SUA PUBLICATION FOR SALISBURYMagazine UNIVERSITY SPRING 2003 ALUMNI AND FRIENDS www.salisbury.edu TheThe FutureFuture LooksLooks BRIGHTBRIGHT The New Henson Science Hall • page 3 Where Are They Now? President Janet Dudley-Eshbach Homecoming/Family Weekend: Alumni Profiles Shares her Cuban Experience Who, What, Where and More! page 13 page 17 page 25 SUMagazine SUA PUBLICATION FOR SALISBURY UNIVERSITYMagazine ALUMNI AND FRIENDS Welcome Home 25 SU alums stay connected at the annual Homecoming/ Family Weekend. Science at SU 3 Take a look at science and technology as the Henson School settles into its new home. Departments 3 Feature - Science at SU 17 President’s Perspective 20 Fast Forward 21 Campus News Alums Check In 23 Scoreboard 13 From pediatric nursing to 27 Alumni News AIDS research, SU science grads are making a difference. 32 Class Notes ON THE COVER: Sam Gibson ’95 sees the future of Salisbury University at the Henson Science Hall ribbon cutting on September 5, 2002. 1 WELCOME Message from the Editor Volume 30 • 2003 PRESIDENT This newly designed magazine is for and about you, the alumni of Salisbury University. Dr. Janet Dudley-Eshbach Who are you? You are nearly 29,000 men and women, of nearly all ages, occupations VICE PRESIDENT OF UNIVERSITY ADVANCEMENT and ethnicities, living throughout the United States. You have one important thing in Albert C. Mollica common—you graduated from Salisbury University. A bond of shared experience—a ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT OF UNIVERSITY ADVANCEMENT life-changing experience of learning and achievement—links you. Gains B. Hawkins This magazine is meant to help you celebrate that connection. DIRECTOR OF ALUMNI RELATIONS Roy S. Perdue As your inbox no doubt attests, we’re living in the Information Age. It’s exhilaratingly DIRECTOR OF DESIGN easy to send and receive words and pictures. It is also, at times, overwhelming. That is Susan Maxwell Eagle why we have deliberately chosen to continue to provide information to you in a maga- EDITOR zine format. There is still no electronic replacement for Dawn Bennett Robson ’84 the feel of holding news in your hands—for the sense of What our readers read COPY EDITOR permanence that invites leisurely perusal. Survey respondents who Christine B. Smith ’02 Last summer, the Alumni Association conducted a said they “always” or “almost ALUMNI RELATIONS STAFF communications survey to determine your interests and always” read these sections in Sandy Griswold Melinda B. Khazeh preferences regarding its publications and electronic cor- alumni publications: Alumni News 93% CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS respondence. Overwhelmingly, you favor news about Visual Images Coordinator: Kathy Pusey ’86 alumni. You like to read about your fellow alumni’s Class Notes 90% Jean Anderton ’76 Autumn Winterbottom Collins ’92 career successes and familial milestones. As more than Campus 51% Todd Dudek one survey respondent put it, news about other alumni Sports 43% Joey Gardener Rick Maloof ’84 is a means to “stay connected.” Faculty 43% You also want to stay connected to the campus, by CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Dr. Elizabeth J. Barfield receiving news about the University that is relevant to you. David Driver And, you said you want the information in a lively, highly readable format, with more Dr. Rebecca Emery and better-quality photographs. Dr. Janet Dudley-Eshbach Dr. Thomas W. Jones The new design of this magazine reflects your wishes. Dawn Bennett Robson ’84 We hope you find your new magazine entertaining, STAFF WRITERS informative and worthwhile. Gains B. Hawkins Scott Hinderer ’04 Paul Ohanian Your editor, Roy Perdue CLASS NOTES EDITORS Lindsay Lucas ’04 Aimee Thompson ’05 Dawn Bennett Robson, ’84 PUBLIC RELATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE Chair, Publications Committee Chair: Dawn Bennett Robson ’84 Salisbury University Alumni Association Pam Winters Dolle ’76 Gail Donovan Harkins ’91 Dixie Furr Herweh ’94, ’96 Jim Hudson ’94 Dave Pugh ’82 Joe Talbott ’85 Barry Weir ’73 The SU Magazine is published annually for alumni and friends of Salisbury University by the Office of Alumni Relations in conjunction with the Office of Public Relations, with the generous support of We invite your comments, criticisms, compliments, corrections and contributions… the SU Foundation. Please send comments, news and address changes to: Please write to: Office of Alumni Relations, Salisbury University Office of Alumni Relations, Editor, Alumni Magazine, 1120 Camden Avenue , Salisbury, MD 21801-6837 1120 Camden Avenue, Salisbury University, Salisbury, MD 21801-6837 call 410-543-6042 (toll free 888-729-2586) or e-mail [email protected] Or e-mail us at [email protected] The editor reserves the right to publish letters of interest. Salisbury University has a strong institutional commitment to diversity www.salisbury.edu and is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer, providing equal employment and educational opportunities to all those qualified, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, disability or sexual orientation. 2 SUMagazine The Henson Science Hall opened its doors to thou- sands of eager students in fall 2002. With state- of-the-art lecture halls and student research labs, The Future this facility is a welcome addition to the SU land- scape. At the end of his first semester in the new building, Henson School of Science and Technology Dean Tom Jones reflects on how the Looks building took shape and looks to the future.* by Dr. Tom Jones Dean, Henson School of BRIGHTScience and Technology The new Henson Science Hall is one of the largest science buildings in the University System of Maryland at nearly 146,00 square feet. Larger institutions like College Park and Towson have separate building for biology, math, chemistry, etc. We didn’t want that. We wanted to get the original five departments of the School of Science back together again in the same building so that the faculty can see each other routinely and talk, which hopefully will foster interdisciplinary projects. We like that students are able to do the same thing and see the faculty together. In other words, we tried to break down the walls and silos of the sciences to get students to think in an interdisciplinary manner. SU has grown so much in the last three years, however, that some of the faculty in those five departments cannot fit into this new ’40s ’40s Science at SU ’30s Then 3 FEATURE at building. Five faculty in the Department of opter Science Mathematics and Computer Science will have to move into the renovated Devilbiss Hall. ioloy eoloy nironental Nursing and the Health Sciences departments, eosciences Healt which have never been on the main campus in Henson Hall Sciences their near 30-year history, will also move to Interdisciplinary Devilbiss Hall. Science We designed this new building with the idea of minimizing the number of lecture eistry ysics rooms, thereby maximizing the number of labs. nineerin We wanted to remove the classic form of lec- ture in many courses to the laboratory where a very applied, very interactive kind of relation- Henson Science Hall ship could be forged. And so, many of the upper division science courses that used to have three hours of lecture in the classroom followed by three hours in the lab now have all six hours in the lab—we call it blended lecture/lab— where faculty members have many options in getting the material across to their students. With both teaching and learning going on in the labs, we also made all of the labs as “smart” as we could. The latest teaching tech- nology, with computer projection and instruc- tional systems, has been installed in the labs. Normally, you wouldn’t put smart teaching equipment in laboratories because you don’t expect to be doing a lot of presentations there, but we wanted the faculty lecturing in the lab to be able to go on the Web to show informa- tion about various things such as chemical reac- tions or biological processes while the students are doing their own “thing” in the lab. Undergraduate research is a cornerstone of the Henson School of Science and Technology. To serve our faculty and students, this building has 20 state-of-the-art labs that are set aside for faculty-student research. These are beautiful facilities with plenty of room and plenty of equipment. They’re offline to teaching and they’re there 24/7 for research by our faculty members working with our students. I’m especially excited by these research *This article is excerpted from a longer piece. For the complete text visit www.salisbury.edu/alumni/. labs. Lack of such space was our biggest draw- back in Devilbiss Hall, but in Henson Science Hall, we’ve got the space and we’ve got the equipment. We even have 78 fume hoods in this building, which was a nightmare for the mechanical engineer, but we need them to do ’50s ’80s ’70s ’60s 4 SUMagazine HENSON SCIENCE HALL FACTS the job right! As an undergraduate institution, I Gross Square Footage: 145,500 think we’re the envy of the state. I can give you a long list of exciting things Faculty/Staff Offices: 95 that are going on here. We have a biologist and Lecture Rooms: 12 (Total Capacity – 550) an environmental health scientist who are on Teaching Labs: 32 (Total Capacity – 671) the verge of having Salisbury and their lab des- Undergrad Research Labs: 20 (Total Capacity – 186) ignated by the State of Maryland as THE lab to do Bacterial Source Tracking (BST), a cer- Student Study Areas: 5 (Total Capacity – 150) tain process in identifying the source of Conference/Support Rooms: 12 microorganisms in the environment. For the last two years, Dr. Mark Frana and Dr. Elichia Venzo have received grants from the Maryland Department of the Environment to identify the sources of E.