Summer 2009 - UNO Alumni Association

Transcription

U N I V E R S I T Y
O F
N E B R A S K A
A T
O M A H A
A L U M N I
A S S O C I A T I O N
www.unoalumni.org
Summer 2009
A new
era in
Athletics
UNO creates a buzz with
the hiring of former Husker
Trev Alberts to lead the Mavs
ALSO INSIDE:
• Twords of Twisdom
for UNO’s incoming frosh
• UNO students
studying Internet worms
• A 7-footer comes to campus
Contents
Summer 2009
College News
CFAM
33
IS&T
34
CPACS
36
Arts & Sciences
38
COE
40
CBA
42
A look at Classical 90.7 FM and UNO TV.
The doctorate class of 2009.
Good advice from Advisors.
Spring award recipients.
Coaches in the classroom.
College honors distinguished alumni.
Abuzz over Alberts
UNO Alum Magazine, Summer 2009
Page 16
Editor: Anthony Flott
Contributors: Ed Carlson, John Fey, Tim
Fitzgerald, Warren Francke, Sian Kennedy,
Greg Kozol, Shannon Lauber, Chris Machian,
Tom McMahon, Eric Olson, Nick Schinker,
Kalani Simpson, Wendy Townley.
Cover Photo by Tim Fitzgerald/University Relations
12
Features
Twords of Twisdom
12
The Paperless Pusher
20
The Class of 2009 Tweets its advice to incoming
freshmen — in 140 characters or fewer.
20
Maury Pepper makes waves with his
software that digitizes medical records.
Plains, Trains & Automobiles
24
Just Curious
28
Tall Tales
30
Galen Lillethorup made his mark with some
of Omaha’s best-ever advertisements.
24
From harnessing the sun to forecasting S&P 500 winners
and losers, John Geppert remains ever-inquisitive.
UNO basketball recruit Jake Anderson hits campus
this fall at 7-foot tall — and he’s still growing.
28
Departments
Alumni Association Officers: Chairman of
the Board, Mark Grieb; Past Chairman, Rod
Oberle; 1st Vice chair, Kevin Munro; 2nd Vice
Chair, Laura Kapustka; Secretary, Patricia
Lamberty; Treasurer, Dan Koraleski; Legal
Counsel, Martha Ridgway Zajicek; President
& CEO, Lee Denker.
Alumni Staff: Lee Denker, President & CEO;
Julie Kaminski, Staff Assistant; Elizabeth
Kraemer, Activities Coordinator; Greg Trimm,
Alumni Center Manager; Anthony Flott,
Editor; Maria Malnack, Business Manager;
Loretta Wirth, Receptionist.
The UNO Alum is published quarterly by the
UNO Alumni Association, W.H. Thompson
Alumni Center, UNO, Omaha, NE 68182-0010,
(402) 554-2444, FAX (402) 554-3787 • web
address: www.unoalumni.org • Member,
Council for the Advancement and Support of
Education (CASE) • Direct all inquiries to
Editor, (402) 554-2989. Toll-free, UNO-MAVALUM • email: [email protected] • Send all
changes of address to attention of Records.
Views expressed through various articles
within the magazine do not necessarily reflect
the opinions of the University of Nebraska at
Omaha or the UNO Alumni Association.
Citation award presented; December trip offered.
30
New Advancement Agreement to strengthen university.
A concluding history timeline.
News from abroad — and close to home
w w w. u n o a l u m n i . o r g
Summer 2009 • 3
Letter from the
Chancellor
Dear Alum:
A
s with many of you, I suspect, summer is a
time for making improvements or repairs on
our homes and landscaping.
The UNO family, too, and
particularly our facilities
management and planning
staff, is staying very busy this
summer with a variety of
projects, all designed to serve
students, faculty and staff
better. In this edition of the
Alum, I thought I’d update
you on the major projects
we’re undertaking, in preparation for what is
shaping up to be a robust enrollment in the fall.
The Health, Physical Education and Recreation
(HPER) addition and renovation continues, having
broken ground last October. This exciting project
will build both capacity and functionality into the
heavily used HPER Building though improved
recreation facilities, a more attractive atrium
entrance and relocation of Student Health from the
Milo Bail Student Center. Studies show that
recreation facilities are among the amenities
students consider when selecting a college or
university, and the nearly 30-year-old HPER
Building was due for a facelift. When completed in
August 2010, this project will significantly improve
our capacity to help students maintain a healthy
lifestyle. Construction is being funded through
increased HPER membership and student fees.
Mammel Hall, being constructed on the Pacific
Street campus, will be the new home of our College
of Business Administration and will add significant
square footage for classrooms, labs and offices for
this growing college. At present, the foundation
work is done, and steel erection is underway (see
photo at right). Truly modern in design, Mammel
Hall will complement the existing Peter Kiewit
Institute, creating new synergies between the
College of Information, Science and Technology
(IST) and CBA. Privately funded, Mammel Hall is
expected to open in time for Fall 2010 classes.
The Milo Bail Student Center (MBSC)
continues to undergo modernization and
renovation as part of a project that began last
summer to update the building’s interior spaces.
Last summer, bold colors invigorated walls and
carpets on the second and third levels, while this
4 • Summer 2009
summer’s project will renovate the heavily used
Ballroom and Maverick Food Court. The original
structure was built in 1958 at a cost of $1.3 million.
Five decades later, MBSC continues to be a hub of
student activity and a focal point of campus life.
This summer’s projects will be completed by the
opening of classes this fall.
Renovation of Annex 24 (Hayden House) will
be the new “front door” of the campus, combining
the offices of Student Recruitment Services and the
Welcome Center in one separate location. Formerly
housing the administrative functions of the College
of Public Affairs and Community Service (CPACS),
the project will create a welcoming environment for
prospective students and their families to begin
campus tours and orientation and to learn more
about UNO with easy access to parking and a view
of residential housing. Annex 24 will be ready for
occupancy in January.
On the drawing board, plans continue for the
creation of a University Life Complex on the
Center Street campus, as well as breathing new life
into Roskens Hall and Kayser Hall. When the
College of Business Administration moves into
Mammel Hall, the College of Education will move
to Roskens, for the start of fall classes in 2011. At
the time of this letter, the NU Board of Regents will
consider the project’s program statement at their
June meeting. If approved, this move will clear the
way for the planning and renovation of Kayser
Hall, currently the home of the College of
Education. This building is envisioned as a
Community Engagement Center, to facilitate
UNO’s many partnerships and linkages within the
metropolitan community. Construction may begin
in 2011, with completion set for Fall 2012.
As we begin our second century of service, UNO
is wasting no time preparing for the future needs of
the next generation of students. These projects, and
others not yet envisioned, keep UNO a vibrant,
modern and inviting place for current students, and
you our alumni, to call home. Please visit often.
Until next time,
John Christensen, Chancellor
UNOALUM
Campus Scene
Photo by Tim Fitzgerald/University Relations
Mammel Hall, the College of Business
Administration’s new home is rising on
the Pacific location of UNO’s campus in
preparation for its opening at the start
of the 2010-11 academic year.
Summer 2009 • 5
Alumni Association in Action
Citation issued to Boy Scout executive
T
he UNO Alumni Association bestowed its Citation for Alumnus Achievement upon UNO
graduate Lloyd Roitstein during UNO’s commencement May 8. The Citation, inaugurated in
1949, is the association’s highest honor, encompassing career achievement, community service, involvement in business/professional associations, and fidelity to UNO. Association Chairman of the Board Mark Grieb presented the award to Roitstein, the 149th Citation recipient.
Roitstein, who earned a degree in education in 1971, is scout executive/president of the MidAmerica Council of the Boy Scouts of America, the largest youth-serving agency in Nebraska
with oversight of nearly 34,000 youngsters in 58 counties in Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota.
The council is among the nation’s largest geographically and in number of youth served.
Roitstein’s dedication and leadership skills were most evident last summer. On June 11,
2008, a tornado struck the council’s Little Sioux Scout Ranch in Iowa’s Loess Hills. Four Boy
Scouts were killed and more than 40 were injured. Roitstein was at the camp soon after receiving news of the tornado, helping with search-and-rescue missions and providing the Scout’s
public response to the tragedy in
press conferences and media interviews. In August he led scouts who
were at the camp and parents to
the White House for a meeting with
President George Bush. The Little
Sioux Scout Ranch is being rebuilt
through a $1.8 million reconstruction effort.
An Eagle Scout, Roitstein has
been involved in scouting since age
8. His first job with the Boy Scouts
was as a district executive in
Omaha in 1971. He assumed his
UNO Chancellor John Christensen, Citation recipient Lloyd present post in 1992.
Roitstein and Alumni Association Chairman Mark Grieb.
Roitstein grew up in Omaha’s
Dundee neighborhood and attended
Central High School before enrolling at then-Omaha University in 1964. He also served in the
U.S. Army reserves while in college. At UNO he served on the student senate and with the
Student Programming Organization and was chair of the Committee for Athletic Promotion. He
served as the last Ouampi, the mascot when UNO’s nickname was Indians. As Ouampi,
Roitstein performed authentic American Indian dances, which he learned through Boy Scouts.
Roitstein served on the UNO Alumni Association’s Board of Directors from 1997 to 2002. He
has served numerous other organizations as a board member or in other capacities. He and his
wife, Debbie, have a son and daughter.
2008 UNO
Annual Report
on the Web
T
he 2008 UNO Alumni
Association Annual Report is
now online, available under the
UNO Annual Fund section of the
association’s Web site,
www.unoalumni. org.
The document reviews the
UNO Alumni Association’s
numerous efforts and accomplishments last year, including
its activities, communications,
scholarships and awards issued,
university support provided and
finances.
Also included are two listings
of donors: 1. All members of the
Lifetime Giving Societies, ranging from cumulative gifts of
$2,500 to $50, 000 or more; and,
2. All 2008 UNO Annual Fund
donors.
Longtime activities director Sheila King retires
T
King during a UNO
homecoming with
grandson Ben.
6 • Summer 2009
he UNO Alumni Association bid adieu to Activities Director Sheila King, who retired June 4 after serving UNO
and the association for more than a decade.
A 1990 graduate of UNO, King joined the association in 1999. She previously worked in UNO’s office of
University Affairs. She grew various UNO Alumni Association programs, including Golden Circle (for graduates of
45 years ago or longer), Homecoming, Shakespeare on the Green, Alumni Night at the Theater, and other events.
Under her leadership the Chancellor Scholarship Swing held each September raised more than $350,000 for student scholarships.
King was instrumental in the 2007 formation of UNO Young Alumni, an association affiliate for graduates 40
years or younger. She also oversaw two events in 2008 that kicked off UNO’s Centennial Anniversary — the
Centennial Barbecue and Reception and UNO Homecoming. She also played a major role in the Centennial Gala
held in February.
King and her husband, Ken, are leaving Omaha for Texas, where their two daughters, sons-in-law and five
grandchildren live.
Elizabeth Kraemer, a 2006 UNO graduate, replaces King as the association’s activities director. A former UNO
student regent, Kraemer began her duties June 1.
UNOALUM
News, Information & Activities
Shakespeare
on the Green
set for June 24
J
Travel with us Dec. 1-8, 2009
Christmas Markets Tour
Join fellow alumni, families and friends for an eightday tour of Austria and the Czech Republic featuring the festive, traditional Christmas markets of glittering Salzburg, Linz, Vienna and Prague. The UNO
Alumni Association and Classical 90.7 KVNO are
sponsoring the program, scheduled for Dec. 1-8.
Cost is $2,599 per person for double occupancy
and includes airfare, accommodations and more. An
information webinar will be webcast June 29 at 6
p.m. For more info, visit www.unoalumni.org. Or call
the UNO Alumni Association at (402) 554-4887 or
toll-free at UNO-MAV-ALUM (866-628-2586). Send
emails to [email protected]
Teams, sponsors sought for Sept. 14 Swing
T
he UNO Alumni Association will tee off for scholarships on Monday, Sept. 14,
with the 29th annual Chancellor's Scholarship
Swing at Tiburon Golf Club.
The UNO Alumni Association’s biggest single
fundraiser each year, the Swing last year raised more
than $50,000, pushing the total to more than $500,000
raised since the association began hosting the tournament 14 years ago.
The money raised supports various Associationsponsored student scholarships, including four UNO
Alumni Association Scholarships, $2,500/year scholarships to graduating high school seniors who have
demonstrated leadership and involvement during
high school. The scholarships may be renewed for
up to four years.
Letters are being sent to business and individuals
seeking participation in the tournament as sponsors. To
participate, or for more information, contact Elizabeth
Kraemer at (402) 554-4802.
oin the UNO Alumni Association
Wednesday, June 24 (rain or
shine), for the Shakespeare on the
Green Alumni Picnic followed by
“Macbeth.” Cost is $12 per person,
featuring:
• Picnic Buffet
(Chicken, BBQ
pork, potato salad,
baked beans, cole
slaw, cookie,
beverages).
• Reserved spot
“down front” at the
play.
• Reserved
parking near the
Green.
• “Macbeth”
preview by UNO Professor Cindy
Melby Phaneuf, co-founder/artistic
director of Nebraska Shakespeare
Festival (NSF).
• Satisfaction knowing part of your
fee helps underwrite a donation to the
NSF.
To Register: Complete the
Shakespeare Registration Form on
Page 47 and remit with payment.
Questions? Call Elizabeth Kraemer
at 554-4802.
Annual Fund
campaign begun
T
he 2009 UNO Annual Fund
campaign is underway!
UNO Annual Fund gifts are a vital
source of support for UNO in the
areas of alumni communication,
community engagement, student
support and academic excellence.
Your gift will make a valuable
difference in the future of the
university. Please help us support the
university by making a gift to the UNO
Annual Fund. To do so, please
complete and return the envelope
attached inside this Alum.
Summer 2009 • 7
University News
News & Information
Advancement model incorporated by University, Alumni Association, NU Foundation
New collaboration agreement advances UNO
U
NO is inextricably bound to the fabric of Omaha as the
region’s premier metropolitan university. Just as our
university has evolved to better serve the needs of an
increasingly urban population, it also must adjust its ability to
manage the many external relationships that are essential to
UNO’s future.
Communication and support from key constituents —
including alumni and friends, members of the community, and
philanthropic entities of all types — are essential to moving
UNO forward. Or, as we say, advancing our university.
The key players advancing UNO are the university itself, the
University of Nebraska Foundation and the UNO Alumni
Association. The three organizations have implemented a new
advancement agreement, becoming a model for other
metropolitan universities across the country.
The agreement leverages the strengths and missions of
each organization, driving efficiencies that make external
outreach more effective.
Advancing UNO can be illustrated as a three-sided
pyramid (seen at right). Each side of the pyramid
represents a partner that advances UNO. Together, the
three collaborate to elevate the base of alumni and
friends up the pyramid, from being informed to
becoming further involved to generously investing
time, talent or treasure to advance UNO.
Advancing UNO is a multifaceted effort. It takes visionary
thinking, dedicated involvement, respect for our heritage, and
the courage to act in new and innovative ways. The results will
position UNO as the region’s premier metropolitan university
and a key resource and asset to the growth and prosperity of
Omaha.
Highlights of the new collaborative advancement agreement:
A look at key components of the
new advancement agreement
implemented by the University, the
UNO Alumni Association and the
University of Nebraska Foundation.
• Creation of a leadership
team devoted to advancing
UNO. The five-member
“Advancement Collaboration
Committee” is chaired by the
chancellor and includes leaders
and board members from both
the UNO Alumni Association
and the University of Nebraska
Foundation. This committee will
ensure that resources align with
8 • Summer 2009
priorities as the organizations
work to advance UNO.
• Enhancement of the Alumni
Association’s outstanding
history of strengthening alumni
relationships by redirecting
resources toward expanded
alumni programs and
communications.
• Leveraging of the University
of Nebraska Foundation’s
fundraising expertise to
benefit the UNO Annual Fund
program and increase private
support for UNO.
• Implementation of a shared,
state-of-the-art alumni
database that is fully funded
and managed by the University
of Nebraska Foundation.
• Development of innovative
print and electronic
communications with
consistent messaging by all
three organizations,
streamlining UNO’s message to
a broader audience of
stakeholders. Making
connections with alumni through
all life phases is a priority.
UNOALUM
Centennial Celebration
UNO in history
1983-2008
In celebration of UNO’s Centennial the UNO Alum presents
the last of four timelines highlighting pivotal moments in the
university’s history. Each timeline has focused on 25 years of
UNO’s existence, concluding with 1983 to 2008.
2005
Soccer team wins national title.
1986
First Diet Pepsi/UNO Women’s Walk held, raising $12,000. Through 2009 the annual walk has raised more than
$3.75 million for scholarships.
1987
Three-story, $14.5 million Durham Science
Center dedicated.
Featuring a rooftop
observatory and a
domed, 50-seat planetarium, it is named for
donors Charles and
Margre Durham.
1989
Henningson Memorial
Campanile dedicated.
1990
UNO Aviation
Institute formed.
UNO becomes the
first university in
the country to offer
a Ph.D. program
with an aviation
specialization.
1991
UNO wins national
wrestling title.
1992
Fine Arts Building
dedicated. In 1997
it is named in honor
of former Chancellor
Del Weber and his wife,
Lou Ann.
1995
UNO offers its first independent doctoral program, in criminal justice.
1996
UNO acquires 70 acres of the former Ak-Sar-Ben property, donated to the University
by First Data Resources. College of Information Science and Technology formed. Its
home, the Peter Kiewit Institute, is dedicated in 1999.
Volleyball team wins national title.
1997
First NCAA hockey game, vs.
Manitoba.
Nancy Belck appointed university’s first woman chancellor.
1999
University Village dedicated,
bringing the first student
residence halls to campus.
2001
Scott Residence Hall and
Conference Center opens.
Scott Business and
Technology Development
Center is added in 2001 and
Scott Village residence halls
in 2003.
UNO wins NCAA Division II
national softball championship.
2006
Heavyweight Les Sigman
becomes just the fourth
Division II wrestler to
win four individual
national titles. UNO
wrestling team captures
third-straight national
championship. Another
title is added in 2009, the
program’s sixth overall
and UNO’s 12th in all
sports.
Alumni Center renovated
and expanded after facility hosts more than
10,000 functions in 11
years. Previously renovated in 1993 and first
dedicated in 1981.
2007
John Christensen
becomes
the first
UNO
graduate
to head
the university as
its
Chancellor.
Summer 2009 • 9
By the numbers
By John Fey
The economic slump isn’t slowing an enrollment jump,
but where will UNO put them and who will teach them?
W
hen Wade Robinson reviews the ACT scores of
incoming UNO freshman classes during the past
few years, he can’t help but smile. Scores that
once averaged around 20 now are between 22
and 24. And the top performers are coming in droves.
“The number of students who are coming to us with ACTs
in the 28 to 36 range is absolutely through the roof,” says
Robinson, associate vice chancellor of student affairs.
Average grade-point averages are up, too, from 3.33 to 3.40.
The changes are among many that Robinson’s seen in a
15-year career that concludes Aug. 1 when he becomes
Wichita State University’s vice president for campus life and
university relations. And those changes are spurring a spike
not just in quality, but in quantity.
Last year’s fall enrollment of nearly 15,000 students was a
six-year high. And another bumper crop of freshmen and
transfer students are expected for the 2009-2010 academic
year. That’s counter to the enrollment dips expected at the
UNL and UNK sister campuses.
As of April 1, UNO had more than 6,000 undergraduate
applications in hand, a 15 percent
jump from 2008. “Absolutely phenomenal growth,” says
Robinson. “Typically, if we see some growth in the 4, 5, 6
percent range, we’re happy.”
When the doors open on the fall semester Robinson
expects those applications to translate into a 6- to 8-percent
growth in the freshman/transfer class, an increase of perhaps
250 students. Robinson wouldn’t provide an estimate for any
overall increase in enrollment.
What’s driving UNO’s growth? Better marketing has
helped, and the economic downtown is creating an uptick in
students. New and improved facilities also are attractions, as
is favorable tuition for many western Iowa students. More than
any other factor, though, campus housing gets a lion’s share
of the credit. “As new housing has come online and some
new facilities, certainly the new freshman interest has
skyrocketed,” says Robinson.
Following the MAP to Iowa
MOJO
U
NO’s boom goes beyond its rooms.
Wade Robinson points to an
aggressive marketing campaign urging
students to get “ Mav MOJO” and “ Be a Mav”
for creating interest among high school seniors
and potential college transfer students. Developed
by Ervin & Smith Advertising and Public Relations for
UNO Recruitment Services, the quirky campaign has
won several national marketing awards. “ Know why
you really can't fight your Maverick Mojo?,” a web
promotions asks. “ Because you can't escape it. No,
not in that creepy ‘I know where you live’ way, but
in a way that permeates your every waking
moment. As a UNO student, you have a life
outside of the classroom, and no matter
how you choose to live it, it's inspired
and propelled by the Maverick
spirit.” See more at
www.unomaha.edu/beamav
10 • Summer 2009
UNOALUM
Economic give & take
What’ll it cost?
N
o matter how many students decide to enroll at UNO this
coming year, none learned what tuition was until mid-June,
when the University of Nebraska Board of Regents decided tuition
rates at each of the NU campuses (on
June 12, after the Alum went to
press). UNO’s 2008-2009 per-credit
hour undergraduate tuition rates
were $164 for residents, $246 for
MAP students and $483 for
nonresidents. Beyond tuition
students incur expenses such as a
new student fee, an enrollment
services fee and the largest of all, the University Program and
Facility fee that supports many campus services and organizations,
as well as the $38.6 million HPER renovation. “ We’re very
conservative with fees,” Robinson says. “ We’re very costconscious with fees.” Randy Sell, director of financial aid,
prepared a report that shows estimated cost of attendance for
students living at home with a parent, off campus on their own or
on campus. The estimates factor tuition, fees, books/supplies,
room and board, transportation and miscellaneous expenses for
2009-2010. Many schools don’t estimate all those expenses, but
Robinson says it’s a way for UNO to be up front with parents and
students about the real cost of a college education. “ We go out
and actually calculate what they spend on gas and what their
entertainment costs are,” Robinson says. “ That’s the best way for
parents to understand what they can expect to contribute if they’re
contributing or what their son or daughter might be experiencing
for costs.” Tuition, fees and books in the coming year are expected
to cost $5,980 for a resident student taking 30 credit hours. That
jumps to $8,050 for MAP students and $13,830 for non-residents.
Total cost of attendance for a residence is estimated at $11,740 for
students living at home, $16,650 for students living on their own
off campus, and $16,610 for students living on campus. Though
four years of attending UNO can be expensive — Robinson
estimates the average student-loan debt is $20,000 — the return
on investment is significant. “ The difference between having a
bachelor’s degree and having only a high school diploma can be
anywhere between $15,000 and $30,000 a year, depending on your
field and things like that,” he says.
Housing boom
I
t’s likely that Emily Kirkland wouldn’t be housed at UNO if she had no
home on campus. After graduating from Omaha Westside High School she
narrowed her choice to UNO and UNL. She moved away from home, but
stayed in Omaha. “ I chose UNO because of the great financial aid [she
received a Regents scholarship], the new Maverick Village housing and
related opportunities of living on-campus,” says Kirkland. Having two
brothers at UNO who gave the university high marks and the opportunity to
stay close to family also factored into her decision. Housing, says Robinson,
is getting more freshmen than ever to consider attending UNO — he
estimates perhaps 500 more freshmen each year than compared to UNO’s
pre-housing days a decade ago. That’s when University Village opened its
doors on the university’s main campus, attracting students from outstate
Nebraska and beyond. Robinson says that prior to housing 95 percent of
UNO’s students came from within a 90-mile radius of Omaha. Today that’s
down to 90 percent of students. Among those to come from outside that 90mile bubble was Toni Monette of Norfolk, Neb. “ I was able to become very
involved in groups such as the National Council of Negro Women, as well as
playing intramural basketball,”
Monette says, “ just by living on
campus. It is a great way to
socialize. I also like the setup,
where you have your own room
and space.”
Finding seats & faculty
A
mong the challenges that come with more students: finding space
for everyone and adding the necessary faculty for the extra
students. More space is a year away. The opening of Mammel Hall
(left) on the Pacific Street campus in 2010 will provide a new home for
the College of Business Administration and free space in CBA’s
existing home, Roskens Hall, for the College of Education. In turn,
Kayser Hall will open for any overflow from the
College of Arts and Sciences. Last year, the
College of Public Affairs and Community Service
got a new home, moving into the remodeled and
expanded former Engineering building. The
Health, Physical Education and Recreation
building currently is undergoing as a $38.6
million expansion and renovation. As for faculty,
Robinson says UNO is nearing its maximum ability
to find funding for enough full-time and part-time
faculty. “ It’s something I talk to the deans with a
lot,” he says. “ How do we resolve those things
both now and in the future in a very tight budget
scenario?” It’s a nice problem to have, he says,
for a university with a bright future and bright
students. And so many of them.
Summer 2009 • 11
Twords of
Twisdom
Advice from 2009 graduates for the incoming
Class of 2013 — in 140 characters or fewer
By Wendy Townley, University Relations
M
ore than 1,400 UNO students earned degrees during
May’s commencement ceremonies at Omaha’s Civic
Auditorium. While they donned their caps and
gowns, they undoubtedly walked the stage different individuals than when they first set foot on campus.
The lessons they learned, the experiences they’ve shared,
could easily fill several pages of a book. Yet Americans live in
the information age, where Web 2.0 means keep it short and
simple — but make it meaningful.
To that end, UNO sought advice from recent graduates for
the university’s anticipated 1,850 freshmen students who are
campus-bound this fall.
The catch: the advice provided could only be the length
of a Twitter update (also sweetly referred to as a
“tweet”), which is 140 characters (including spaces).
At right are words of wisdom from these
recent graduates, along with their Twitter
usernames – should you wish to keep
tabs on their progress postgraduation.
“Remember that the whole point of being here is to learn. Find
a subject you love and pursue it as far as you can.”
Jesse Andersen, @gotosleep
“Say yes to new things, say no to vices, stay involved, take a
break when you're overwhelmed and enjoy! Time will pass
quicker than you know.”
Jackie Chavez, @jackelina08
“Here’s your chance to prove them all wrong. First, find your
purpose. Then, have the courage to become the person you’re
destined to be.”
Kristyna Engdahl, @kristynaengdahl
“Get ready to go back.”
Di Kang, @dikang
“Find people to take classes with, to
study with, help you along the way,
and keep you accountable. The people you meet
will be invaluable.”
Meredith Klein, @merklein
“Freshmen should hunker down the 1st year to get
good grades; it's much easier to maintain your GPA than
to bring it up later.”
John R Nixon, @johnrnixon
A
uthor Wendy Townley is a Twitterholic (see http://Twitterholic.com).
As of May 30, Townley ranked No. 76, 106 in the country with 455 followers. She ranked 44th by followers among all Tweeples in Omaha. By
comparison, actor Ashton Kutcher on that same date ranked first in the
country with nearly 2 million followers. Townley joined Twitter in March
2008 and at last count had provided more than 1,000 Tweets. Her Twitter bio
line: Writer, Media Maven, Lover of Music and All Things Apple.
12 •• Summer
Summer 2009
2009
12
O AA LL UU M
M
UU NN O
Finding your way around
I
f you can type, you can Twitter.
Developed by Clarks, Neb.,
native Evan Williams, Twitter is
an online application that’s free,
allowing its users to post brief
updates about absolutely anything. To date, Twitter has nearly
5 million users around the
globe.
If you’re familiar with the
status update feature on
Facebook, you’ll be “ tweeting”
(the act of updating your Twitter
account) in no time.
However, your update can
only be 140 characters (including spaces) or less.
Now, let’s try Twitter.
(1) Visit www.twitter.com and
create a username and password.
(2) Remember your username
and password, as you’ll need it
each time you login to Twitter.
(3) What are you doing? Simply
type anything in the update box
and click the “ update” button.
Consider mentioning your plans
for the weekend, your thoughts
on the latest headlines or even
what you had for lunch.
2009 UNO Alumni Scholars
T
he 2009 UNO Alumni Association Scholarships have been awarded to
four high school graduates. The four $2,500/year scholarships are
awarded to those who have demonstrated leadership and involvement during high school. The scholarship may be renewed for up to four
years total.
The scholarships are funded by the UNO Chancellor’s Scholarship
Swing golf event. Bios of the four recipients follow.
Rachel Hogan, Millard South High School
Hogan plans to pursue a major in pre-dentistry/pre-med at UNO.
During high school, she was involved in: Varsity swimming, dance, varsity
choir, National Honor Society, senior class board,
junior class board, peer mediation, cheerleading and
soccer. She held leadership positions as: National
Honor Society committee head, swimming captain,
dance company member/stage mom, cheerleading
captain, and junior class board secretary. Some of
the awards she received are: 2007-08 Coaches
Award, Metro All-American Academic Team, 4.0+
Academic Letter, Rotary Honor Roll and Who’s Who
of America High School Scholars.
“Having a degree from the University of Nebraska
at Omaha would put me in a strong position to be hired by one of these
local businesses, allowing me to stay in the town that I love.”
Cheyenne Nelson, Yutan High School
From Yutan, Neb., Nelson will enter UNO as a music performance
major. She was involved in the following high school
activities: one-act plays, all-school musicals and
plays, speech, band, choir, jazz band, jazz choir, show
choir, track, softball, National Honor Society,
International Thespian Society, and national anthem
singer for school activities. Outside of school, she
was involved in the following: cantor singer at church
and pianist for sunday school. Leadership positions
Nelson held are: senior class vice president, clarinet
section leader, soprano section leader, 2008-09 all-
(4) As you type, pay close attention to the number toward the
top left of the update box. It
keeps a running count of how
much space you have left.
(5) Share your Twitter account
with friends and family. The Web
address will be http://www.twitter.com/YOURUSERNAME
As you navigate the Web,
you’ll find other Twitter users
(also referred to as “ tweeples” )
whom you may wish to follow.
When you are logged into
Twitter, simply click the
“Follow” button that appears
under their user icon. Their
Twitter updates will automatically be fed to your Twitter homepage.
Consider following these
UNO Twitter accounts.
Remember: after you’ve logged
into your Twitter account, just
click follow under the user icon.
University of Nebraska at Omaha
www.twitter.com/unomaha
UNO Alumni Association:
www.twitter.com/unoalumni
UNO Athletics:
www.twitter.com/omavs
Classical 90.7 KVNO:
www.twitter.com/kvno
UNO Criss Library:
www.twitter.com/unolibrary
The Gateway:
www.twitter.com/unogateway
UNO, the UNO Alumni
Association also have homes on
Facebook. Visit
www.facebook.com to conduct
searches using the full names of
each group on campus.
school musical female Lead, 2008 one-act play female lead and
Cornhusker girls state representative. Some of the awards and recognitions she received are: state speech qualifier 2007, 2008, all-state honor
choir participant 2008, outstanding choir member of the year 2008, academic all-state for speech 2008, honor roll of distinction all semesters
2003-2008.
“I’m very close to my family and would prefer to stay nearby. It’s convenient that a great school like UNO is here in Omaha beckoning me with
all of their opportunities.”
Katie Gray, Winside Public High School
Gray, from Winside, Neb., will enter UNO as a nursing major. In high
school, Gray was active in: volleyball, basketball,
track, student council, National Honors Society, yearbook, newspaper, quiz bowl, W-Club, prom committee, 4-H, and club volleyball. She held leadership
positions as: 4-H president and treasurer, W-Club
president, student council vice president, senior class
vice-president, newspaper co-editor, yearbook co-editor, and volleyball captain. Some of the awards Gray
received are: principal’s list, honor roll, National
Honor Roll and all-conference volleyball.
“Becoming an alumna of UNO will give me a great
sense of accomplishment. Knowing that all the hard work paid off will give
me pride in the school that I attended.”
Brady Sillman, Millard South High School
Sillman, from Omaha, will attend UNO and major in chemistry.
Activities that he pursued in high school are:
Munroe-Meyer Institute, Boy Scouts of America,
National Honors Society, math & science club and
Spanish club. Sillman held leadership positions in:
National Honor Society, Spanish club officer, and
assistant troop leader in Boy Scouts of America.
Awards he received are: Eagle Scout, Academic letter,
Munroe-Meyer Institute “Best New Staff Member,”
and UNL Language Fair first in state, Spanish poster.
“My plan is to live and work in the Omaha area
after graduation. Being an alumnus would keep me
connected with the college and all the great things it has to offer.”
Summer 2009 • 13
Worm
Chasers
UNO students at PKI take on Conficker and other creepy
crawlies trying to wriggle their way into our computers
E
By Kalani Simpson
very so often, a computer worm grabs the headlines
and bores into our collective conscience, scaring us out
of what had previously been blissful ignorance. There
was the Christmas Tree Worm of 1987. More recently there
have crawled Love Bug in 2000, Bugbear in 2002, Blaster in
2003 and Blackworm in 2006.
All meant to wreak havoc.
This year it was the Conficker Internet worm, which we
were told would start its reign of terror April 1 — April Fool’s
Day. Were we fools for not adequately protecting our PCs (OK,
our Macs, too)? Or were we fools for buying in to the hysteria?
It was, “supposed to wreak all sorts of havoc,” says Dr.
Blaine Burnham, executive director of the UNO-based
Nebraska University Consortium on Information Assurance —
NUCIA (pronounced “new-sha”).
“And then,” adds Burnham, “nothing happened.”
Or did it? “That’s the 10-cent story,” Burnham says. When
it comes to Internet worms, most often we don’t even know
what we don’t know.
“Advertised behaviors may or may not have much to do
with actual behavior,” Burnham says. “It may have done nothing more than to set in some very deep trap doors set in place
by the bad guys.”
When it comes to worms, Burnham notes, there tend to be
two camps: “The bad guy and the had guy.” But now, thanks
to NUCIA and work being done at UNO’s College of
14 • Summer 2009
Information Science and Technology out of the Peter Kiewit
Institute, there is a third group: the detectives.
How to think like a bad guy
To hear NUCIA Assistant Director and Senior Technology
Research Fellow Steve Nugen tell it, the work being done on
UNO’s Pacific Street Campus sounds like something out of a
CBS television crime drama. Like “CSI” or “Numb3rs,” only
set in a computer lab.
Students majoring in Information Assurance learn the science part of computer security and how to think like “bad
guys” in order to better prevent and fight crime.
They study Conficker and other worms. One notable way is
to work with them in an electronically and digitally isolated
lab — one not connected to the Internet or any computer network — in order to experiment on worms without letting
them loose.
Conficker is so “smart,” Nugen says, that it refuses to run if
it’s in a virtual machine, or if the machine is not connected to
the Internet. The NUCIA team, then, must find a way to fool
it. Then the team must fool it again once NUCIA detects that
it’s been fooled a first time.
And so on. “It’s fascinatingly difficult to reverse-engineer
what the code is going to do,” says Burnham.
Says Nugen: “The criminals are pretty smart. We underestimate them at our own peril.”
UNOALUM
Worming I
around
t is believed that the first use of
“ worm” to describe a computerinfesting program was by science
fiction author John Brunner in his
1975 book “ The Shockwave
Rider.” Brunner described a
And they are criminals. Worms are as old as the Internet
itself. Some early worms were pranks, or for bragging rights,
or just programmers challenging themselves to stretch the limits of what could be done. Burnham says there used to be a
flight simulator game hidden in the popular spreadsheet program Excel.
But in most every case now, Nugen says, no worm creators
work so hard and spend so much money devising their creepy
crawlies without a profit motive.
They may be genius thinkers, but they’re also cyber thugs.
Some Internet worms allow bad guys to steal credit card
numbers by the thousands — they’ll often charge just $1 at
first to see if anybody notices. Others are the muscle behind
high-tech protection schemes — instead of demanding payment to keep your store windows from getting smashed, it’s
to keep businesses’ computer systems from imploding. Nugen
paints the picture of entire hotel rooms filled with “bot
herders” on laptops all working simultaneously on their nefarious schemes.
Burnham points out that computer programs themselves
aren’t evil. “Computer programs are in heart pacemakers.
They’re in all the newfangled automobiles.”
But in the hands of people with bad intentions …
“The same constructs are available to the bad guy,”
Burnham says. “If he can get his stuff to run on your machine,
by large measure, you lose.”
And that is the basic premise of an Internet worm:
Someone getting his stuff to run on your machine. The thinking of the hacker is: “I don’t attack from my computer. I do it
through your computer,” Nugen says.
Nosing around with NUCIA
That’s where UNO’s NUCIA detectives come in. For most
of the history of criminal Internet worms, the response has
been reactive; we hear about one once a year or so. How many
worms are out there and how many criminals have been
caught? We don’t know, really. We don’t know how many
worms never make the news.
Nugen recalls working with the FBI a few years ago. With
the Mafia, the FBI had studied the culture, had even been able
to infiltrate the mob. An FBI agent told him that with hackers,
“We don’t even know what the rules are.”
At NUCIA, designated a National Center of Academic
Excellence in Information Assurance by the U.S. Department
of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency, students learn how to decipher code and the strategies behind it.
Last October NUCIA hosted 100 persons from 15 nations at
the 2008 International Cyber Defense Workshop.
Participants, who included public sector and government
agency representatives, were divided into teams to explore
network security and weaknesses. During the exercises, participating nations could attack each other anonymously as a way
totalitarian government that kept
control over citizens by use of a
powerful computer network. In
Brunner’s story, a freedom fighter
introduced into this computer network a contaminant — a “ tape-
worm. ” The tapeworm infested
and shut down the system,
depriving the government of its
main base of power. (Source:
http://cybercrime.planetindia.net)
to explore hacker tactics. They were real attacks on real networks.
By learning to think like bad guys, UNO’s detectives-intraining can prevent crime from happening in the first place.
Nugen likens it to learning how to build a bomb in order to
know how to defuse one.
His students are brilliant minds — the type who get perfect
ACT scores. Does Nugen ever look around the room and wonder if the next great cybercriminal is in it? The question was
asked as a joke. Nugen took it seriously.
“Absolutely,” Nugen says. “I think about that all the time.”
Enrollment in some advanced classes at NUCIA are by
instructor-permission only. Through government internships,
NUCIA students often have high-level clearances by the time
they graduate.
NUCIA alumni have gone on to the National Security
Agency and to STRATCOM. Some are already hiring managers. Of course, they know where to look for fresh talent.
“A lot of our guys are in senior positions very quickly,”
Nugen says.
Meanwhile, NUCIA sounds like it would make a great
show on CBS. Students and faculty are studying worms, going
over problems, thinking like bad guys, solving mysteries.
And the bad guys, “They’re working very, very hard,” to
stay ahead, Nugen says.
They have to now that UNO’s NUCIA detectives are hot on
the case.
Keeping your computer safe
W
hen it comes to keeping
computers safe from
Internet worms, here’s the
good news: There are many
security programs out there
which detect known Internet
worms.
Now for the bad news:
Security programs may detect
worms, but they don’t prevent
them.
Furthermore, no one can
say how many worms are out
there that are as yet unknown.
Uh-oh.
It’s easy to see why
Information Assurance is such
a growing field, and why NUCIA
is doing such important work.
NUCIA Assistant Director
and Senior Technology
Research Fellow Steve Nugen
says bad guys have a jump on
those who fight worms because
criminals aren’t constrained —
ethically or otherwise. And
worm fighters are typically
“playing defense,” reacting to
what the bad guys do rather
than dictating the fight.
But at NUCIA, that way of
thinking is changing. The
detectives will try to anticipate
bad guys’ moves, to prevent
crime rather than react to it.
In the meantime, keep your
security software updated and
don’t open suspicious attachments or click on suspicious
links.
And if you’re really worried,
“Make your computer less
functional,” Nugen says. “Turn
off the JavaScript. Some sites
will stop working, but attack
software does, too.”
Spring 2009 • 15
A shot in the arm
UNO creates a buzz with the hiring of
former Husker Trev Alberts as AD
U
By John Fey
Photos by Tim Fitzgerald
buzz in the Omaha World-Herald, on
retired associate athletic director, was
NO Chancellor John
local sports talk radio and on Internet
impressed by Alberts’ remarks.
Christensen’s checklist for traits
blogs. The hiring also was posted on the
“I’m excited,” Claussen says. “I could
in a new UNO athletic director was
Sports Illustrated, MSNBC and various
see the coaches smiling. He’d certainly
short but stringent. Christensen wanted
done his homework.”
Husker-related Web sites.
a leader, someone with absolute integriUNO hockey player Nick Von
“I’m thrilled, I’m excited, I’m humty who was people-oriented and a
Bokern, a sophomore, says the team is
bled,” Alberts said in his opening
thinker, doer and finisher.
looking forward to what Alberts will do
remarks. “This is a real privilege to be
Over and over, people kept
for UNO athletics.
telling Christensen that those
“He’s saying all the right
were exactly the qualities they
things,” Von Bokern says. “He’s
saw in Trev Alberts.
jumping on the bandwagon for
Christensen heard enough,
hockey.”
hiring the former Husker footAlberts realizes how imporball All-American as UNO’s
tant hockey is to the athletic
10th permanent athletic direcdepartment’s overall wellbeing.
tor since the school resumed
“I will tell you from my perathletics following World War
spective,” he says, “hockey sucII. He replaces David Miller,
cess is non-negotiable. I underwho resigned to become athstand the importance of hockey
letic director at Upper Iowa
to this program. I understand
University in Fayette, Iowa.
that as a Division I sport we
Miller had served in the post
have to leverage hockey in a
since May 2007.
Alberts wasted little time
The hire of Alberts as UNO AD drew local and national media cov- real way. It needs to be the focal
erage, including a crowd of Omaha press.
point of what we do as an athmaking his first major deciletic department.”
sions as UNO’s new athletic
director. On May 7, Alberts revealed that standing here before you today.”
Experience needed
He quickly established his philosotwo-time former Athletic Director Don
Alberts acknowledged that he lacks
Leahy would serve as part-time assistant phy about his new position. “It’s our job
experience as an athletic department
to do our part as an athletic department
athletic director. One week later, another
administrator. The Cedar Falls, Iowa,
to work with, collaborate with this great
surprise: Alberts shuffled Mike Kemp
native starred at Nebraska, was drafted
from UNO hockey coach into a new post institution and work together as part of
by and played for the Indianapolis Colts,
that larger mission of UNO,” he said.
as an associate athletic director with
then became a college football analyst
“This is a UNO family. That’s what I
responsibility for hockey (see story Page
for CNN, ESPN and CBS College Sports.
want to be a part of, that’s what I’ve
18). A search committee was assembled
He says he’ll immerse himself in his
been sold and that’s what I want to buy
to find Kemp’s replacement.
new role — and get plenty of good help.
into.”
“I think what you do is surround yourCreating a buzz
The hiring also created buzz among
self with smart, intelligent people,” he
Alberts was one of four finalists to
coaches, athletic department staffers and
says. “You understand what you’re
replace Miller. Christensen introduced
athletes, many of whom were around in
weaknesses are, you understand what
him at an April 29 press conference
2007 when the improper spending of
your strengths are. You play to your
attended by around 100 coaches, athathletic department funds by former
strengths, and add people that can comletes, staff and media at the William H.
UNO administrators Nancy Belck and
pensate for the weaknesses. Will there be
Thompson Alumni Center. The hiring
Jim Buck was discovered. Longtime athContinued Page 18
created considerable, mostly positive
letic department figure Connie Claussen,
16 • Summer 2009
UNOALUM
Summer 2009 • 17
OFF TO WORK: UNO Chancellor John
Christensen was all smiles on his way to
introducing Alberts as UNO’s new AD.
From Page 16
a learning curve? Absolutely. I’m not
afraid to admit that.”
Christensen is confident that Alberts’
team approach will help him quickly
grow into the job. “I think Trev’s intention is to complement the areas in which
he has least experience with someone
who brings those talents to the table,” he
says.
Among Alberts’ top priorities is
improving fundraising, something that
has been lacking the past few years. His
new boss addressed that after the press
conference. “I think fundraising is first,”
the chancellor says. “He needs to connect with the community and will be
masterful at doing that and has already
done that to a certain degree.”
Outside contributors to UNO athletics apparently agreed with the hire —
$25,000 of Alberts’ $150,000 salary is
coming from the private sector. Alberts
believes the key to his success will be an
ability to communicate his vision for
UNO athletics with those in the community. He’s eager to get that word out.
“I believe people care about studentathletes here,” he says. “Sixty percent of
our student-athletes stay right here in
Omaha. They’re making a difference in
the lives of people that one day are
going to make meaningful contributions
to their community.”
Transitions: Leahy returns for third stint in AD office;
Kemp out as hockey coach, in as associate AD
Don Leahy, left, hired Mike Kemp as UNO hockey coach in
1996. Now the two are working together in support of new AD
Trev Alberts.
By John Fey
I
t took Trev Alberts just two weeks as UNO athletic director to
make two major changes in his department. On May 7, Alberts
named two-time former A.D. Don Leahy as part-time assistant
athletic director. On May 14 he announced that Hockey Coach Mike
Kemp would step off the ice and become an associate athletic director with responsibility for hockey.
The latter decision was the more surprising of the two.
“Mike has made a choice of great humility and selflessness in
order to benefit our hockey program,” Alberts said in a press
release. “We need him here long-term and in a role larger than
coaching. He will figure prominently in the strengthening of our marquee program.”
Sports talk show banter had included much speculation about
Kemp’s future following a season in which the Mavs finished 15-178. That wasn’t good enough for many fans of a program that created
great expectations so soon after its 1996 debut.
UNO finished runner-up in the CCHA in 2000, notched a school-
18 • Summer 2009
record 24 wins in 2001, was ranked as high as No. 5 in the nation in
2002, and earned its first trip to the NCAA tournament in 2006.
Kemp was named CCHA coach of the year in 2005.
In the past three seasons, though, the Mavs were a combined
50-52-18. Some saw a need for change; Alberts agreed.
The change, however, was mutually conciliatory.
“Mike and his wife Julie have made amazing contributions to
UNO and the greater Omaha community during his tenure here,”
said Alberts. “It was important to us that he continue to play a
prominent role in Maverick hockey.”
Kemp in a release said he was “thrilled for the opportunity to join
Trev, Michele Roberts, Don Leahy and Connie Claussen as a cog in
the management team. The UNO hockey program has been a huge
part of my life and to continue to make decisions and plot the course
of Maverick hockey is something I cherish.”
Kemp will work as associate athletic director under the final year
of his coaching contract and then under a two-year extension commensurate with the salary and benefits of an associate athletic director. Kemp also will have responsibility for golf, cross country/track
and field, and soccer. The committee to select a new head hockey
coach includes Alberts, Kemp, Leahy, women’s basketball coach
Patty Patton Shearer, faculty athletic representative Bill Wakefield,
hockey captain Mark Bernier and a member of the community.
Leahy finds the right terms
Leahy, meanwhile, makes his third stint in the department. He
was UNO’s athletic director from 1974 to 1985 and from 1995 to
1997. The octogenarian was glad to accept Alberts’ offer to return to
UNO. “It took me 80 years,” Leahy says, “but I finally got the job I
wanted. You set your own hours, and I’ve got a parking space.”
The two met before Alberts was announced as the next athletic
director.
“We are excited that someone of Don’s stature in the community
is going to lend his vast experience to Maverick athletics,” Alberts
said in a release. “He guided UNO through an era of great change
and achievement, and I think he can help us write that next chapter
of success.”
UNOALUM
Appointment completes national search
West Point Man
named to head PKI
U
niversity of Nebraska President
James B. Milliken on April 23
named Dr. Michael L. McGinnis
as executive director of the Peter Kiewit
Institute of Information Science,
Technology and Engineering.
A Wisner, Neb., native, McGinnis was
executive director of the Virginia
Modeling, Analysis and Simulation
Center at Old Dominion University.
Prior to leading the VMASC, he served
as head of the Systems Engineering
Department at the United States Military
Academy at West Point. McGinnis is a
graduate of West Point, and served in
the military for 29 years, retiring with
the rank of Brigadier General.
“Mike McGinnis is a proven leader
with broad academic experience and a
demonstrated record of success in growing research programs and partnerships
with government and industry,”
Milliken said.
“He has guided several organizations
through significant transformation and
expansion, and is a highly effective team
leader and program builder. These skills
will serve him well as he leads the Peter
Kiewit Institute into a new era of accomplishment which will have tremendous
benefits for the state of Nebraska.”
PKI, founded in 1996, houses UNO’s
College of Information Science and
Technology and the Omaha-based programs of UNL’s College of Engineering.
McGinnis’s 29 years of military service concluded with his leadership for
seven years of the Systems Engineering
Department at the U.S. Military
Academy at West Point. He served as
director of the Army Training and
Doctrine Command Analysis Center at
the Naval Postgraduate School in
Monterey, Calif., director of the U.S.
Army Unit Manning Task Force in
Washington, DC, and director of the U.S.
Military Academy Operations Research
Center. He was a visiting research fellow
at the Naval Postgraduate School and a
visiting professor at the Naval War
College in Newport, R.I.
He has authored or co-authored more
than 45 publications in refereed journals
and technical proceedings in the fields
of operations research, computer simulations, systems engineering and engineering education.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from
West Point, master’s degrees in applied
mathematics and operations research
and statistics from Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, a master’s in
national security and strategic studies
from the U.S. Naval War College and a
doctorate in systems and industrial engineering from the University of Arizona.
“I am deeply honored to be selected
as PKI’s executive director,” McGinnis
said. “My wife, Tracy, and I are excited
to be joining the University of Nebraska
team and moving to Omaha.
“In moving PKI forward, we will
build upon the notable progress and
past accomplishments of the outstand-
ing faculty and students from the UNL
College of Engineering and the UNO
College of Information Science and
Technology.”
McGinnis was selected after a national search. He replaces previous executive
director Winnie Callahan, a UNO graduate who had guided PKI since 1998.
A new plan in place for PKI
F
ollowing a comprehensive review by the Washington Advisory Group, the University’s
Board of Regents and the Institute’s Board of Policy Advisors adopted a revised charter
that established a new position of executive director and chief science and technology officer who will be responsible to the president.
McGinnis will be responsible for leading the development and implementation of the
plan for PKI’s next decade, which will draw heavily on the Washington Advisory Group’s
report. Elements will likely include:
• Increasing the Institute’s emphasis on research;
• Identifying and strengthening areas of technical and educational focus;
• Increasing the number of graduates, especially in information science and technology;
• Expanding the financial base to attract star faculty;
• Developing deeper strategic partnerships with organizations
and corporations; and,
• Strengthening collaboration across disciplines and among
colleges and campuses.
Summer 2009 • 19
Paperless Pusher
Maury Pepper spearheads an international push to
computerize medical records via open-source software
By Greg Kozol
Pepper, center, teamed with K.S.
Bhaskar, left, and Joseph Dal Molin to
found WorldVistA, which offers opensource software that allows medical
records to be stored electronically.
Photo by Sian Kennedy
20 • Summer 2009
UNOALUM
You assume that the spark of inspiration came a half century ago.
Maury Pepper, the son of a cardiologist, would walk into his father’s
office and see file folders stuffed
with papers. Surely the Central High
School student and future computer
whiz could visualize the day when
technology would allow patient
records to be stored in an electronic
format, right?
Not so fast. Pepper did go to his father's office after school,
but the teenager had other things on his mind in the late
1950s.
“Did I look at those bulging records and think, ‘Wouldn’t
that be neat to computerize?’” Pepper asks. “It wasn’t on the
radar at that time.”
Pepper’s light-bulb moment came four decades later, long
after he had earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from
Omaha University.
It all started about nine years ago, when he joined a handful of computer experts at a meeting in Birmingham, Ala.
What was intended as an arcane discussion of computer language standards evolved into something more ambitious:
How to revolutionize the way hospitals and doctor’s offices
store and retrieve medical records.
WorldVistA was born.
“That was the first seed,” Pepper, 67, recalls. “That’s where
it came together.”
Today, WorldVistA isn’t the only organization that seeks to
bring an outdated system of medical record keeping into the
21st century. But WorldVistA is unique in that it has little
intention of making a profit, let alone becoming the next
Google.
As such, Pepper finds himself butting heads with corporate
and political interests that don’t see the logic of improving
health care efficiency and saving money at the same time.
“Computer people in general tend to not be very materialistic,” Pepper says. “They’re sort of the typical nerd. They’re
not interested in doing it for self-gain.”
WorldVistA’s aims are more altruistic. It operates as a nonprofit with no central office. Pepper, with his own computer
consulting business in St. Louis, serves as chairman on a volunteer basis.
The open-source WorldVistA software can be downloaded
at any hospital or clinic for free. About 30 different users,
including a health system in Jordan, are running a version of
the software.
The low-cost, high-tech development prompted Wired
magazine to name WorldVistA a winner of a “Rave” award for
technological innovation in 2007.
“It’s building steam,” says Pepper, who was featured in the
Wired article. “At times it looks like we’re going to be swimming in an ocean of opportunity.”
Searching
Growing up in Omaha, Pepper didn’t always seem destined to win awards for innovation. Born about 40 years before
the first personal computer, his logical mind was attracted to
puzzles and the wiring of model trains.
He spent a semester at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
before transferring to OU with a friend, Roy Katskee, in 1961.
Katskee, who went on to become a teacher in Omaha Public
Schools, says the search for an intellectual outlet proved frustrating for Pepper.
Katskee watched as his friend experimented with different
majors, veering from engineering and business to physics and
chemistry.
“He was a very, very intelligent guy,” Katskee says.
“Mathematically, he understands things at first look. He was
just not challenged. It wasn’t OU’s fault. He just hadn’t found
himself yet.”
Pepper left school for a year and worked at a factory in St.
Louis. He wouldn’t have been the first frustrated undergraduate to choose a blue-collar career, but something drove Pepper
to return to campus in 1963.
“He wanted a better life for himself and knew he had abilities,” Katskee says. “He knew he was not meant to be a factory worker.”
Back at OU, Pepper settled on math and noticed a little
detail that would flip a switch for him. The engineering students were walking around campus with punch cards in their
pockets.
Pepper didn’t see nerds. He saw a fledgling technology that
would become as influential as the internal combustion engine
or Gutenberg’s press.
He knew he had to get his hands on those cards.
“That drove me nuts,” he says.
Inside the engineering building, OU’s computer was an
IBM 1620, a 6-foot-long beast built into a horizontal desk
structure. It had no screen, no disk drive and no integrated circuits. Its memory, the equivalent of 20K, wouldn’t be enough
to store one song from iTunes. OU bought it for $70,000.
Summer 2009 • 21
Maury Pepper in his St. Louis home, which
doubles as his WorldVistA office. Pepper
lives in Webster Groves with his wife of 39
years, Marianne, who collects masks and
is a fine arts photographer. Maury’s collection now includes a Rave Award as presented by Wired Magazine in 2007 for his
work with WorldVistA on digitizing medical
records. Photos by Kristen Hare.
Pepper loved it. He would get his blank punch cards at one
end of the machine and insert them into the IBM’s card reader.
“It was phenomenal,” he remembers. “I took to computing
like a duck to water.”
He had found his calling.
Career in Computers
A career in the computer field became the logical step after
graduating from OU in 1967. Pepper moved to St. Louis and
got a master’s degree in computer science at Washington
University.
His career followed the evolution of computing from mainframes to PCs to the Internet. But he was never someone who
dreamed of moving to Silicon Valley and launching the next
big thing.
He developed computerized library systems for the blind
and physically disabled. He was involved in some of the early
laboratory work that led to keyboards, visual displays and
other elements of today’s PCs.
Much of his computer work was connected to Washington
University’s medical laboratory. “I’ve never been very far from
medicine,” Pepper says.
So the WorldVistA project was a perfect fit for the son of a
doctor. His initial goal, first voiced at the meeting in Alabama,
was to preserve a successful electronic records system used in
the Veterans Affairs
health system.
about WorldVistA at
Pepper had
learned that the VA
http://worldvista.org
wanted to eliminate
its program, known
Learn

22 • Summer 2009
as VistA. Government officials, he says, couldn’t believe that
the VA could design something that worked.
“There’s always been political pressure to undo it,” Pepper
says. “We’ve shined a light on how good VistA is.”
Pepper and his colleagues set out not just to save VistA but
to adapt it to the private sector as WorldVistA. The opensource software, Pepper says, allows a private hospital to go
paperless at a fraction of the cost.
An open-source system can be installed for about $6 million
when training and hardware are included with the free software. That doesn’t sit well with competitors who charge
around $20 million for a licensed system.
“It’s clear we’re on their radar,” Pepper says. “There are so
many people who are interested in what we’re doing.”
With only 25 percent of U.S. health care providers using
electronic records, the WorldVistA founders could be forgiven
for heady visions of a dot-com boom. Pepper keeps the group
focused on its original mission: reducing medical errors and
improving patient care through better computer records.
“Maury has been our pillar of objectivity and reason,” says
Joseph Dal Molin, one of the founders of WorldVistA. “Maury
brings pragmatism and level-headedness. It’s good to have
that balance.”
It’s nothing new for Pepper, who once walked away from a
consulting partnership that offered “too much business and
not enough technology.” Ever since he encountered that hulking machine in the engineering building, a computer has been
more than a path to riches.
It’s been a passion.
“To look back on the dark ages of computing, it kind of
takes your breath away,” he says.
UNOALUM
A Texas-sized gift
$1 million gift to benefit UNO students
needing financial assistance to attend college
A
Dallas businessman is helping
UNO make higher education
more affordable for students in
Nebraska and western Iowa who otherwise could not attend college.
Edward Pechar, a 1963 graduate of
then-Omaha University and an Omaha
native, made a $1 million gift to the
University of Nebraska Foundation to
create full tuition scholarships. Pechar is
owner and chairman of McCormick
Distilling Company Inc., located in
Weston, Mo., with offices in Dallas.
The Edward A. Pechar Scholarships
are directed toward UNO students who
need financial assistance to attend college but are ineligible for federal Pell
grants, the largest federal effort to help
students from low-income families
afford higher education.
Currently, more than 11,000 of UNO’s
15,000 students apply for financial aid.
Of that number, only 25 percent are eligible for Pell Grants, leaving the rest to
seek other forms of assistance.
“The University remains concerned
about a critical segment of students,
many of them first-generation college
students who are struggling to afford a
college education,” UNO Chancellor
John Christensen said. “These students
have tremendous potential and a great
desire to pursue a higher education. Yet
many of their families earn incomes that
disqualify them from receiving Pell
Grants. These families are struggling
with financial challenges that greatly
influence their ability to help their students pay for college.
“We are tremendously grateful to Mr.
Pechar for his foresight, compassion and
generosity. These scholarships will make
a difference in the lives of those students
who receive this assistance and to the
university in making a college education
accessible to a broader group of students.”
Pechar understands
the importance of higher
education. A first-generation college student himself, Pechar graduated
from Omaha University
with a bachelor’s degree
in speech communication. After serving in the
U.S. Air Force, he earned
a law degree from the
Salmon P. Chase College
of Law and was admitted to the Ohio State Bar
in 1972.
Pechar has spent the
last 40 years working in
the liquor industry as a
business executive. He
bought his first company
in 1987 and then in 1993
bought McCormick
Distilling Company, the
oldest continuously operating distillery in the
United States west of the
Mississippi River. In the
nearly 16 years that
Pechar has owned
Edward Pechar, foreground, and his longtime business
McCormick Distilling the partner, Michael Griesser, who passed away in 2004.
company has grown from
35 employees and $50
“I gained so much when I was a stumillion in sales to 186 employees and
dent at Omaha University. The faculty
more than $180 million in sales. Today,
was remarkable, and I have nothing but
McCormick Distilling products are sold
good memories,” he said. “I recently
in all 50 states and in 37 foreign counreturned to campus and couldn’t believe
tries.
what I saw. The progress UNO has made
In 2007 McCormick Distilling introis amazing.”
duced 360 Vodka, the world’s first
By creating need-based scholarships,
EcoLuxury vodka. This “green” product
Pechar said he hopes to help students
is produced and bottled in an environfrom economic backgrounds similar to
mentally friendly process, a first in the
his when he attended college.
liquor industry.
“Financial stress is a huge problem
Pechar credits much of his profestoday, and without scholarship assissional success to UNO and said giving
tance many deserving students may not
back to his alma mater made sense at
be able to attend college,” he said. “I
this point in his life.
want to help change that.”
Summer 2009 • 23
Planes, Trains & a
Ad man Galen Lillethorup made his mark with
some of Omaha’s best-ever advertisements
By Warren Francke
Photos by Chris Machian
24 • Summer 2009
UNOALUM
automobiles
Summer 2009 • 25
W
hen some 300 advertising professionals searched for their
“Top Ten Moments” in an
entire century of Omaha ad campaigns,
it was no surprise to find Mutual of
Omaha’s Wild Kingdom atop the list.
Or that the Union Pacific’s “Great big
rollin’ railroad and our story’s just
begun” came close behind, followed by
the entertaining Old Home Bread commercials with trucker C.W. McCall and
Mavis the waitress.
A closer look reveals only one name connected to all three
campaigns, including the Mutual branding “that put advertising in this city on the map,” according to a centennial
spokesman for the Omaha Federation of Advertising.
It’s Lillethorup, an 11-letter
Danish name from the UNO class
of 1959.
Galen Lillethorup put his creativity to work on award-winning
ads thanks to high school and college connections that weren’t yet
called networking back in the ’50s.
Maybe it was just called classmate
friendship when Lillethorup got
involved in journalism at North
High and, after time away for the
Korean War, the University of
Omaha.
Today he’s more involved with
airplanes than trains and trucks.
He’s also busy as president, treasurer, record-keeper and chief grave
finder for Omaha’s Springwell
Danish Cemetery, an institution
nearly 20 years older than the university.
But a career that led to heading
his own award-winning ad agency
both started and reached its peak
due to his talents and others nurtured by his alma mater. That
begins with his high school teacher
Ellen (Hartman) Gast (’38) and
extends to his fellow journalism
major Mark Gautier (’55) and to his ad agency partner, artist
nellie (Sudavicius) maccallum (’68).
Flying high
If not for Gautier and their teacher, Lillethorup might have
stuck to his childhood fascination with airplanes. Growing up
in North Omaha after father Niels left farming near Creighton,
26 • Summer 2009
Neb., Galen went to Belvedere grade school, where he soon
discovered one of author Lois Lenski’s many children’s books,
“The Little Airplane.”
She wrote that “Pilot Small did it all,” and Galen couldn’t
wait to do it all, too. With neighborhood buddies, he built a
man-carrying glider. “I was the smallest, so I flew it.” Pulled
down a hill with a motor scooter, it was only briefly airborne.
On Saturdays, the boys rode their bicycles down to the
Omaha Municipal Airport (pre-Eppley) where they would
sweep out hangars and be paid a dollar plus a plane ride. But
Galen never refers vaguely to flying machines. “It was a J3
Piper Cub, 65 horsepower.” That led to aerial adventures that
continue to present, now mostly with radio-controlled models
that he builds, but journalism and advertising intervened.
He had wrestled at 105 pounds as a North High sophomore
but was a lanky 6-4 when he entered Omaha U. “I shot up in
my senior year,” he says.
He also became an editor of the North Star, following
Gautier, a year ahead of him. He’d follow Gautier again at the
university’s Gateway newspaper. In 1951, Gautier joined the
Navy; two weeks later, Lillethorup
went into the Air Force. Gautier finished his stint and joined KMTV;
Lillethorup followed him there, too,
the longtime friends reporting television news while completing their
journalism degrees.
Aviation might have played an
even larger role, but the Air Force
saw his glasses, checked his vision
and put him into an aptitude and
psychological testing unit. He spent
active duty in Texas conducting statistical analysis.
Back in journalism courses, he
worked full time at KMTV until
graduating with distinction. “All of
us who were lucky enough to be
there in those early years had a
hand in inventing television news,”
he says.
He was also lucky enough to
find office romance, marrying coworker Marcene Athen, an Iowan
who assisted the Hawk, one of
those comic book characters who
hosted local shows in TV’s early
days. Lillethorup went from $1 an
hour part-timer to a $55-a-week
assistant to sportscaster Dick
Charles.
“Dick flew me to Kansas City on a DC-3 for the basketball
final four” with Bill Russell and K.C. Jones of the San
Francisco Dons. Another flight (He seldom forgets air time)
took him to Florida for St. Louis Cardinals spring training.
Looser security made world leaders “easier to film and
sometimes talk to,” he recalls. When President Dwight
UNOALUM
Eisenhower came to Iowa, Lillethorup watched him enter a
trailer in a cornfield, and waited on its step while other photographers wandered off. “Ike came out and said hello, and I
shot footage while backing away.”
where we walked, then fill in again” as they filmed “Voyage to
Raza.” That outing ended with a flight to Los Angeles, where
they changed gull-splattered togs for tuxedos to receive one of
the many Emmys won by Wild Kingdom.
Lillethorup also shares stories about shooting the Union
Pacific spots to raise morale of the railroad employees after
AMTRAK brought an end to passenger service, and working
with Bill Fries who wrote and sang the Old Home bread songs
before turning the C.W. McCall character into a No. 1 hit song,
“Convoy.”
Making his mark
His first of two alumni achievement awards cited his coverage of Nikita Khruschev’s visit to the Hawkeye state. A second
such honor came from the advertising career that began when
he was hired by Omaha’s biggest ad agency, Bozell and
Jacobs, to be the commercial writer-producer for Mutual of
Transitions
Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.
As a copywriter and account supervisor, he had the help of
The offer from B&J came after he’d proven himself as
“absolutely the best art director I’d ever run into,” nellie macKMTV’s promotion man by publicizing what may be the sincallum, known not only for artistic talent, but for lowercasing
gle most successful one-day public health effort ever. SOS —
Sabin Oral Sunday — was publicized by 40 or 50 promotional
her name. “Any idea I had, she’d improve on it.”
spots a day and climaxed with daylong live coverage. More
When a Des Moines ad agency tried to hire them as a team,
they didn’t want to leave Omaha so decided to
than 80 percent of the metro population received
start their own agency, Galen
the oral polio vaccine in that
& nellie, in 1980. Before
single day. “We knew it was
long, they were winning a
successful,” Lillethorup
big share of annual awards,
recalls, “but you don’t know
blending his writing and
you’re making history at the
business skills with her freetime.”
wheeling visual creativity.
His promotions weren’t all
One of their more interestflawless. He hired planes (naturally) to celebrate the station’s
ing successes during a 12-year
10th anniversary by dropping
run introduced KPTM, Channel
balloons with gift certificates. It
42, by mailing a circular antenna
didn’t turn out as badly as the
to every home. At a time when
fictional WKRP-Cincinnati turkey
independent UHF channels didn’t
do very well, “We signed on with
drop, but when the wind blew the
the biggest audience of any indy.”
wrong way over Wahoo, “people
They did an identical mailing for
destroyed a soybean field going
Ad pros put Lillethorup’s Mutual of Omaha’s Wild
another Harry Pappas station in
after the prizes,” and one Iowa
Kingdom advertisements atop its list of Omaha’s Top
South Carolina.
neighbor sued another who ran in
10 Moments in a century of advertising campaigns.
Their agency became part of a
his yard and snatched the top prize.
downtown landmark when they
When Bozell hired him in 1964,
bought the five-story Riley buildhe went to work immediately on
the Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom account, a job that
ing, famous for the signs painted on its brick wall next to the
required a quick trip to Chicago to meet the show’s star,
Gene Leahy Mall. Nellie’s cats lounged on office desks and
Marlin Perkins, who’d gone from the indoor “Zoo Parade” to
she fed the neighborhood pigeons.
Business didn’t keep Lillethorup from the pleasure of flying
the outdoor “Wild Kingdom.” Soon viewers heard Perkins
his own Cessna 172 for 30 years, and he continues to fly model
delivering Lillethorup’s sales pitches: “When winter comes
planes constructed in his Raven Oaks home. The largest is an
and food gets scarce, bears sleep, ducks and geese fly away,
8-foot gas model known as the Gull Wing Stinson. He flies
and the fox hunts for food every day in his fight for survival.”
more indoor electrics now such as a replica of the Bleriot
Viewers saw the bear and the others before Perkins asked,
“How long could you provide food and shelter without a payplane, the first to fly the English Channel
A frail-looking bi-plane, the Wright Flyer that launched avicheck? You can’t sleep hardship away, you can’t fly away from
trouble. Don’t wait until sickness or accident forces you to face ation history at Kitty Hawk, hangs from his ceiling, but it isn’t
mere decoration. Galen built it, and others like it, and flew it
a financial winter. Get the facts on paycheck protection.”
in the North High gymnasium.
Lillethorup flew into the wild with Perkins on a trip that
At 77, he stays close to advertising as the Galen Group, and
also traveled by cab, row boat, tugboat and World War I
through such organizations as Quad Club and the Omaha
minesweeper before landing on an island west of Mexico,
where they slept on the beach, the tide lapping at their feet
Federation of Advertising. And he played an appreciative part
and sombreros protecting their faces from gull dropping. Gulls in the recent posthumous induction of his classmate, Gautier,
into the Omaha Press Club’s journalism Hall of Fame.
and terns covered every inch of rock. “They’d move slightly
Summer 2009 • 27
So insatiable is Geppert’s curiosity that he refuses to have an Internet connection at home — “I would be addicted to it,” he says.
Just T
Curious
“Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain
characteristics of a vigorous mind.”
From harnessing the sun to
forecasting S&P 500 winners
and losers, John Geppert
remains ever-inquisitive
By Eric Olson
Photo by Shannon Lauber
28 • Summer 2009
hose are the words — written by 18th-century poet
Samuel Johnson — that John Geppert has lived by since
he was dissecting bugs and tinkering with other projects in his backyard in Omaha in the 1970s.
The credo is at the heart of his eclectic existence, from the
kid who messed around with solar panels to the point of winning a prestigious science award, to the man who now studies
and teaches the nuances of the business world as a University
of Nebraska-Lincoln associate professor of finance.
So insatiable is Geppert’s curiosity that he refuses to have
an Internet connection at home — he fears he would spend too
much time researching whatever comes to mind.
“I would be addicted to it,” he says, laughing.
Where he is now
Had Geppert Googled his name he would have found it
popping up on the Scientific American magazine Web site in
March. Its “Where are they now?” department featured the
one-time wunderkind’s work that made him a 1981
Westinghouse Science Talent Search finalist.
His invention, of course, was borne of necessity — and his
UNOALUM
never-satiated sense of wonderment. The necessity was provided by the energy crisis of the 1970s, an era marked by
images of cars lined up at gas stations and fears that it would
not be long before we tapped out fossil fuels.
Geppert, then a teenager, went to work and invented a
device called the “Solar-C.” His worked earned him the
Westinghouse honor — and a patent. Shaped as an elongated
C, the panel could remain stationary while capturing the sun’s
rays from all angles throughout the day. Up to that point, solar
panels had to be moved in order to capture maximum sunlight, a more expensive proposition.
But the Solar-C, from a practical standpoint, went nowhere.
The patent expired about 10 years ago. Geppert says interest
in solar energy is fickle and usually dependent on the price of
a barrel of oil. If oil prices stay high, folks will clamor for solar
power. Still, he has no regrets that Solar-C didn’t gain much
traction. “From my standpoint, what came of it was scholarships, basically,” he says.
He used a Westinghouse scholarship to study engineering
at Washington University (St. Louis) for a couple years, but his
curiosity got the best of him. He developed an interest in economics and wanted to specialize in it. His scholarship at
Washington wouldn’t allow him to change majors, so he transferred to UNO to complete his bachelor’s degree. Graduate
work followed at Purdue. He took his position at UNL in 1989.
Very clever research
His professional life is but an extension of his childhood
curiosity. “If something interests me, I’ll start working on it,”
Geppert says. “That’s one of the great things in academics.
You can be paid to follow your curiosity.”
One of Geppert’s latest fancies is the language CEOs use
when they address shareholders in annual letters. He and
UNL colleague Janice Lawrence published a paper that analyzed linguistic patterns head honchos use when they look
back at or predict their company’s financial performance.
Geppert and Lawrence discovered that CEOs of companies
acknowledged to have the best reputations typically used con-
crete and definitive terminology. CEOs of companies with lesser reputations tended to use clichés as a crutch, dotting their
letters with meaningless phrases such as “thinking outside the
box” or “pillars of excellence.”
The professors also used computer software that homed in
on words that have positive and negative connotations and on
various sentence structures. After running a sample of annual
letters through the computer, Geppert and Lawrence had a
person read the same letters and analyze them from a human
perspective in a number of different ways. The human
response matched the computer’s more often than not.
UNL Finance Department Chairman Gordon Karels, former
chair of the UNO economics department, says Geppert has a
knack for uncovering patterns, whether in mathematics or
speech. The paper on CEO language, he says, can be a valuable tool for investors who are seeking background on companies. “Very clever research,” Karels calls it.
Economic tool bag
Geppert also has worked on a rather cerebral project using
what’s known as neural networks to forecast which companies
appear to be on the way out of the Standard & Poor 500. The
S&P 500 is a group of stocks, selected by a committee, whose
performance is an indicator of the American economy.
Neural networks identify complicated patterns in a way
that would be comparable to the way a brain would identify
them rather than how it would be done through computer
logic.
Accurately forecasting which companies may be on the
way out of the S&P 500 could represent a money-making
opportunity for those who venture to trade on such predictions.
“John has a tool bag that’s quite different from the average
financial economist,” Karels says. “We all have the standard
math tools, but his curiosity about neural networks leads him
to acquire skills in those areas that many of us wouldn’t take
the time to invest in.”
Characteristic of a vigorous mind, one might say.
Remembering recessions past — and sizing up today’s
J
ohn Geppert pulls no punches
when it comes to his politics.
The UNL associate professor of
finance is a conservative, and
he’s a believer in letting a struggling economy work out kinks on
its own.
Geppert says government
intervention should be limited to
making sure America’s banking
system holds up. Beyond that, he
says, let the free market run its
course.
“ We’ve had recessions
before. They serve the purpose of
correcting inefficiency, correcting
overindulgence, ” he says.
Geppert is worth a listen
given his past research during
tough economic times similar to
today.
He was in the process of
earning his Ph. D. in economics
at Purdue when the stock market
crashed in October 1987. That
led him to study whether government intervention can stabilize
the stock market. He says the
market recovered within a couple
years, largely because of action
initiated by the Federal Reserve,
which increased money supply
and reduced short-term market
interest rates.
Today, Geppert is suspicious
of scare tactics promulgated by
the media and the federal government. He says the situation is
not close to resembling the Great
Depression of the 1930s, when
unemployment was more than 20
percent.
“ Did they forget the Carter
years?” Geppert asks. “ We had
high unemployment, high inflation, a 21-percent prime rate.”
And while saving banks with
the Troubled Relief Asset
Program is one thing, using the
same philosophy to save the auto
industry, and others, is quite
another.
“ My gut feeling is that there
is a dual agenda where the current administration and congressional leadership are using this
financial crisis as an opportunity
to expand the government’s
role, ” he says
He fears nationalizing big
industries, as well as increasing
taxes on people who are most
successful, will compromise the
principles of capitalism.
“ The problem with spreading
the wealth,” he said, “ is that you
can spread too much and don’t
create it.”
Summer 2009 • 29
Tall
Tales
Mom was a UNO star in the early 1980s —
and the school’s tallest women’s basketball
player ever. Jake Anderson hopes to top her
when he begins his Mav career this year
By Tom McMahon
30 • Summer 2009
Photos by Ed Carlson
UNOALUM
M
ary Henke’s
father refused to
drive her to her
Hudson Junior High
School cheerleading practice. Undeterred — and
perhaps a bit rebellious —
the teen rode her bike
into town instead.
But dad’s tough stance
eventually led Mary to
trade in her pompoms for
a basketball. That, in turn,
set in motion a chain of
events that will bring
UNO one of its tallest
basketball players
ever. Perhaps its
tallest once Henke’s 7foot-son and Maverick
basketball recruit
stops growing.
A bit of explanation, perhaps. ...
“Dad was all an all-state basketball player in Minnesota in 1941,”
explains Henke. “When I decided
to be a cheerleader in seventh
grade, it broke his heart.”
Dad dreamed that his daughter
would hit the hardwood in Iowa’s
nationally renown half-court girl’s
program. She chose the court,
though only to cheer.
But after a year of biking to
Hudson, the then-6-foot tall Henke
had pedaled enough. She decided
to join the junior high basketball
team.
Good choice. Henke became a
high school all-stater in Iowa and
then a UNO standout as the tallest
women’s basketball player ever at
6-foot-6. She remains among the
school’s record leaders, though
fans might remember her as Mary
Henke Anderson.
She married Dennis Anderson
during the summer of 1982, just
before her senior year.
Their son, Jake Anderson, hopes to
set a few records of his own when he
launches his Maverick basketball career
this season. At 7 feet and growing, the
recent Council Bluffs St. Albert High
School graduate helped his team to a 204 2008 season that ended with a trip to
the state tournament. Anderson averaged 9.7 points a game, snagged 122
rebounds and blocked 65 shots during
his senior year.
Anderson says he is still adding inches — seven of them during high school
— and as his height and coordination
stabilize, he believes his best basketball
lies ahead.
Mom and Maverick men’s basketball
Coach Derrin Hansen agree.
“Jake obviously has size,” Hansen
says. “But he also runs well and has
good touch from 10 to 12 feet. You don’t
always get that in a big man.”
Mom’s path
The adjustment to growth spurts is
not a minor consideration. Henke
Anderson remembers her own awkwardness when she started playing.
“I didn’t even play the first half of
my first year,” she says.
But the potential was obvious. She
says Hudson High School Coach Connie
Schafer had a “come-to-Jesus talk” with
the junior high coach.
“Connie told him, ‘She will play for
me. Find her a spot.’”
Henke Anderson credits Schafer with
teaching her the game and navigating
her through the “uncoordinated years.”
Henke Anderson led Hudson to the
state tournament, where it lost to a
much larger Des Moines school.
“They had more people in the school
than we had in our whole town,” Henke
Anderson says with a laugh. “The day
of our game, there were only four people left in town. Two firefighters and
two shut-ins. Everyone else was at
the game.”
Henke Anderson then enrolled
at UNO, where she played four
years for coach Cherri
Mankenberg. UNO went 84-41
during her career, winning three
North Central Conference titles
while competing in two regional
tournaments and one national
tourney. Henke Anderson led the
team in scoring in 1979-80 and
1982-83. She ranks third in career
rebounds with 1,024 and fourth in
career points with 1,629. She also
owns the career record for blocked
shots with 291, more than double
No. 2 Laura J. Anderson at 129. In
1998 she was inducted into the
UNO Athletics Hall of Fame.
Mater’s alma mater
Though she graduated in 1983,
Henke Anderson remains a wellknown figure at UNO.
“I was amazed at how many
people knew her as we toured the
campus,” Hansen says, referring
to Jake’s recruiting visit.
Mary Henke Anderson was a standout for the Mavericks
That visit impressed the new
from 1979 to 1983, twice leading UNO in scoring and set- recruit. He liked the facilities and
ting the career record for blocked shots. She also was
says UNO’s geology program – his
the school’s tallest women’s player ever. Her son, 7-foot
planned major – was a strong
Jake Anderson, will play for UNO beginning this fall.
Summer 2009 • 31
attraction. Playing for his mother’s alma
mater is an added bonus.
“We grew up around UNO basketball,” Anderson recalls. The family
attended many games together as Jake
and his older sister Sarah were growing
up.
Jake will be only the second 7-footer
to don a Maverick uniform. Phillip von
Backstrom, a 7-foot-1 USC transfer,
played one season for UNO. Other Mavs
came close to 7 feet, but were just short
(see sidebar).
Anderson’s arrival is part of an
upgrade in height. He joins fellow
recruits 6-8 John Karhoff from Omaha
Creighton Prep and 6-7 Matt
Hargerbaumer from Lincoln Southeast.
Also on the way are Eugene Bain, a 6foot-5 second-team All-American from
North Platte Community College, and 6foot Jamel LeBranch, from Central
Community College in Columbus, Neb.
Hansen doesn’t know how much
playing time his tallest recruit will see
this coming season.
“If Jake feels ready to play and can
contribute enough minutes, he’ll play.”
Anderson would love to play his
freshman year, but says if Hansen decided to redshirt him that would be fine.
Henke Anderson says she would be
surprised if Jake saw much playing time
his first year. That’s partly because he’s
still getting used to his still-growing
body. “He grew one-quarter inch in less
than a month,” says his mom, who
recalls shooting up 3 inches one summer.
Anderson expects to grow taller. He
wouldn’t mind passing his uncle, who at
7-foot-3 is one of the few people he
knows taller than him. Anderson’s
father, Dennis, is 6-3 and his sister
Big Men
J
ake Anderson will not be reaching new heights the first time he
dons a Mavericks uniform. Not yet, at least.
The still-growing UNO basketball recruit stands 7 feet tall just
prior to the start of his Maverick career. That’s 1 inch shy of the
Mavs’ tallest player ever,
7-foot-1 Phillip von
Backstrom. A one-time
USC player and junior
college transfer, von
Backstrom played just 20
games and one season
for the Mavs (19992000), leading the team
with 24 blocks but averaging just 3 points per
game.
A look at some other
notable big men in UNO
basketball history.
Phil Cartwright, 6foot-11, 1988-1992.
Perhaps the most complete big man ever to
play for the Mavericks,
Cartwright (pictured
32 • Summer 2009
Sarah, who played at Army, is 6-4. Not
exactly a family of cheerleaders.
But tall also comes with talent. Sarah
says Jake possesses some of his mother’s
speed and ability to shoot away from
the basket. Perhaps more importantly,
she says he also has their mother’s
determination and willingness to master
the fundamentals.
Henke Anderson knows that firsthand. Mom and son often can be found
at Boys Town’s gym on Sundays playing
pick-up games with other hoopsters.
Henke Anderson coaches for Boys
Town, where she is the assistant high
school principal. Mom is impressed.
“Athletically, I think he’s got it,”
Henke Anderson says of her son. “In
two years, I think he’ll be a dynamic
player.”
And he won’t have to ride his bike to
practice.
blocking shot) finished his career in 1992 with the third most points
scored in school history (1,457). He ranks second in career
rebounds (946) and third in blocked shots (143) and was named an
NCAA Division II All-American. Cartwright played eight seasons of
professional basketball, including time in Europe, the Continental
Basketball Association and International Basketball League.
John Skokan, 6-foot-10, 1992-1996. An Omaha Creighton Prep
graduate, Skokan was a menace on the boards, finishing with a
school- and North Central Conference-record 1,022 career rebounds
when he played his last game in 1996. He also ranks first in school
history in blocked shots with 185 (including a single-game best 9
against South Dakota State in 1995). He later signed a professional
contract to play for Nitia-Bettembourg in Luxembourg.
John Eriksen, 6-foot-11, 1975-1980. Eriksen finished his career
in 1980, when he led the Mavs in points (373) and rebounds (213).
He also led the team in rebounds the previous season with 209. He
teamed with Steve Criss (below) to give the Mavericks a “twin towers” combination for three seasons.
Steve Criss, 6-foot-11, 1975-1979. Criss played four seasons for
UNO, finishing his career in 1979 with 1,022 points. A Gateway article soon after his last game reported that he had signed to play for a
Venezuelan team in a South American league.
Merlin Renner, 6-foot-10, 1971-1972. A junior college transfer,
Renner played two seasons for UNO before closing his career in
1972. His 303 rebounds in 1971-72 still rank third most at UNO for
a single season.
Levy Jones, 6-foot-11, 2004-2005. A transfer from Minneapolis
Community/Technical College, Jones played two seasons for the
Mavericks, completing his career in 2005 with 83 career blocked
shots, fifth most in UNO history.
UNOALUM
College of
Communication, Fine Arts and Media
Summer 2009 • 33
College of
Information Science and Technology
From left, Nian Yan, Chi Zhang, Alanah Davis, Abdel Abdelaal and Mehruz Kamal.
They came from near and far
Doctorate Class, 2009
he five people came from near
Tand far to study together at the
College of Information Science &
Technology and will part ways with
something remarkable in common:
each is a member of the doctorate
class of 2009, earning a Ph.D. in
Information Technology.
“We have a quality program and
this happens to be a very good group
of students,” says Yong Shi, Ph.D.,
Charles W. and Margre H. Durham
Distinguished Professor of
Information Technology of
Information Systems and Quantitative
Analysis (ISQA) and Doctoral
Program Director.
The graduates are Abdel N.
Abdelaal, Alanah Davis, Mehruz
Kamal, Nian Yan and Chi Zhang.
As part of their doctoral work, the
students collaborated on research,
34 • Summer 2009
service-learning and outreach projects. They also worked closely with
IS&T faculty members and administrators on research and subsequent
journal articles and book chapters.
Abdel N. Abdelaal
Abdelaal, who has accepted a
teaching position at the College of
Applied Science in Oman, worked
closely with IS&T Dean Hesham Ali
in researching the role of community
wireless networks in achieving digital
inclusion.
“This is a unique program in a
unique environment,” Abdelaal says.
“The college is home to high-quality,
team-environment educational
opportunities that benefit directly
from partnerships with the business
community. I am very proud to have
my degree from this organization.”
Mehruz Kamal
Kamal worked on several projects
with her dissertation advisor, Sajda
Qureshi, Ph.D., ISQA associate professor. “Dr. Qureshi really kept me in
check,” Kamal said during a luncheon honoring the five. “She gave me
support in academics as well as emotional support.”
This fall, Kamal will become an
assistant professor of information systems in the Department of Computer
Science at The State University of
New York at Brockport.
Qureshi says Kamal was highly
sought by academic institutions
“because of her research in IT and
how IT furthers development in
micro-businesses,” one of many service-learning opportunities sponsored
by the college and the UNO Service
Learning Academy.
As assistant professor, Kamal will
create an IT for development course
and research program in which students work with small businesses in
the Brockport/Rochester area. “The
service-learning component is an
UNOALUM
integral part of our Information
Technology for Development program
in which students pursue a Ph.D. in
IT,” Qureshi says. “Enabling students
to conduct research within the community really sets them apart, as it
provides them with opportunities for
conducting innovative research that
makes a difference.”
Alanah Davis
Davis accepted a position as assistant professor of computer information systems in the John A. Walker
College of Business at Appalachian
State University. Her research has
focused on collaboration through the
use of technology, and best practices
for managing and using collaboration
technologies in virtual and face-to-
face teams.
“This has been a wonderful experience,” Davis says. “I am sad to be
leaving, but very excited about the
future and what lies ahead.”
Nian Yan
Yan has taught for three semesters
at IS&T and this year received the
Outstanding Ph.D. Student Teaching
Award from the college. He also has
participated in a variety of research
projects, including credit card risk
analysis and network intrusion detection.
During the May luncheon, Yan
expressed his gratitude to fellow IS&T
faculty members “for their help and
inspiration. I got a lot of ideas from
different fields.”
Chi Zhang
Zhang worked closely with Ilze
Zigurs, Ph.D., ISQA department chair.
An instructor in computer science at
IS&T whose research interests include
virtual world learning environments
and virtual collaboration, Zhang says
she appreciated the support Zigurs
and other faculty provided in overcoming the many “pressures and
challenges” of the Ph.D. program.
During the luncheon, Zigurs said
that the graduates worked so closely
with each other and with IS&T faculty
that they became part of the “academic family” at the college.
“The five of you are like cousins,
growing up at the same time,” she
said. “So, stay in touch with your
family!”
Making algebra ... fun
Y
oung students often balk at learning algebra. After all, they contend,
what use does it have in the real world?
This spring, 75 eighth-grade students at LaVista Junior High School
discovered many real-world applications for algebra, thanks to a course
designed and presented by Gerald Wagner, Ph.D., distinguished research
fellow at UNO’s College of Information Science & Technology (IS&T).
The students participated in an applied algebra/entrepreneur project
using Planners Lab™, a simulation and visualization software program.
“It is the same software that I use in my university course on applied
consulting,” Wagner explains. “It is sophisticated financial planning and
budgeting software, but is very intuitive and easy to learn. Everything is
in plain English.”
Peg Alexander, High Ability Learner (HAL) facilitator at the school,
agrees with Wagner’s assessment. “Planner’s Lab equations used natural
language, and it was easy for the students to pick up and manipulate the
equations,” she says. “They could grasp how it was relevant to them personally and how real businesses operate.”
Each pair of students in three algebra classes designed a student business, then created a mock Web site for it. John Allen, Papillion/LaVista
School District technology specialist, assisted algebra teachers Andy
Loch and Kendi Fraser on the development of the Web sites.
In the entrepreneurial phase that followed, participants could make
their financial models as simple or complex as they wished by adding or
deleting variables such as expenses and revenues and graphing the modifications. The students proposed a wide variety of businesses, from a
“homework robot” to an electronic device that makes buying clothes easier by telling you how an article of clothing would look on you.
Students unveiled their projects to their classmates in March. In April,
five students – Emily Erikson, Jackie Florick, Anuja Godbole, Abby Kelly
and Kasey Trouba – attended the Nebraska Educational Technology
Association Conference with Wagner and presented their projects at a
break-out session.
The works opened students’ eyes to the challenges of business.
“I learned that making a profit is a difficult process,” says Abby.
Looking over their work are, clockwise from top, Wagner,
Alexander and students Bryce Sheard and Ashley Patras.
“There are many variables that can affect a profit, and the slightest
change can cause a business to go into debt.”
Anuja says that if she ever starts her own business, “I know that I
have to apply a plan for expenses, income, and profit.”
Wagner hopes to develop teaching materials that would allow the
financial planning and budgeting course to be incorporated at middle and
high schools around the nation.
“There is a growing need for personal finance instruction in Kthrough-12 schools,” he says. “Over the past five years, 17 states have
added personal finance requirements to school curriculums.
“Through the successful project this spring at LaVista Junior High,
we’ve proved there is a way to get the students excited about learning the
subject.”
Summer 2009 • 35
College of
Good advice: CPACS advisors
he wealth of teaching awards bestowed upon instructors
Tin the College of Public Affairs and Community Service
(CPACS) indicates the high standards and dedication of the
faculty.
Beyond the classroom, however, the one-on-one interaction of faculty members as student advisors makes a significant difference in students’ lives. Whether it’s advice regarding study habits, course selection, workload or career path,
advisors act as mentors, confidants, supporters – and often as
friends.
“We have so many faculty who are leaders in student service,” says CPACS Dean B.J. Reed. “The excellence of teaching is often recognized, but the role of advisor also has a
profound impact upon our students’ success, long after the
caps and gowns are put away.”
It’s a role many faculty say they savor.
“Advising allows you to get to know the students more
than just seeing them in the classroom,” says Karen Rolf,
Ph.D., assistant professor in the
School of Social Work. “This interaction enables us to see them as
complete individuals.”
Acting as advisor reveals the
external demands placed on many
students, from family commitments to the stress of working a
full-time job.
“It’s always a challenge making
sure a student stays on track academically, and as advisors we also
try to focus on their needs,” says
Rolf, who earned her doctorate at Karen Rolf
the University of Chicago.
“Getting them to prioritize their lives is a challenge.
Sometimes we have to slow them down, get them to be
more realistic, or encourage them to increase their commitment.
“Sometimes advisors just have to say, ‘We understand.’”
Christopher Kelly, assistant professor in the department of
gerontology, earned his Ph.D. from
the University of Southern
California in 2004 and spent two
years as a post-doctoral fellow at
the University of North Carolina
Institute on Aging in Chapel Hill.
He advises graduate students,
serves on the thesis committee and
acts as a mentor for honors projects.
“Being a fairly recent graduate
myself, I’ve learned a lot from
those who have taken a nontradiChristopher Kelly
tional path,” Kelly says. “I enjoy
36 • Summer 2009
being here, and I communicate well with my students. This
is not a job for me. This is truly what I love to do.”
Kelly says he, too, finds advising to be challenging at
times.
“Each student is different and has different needs. Some
find it difficult adjusting to the rigors of studies, but others,
especially the international students, must struggle to adapt
to a new culture as well.
“The biggest challenge is helping students find their own
voice.”
For Ethel Williams, often that voice comes via long distance — or in an email.
Williams, Ph.D., serves as associate professor in the School of
Public Administration, which offers
courses at UNO and at the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
(UNL). As director of the Master of
Public Administration (MPA) program, Williams also is the assigned
advisor for approximately 100 students in the school’s online MPA
degree program.
“I have students in all 50 states
and many overseas, some in Iraq,”
Williams says. “Balancing time
Ethel Williams
zones and being available to them
when you’ve got students everywhere can be difficult.”
Williams, who received her Ph.D. from UNL, says it may
be surprising to learn that her online students often require
less guidance than those who take PA courses in Omaha or
Lincoln.
“Online students have to be more disciplined,” she says.
“You have to make yourself read and study because you
don’t have a set time to be in the classroom.”
The School of Criminology and Criminal Justice also
serves students at both the Omaha
and Lincoln campuses. The director, Candice Batton, received her
Ph.D. in sociology from Vanderbilt
and is an associate professor.
Besides undergraduates, the school
has approximately 50 students
working on their master’s degrees
and 25 doctoral students.
In addition to advising regarding
classroom work, Batton says CJ
faculty encourage students to take
advantage of the many internship
opportunities available to them.
Candice Batton
“It’s up to us as advisors to get
the students to realize the value of
taking on an internship,” she says. “From the public defend-
Photos by Tim Fitzgerald/University Relations
Public Affairs & Community Service
UNOALUM
er’s office and the U.S. Marshalls, to the courts, corrections
and juvenile services, there are so many agencies that are
delighted to work with our students.
“The challenge is getting them to understand that it goes
beyond on-the-job experience to providing contacts and references after graduation.”
Karen Garver, Ph.D., is an academic advisor in the College
of Continuing Studies.
“I received my Ph.D. in history
from UCLA in 1974 to face a bad
job market for history professors,”
she says. “I was delighted to discover that it was possible to train
for student service positions.”
So Garver earned a master’s
degree in counseling from UNO in
1981.
“I have spent the last 25-plus
years enjoying the opportunity to
help adult students complete
degree programs and help set
Karen Garver
future directions,” says Garver,
who will retire from UNO in December. “It has been a continuing special pleasure to work with so many wonderful students.”
Michael Carroll, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the
Goodrich Scholarship Program. Funded by the state, the
Goodrich Program offers scholarships and an intensive multicultural curriculum coupled with support services designed
to yield the confidence to succeed. In 2001 the program earned
the national Theodore M.
Hesburgh Award Certificate of
Excellence for Faculty
Development to Enhance
Undergraduate Teaching and
Learning.
Carroll has been a part of the
program since 1978. Each of the
program’s faculty has about two
dozen Goodrich scholars spread
from freshmen through seniors.
Michael Carroll
“Because one of the requirements of the program is financial
need,” Carroll says, “money is often an issue for our students.”
He says faculty advisors keep students aware of other
scholarships or paid internships that can supplement the
funding they receive through the Goodrich program.
“We try to treat our students holistically,” Carroll says.
“We offer a course in student survival skills, and we do some
financial counseling. We try to teach them that a credit card
is not forever boundless, and that the number of checks they
have does not equate to the money they have in the bank.”
For many faculty members, teaching and advising go
hand-in-hand.
Glass storefronts echo transparency
C
aptivating, art glass storefronts have been installed in the new
CPACS building. The glass panels, one for each of the college’s
various units, echo the building’s themes of transparency and
openness, yet also contain images that help convey to the viewer
the particular unit’s mission, purpose and values. The artist,
selected by a college committee, was Kathy Bradford of Lyons,
Colo., and each of the 11 units (CPACS plus radio/TV) has glass
designed specifically for it. All were paid for by Nebraska’s One
Percent for the Arts law. In effect since 1978, the One Percent law
has generated more than $2.2 million dollars in artwork for
Nebraska’s state buildings, state colleges and the University of
Nebraska system.
“I really enjoy seeing some of these students mature,” says
Batton. “To see those I met as sophomores decide by seniors
on careers or graduate school, I like witnessing that development and maturation, and I appreciate my role as teacher
and advisor in helping them get there.”
Whether it’s teaching or advising, Carroll says, “I am
always learning.
“Even though I hope to impart information upon my students,” he says, “I am aware that I am getting a reflection
back which reminds me that everybody knows something,
and nobody knows everything.”
Rolf says inspiration can be found in the words of W.B.
Yeats: “Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire.”
“I hope to be an example through my enthusiasm,” she
says. “Even if they don’t remember exactly what I taught
them or every word of advice I gave, I hope they remember
my eagerness and pick up that learning is exciting.”
And can be as rewarding for those who give good advice
as for those who receive it.
Summer 2009 • 37
College of
Arts & Sciences
Award winners
E
ach year the college honors six people for Excellence in
Teaching from among more than 300 individuals who
teach for Arts and Sciences programs. Three of the teachers are chosen from among the full-time faculty and three
from among the adjunct faculty. The UNO Alumni
Association sponsors the full-time awards and the college
sponsors the adjunct awards. All recipients receive a plaque
and a cash award of $1,000. Nominations and support for
those nominations come from colleagues and students. This
year’s recipients represent the departments of English,
History, and Math.
Nora Bacon’s contributions to teaching at UNO are multifaceted but always at the heart of her work is her philosophy:
“What gives my professional life meaning is a belief that our
work at UNO can serve the cause of human freedom. It can
do so if we teach our students to think for themselves, to be
both skillful enough and bold enough to champion their
convictions while remaining receptive to new ideas, and to
recognize their common purpose with others in the community.”
Bacon’s leadership of the first-year writing program has
guided the learning of some 1,500 students each year for
eight years. Her efforts on behalf of the Service Learning program and the Writing Across the Curriculum initiative have
extended that influence to hundreds more. As she continues
to teach the teachers, her philosophy and her passion will
serve and inspire tens of thousands. One of her teacher-students, Kim Schwab, writes, “I have always felt that Dr. Bacon
has been a champion of my success and an asset to my education and career; she has been a careful, engaging, delightful and inspiring leader. I can’t thank her enough for the
great example she has provided, and I consider myself fortunate to think of her as a friend, as well as a mentor.”
Maria Isabel Barros provides a shining example of the
special and critical roles adjunct faculty can play at UNO.
As a graduate of UNO’s masters in English program with a
specialization in linguistics and a graduate certificate in
Teaching English as a Second Language (ESL), and as an
experienced teacher of Portuguese and English in Brazil,
Barros brings precious expertise and understanding to her
ESL students and her colleagues in the ESL program.
Barros has taught ESL students in the classroom and in the
Writing Center. Dori Richards, director of the Writing Center,
says, “Our multi-language clients face not only word-choice
and sentence-level challenges, but they also confront the
writing expectations of our culture, such as our emphasis on
concise and direct prose, that vastly differ from their own
culture’s writing priorities. As a non-native speaker herself,
Isabel readily empathizes with our international clients and
offers them the support and training they need to succeed at
the university level.”
Frank Bramlett teaches linguistics, the study of language,
and, traditionally, the most challenging classes for English
majors. Bramlett’s students speak consistently to that challenge in their letters of support and how Bramlett helped
them to meet it. As Carole Quass, one former student put it,
38 • Summer 2009
“He was inspiring, open-minded, gloriously enthusiastic, and
a guiding force….”
Linguistics traditionally has been considered the dry and
technical side of English studies, but Bramlett’s philosophy
and practice of teaching bring the truth to light. He writes,
“It is easy to believe that language is the most powerful tool
commonly available to all humans. At the same time, language is also the most immediate, the most intimate aspect
of our lives. We accomplish our relationships through language: experiencing and expressing joy, grief, conflict,
bereavement, poetry, song and love.”
Bramlett’s students are also educated on the larger social
significance of language study. As former student Bobbi
Olson writes, “Perhaps one of the greatest lessons I took
away from his African-American English course is the necessity of social justice both within our educational systems and
our society at large. While instructing this course, Dr.
Bramlett demonstrated not only his knowledge of the subject, but also his personal commitment to the idea of equal
access.”
Patrick Kennedy is lauded by his colleagues in the history
department for his commitment to teaching and passion for
learning. Sharon Wood, history department chair, writes,
“Around the department, Mr. Kennedy is well-known for his
long office hours, open door, and abundant patience and
good humor. He genuinely enjoys working with students
one-on-one, and they respond by beating a path to his door.”
Students describe Kennedy as one of those rare teachers
who can transform students and their opinions about history.
Zuhra Sahaq writes, “History had always been a challenging
subject for me because I am not a native English speaker and
because, frankly, I thought it was a boring subject. At the end
of my first semester with Professor Kennedy, history had
become my favorite class. After two more semesters with
Professor Kennedy, I learned much about history and gained
an interest which aided in my decision to pursue a career as
a social studies teacher.”
Kennedy earned his master’s degree in history from UNO
in 2004, the same year he retired from a distinguished teaching career with the Omaha Public Schools. He has been an
adjunct instructor for UNO since 2005.
In addition to celebrating June Mecham, the history
department must also grieve her loss. Mecham passed away
March 1, 2009, at the age of 35 after battling breast cancer
for several years. Sharon Wood, chair of UNO’s history
department, wrote in her nomination letter, “Dr. Mecham
combines a natural gift for the classroom with extraordinarily
hard work, and her students recognize that they are in the
presence of something special: deep intellectual rigor and
sparkling imagination combined with humor, warmth and
generosity.”
“In four years of teaching at UNO, Dr. Mecham has developed and taught six upper-division courses new to the history department curriculum. This is a remarkable accomplishment for a junior faculty member, but the most impressive
thing is that every course appears to be a gem.
“One of Mecham’s students, responding to the request,
‘Please describe how much you learned in this class,’ simply
wrote: ‘bucketloads.’ Students used words like ‘fantastic,’
UNOALUM
‘excellent,’ ‘lively,’ ‘exceptional,’ ‘fascinating’ and ‘You
Rock!!’ to describe Dr. Mecham’s teaching. ‘She out-taught
my Education professors. Truly an amazing teacher,’ commented one student. Another wrote, ‘I took this class for fun,
and I’m really glad I did.’ From another, ‘I did so much outside work for this class because the lectures lead me to want
to investigate the topics more.’”
Mecham received her Ph.D. in History from the University
of Kansas in 2004. Her research and teaching interests included women’s history and gender history, especially female spirituality and monasticism, as well as the interaction between
material culture and devotional practices, space and performance in late medieval Germany. Her monograph
“Performance Piety and Female Monastic Devotion in Late
Medieval Germany” has been contracted by Brepols for publication soon.
The Math department celebrates Darren Holley. As an
adjunct instructor, Holley has taught calculus, differential
equations, and intermediate algebra for UNO’s math department for many years. Letters of support from students and colleagues speak with one voice about his unique ability and
commitment to teach even the most complex concepts to
every student. Janice Rech, coordinator of part-time faculty
for the math department, writes, “Every student who has had
the privilege of taking a class from Dr. Holley has benefited
from his compassion as an individual and his breadth and
depth of knowledge as an instructor.”
Holley earned a master of science in mathematics from
UNO and a Ph.D. in mathematics from UNL. He is chair of
the mathematics department at North High School and, in
addition to his many other duties, teaches UNO’s dual enrollment calculus class to North High students.
Former Dean Flocken remembered as ‘decent man’
O
n May 12, 2009, John Flocken, retired
professor of physics and former dean of
arts and sciences passed away at the age
of 69. Flocken touched the lives of hundreds of
faculty and staff and thousands of students at UNO.
His work as a teacher,
researcher, and administrator was distinguished
by excellence, compassion and humility.
Robert Woody, professor of psychology, writes
of his colleague and fellow administrator, “In all
of our years together at
UNO, I consistently found John to be the epitome of competency as a professional and goodness as a person.
“ His qualities brought out the best in others, and his contributions to the stability and
development of UNO will endure.”
Flocken’s teaching career at UNO began in
1969, the same year he earned his Ph.D. in
physics from the University of NebraskaLincoln. Over the years, he taught theoretical
physics, mechanics, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics, and
solid state physics. He earned promotion to
full professor in 1975 and served as chair of
the physics department from 1980 to 1982.
Even before he earned his Ph.D., his
research career was distinguished by his first
publication in Physical Review. While at UNO
he published more than 40 articles in similarly
prestigious journals and was recognized by
appointment to the Milo Bail Chair of Physics
in 1988, by UNO’s Award for Distinguished
Research or Creative Activity in 1990, and by
appointment to the Isaacson Professorship in
1991.
In much of his research, Flocken worked
with the Materials Science Program, a collaborative endeavor of scientists from UNO and
UNL. The Materials Science Program works to
model, test and develop novel materials, such
as high-temperature superconductors. In 19971998 Flocken co-authored proposals that
earned more than $800,000 in funding from
the University of Nebraska Foundation, the
Nebraska Research Initiative and the National
Science Foundation-EPSCoR to establish a
computational facility that would serve faculty
and students engaged in research requiring
high-end processors and graphics, such as
those required for simulating a variety of complex systems for the Materials Science
Program.
Flocken served in a variety of leadership
positions at UNO beyond the physics department. He served as: assistant dean of the
College of Arts and Sciences, 1975-1976; acting dean for Graduate Studies and Research,
1978-1980; interim associate vice chancellor
of Academic Affairs and interim associate dean
for Graduate Studies and Research, 19941995; interim dean of Arts and Sciences, 19951996; and, dean of Arts and Sciences from
1997 to 2001.
Among his accomplishments as dean was
an expansion of diversity in the curriculum.
The Native American Studies Program and the
Women’s Studies Program both recognized
him for his support. Karen Falconer Al-Hindi,
director of Women’s Studies, says, “UNO’s
Women’s Studies program was transformed by
John Flocken’s support and advocacy. He created the director of Women’s Studies position,
increased the program’s operating budget, and
saw the proposal for a major in Women’s
Studies through the approval process. His
vision and efforts were instrumental in making
the program what it is today.”
Former dean of Arts and Sciences Shelton
Hendricks, Flocken’s successor, remembers
him as “a decent man, a talented and productive physicist, and a caring and effective dean.
One could always trust his judgment and his
good intentions.”
One of the qualities in Flocken that made
him an effective leader in all areas of the university was his passion for learning in all
areas of the sciences and the humanities. His
passion for learning and books, specifically,
led him to be a volunteer for UNO Library
Friends, a non-profit organization whose primary purpose is to support the Criss Library at
UNO. Flocken had been a member of the
organization since 2002 and, at the time of his
death, was serving as vice president of its
education committee.
Marie Hiykel, president of UNO Library
Friends and grants manager for the AIM
Institute, writes, “John worked diligently for
ULF. Something that runs through my mind is
that John always ‘showed up.’ He came to all
the Libraries Scholastic Book Fairs that ULF
sponsored and ran the sales table. He was
there for all the book discussions and
events/activities sponsored by ULF and/or
Criss Library. Last winter John had been fighting a nasty cold, yet there he was for our
December board meeting, bundled up, shaking
off snow and cold temperatures because he
always ‘showed up.’
“When I would chair a ULF Board meeting, I
always knew I was on the right track when
making decisions or offering suggestions for
leading a project when I looked over and saw
John nodding in agreement. His support for
ULF was invaluable to me, our board members
and our membership at large.”
At his retirement reception in 2003, Flocken
spoke with pride of the history and growth of
UNO as a “ living institution made up of supportive people.” As to his own role in that
growth, 34 years of teaching, research and
service, he offered, “ I am grateful for the
opportunity.”
Photo by Glen Sowell
Summer 2009 • 39
College of
Education
Coaches in the classroom
ou know them as coaches, but
did you know they also teach?
Mike Denney is well known
as the coach of championship
wrestling teams. Patty Shearer and
Rose Shires also receive considerable
press stemming from their successes
in basketball and volleyball, respectively.
But all three coaches — and many
others beside them — also are teachers in the classroom.
Prospective coaches are learning
how to coach wrestling in Denney’s
classroom. Students also can learn
self-defense or Judo in two of his
other classes. Shires provides instruction in how to coach volleyball. In
another course, Games II, she covers
golf, badminton, racquetball, table
tennis, tennis and even pickle ball.
Shearer’s coaching skills on the court
are passed on to future basketball
coaches in the metro area; she also
teaches fitness students the important
skills they can pass on to others or
adapt for their personal use.
These three aren’t the only coaches
involved on the UNO campus, but
their teaching responsibilities are
unique among universities of the
Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics
Association in which Mav teams play.
Coaches who teach in the College
of Education also include: Theodore
Anderson, assistant coach, women’s
soccer; Pat Behrns, head coach, football; Jason Flores, assistant coach,
women’s basketball; Christopher
Gadsden, assistant coach, baseball;
Derrin Hansen, head coach, men’s
basketball; Randall Herbst, assistant
coach; Robert Herold, head coach,
baseball; Aaron Keen, assistant
coach, football; Donald Klosterman,
head coach, women’s soccer; Brad
McCaslin, assistant coach, football;
Russell McKune, athletic trainer;
Nathan Neuhaus, assistant coach,
football; Karen Povondra, assistant
Y
40 • Summer 2009
coach, volleyball; Christopher
Richardson, assistant coach, women’s
cross country/track; Conor Riley,
assistant coach, football; Michael
Roberts, assistant athletic trainer;
Todd Samland, head coach, women’s
swimming and diving; Lisa Schniepp,
assistant athletic trainer; Christopher
Simpson, assistant coach, football;
and Stephen Smith, head coach,
track.
Rose Shires
Many coaches began their careers
as teachers. Shires prepared to be a
teacher and coach while a student at
the University of Texas El Paso. She
spent the early years of her career in
Texas, where
she taught
physical education classes
and coached
volleyball. At
UNO she
teaches
Theory of
Coaching
Volleyball and
Games II.
Shires
“Teaching
gives me the opportunity to reach the
general student population, as well as
the athletes on the volleyball team,”
she says. “I enjoy teaching. I’m sharing my passion with students. And, I
might be able to influence one of
them into being a coach who might
be in my place in the years to come.”
She feels that when she explains a
concept to a student in the classroom, it helps make her a better educator of that theory when she works
with the athletes on her team.
Shires says students take her class
on the Theory of Volleyball essentially for three reasons: 1. They want to
coach volleyball; 2. They are fulfilling
the requirement to take two theory
courses if they want to coach; or, 3.
They are general students interested
in learning the sport for personal reasons or because they want to work
with young people at some level.
Mike Denney
Mike Denney actually began his
post-college career first as a teacher,
not a coach. After graduating from
Dakota Wesleyan he came to Omaha
to play for the Omaha Mustangs and
to teach mathematics at Omaha
South High School. He wasn’t officially a coach
the first year,
but he did
volunteer his
time with
wrestling.
Later, he
became the
head
wrestling
coach and
taught math- Denney
ematics at
Omaha Bryan before coming to
UNO as head wrestling coach in
1979. Since then his teams have won
five national titles, including the
2009 crown.
He’s also molded champions in the
classroom. His Judo and self defense
classes are held both semesters. His
wrestling theory class is during the
second semester at the same time
that the wrestling season is underway.
“I love it,’ Denney says. “I try to get
students in coaching theory involved
in our sport. They assist at the meets.
We will host the national tourney
next year and my students will be
trained as official scorers and timers
for the meet.
“When you are coaching, you are
teaching. I think teaching benefits me
as a coach. I am more rounded. I
also love being involved in the
department. My goal is to be a positive force on campus.”
UNOALUM
Patty Shearer
Patty Shearer prepared to be a
teacher and coach at Northern
Arizona University and at Rocky
Mountain College. She earned her
master’s degree at the University of
Arizona, a school that was close to
home for the
Marana,
Ariz., native.
Like her
mother, her
father and
two of her
three sisters,
she became
a teacher.
She taught
humanities
Shearer
and world
history while coaching in high school
for seven years before moving to the
college level.
Shearer teaches Fitness for Living
Lab and Theory of Coaching
Basketball. She will also have an
independent study course in the fall.
She says she teaches how to coach
first, then teaches the basic skills of
the sport. A majority of the students
in her theory class are male who may
or may not plan to become coaches.
Shearer, the daughter of a coach,
grew up in gymnasiums and so is
comfortable on the court. But she
also is comfortable in the classroom.
“Teaching enhances my relationships
with students who are not athletes,
and also makes me a better coach,”
she says. “Coaching is teaching.”
When asked if teaching interferes
with her coaching, Shearer says,
“Nothing in your life should interfere
with the other things you do. I concentrate on what I am doing at the
moment.”
Dr. Michael Messerole, assistant
director of the School of Health,
Physical Education and Recreation,
establishes the teaching assignments
in the school, and also reviews faculty performance in the classroom.
“The Joint Appointment Faculty
teach approximately 48 courses per
semester,” Messerole says. “The
courses range from physical education activity courses, first aid, coaching theory, fitness for living and theory and practice of teaching resistance
training. The instructor ratings are
consistently below 1.5, which is
excellent (on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1
being the highest).”
John Langan: a teacher who coached retires
D
r. John Langan retired from the College of Education on Dec. 31,
ending a 44-year connection to the college that began as an
undergraduate student, continued in the graduate program, and
included roles as a graduate assistant, professor and department
chair before concluding as dean.
Langan recalls joining the faculty after the unexpected invitation
of another dean, Paul Kennedy, during his time as a grad assistant.
“ I was teaching a summer class and Paul Kennedy and Hollie
Bethel walked in the classroom,” says Langan. “ And Kennedy, in
his gruff voice, and in front of the class, said, ‘Langan, do you want
to teach?’”
Langan didn’t see Kennedy’s bigger point. “ I thought that was
what I was doing,” he responded.
Langan was in the final graduating class of the Municipal
University of Omaha on June 1, 1968. The institution officially
became the University of Nebraska at Omaha one month later. After
earning an MS in education at UNO in 1969 he began his career as
a faculty member in the college. He later earned his doctorate in
education from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
But Langan’s campus involvement went beyond classroom walls.
He was a volunteer assistant coach for Connie Claussen with the
first women’s softball team, which marked the beginning of varsity
athletics for women at UNO. He also served as the UNO Athletic
Committee chair and chaired two search committees formed to
appoint an athletic director.
Langan became the first coordinator of the Office of Student
Services for the college when the office began in the 1984-85
school year. He was coordinator of the National Council for the
Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) visitations to the college for many years, beginning in 1971, and he served as chair of
the Department of Teacher Education from 1992 to 2003. Langan
also served as president of the Faculty Senate and was a member
of numerous campus and college committees.
Tapped for the role of acting dean in the summer of 2003 when
From left, Interim COE Dean David Conway, HPER School
Director Dan Blanke, John Langan and UNO Chancellor John
Christensen. Photo by Tim Fitzgerald/University Relations.
John Christensen became acting vice chancellor for Academic and
Student Affairs, Langan was officially appointed dean a year later.
He served in that post until July 1, 2008, then served various
administrative functions for the college until retiring.
Two of the legacies of which he is most proud include the development of the Office of Student Services in the college and the
Career Advancement and Development for Recruits and Experienced
Teachers (CADRE) project. Langan also has been extensively
involved in community activities, including working with youth athletic teams and serving 14 years as a member of the Omaha Public
Schools Board of Education. He was president of the board for
seven years.
Langan continues to be connected to the university by working in
the Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor of Academic and Student
Affairs on various university-wide projects, some tied to athletics.
“ It’s crazy,” he says when reflecting upon his career. “ Where did
the time go?”
Summer 2009 • 41
College of
Business Administration
CBA honors three as Distinguished Alumni
hree talented and successful busi-
Tness people were honored as 2009
Distinguished Alumni by the College of
Business Administration at a luncheon
on May 14. Their career tracks reflect
the diverse opportunities in business,
from new product and process innovation to automobile manufacturing and
fastfood service and franchising.
“A total of 76 graduates of CBA have
been officially recognized as distinguished alumni from a base of over
18,000 persons,” said Dean Louis Pol.
“Their success is a great source of pride
to the students, faculty, staff, and other
alumni of the UNO College of Business
Administration.”
Susan Brennan
Vice President, Manufacturing
Nissan North America, Inc.
Susan Brennan is vice president,
Manufacturing-Smyrna and Decherd for
Nissan North America, Inc.
Brennan oversees the operation of
Nissan’s two Tennessee-based plants.
As senior
executive onsite, she is
responsible for
safety, quality,
operations,
productivity
and environmental compliance. She
also oversees
new model
introduction for Nissan’s key North
American products.
Before joining Nissan, Brennan spent
16 years in various manufacturing management roles, first at Douglas &
Lomason Co. then at Ford Motor
Company. Before leaving Ford she was
director of the automaker’s global manufacturing business office.
In 2005, Brennan was named by
Automotive News as one of the Top
100 Leading Women in the North
American Auto Industry. She is vice
president of Automotive Women’s
42 • Summer 2009
Alliance, a resource group formed to
support women in the automotive
industry. Brennan has served on the
board of directors of the Clara B. Ford
Academy in Dearborn, Mich.
Brennan holds a master’s in business
administration from UNO and a bachelor of science degree in microbiology
from the University of Illinois. She lives
in Brentwood, Tenn., with her husband
and two children.
Robert A. Edwards
President, Edwards Investments
McDonald’s Franchise Organization
Bob Edwards spent 26 years as
owner/operator of 18 McDonald’s
restaurants in the Omaha area. He and
his wife, Charlene, opened their first
restaurant in Bellevue, Neb. in 1976.
During the development and growth of
their McDonald’s franchises, they
employed
more than
1,000 people.
Edwards also
started Keno
Casino at AkSar-Ben, which
he sold shortly
after opening.
Edwards’
career has
been diverse.
He began in a family dry-cleaning business, which transitioned into a consumer packaged-goods business. The
firm later was sold to Armour & Co,
where he worked as director of marketing.
Edwards has served on boards of
directors for the American Cancer
Society, Boys Town and Boys Town
National Institute, Mid-America
Council of the Boy Scouts, Nebraska
Special Olympics, and the Ronald
McDonald House of Omaha. He has
served on committees and advisory
boards for Midlands Community
Hospital and for the Bellevue and
Papillion Chambers of Commerce.
Edwards earned his executive MBA
from UNO in 1985 and is a graduate of
the University of Miami. He and
Charlene retired to Florida in 2002 and
make frequent trips back to Omaha to
spend time with their family.
Marshall Widman
Founder and Partner
BallStars
Marshall Widman has been coming
up with innovative ideas and inventing
products since the seventh grade. His
most successful invention is BallStars
Heat Transfer Process, a technique for
printing full-color images without distortion onto objects curved in multiple
directions,
such as
Christmas
ornaments,
baseballs,
footballs,
hockey pucks,
etc.
Widman has
been awarded
three U.S.
patents and
numerous international patents, copyrights and trademarks for his process.
His company, Star Innovations, dba
BallStars, licenses the printing process
and sells the specialized printing
equipment all over the world.
Widman enjoys lecturing about the
process of inventing and about being
an entrepreneur. Of special interest to
Widman is working with young entrepreneurs and students.
He was born in Omaha and attended
Harrison Elementary School, Dundee
School and Central High School. He
earned a bachelor of science in business administration degree from UNO.
He joined the Air Force in 1968, then
made his way to the Kansas City area,
where he met his wife, Sherry, and
where he still lives. Widman has an
extensive collection of baseball memorabilia that he shares and enjoys with
his sons Andrew and Jay and with his
grandson Reece.
UNOALUM
SUMMER 2009
1951
Joe Hefti, BA, wrote in response to a
Spring 2009 UNO Alum article on his
brother, 1940 graduate John Hefti.
Excerpts from his letter: “Thank you
for writing such an excellent article
on my brother, John, including also a
little about Neal. Both were nationally
prominent musicians, but so was our
brother, James (UNO, ’??), who
played sax and clarinet with
Lawrence Welk, Sammy Kaye and
others. John was also an excellent
photographer, having had displays of
his work at Joslyn Memorial. He
started high school at Technical High
because at that time he was more
interested in electricity and science
than in music. As for Neal, I could
write forever about his musical
accomplishments. It was a little difficult for me having three brothers
who were so musically talented, as
everyone expected me to also have
musical talent. Alas, no talent here,
only a music appreciation. I knew by
the time I was 12 I needed another
way to make a living, so I majored in
chemistry and graduated in 1951. I
worked in aerospace for more than
40 years in the Los Angeles area. For
the past 20 years I have been interested in writing poetry and short stories (almost 200 poems and 25 short
stories).”
1953
Harlan E. Petersen, BFA, lives in
Sherman Oaks, Calif., and sends this
email: “After graduating, two years
were spent in the U.S. Army, most
being in Germany. I worked for about
nine months as the first full-time
artist for the University of Omaha
media department. Two more years
at the L.A. Art Center School for the
commercial art field indirectly led me
into aerospace publications for seven
years. My first wife and I had two
daughters. Married to my second
wife since 1978 and acquired a stepson and stepdaughter. Worked for the
L.A. U.S.D. from 1967 to 1994, when
I retired. Since then I have been
active in three art clubs and art
shows, choirs, choruses, lyric theater, traveling, volunteering, Braille
Institute, Sierra Club, St. Jo Hospital
and, of course, family Would enjoy
hearing from anyone whom I knew
back in those days of yore.” Send
Harlan email at
[email protected]
Larry Boersma, BA, is a photographer (professional name Larry Allan)
and lives in Sarasota, Fla. He recently
completed his second DVD, “Little
Class Notes
Lost Mountain Lion,” a children’s
story about a baby cougar who accidentally gets left behind when its
mother moves her den. He photographed this true story and narrates the story. He was on the UNO
campus in late April meeting with a
couple of classes. To see more, visit
www.preservewildlifewithlarryallan.com
To see his books, visit
www.jalmabarrett.com
1960
Thomas Majeski, BFA, was among
three inductees into the Council
Bluffs Thomas Jefferson High School
Hall of Fame in March. Majeski was
born in Council Bluffs in 1933 and
graduated from Thomas Jefferson in
1951. After graduating from UNO he
earned a master's degree in fine arts
at the University of Iowa in 1963. He
was a member of UNO’s art and art
history faculty for more than 35
years and now is a professor emeritus. His teaching fields include printmaking, intaglio, lithography, relief,
papermaking and drawing. His work
has been featured in exhibitions in
the United States and abroad.
1969
John D. Coy, BGS, lives in San
Antonio and writes: “Upon receiving
my BGS I retired from the U.S. Air
Force with over 20 years of service,
most of which was spent in computer
SUBMIT A CLASS NOTE ON THE WEB:
www.unoalumni.org/magazine/submit_class_notes
automation within the intelligence
network. I moved to Austin, Texas. I
worked for the Texas State Auditor’s
Office in the systems automation
division for 17 years auditing colleges, universities and state agencies
in all aspects of accounting and automate systems. I became director of
automation at the Texas Commission
for the Blind and retired from Texas
state government in 1994. Since our
three children were grown and on
their own, my wife and I sold the
homestead, purchased a 40-foot RV
and traveled the United States full
time from Key West to Alaska, from
San Diego to Maine and all across
the U.S. and Canada. Gave up that
great lifestyle in 2004 and returned to
the childhood hometown, San
Antonio, where my wife and I are
enjoying the twilight of our years in a
no-maintenance townhouse, enjoying
good food and lots of Margaritas.
God bless America!”
1971
Larry Moore, BS, lives in Knoxville,
Tenn., where he retired as a major,
military police corps in 1978. He then
worked as a certified emergency
manager, a certified protection professional, and a certified business
manager. He also became a certified
lifetime member of the International
Association of Chiefs of Police while
employed at a Y-12 Nuclear Plant,
where he retired again in 1997. He
received his MS in criminal justice in
1976 from Jacksonville State
University in Alabama. He has
authored 16 feature articles in national magazines and received 23 book
reviews published in the FBI Law
Enforcement Bulletin. Seven years
ago he and his wife established a
home-based distributorship in 16
east Tennessee counties where 68
stores carry their Big Game Jerky
products.
1973
Richard Stanley Wadleigh, BGS,
lives in Turnersville, N.J., and takes
email at [email protected]
1975
Zane Schauer, MS, lives in Palm
Coast, Fla., and writes: “I retired from
the Federal Senior Executive Service
in 2004, completing my career as the
HR director for the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA). I’m blessed with a wonderful
wife, four adult children, and a grandson on the way, as well as a success-
Flashback
Cracking up with Carlin, 1971
From the Fall 1971 Breakaway yearbook
G
eorge Carlin was first to perform for the 2,000 students
present for the UNO Homecoming Concert, and the concert
was a first for Carlin.
A recent change in appearance — he now sports long hair, a
beard and casual clothing like the flared blue-jeans, t-shirt and
denim jacket worn during the Student Programming Organizationsponsored concert — has also meant a change in his act and
where he performs.
The 34-year-old native of New York City has quit the “club and
Las Vegas route” and cut down on his TV appearances (Johnny Carson, Merv Griffin, Flip
Wilson and Ed Sullivan shows), which he plans to quit completely “for at least a year.”
He is now concentrating on campus circuits, which, until UNO, his first officially invited
appearance, consisted of filling in for last-minute cancellations.
His act is now “more personal” although he still does mimicry and characters—his “Hippie
Dippy Weatherman” reporting “the present temperature is 68 degrees at the airport, which is
stupid because I don't know anybody who lives at the airport”— he also works as himself,
offering personal observations and interpretations on just about anything from daytime
television to population control.
It was this kind of informal performance, more like an informal conversation, which typifies
Carlin's act and unveils his personality. His act is himself, and both are enjoyable. His
performance lasted over an hour and was well received and liked by the audience, who gave him
a well-deserved standing ovation.
Summer 2009 • 43
Class Notes
ful second career as a personal trainer.” Send him email at
[email protected]
John W. Wilke, BS, is owner of Wilke
Law Office in Omaha and handles
cases involving personal injury,
domestic relations and criminal
defense. He and his wife of 36 years,
Marilyn, have two adult children, both
of whom live in San Diego. Send him
email at [email protected]
1976
Rebecca S. Fahrlander, MA, is a visiting assistant professor at UNO. She
traveled to Patagonia, Chile, and
Antarctica with the National
Geographic Society and the Explorers
Club in January. She now has traveled to all seven continents.
Jan Pinaire, MS, lives in Bethlehem,
Pa., and is employed with Penn State
University. She also is owner of
Images by Jan. She writes: “After
leaving Omaha a few years ago to be
closer to my son and his family, I
now teach and supervise student
teachers for Penn State, the Lehigh
Valley location. I also have a small
photography business and do photos
for Lehigh University, Sands Casino
and local visitor centers. I would love
to connect with some Omaha folks
out here.” Send her email at
[email protected]
1979
Mark Bappe, BSIT, lives in Pavillion,
Wyo., and writes: “After 30 years in
industry and healthcare, I have
retired to our farm/ranch in
Wyoming. My wife of 23 years continues to work in healthcare in order
to afford fuel for the tractors. I enjoy
hearing from football and wrestling
teammates of the ’74 to ’78 era.”
Send him email at
[email protected]
1981
William (Father Jonah) Wharff, MS,
lives in Peosta, Iowa, and is a
Trappist Monk. He writes, “I have
been appointed sub-prior of the
abbey community. In addition to
administrative duties I will be teaching classes to new members and giving conferences at other abbeys
throughout North America.” Send
him email at
[email protected]
1982
Michael J. Geppert, BSBA, joined
HDR as its new chief information officer. Geppert has more than 27 years
of experience in business manage-
44 • Summer 2009
ment, applied technology, product
and solution development and strategic planning centering on the use of
technology to address business
opportunities and challenges. Prior to
joining HDR, Geppert was senior vice
president at First Data Information
Services, and president of First Data
Solutions, both divisions of First Data
Corporation, a $9 billion payment
processing company. Geppert was
with the Omaha World-Herald from
2000 to 2007, serving as president of
World Media Company, an independent operating company of the Omaha
World-Herald. From 1998 to 2000 he
served as president of
VideoYellowPagesUSA.com, a wholly
owned subsidiary of infoUSA. HDR is
an employee-owned architectural,
engineering and consulting firm with
more than 7,700 professionals in
more than 165 locations worldwide.
Geppert’s brother, John, is featured
on Page 28 of this Alum.
1984
James Temme, MPA, was elected
president-elect of the American
Society of Radiologic Technologists
(ASRT), the largest radiologic science
association in the world. Temme is
an associate professor and associate
director of radiation science technology education at the University of
Nebraska Medical Center. As president-elect, Temme will work with
ASRT’s seven-member board to represent the association’s 131,000
members and govern the organization’s strategic initiatives. He has
more than 35 years of experience
working in the radiologic sciences.
He has served as a practicing radiologic technologist at Children’s
Hospital in Omaha and a radiologic
science professor at UNMC. He also
is serving a second term as a member of the UNO Alumni Association
Board of Directors.
Richard Zpevak, BGS, lives in
Papillion, Neb. Zpevak completed 14
years with the U.S. Coast Guard and
17 years with the Federal Aviation
Administration. He retired in 2006
after 20 years with the Omaha Airport
Authority. He has been an adjunct
associate professor at Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical University (ERAU) since
1991. He also has been an instructor
with the UNO Aviation Institute. He
earned his master’s degree in aeronautical science from ERAU in 2006.
He is married with seven children and
25 grandchildren. Send him email at
[email protected]
1985
Dean Olson, BS, has published a
book, “Perfect Enemy: The Law
Enforcement Manual of Islamist
Terrorism,” Charles C. Thomas
Publishing. Olson formerly commanded the Criminal Investigation
Bureau of the Douglas County
Sheriff’s Department in Omaha,
including the department’s participation in the regional Joint Terrorism
Task Force. He retired in 2008 after
30 years of law enforcement service.
He also earned a master’s degree in
public administration from UNO and
an MA in Homeland Defense and
Security from the Naval Postgraduate
School, Center for Homeland Defense
and Security, in Monterey, Calif. He is
researching his second book,
“Tactical Counter-terrorism.” See
more at
www.chds.us/?press/olson_book
Duane Williams, BSBA, lives in
Woodbridge, Va., and writes: “I am
very saddened to hear that Harold
Young, a key member of the UNO
football team in the mid ’70's, passed
away. He was an outstanding football
player as well as an outstanding person. You will be missed, my friend. I
am very proud of my UNO experience
and I love the new ‘0’ logo.” Send
him email at [email protected]
1986
Philip C. Howze, BS, was named an
outstanding faculty member by
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale’s Library Affairs. Howze,
a research/reference librarian whose
specialties include anthropology,
black American studies, economics,
psychology, social work and sociology, teaches one course each semester in the black American studies program as well as sections of the
library information literacy course. A
full professor since 2005, he also is a
popular mentor for younger faculty
throughout the library. He also serves
on the Faculty Senate and the Judicial
Review Board. Howze has been at
SIUC since 2000. He also has a master’s degree from UNO (1989) and a
library degree (1990) from the
University of Iowa.
1988
Michael John Divoky, BSBA, lives in
Memphis, Tenn., and in October 2008
accepted a senior accounting
research analyst position at FedEx
Express Worldwide Headquarters. He
also serves as president of the Lake
Village Home Owners Association
and treasurer for the Mystic Krewe of
Pegasus Memphis, a volunteer community service organization that raises money for charitable purposes.
Send him email at
[email protected]
Mark Manhart, BS, writes that he
“returned from the best dental conference ever attended all these 47
years as a dentist, the ConsEuro 09
in Seville, Spain. Dentists from
Russia to London, Istanbul to Seoul,
Granada to Belgium. None that I
could find from U.S. It was real dental science, with real research. While
presenting a small portion at it, I was
struck again how advanced Europe is
in my own field. They understand our
work with calcium and are drawn to it
easily, esp. when I mentioned how
we see European patients. Our CTI
methods and products are directly
related to dozens of the researchers I
met. Our plans are to work with them
and return as soon as possible. In
three hours I learned more than years
here. In the 1950s I worked for a
couple Omaha dentists who were
ridiculed by my schools for going to
Europe to learn more in their fields.
Now, Omaha patients finally get what
those two knew 40 years ago.”
Toni Condon, BA, was appointed vice
president for institutional advancement with Maryland Science Center
in Baltimore. She previously was senior director of development for the
Walters Art Museum, where she led
fundraising efforts to support the
current free admission initiative,
allowing equal access to the museum
for all members of the community.
She previously held positions in the
fundraising departments of McDaniel
College, the Johns Hopkins
University Kreiger School of Arts and
Sciences, and the National Aquarium
in Baltimore. She also has a master’s
degree in technical and scientific
communication from Miami
University of Ohio.
1989
William Ostlund, BGS, lives in Fort
Benning, Ga., and is a colonel in the
U.S. Army, serving as deputy commander of the 75th Ranger
Regiment. He has participated in
Operation Desert Shield/Storm,
Operation Iraqi Freedom and
Operation Enduring Freedom. He also
has traveled to the Balkans 12 times
and served or trained in more than
30 countries. He also has earned a
master of arts degree in law and
diplomacy from Tufts University, the
Fletcher School of Law and
UNOALUM
S U M M E R
Diplomacy. He is married with three
sons. Send him email at
[email protected]
1991
Cindy Burchett, MS, was named
2009 Shelby County Mother of the
Year by the Shelby County Mother's
Association (Iowa). Burchett and her
husband, Rick, have three children:
Sara, Ryan and Garrett, and four
grandchildren. From 1987 to 1992
she was the media specialist and
special education coordinator at New
Park Elementary School. She served
as elementary principal and special
education coordinator for Harlan
Community Schools from 1992 to
2007. Burchett has been involved in
many community activities, including
Concerned Foundation Board, P.E.O.,
MMC Wellness Center Fund Drive
Committee, Loess Hills Area
Education Agency, Harlan Community
Library Board, Nishnabotna Girl
Scout Council Board and others. She
also has received the Chamber of
Commerce Leadership Award and
has been named Chamber of
Commerce Citizen of the Year and
Southwest Iowa Elementary Principal
of the Year.
Betty Cernech, MS, was awarded the
Exceptional Merit Award at the 2009
Nebraska Public Health Conference in
April. The award honors a significant,
positive impact on public health, particularly among underserved popula-
tions. Cernech is vice president of
Community Health Services and
Development at the Visiting Nurse
Association. She oversees the VNA's
community/public health programs,
which serve more than 44,000 individuals through services for families
with infants and small children to
services for older adults.
1992
Phil Farr, BS, wrote the following
Class Note in late May: “I thought a
note ... might be of interest in light of
my current position and the fact UNO
has such a comprehensive center for
Afghanistan Studies. I am a lieutenant colonel in the United States
Marine Corps Reserve attached to
MARCENT, Tampa, Fla. I am currently
mobilized and serving as the Deputy
Chief CJ-9 Regional Outreach at
Headquarters International Security
Assistance Force Kabul, Afghanistan.
This is the NATO command headquarters and I lead the department in
charge of reporting on Stability and
Governance within each of the
provinces throughout the country of
Afghanistan. We also work with the
Regional Commands and Provisional
Reconstruction Teams to ensure
unity of effort in the stability operations throughout the country. I met
with the governor of the Wardak
Province at the Turkish Provincial
Reconstruction Team Headquarters
located in the city of Maydanshahr,
Wardak Province.
Future Alums
Grace Cameron Reeves, daughter of Stephanie
(Lewis, ’03) and Joshua (’04) Reeves of
Papillion, Neb.
Sean Daniel Manning, son of Lisa (Tosoni, ’96)
and David (’90) Manning of Omaha and grandson of James Tosoni (’73) of Omaha.
Beatrice Kate Herreman, daughter of Scarlett
(’98) Fisher-Herreman and Cale (’00) Herreman
of Topeka, Kansas.
Send Farr emails at
[email protected].
1993
Kevin Lunt, BA, has been a Spanish
interpreter for the Nebraska Medical
Center for six years and recently
became coordinator of interpreters
for Douglas County’s Department of
Probation. Lunt will oversee the language needs of adult and juvenile
programs. Lunt also recently was
awarded the EPLE Diploma from
Mexico’s UNAM university for proficiency in Spanish.
1994
David Hartman, MBE, was appointed
by Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman to
serve on the Nebraska Real Property
Appraiser Board (NRPAB). Since
1991 NRPAB has served as the state
government agency that administers
and regulates the credentialing programs for prospective and qualified
appraisers in Nebraska. Hartman, one
of five NRPAB board members, is
senior vice president and director of
real estate lending for TierOne Bank.
He has worked for TierOne since
1995 and has served the real estate
industry in various capacities for 26
years. He serves on the board of the
Metropolitan Omaha Builders
Association (MOBA) and is a past
president of the Nebraska Mortgage
Association.
Laurel Lynn Boster, daughter of David and
Janet (Walker, ’05) of Omaha
Emilia Rose, Grace Marie and Quinn Andrew
Lavia Bagley, triplet daughters and son of Kate
Lavia Bagley (’99;’03) and Daniel Bagley
(’98;’03) of Raleigh, N.C., and grandchildren of
Ronald Mimick (’96) of Omaha.
Jaclyn Elizabeth Weland, daughter of Jaime
(Erkes, ’98) and John ’98 Weland of Omaha
Kyle Lucas Fletcher, son of Brian and Jami
(’01) Fletcher of Grand Junction, Colo.
Luke Joseph Cieslik, son of Patrick and Brietta
(Cacioppo, ’98) Cieslik of Papillion, Neb.
Logan William Ramaekers, son of Anjanette
(Glismann, ’96) and Nick (’94) Ramaekers of
Omaha.
Alexander Johnson, son of Tara (Coughlin, ’06)
and Joseph (’06) Johnson of David City, Neb.
1995
David Kortje, BS, lives in Benton,
Kansas, and writes that he has published a book, “The Unseen War,
Winning the Fight for Life” (Parson
Place Press, 2009). “It looks at our
lives and struggles in the context of
the spiritual,” he writes. “I am also
president and founder of Knight
Vision Ministries.” See more at
www.knightvisionministries.com
Matthew Streett, BFA, lives in San
Antonio and notes that he successfully defended his dissertation and
earned a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies at
the Catholic University of America in
Washington, D.C. “I will continue to
serve as an active-duty military chaplain at Lackland Air Force Base,
Texas. I will use the knowledge
gained through the Ph.D. program to
write and publish.” Send him email at
[email protected]
Jason Plourde, BS, was one of 70
recipients of a $25,000 Milken
Educator Award honoring outstanding K-12 teachers across the nation.
Plourde, principal of Washington
Elementary School in Council Bluffs,
Iowa, received his award in April at a
ceremony in LA. First presented in
1987, the Milken Educator Awards
represent the largest teacher recognition program in the United States,
having bestowed more than $60 million in unrestricted cash awards.
Sons & Daughters of UNO Alumni
Merrit Dean Smeal, son of Eric and Abby
(Westphalen, ’05) Smeal of Cedar Bluffs, Neb.
Garrett William Henderson, son of Karen and
Seth (’01) Henderson of Westminster, Colo.
2 0 0 9
Roselyn Daniella Sanchez, daughter of
Gerardo and Tara (Jackson, ’01) Sanchez of
Omaha and granddaughter of Sharon Jackson
of Omaha.
Submit a Future
Alum on the Web
Provide a birth
announcement (within
1 year of birth) and
we’ll send a T-shirt and
certificate, plus publish
the good news in an ensuing issue of the
UNO Alum. Do so safely and securelyonline
at www.unoalumni.org/magazine. Mail
announcements to: Future Alums, UNO
Alumni Association, 60th & Dodge, Omaha,
NE 68182. FAX info to: (402) 554-3787.
Include address, baby’s name, date of birth,
parents’ or grandparents’ names and graduation year(s).
Samuel Christopher and Dominic Joseph
Baggiani, sons of Spencer and Paula (Caruso,
’02) Baggiani of Omaha and grandsons of
Sharon (Edgar-Baggiani (’82) of Omaha.
Summer 2009 • 45
Class Notes
1997
Jimmy Yeck Jr., BGS, lives in Council
Bluffs and is a peer specialist for
Alegent Peer Connection. “I lead,
advocate, mentor, teach and work on
goals with people who have mental
health struggles. I have been told by
many professionals I have found my
‘niche.’” send him email at [email protected]
1998
Scott Thor, BS, lives in Bakersfield,
Calif., where he is on the senior management team at Lortz Manufacturing
Company. He earned an MBA in 2001
from the University of Sioux Falls and
recently began work on a doctoral
degree in executive management at
George Fox University in Newberg,
Ore. Send him email at
[email protected]
2002
Paula Caruso Baggiani, BA, lives in
Omaha and writes: “Since graduating
I have gone on to earn an MS. Ed
from Drake University. I got married
and now I have two young boys that
are 19 months and 3 months. Now I
work part time as an online college
professor for the University of
Phoenix and as an instructor for
Metropolitan Community College.”
Send email to [email protected]
2004
Michelle Hruska, MS, lives in Omaha
and is married to fellow UNO alum
John Hruska (2000). She is a therapist working with adolescents in a
Class
Notes
S U M M E R
residential treatment center. Their
first child, Addison Grace, was born
in February.
2005
Janet Walker Boster, MBA, lives in
Omaha. She and her husband, David,
welcomed a daughter, Laurel Lynn
Boster, on April 2. Send her email at
[email protected]
2006
Tara Renee Johnson, MSW, lives in
David City, Neb., and notes that she
and her husband, Joseph (UNO, ’06)
welcomed a son, Alexander Michael,
on March 30. Send her email at
[email protected]
Beth Flynn, BS, lives in Omaha and
recently started a business with her
sister, Maggie Cannon. Capture the
Moment specializes in portrait photography, all-occasion DVDs, photo
restoration, and card
collages/announcements. “All of
which are perfect for graduations,
weddings and family functions,” she
writes. More information about her
business can be found at www.capturethemomentomaha.com. Send
Flynn email at [email protected]
2007
Nicak A. Semander, BS, lives in
Lincoln, Calif., and is employed with
CalTrans as an area bridge maintenance engineer. Send him email at
[email protected]
2008
1965
Adam Bazer, BA, lives in Omaha and
writes: “Signs-N-Designs is a family
owned and operated business that
specializes in t-shirts, custom artwork and vinyl signs and graphics.
We offer reasonable rates and take
great care in making sure you are
100 percent satisfied with your finished product.” Send him email at
[email protected]
In Memoriam
1941
1944
1947
1948
1950
1952
1954
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
C. Meade Chamberlin
Jane Griffith Lindsey
Paul B. Ackerson
Robert Stitt
Lester E. “Les” Andrews
Helen Matulka
Karl E. Dankof
Roger Orr
Jean C. Miller
Charles J. Prachensky Jr.
Alvin E. “Al” Kohler
Eleanor Marie Stroebele
Harold D. Courtney
Carl Hornor
Theron G. Ladner
Leonard K. Ewers
Philip D. Grimm
Harold B. VanDyken
Lucile A. Sandy
Raymond Rade
Karl V. Lofstrand
George Balog
Walter R. Dawes
Frederick E. Schwab
Robert A. Swadell
Henry Szychowski
1966
1968
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1976
1978
1981
1982
1986
1988
1996
1961
2 0 0 9
Edward John Hughes
Louis L. James
Edward John Hughes
Raymond A. Siebert
Goldie M. Ladner
David D. Kidd
Howard E. Yoder
Robert Poshard
Cheryl Lantz Hover
William G. Riggs
Elmer R. Lockett
Elmer R. Lockett
Maynard R. Dulak
James Ruddle
Dennis A. Pueppka
Clifford M. Thomas
William L. Boling
Robert C. Elias Sr.
Robert S. Scherr
Elizabeth A. Kentopp
David C. Warburton
Mary K. Bennett
Larry Dean Fox
Pamela A. Herron
Steve Colabello
Jacquelyn B. Cairns
James M. Gaughan
David B. Goddard
Carla A. Rasmussen
Virginia “Ginny” Wiley
Harold A. Mosenthin
Submit your class note over the web at www.unoalumni.org/notes
What have you been doing since graduating from UNO? Your fellow alumni would like to know! Give us an update by
filling out the form below. We’ll publish the news in a future issue of the UNO Alum and on our website. Send the news
to Class Notes Editor, UNO Alum, 67th & Dodge, Omaha, NE 68182-0010, or Fax to (402) 554-3787.
Name__________________________________________
Employer ___________________________________
Class Year_______Degree________
Position_____________________________________
Address________________________________________
Career/Personal News__________________________
City ___________________________
State, Zip______________________
Phone_____________________________
Is this a new
address?
❑ Yes ❑ No
E-mail_________________________________________
May we post your email address
in the next Alum?
❑ Yes ❑ No
46 • Summer 2009
May we include your name in our
website’s email directory? (Email
addresses do not display)
❑ Yes ❑ No
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
UNOALUM
Join fellow alumni at the annual
Shakespeare on the Green
Alumni Picnic
Wednesday, June 24
Picnic: 6 to 7:15 p.m.
Alumni Center
Performance: 8 p.m
The Green
Join the UNO Alumni Association Wednesday, June 24 (rain or shine), for the Shakespeare on the
Green Alumni Picnic followed by a performance of “Macbeth.” Cost is $12 per person, featuring:
• Picnic Buffet (Chicken, BBQ pork, potato salad, baked beans, cole slaw, cookie, beverages).
• Reserved spot “down front” at the play.
• Reserved parking near the Green.
• “Macbeth” preview by UNO Professor Cindy Melby Phaneuf,
co-founder/artistic director of Nebraska Shakespeare Festival (NSF).
• Satisfaction knowing part of your fee helps underwrite a donation to the NSF.
To Register, complete form and remit with payment. Questions? Call Julie Kaminski at 554-4887 or email [email protected]
SHAKESPEARE ON THE GREEN UNO ALUMNI PICNIC REGISTRATION -- Submit by June 19!
Name
Phone
Address
Email
City
State
Zip
❑ I (we) will attend “Macbeth” AND the picnic! ❑ I (we) will only attend the picnic.
I have enclosed $
Charge my:
for
people to attend at $12 each. (Make checks payable to UNO Alumni Association).
❑ Visa ❑ MasterCard ❑ Discover.
Exp. Date ___ / ___
Send to:
Shakespeare Picnic
UNO Alumni Association
6705 Dodge St.
Omaha, NE 68182-0010
Card No.
Signature:
Names for Name Tags
Summer 2009 • 47
New in 2009: 25% first-time customer business discount!
The Thompson Center at UNO
Your corporate event partner
Planning a conference, retreat,
seminar or other business event?
Host it at the Thompson Center!
• Convenient, midtown location
• Affordable rates
• Versatile meeting spaces
• State-of-the-art A/V
• Free high-speed Wi-Fi
• Free parking
Also available for
Wedding Receptions,
Breakfasts, Brunches,
Lunches, Dinners
and all socials!
67th & Dodge
Ask about our multiple booking discounts! 554-3368
Book your next event online —
www.thethompsoncenter.org
NON-PROFIT
ORGANIZATION
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
PERMIT #301
OMAHA, NE
University of Nebraska at Omaha
Alumni Association
6705 Dodge St.
Omaha, NE 68182-0010
Address Service Requested

Summer 2009 - UNO Alumni Association

Transcription

Similar documents

A Senior Community with everything you always wanted

Splash Lagoon Family Fun Weekend!

Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church Sanctuary of St. Toribio Romo

Grounding Project 1- Industry Icon

Pageflex Server [document: D-9BEA51FF_00001]

orthmont Today - Northmont City Schools

Alpha Kappa Psi Important Dates for the 2013 Spring Semester

Annual Report 2014 - Omaha Childrens Museum

No. 11 - December, 1927 - Omaha Central High School Archives