monarchOLD DOMINION UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE | SPRING 2011 adapting to our changing environment INSIDE: COMPUTER SCIENTISTS Fighting Brain Tumors 18 FILMMAKER Tom DiCillo 32 KEITH FENIMORE’S Social Networking 38 Full Frame Monarch basketball fans had a lot to cheer about this past season. The men’s team was a 9th seed in the NCAA tournament and came just two points short of defeating Butler in Round Two. The men’s overall record was 27–7 and the team won its second straight Colonial Athletic Association tournament title with a 70–65 victory over arch-rival VCU. Frank Hassell was named first-team All-CAA and Kent Bazemore was the conference’s defensive player of the year. The women’s team finished at 20–11 and played in the Women’s National Invitational Tournament. PHOTO: RICK VOIGHT Staff Editor From the Editor Jim Raper Art Director Karen Smallets his is the first issue of Monarch, the Old Copy Editor Dominion University magazine. The variety Janet Molinaro of content that is merged here in one Contributing Writers Marcia Cronin magazine was previously found in the Steve Daniel Bryoney Hayes Susan Malandrino discontinued Old Dominion University: A Brendan O’Hallarn T Lisa Sinclair Magazine for Alumni and Friends and Contributing Photography Quest, the university’s research and innovation magazine. Ronald Atkinson Elizabeth Carney Our plan is to circulate Monarch three times a year to Katie Davis Anne Peterson approximately 100,000 alumni, opinion leaders and friends of Chuck Thomas Rick Voight the university. Roberto Westbrook The page count for Monarch will be higher than for the Administration magazines previously published by the university, allowing us John R. Broderick President to share more news about the ODU community. Alonzo Brandon ’85 Some articles will report on the exciting research, Vice President for University Advancement scholarship and classroom innovations that are ODU’s Jennifer Mullen Collins (M.P.A. ’04) contributions to the region and the world. We will make a Assistant Vice President for Marketing and Communications special effort to write about those faculty members who are Victoria E. Burke (M.S. ’94) dedicated mentors and about those students who set high Director of University Publications Dana G. Allen goals and achieve them. Alumni will notice more photos and Assistant Vice President for Alumni Relations other content about alumni chapter activities and the work Debbie White of the Alumni Association. At least two longer articles in each Senior Associate Athletic Director issue will focus on newsworthy alums. Member, Council for the Advancement and Support of Education One of ODU’s senior staffers, University Editor Steve Vol. 1 No.1, Spring 2011 Published by the Office of Daniel, is writing a regular column titled “Then and Now” University Advancement Old Dominion University that explores how classroom experiences and campus life Norfolk, VA 23529-0018 have changed over ODU’s 80-year history. Athletic Director Wood Selig will also write a regular column in the athletics section of the magazine. We hope that you will be Monarch boosters. Feel free to On our Cover contact me by phone or email at 757-683-5585 or Boots in a storm, the Monarch cover photograph, is the work of Norfolk [email protected] if you have content suggestions or questions. photographer Roberto Westbrook. Rising sea level in southeastern Virginia is leading to more –Jim Raper flooding during storms, which is a topic explored in the cover story, Page 22. 2 MONARCH MAGAZINE SPRING 2011 CONTENTS Students, guest artists and faculty perform in the University Dance Theatre Spring Concert on April 13-16 at University Theatre. For tickets, go to http://oduartstix.com or call 757-683-5305. PHOTO: ANNE PETERSON 58 Rowing Center Opens Departments Features Women’s rowing team now launches from new $2 million 4 Then & Now 18 Taking Aim at boathouse on the Lafayette River. Brain Tumors 6 49th and Hampton Computer scientists develop 8 EngageODU dynamic mapping to guide Alumni neurosurgeons’ scalpels in 10 Today’s Student the OR. 42 News Engineering grad Wil James rises What’s a Farkleberry ? 12 Books 31 Tackle Box Essential from Lambert’s Point, Norfolk, to Botany Professor Lytton Musselman Marine species expert Kent 14 Research presidency of Toyota plant in uses “common plants in an uncommon Carpenter co-authors a full-color Kentucky. way” to concoct cordials and aperitifs. 58 Sports field guide to coastal fishes. Page 22 46 Class Notes 60 Letter from the 32 Filmmaker President Tom DiCillo ’75 Distinguished alum turned his B.A. Why ODU? in English into an award-winning Know a potential student? Share career crafting independent this to help them make ODU their Sea Level Rise fiction and documentary films. President John Broderick choice. marshals ODU researchers to examine how climate change and rising sea levels will impact the region. Page 26 Most Recognizable? Keith Fenimore ’94 pitches himself as an experiment in the power of social media. Page 38 Then&now East Campus Strip-From Gritty to Gleaming Remember Friar Tucks? How about the King’s Head Inn? BY STEVE DANIEL PHOTO: RONALD ATKINSON/MEDIA EAST et a group of Old Gray’s Pharmacy, which has outlasted them party scene. If you drove up and down Dominion alumni all and continues to serve the campus com- Hampton Boulevard, you would see hun- reminiscing about munity at the corner of 48th Street. dreds of students on the sidewalk along a their college days, Lots of the old places have come and five-block stretch.” and chances are gone – popular eateries like Batterson’s, An- In fact, go online today and you’ll find good that there will thony’s and the Burger King across from the not one but two 4400 Campus Club Face- be stories of fa- Batten Arts and Letters, along with various book pages, where former patrons have vorite professors, other businesses that included a gas station, shared their memories of great music, PBR, Gcafeteria food, cam- grocery store, clothing shop and laundromat. quarter beer night and “the best pizza ever.” pus capers and life- Many of the establishments popular A little over a year ago, Jim DeAngelis long friends. Chances are equally good, among students back in the day – haunts ’87 posted this reminiscence: “What a blast however, that the subject of off-campus di- like the 4400 Campus Club, Friar Tuck’s, from the past. Some days I was not sure if I versions will come up, particularly those that King’s Head Inn and Zero’s, as well as went to ODU and played at 4400 or if I were available directly across Hampton Speedy’s Tacos, just off the beaten path – went to 4400 and played at ODU. My oldest Boulevard from the main side of campus. went away around the time plans were an- son is a freshman there now and my biggest From the 1970s until today, the six-block nounced for the Ted Constant Convocation regret is that he could not experience the strip from 49th Street to 43rd Street (and a Center, which broke ground in 1999. 4400 Club. Sadly, an era gone by.” few blocks to the south) has featured a vari- “The 4400 Club was kind of the pivot Most of today’s students no doubt would ety of businesses catering to the college point for that area,” recalls Dana Burnett, the be surprised to learn what the east side of crowd – everything from clubs and restau- longtime ODU dean of students (now chair Hampton Boulevard looked like just 10 rants to bakeries and barbershops. Remem- of the educational foundations and leader- years ago, let alone more than three decades ber Captain Zig-Zag’s? It’s still there. And, of ship department) who came to the univer- earlier when students like Scott Sechrist ’75, course, there was – and is – the venerable sity in 1972. “After 10 at night, that was the now an ODU professor of medical labora- 4 MONARCH MAGAZINE SPRING 2011 tory and radiation sciences, would venture across the main drag in search of extracur- ricular activity and a break from cafeteria food. “I remember the King’s Head Inn the The King’s Head Inn and Anthony’s Pizza most. They had the greatest sandwiches. It (above) sat at the northeast corner of 43rd St. and Hampton Blvd., now site of the plaza was so dark you couldn’t see what you and ticket office for the Ted Constant were eating anyway. And it always had that Convocation Center. In the next block (left), beer smell, so it made for a great the 4400 Campus Club flashed its neon lunchtime,” Sechrist said with a laugh. welcome from the corner of 44th St. and He also remembers buying albums at Hampton Blvd. Ramblin’ Conrad’s and stopping in at Abdul’s Leather Shop for underground newspapers. the Constant Center, still gleaming as it Just the mention of Zero’s is likely to certs and dances were as popular as ever. approaches its 10th birthday next year, elicit a Pavlov-like mouth-watering re- Bill Nuckols, who attended ODU for there’s even a SpringHill Suites Marriott, sponse from Diana Wodder ’76, a former his junior and senior years from 1994-96, and the thoroughfare itself is wider – six Rogers Hall resident from New Jersey. worked security at King’s Head Inn, and lanes instead of four. She would be hard-pressed to add up all was occasionally called on to help out at Nuckols can still recall returning home of the oven-heated tuna and cheese subs the other venues. from law school in Illinois – in the late she ate there during her four years at “The 4400 Campus Club was where a 1990s – and riding his Harley down ODU, but it would be a considerable lot of your graduate students and faculty Hampton Boulevard.