EYE OF THE ROBOT /// SOLAR CHALLENGE /// CALLED UP TO THE COLONIALS THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE SUMMER 2013 FOOD FOR THOUGHT CHEF JOSÉ ANDRÉS TEACHES SCIENCE, CULTURE, AND DIPLOMACY IN “THE WORLD ON A PLATE.” IT’S A NEW STAY. 13WASFB01_WASFB_GWMagazineAd_9x10.875_F.indd 1 7/11/13 4:08 PM CONTENTS GW MAGAZINE SUMMER 2013 A MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS Gregg Ritchie, BA ’86, former Major League Baseball player and coach, left the majors last season to return to his alma mater as GW’s head baseball coach. features departments 34 / Food for Thought 3 / Editor’s Note José Andrés, kitchen revolutionary, brings GW students into the global conversation on food. 5 / Postmarks / By Ruth Steinhardt / 9 / GW News / 40 A Place in the Sun / Students from a trio of D.C. universities reimagine green living, from the ground up, in their bid to 60 Philanthropy Update / / win the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon. By Danny Freedman 64 / Alumni News 46 / Called Up to the Colonials New baseball coach made unlikely switch from Major League Baseball to college and rejoined his alma mater. / By Steve Deshazo / 52 / Growing Plans As the GW Business Plan Competition celebrates fi ve years, the contest—and the entrepreneurs’ ideas—keep getting bigger. / By Mary A. Dempsey / 56 / The Body Robotic Form, function, and the future as seen through the eyes and handiwork of three GW roboticists. On the cover: JESSICA BURT MCCONNELL / By Danny Freedman / Photo by Aaron Clamage gwmagazine.com / 1 FROM THE EDITOR editor Heather O. Milke, MBA ’02 m a naging editor Caitlin Carroll, BA ’07, MA ’11, CERT ’11 associate editors Danny Freedman, BA ’01; Jamie L. Freedman, MA ’96 assistant editor Ruth Steinhardt contributors 1990 1996 2004 TODAY GW Today Staff: Laura Donnelly-Smith, Brittney Dunkins, Kurtis Hiatt, Julyssa Lopez, Rachel Muir university photographer Jessica McConnell Burt photo editor GW Magazine, 4.0 William Atkins design With this edition, we proudly introduce your redesigned GW GW Marketing & Creative Services Magazine. After months of hard work by our editorial and creative a rt directors teams, we are happy to share the new product with you. Dominic Abbate, BA ’09; John McGlasson, BA ’00, MFA ’03 Many people within GW’s Division of External Relations and the Division of Development and Alumni Relations come together to president of the university Steven Knapp create GW Magazine, now in its 23rd year of publication. For the vice president for external better part of a year we have been meeting, strategizing, and planning. relations Our friends at design firm Pentagram in New York helped us create Lorraine Voles, BA ’81 associate vice president for a new look that we think represents today’s George Washington communications University. Sarah Gegenheimer Baldassaro Our goal was to create a magazine that is as smart, good looking, GW Magazine (ISSN 2162-6464) intellectual, and entertaining as all of you are. George Washington is published quarterly by the Division University has always been a fine institution, and our trajectory of of External Relations, The George Washington University, Rice Hall excellence continues. It was time for GW Magazine to get a facelift Suite 501, Washington, D.C. 20052. and become more reflective of our personality and aspirations, and to Our phone number is 202-994-6460; fax 202-994-5761; email [email protected]. embody the university’s new branding and visual identity, which were postmaster Please send all implemented last year. change-of-address notices to GW There are some things we know you wanted more of: coverage Magazine, GW Alumni Records Office, 2100 M St., N.W., Suite 315, Washington, of athletics, for example. And there were other things we want you DC 20052. Notices can also be sent to us to know more about, such as GW’s expanding research endeavors. online at www.gwu.edu/~alumni/update/, And we want to entertain. New elements include From the Archives, via email to [email protected], or by phone at 202-994-3569. Periodicals Spaces, and 5 Questions, which were designed to give you a more postage paid at Washington, D.C., and visual experience and, we hope, some more fun as well. additional mailing offices. In addition, we have updated our online version at gwmagazine.com. Opinions expressed in these pages are those of the individuals and do not necessarily So please enjoy your new GW Magazine, both in print and online. reflect official positions of the university. And when you’re done please drop us a line and let us know what you © 2013 The George Washington University think. We’d love to hear from you. The George Washington University is an equal opportunity/affirmative Heather O. Milke action institution. WILLIAM ATKINS editor Volume 23, Issue 4 gwmagazine.com / 3 POSTMARKS from him on leather chairs in a was change the color of the Memories of Former GW more personal setting. university. He asked about my GW The story goes that his President Lloyd Elliott, experience, professors, and predecessor, Cloyd Heck Marvin, future plans, and he offered had gotten a deal on postwar 1918-2013 advice for more than 20 minutes. surplus paint. It was such a He had never met me yet gave me good deal that he got enough to valuable time and showed such paint the whole university! The nothing short of a nuclear attack personal concern. Dr. Elliott problem was that it was all the would ever close the university. truly cared about his students. I same color: green. The bigger I do not know if that is true. I am lucky to be one of them. problem was the shade of that do know that Dr. Elliott was a Denis Ventriglia, BA ’78 color, which was somewhere man who would move heaven, Wilmington, N.C. between pea-soup and sinus- earth, and snow to ensure that infection green. It became the students in his care received When I attended GW from 1970 known as “Marvin Green.” every educational opportunity to to 1972 for my MPA, I was a I returned the summer after broaden their horizons, nurture Scottish Rite Fellow from West my senior year for graduate their dreams, and realize Virginia and a West Virginia school to a freshly painted, success. University graduate. When I multi-toned university, which Sheryl Stuckey, BS ’82, BA ’90 arrived I was a little scared and my daughter and son-in-law Washington, D.C. apprehensive, coming from attended with wonderful results: When I got the new issue a rural part of West Virginia two jobs and two children. of GW Magazine in the My best memory of Dr. Elliott and entering a large urban For that I was and still mail today and saw the is from the first few weeks I university. Dr. Elliott had dinner am eternally grateful to the was at the school in September with all the Scottish Rite Fellows university’s 14th president. cover, the first thing I 1980. I had just transferred and made it a point to meet Bill Gralnick, BA ’65, MA ’68 remembered was the from a college in Memphis, with me and assure me that I Boca Raton, Fla. and although I had worked was up to the challenge and if Presidents Day storm hard academically to make ever I needed to talk with him, When the trustees appointed of 1979. the transition to a much better he was available. He had such Lloyd Elliott president of GW, I I had an exam scheduled university, financially, I was not great human relations skills and was active in the Faculty Senate the next afternoon and was as prepared as I should have made a point to look up a fellow and was invited to join the awakened by a ringing telephone been. Not really knowing how West Virginian. I will always delegation to meet Dr. Elliott in early that morning. A friend to proceed, I was able to get an remember him for his kindness the room where the senate met. of mine at Howard University appointment with Dr. Elliott, and thoughtfulness. We shook hands and chatted. called to alert me to the record and, within five minutes, he knew Roger Justice, MPA ’72 I came away from the meeting snowfall and to gloat. Every exactly what to do. He sent a Olathe, Kansas completely won over. Dr. Elliott university in the area was letter to the director of financial was a gentleman and I looked closed...except GW. I called aid at the time and asked to grant Lloyd Elliott inherited a small, forward to his presidency. campus to find out if the exam me a Trustee Scholarship, which southern-oriented university In difficult years following had been canceled and was told I had for the remainder of my in a fabulous location that 1965 that included tear gas on that classes would be held on time at GW. That allowed me to had a Quonset hut for a gym, campus and nights on a cot time. It took me a few hours to graduate from my dream school suggested a bus ride to the in Rice Hall, I respected Dr. get to campus from my house, as planned in 1984. He will Library of Congress as the Elliott’s judgment and admired but when I got there I marveled always have a very special place best research resource for his courage. He supported our at the fact that every street in my heart. its students, and had such a then-new form of faculty self- and every sidewalk had been Christopher L.