job: it stimulated our loyal and dedicated alumni and donors to reach a little became a trustee in 2001, and now member of both Lasell’s Board of deeper, even in these difficult economic times, and make somewhat larger gifts than returns to the Board of Overseers. Overseers and Business Program they had in the past. Therefore, even though the number of donations was down a In 2006, she served as the chair Advisory Board. In 1998, he was bit from the previous year, total giving to the Annual Fund was up significantly. of the College’s Transition Planning elected to the Board of Trustees Committee and is currently on the where he served as the Chairman With our enrollment increasing from year to year, and slated to increase again next Board of Trustees of Lasell Village. of the Institutional Advancement year, it has created other needs on our campus for larger classroom space, faculty Committee. He also served as the offices, and even storage space. As called for in the Strategic Plan we developed in At Lasell, Urit Chair of the Academic Affairs October 2007, the next project on the boards is the Center for Creative and Applied Chaimovitz ‘98 Committee and was a member of Arts, a project that involves the renovation of the two older buildings next to the developed a zeal for the Presidential Search Committee. Yamawaki Art and Cultural Center into one modern classroom and office building social justice and Rob received his Bachelor’s and that would overlook the Campus Center quad (see article on page 1). community service. Master’s degrees from Middlebury Upon graduation, College, an M.B.A. from Dartmouth For a relatively modest cost, the Center for Creative and Applied Arts would provide she worked at Project Hope and College’s Amos Tuck School, and his strategic value on several fronts. From an operational point of view, it would provide Crittendon Hastings House, doctorate from Harvard University’s much-needed space for our largest academic program — Fashion Design and two Boston-area social service Graduate School of Education. Merchandising; it would free up space in Yamawaki for art studios and music organizations, focusing on women’s rehearsals; it could provide a new home for the graphic design department in health issues and teen parents. In Laura T. Jensen ’61 Yamawaki; in fact, it would have a domino effect throughout the campus that would 2001, Urit joined C & J Katz Studio is Principal/Owner allow us to move departments and faculty members into areas where they will be in Boston where she contributed of L/J Consultants, adjacent to appropriate colleagues in their various departments. From an academic to a broad range of design projects, specialists in and extracurricular point of view, the Center for Creative and Applied Arts will though her particular focus and love non-profit executive support the revitalization of art, drama, and music programs at Lasell College. was residential design. In 2006, search. Prior to Urit established her own design firm, starting her own business, she These programs, while active and growing, are not as strong as some of our alumni focusing on interiors, events, and was Vice President of Percom, Inc., remember them from the past. We are determined to regain the prominence for the visual merchandising.