College Magazine | Summer 2013 Socially Connected The business of putting new media to work Recommended Reading Irresistible summer books, professor-approved Reflecting the mission of the college, St. Norbert College Magazine links the institution’s past and present by Contents chronicling its academic, cultural, spiritual and co-curricular life. ST. NORBERT COLLEGE MAGAZINE In Print Online Vol. 45, No. 2, Summer 2013 A sampling of related content available at snc.edu/magazine. Cover Story Page 8 Page 14 In living color: Prospective students meet “These days, it takes almost as much the St. Norbert college experience, 2013-style work to reach Devil’s Island as it did A Knight’s Tale (page 6), in this fast-paced video. for France’s most notorious prisoner “Norby is all over the place in my to gain freedom from it.” – Tom world,” says Nick Patton ’03 In retrospect: A look back over the careers Conner (Modern Languages and (Communications). of St. Norbert’s eight living alumni generals Literatures) The illustrator’s (page 6). new children’s book features a In pictures: Commencement 2013; a proud charming story day (Page 9). of vocational Page 22 questing – and In some detail: John Gordon (Art) and the Faculty members share their current it all takes place iconic Green Bay Packers “G”(page 10): reading – a selection that includes a right here at a St. Norbert story from start to finish. few surprise topics among interests St. Norbert. more closely related to their individual fields of study. In season: Seems that, as soon as May arrives, it’s time to don, in turn: flip-flops and Page 16 shorts (for the arrival of spring); a studious air (for finals week); and a winning attitude (for Socially Connected campus golf and more). Our photographers were there to capture it all (page 11). Page 29 Social media has come of age. Once The flamboyant cuttlefish, a rare reserved for after-hours use, it’s now a In prospect: Bridget Krage O’Connor ’93 and spectacular species, is making a legitimate professional tool. The field reflects on the lay of the land in higher comeback in aquariums around the itself offers a maturing career path, and many St. Norbert alums are among those education in 2013, and the challenges ahead world, thanks to the skill of Monterey (page 13). Bay’s Bret Grasse ’08. engaged in the business of putting new media to work. Page 20 In touch: Marketing maven Dana Vanden On our cover: St. Norbert itself is Heuvel ’99 (page 16) considers the “mobile- recognized as a frontrunner in its The Theology of Hospitality social generation” and the way we buy now. creative use of emerging communication Departments tools. You can read more, from the A capstone course challenged four seniors to college’s own social media specialist, on marry the Gospel message of hospitality with In conversation & song: Gerard Edery, 4 President’s Message page 19. practical concerns facing cities like Green a specialist in the music of the Sephardic Bay: a place where God’s poor sometimes Jews worldwide, is a master musician himself. 5 News of St. Norbert overflow available provision and those with 25 News of Alumni no homes occasionally seek shelter amid our own college community. Keep an eye open throughout this edition 30 Connection snc.edu/magazine for more links to content on the web. Follow us on your favorite social media channel, too. Just search for St. Norbert College. In My Words / President Tom Kunkel News OF ST. NORBERT COLLEGE MOMENTUM Noted in the margins The move is on Cranes on When you empty out a science building, campus One of the few downsides of my job is the serious you can expect some crimp it puts into recreational reading. The lengthy unusual challenges. onstruction barriers, heavy treatises I routinely peruse about “Is College Worth Among the items machinery and piles of building It?” or the rise of massive online courses, while Facilities staff were materials in the parking certainly important, are not exactly what you would charged with removing: Clot are generally regarded less as call pleasurable. inconveniences and more as indicators When my schedule does open up a bit, I try to • A stuffed water of good health on a college campus. Joseph Mitchell 1908-96 buffalo, along with a sneak in a book or two from my swelling wish-list With cranes to the east of it and cranes of titles. (As you’ll see in “The Word on Summer flock of stuffed avian to the west, evidently the prognosis at NEWS Tom Kunkel Reads,” page 22, apparently so do many of my SNC companions. would enter the picture. As it happens, though, Joe • Rocks – property St. Norbert is a fine one. colleagues.) Over last winter’s midterm break, for Mitchell had what one might call a very Norbertine Most visible from the street is the instance, I devoured two books by Hilary Mantel, of the geology outlook on life and people. His subjects were department. conversion of the former St. John’s “An excavator of lost “Wolf Hall” and “Bring Up the Bodies” – delicious Church building into the Cassandra NORBERT OF ST. souls and eccentric neither glamorous nor rich. On the contrary, they • A 1,200-pound fictional accounts of the marital machinations of Voss Center, which comes into being as visionaries, [Joseph were marked by their flaws, often self-inflicted optical table, loaded the money. I think when we put up a Work continues on Henry VIII. I anxiously await her impending third the result of one of the largest-ever gift the largest single Mitchell’s] genius lay foibles, and bad luck – in a word, their humanity. with sensitive building, we get a lot for our dollar.” and final volume. Who will keep their heads? construction project partly in a natural Yet for all that, they prevailed. And Joe related their research-grade totals for gender programming in higher Other construction on campus may With summer, I typically would be cadging some optical elements. ever undertaken ability to connect with stories with empathy, great humor, and not a little education. This building is destined to be be less conspicuous but demonstrates additional reading time from around our planning • Donor plaques – at St. Norbert. The those living on the wisdom. One of his best-known portraits was of a the new home for the Women’s Center, a similar approach to stewardship. Gehl-Mulva Science for fall semester. But – with one notable exeption each one carefully margins of society.” bearded circus performer named Lady Olga, who the Men’s Initiative, and the women’s and Remodeling in Cofrin earlier this Center takes shape (see page 14) – not this year. unscrewed from its – Erin Overbey, writing worked the sideshows all her life. Joe closed the gender studies discipline. semester helped bring most of the staff under the steeple of You see, I’ve been busy – finishing my own book. spot and placed in Old St. Joe’s: fitting in The New Yorker story by quizzing Olga about what it was like to be Meanwhile, across the academic in the new information technology For longer than I care to admit, I’ve been working the keeping of Nancy guardian for a project heart of campus, the largest project ever services division under one roof. And on a biography of an iconic figure in American considered a freak. But she would have none of it. Malaczewski (Donor that will further undertaken by the college is under way this summer sees the finishing of the letters, Joseph Mitchell. Mitchell, who died in 1996, “If the truth was known,” she tells him, “we’re all Relations). an educational as JMS undergoes its transformation into hitherto unoccupied lower level of mission based on was a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine for freaks together.” • An herbarium Why do educators – even college presidents – assembled by one of the 150,000-square-foot Gehl-Mulva the Mulva Library into a studio-style three venerable most of his life, and from the Thirties through the Science Center. Ground was officially traditions – Catholic, write books and do research? Well, we think it’s the college’s earliest learning environment. mid-Sixties he turned out some of the most indelible broken May 10. This 27-month project Norbertine, liberal imperative for creative people to stay creative. This biologists, the Rev. “The space is designed to meet portraits in the nonfiction canon. If you love to read will be completed in phases, with the arts. keeps our faculty’s outlook in their disciplines fresh, Anselm Keefe, the need students have expressed for but have never encountered the Greenwich Village first phase seeing additions to both the and it helps ensure that their teaching is as current O.Praem., Class of space to spread out with computers, gadfly Joe Gould, or Mazie the Bowery ticket-taker, 1916. east and west ends of the building. as possible. information, and projects – whether or cemetery-tender George Hunter, there is a void • A TV studio in its Space for science is expensive, with Besides, the best teaching is always by example, individually or in small clusters,” in your life waiting to be filled. entirety. its special requirements for services explains (Library). They’ll is it not? Kristin Vogel I got to know Joe in person 20 years ago, when I • Close to 20 like ventilation, explains John Barnes find comfortable, dynamic space that So I have spent my summer toiling to get a final was working on another biography – this one about refrigerators.