Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, 
And say my glory was I had such friends.

I have always loved those words, which are the closing two lines of the poem, “The Municipal Gallery Revisited,” and as I approach my final weeks as president of the University of St. Thomas I cannot find a more appropriate valedictory in thanking this community.

I find it fitting to quote Yeats, considering that he counts among the dozens of Irish poets who have visited our campus over our 128 years. He appeared on a bitterly cold  January day in 1904 to give a St. Paul Seminary lecture to what one newsletter called “a large and cultured audience.”

I also borrowed Yeats’ words about friendship when I informed the faculty last May of my plans to retire, and in an effort to add some levity to the situation I quoted a  second Yeats observation: “Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.” The line drew welcome laughter, and I said it could be seen as even inspirational. “I know there have been days that were difficult as well as days that were good,” I told the faculty. “It’s the kind of existential resignation captured in the more homespun American proverb, ‘Some days you’re the bug; some days you’re the windshield.’” And there was more laughter!

In all seriousness, my gratitude today knows no bounds, and for good reason. Any success that I have enjoyed during my 22 years as president has been directly the result of generous, unselfish and heroic work by you – our faculty, staff, students, parents, alumni and benefactors. Or, as I like to say when I address a gathering, our “friends all.”

You also have been kind beyond description – to me and to St. Thomas. I will forever carry fond memories of those kindnesses, which I know were borne out of a genuine desire to make this a better university and to help us provide the best possible education for our students. The lengths to which you go to provide assistance astound me time and time again, almost to the point that it would be easy to take you for granted. I hope I never have done so.

As you know, I am fond of quoting our mission statement, which so perfectly captures what we attempt to do – to educate students “to be morally responsible leaders who think critically, act wisely, and work skillfully to advance the common good.” I take comfort in knowing how those words unite us as we seek to live up to one more Yeats maxim: that “education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire” – and I know they will motivate me in the years ahead.

I will see you around campus!

Read more from St. Thomas Magazine.

Father Dennis Dease will retire on June 30, completing 22 years as the 14th president of the University of St. Thomas.

The St. Thomas that Dease will hand over to Dr. Julie Sullivan on July 1 is dramatically different from the St. Thomas he inherited from Monsignor Terrence Murphy, yet his desire always has been simple and forthright – to improve the quality of education and to carry out the mission.

That desire has manifested itself in many ways – in new campuses and new buildings, in a more racially and ethnically diverse student body, in a stronger faculty and staff, and in highly successful fundraising efforts.

Dease is the first to credit the entire St. Thomas community for making so many dreams come true. He speaks quietly of how “incredibly blessed” he is to be surrounded by people “who care deeply about this university and who have a deep passion for learning and helping others to learn.”

He sat down this spring to reflect on his presidency and to look ahead to the challenges that await his successor and the University of St. Thomas.

Q. Twenty-two years! Does it seem that long?

A. The first year seemed like 22 years because of the learning curve, but the last 20 years have just vaporized. It’s like if you get on a plane and don’t have anything to read, the trip takes forever. But if you have a good book, you’re there before you know it. There has been so much activity and growth here at St. Thomas that the years have just flown by.

Q. In 1991, how long – honestly, now – did you expect to be president? Are you surprised that you have served 22 years?

A. I knew the average term for a university president in the United States was about 6.5 years, and a little longer in Catholic institutions. Archbishop John Roach, our chairman at the time, asked me on the day of the board’s interview with me if I would be willing to give 10 years to the job. I said I would. I was just hoping I could hang in there for 10 years!

Why did I stay 22 years? No one is more surprised than I am. Maybe it was just the grace of God. One thing I know for sure: It’s important to have good people around you to take on responsibility and work together, and ours is a wonderful culture in that sense. I am so fortunate that the faculty and staff became my friends and have been magnificent in carrying out our mission, and I could not have asked for a better board of trustees. They are can-do, make-it-happen individuals who know how to solve problems. Those are the real reasons for the long run.

This is a unique kind of university. You don’t find here the acerbic divisions that are so common in academe. On a 1 to 10 scale in this regard, the St. Thomas community rates a 10. I do not exaggerate. Sure, we’ve had strong disagreements at times, but the civility with which we have carried on our discussions always made me proud.

Q. How has the job changed over the years?

A. The job as a Catholic university president is never easy, but there is less stridency today surrounding our Catholic identity. There is more clarity, thanks to the decade-long discussion prompted by the Holy See’s document Ex Corde Ecclesiae. In my early years, there were many hard discussions trying to balance the role of Catholicism with that of a university. As I leave office, the dominant issue is affordability.

Q. What has been St. Thomas’ most significant accomplishment during your tenure? Is there any particular accomplishment with which you take personal pride?

A. We put a lot of effort into strengthening our Catholic identity. We are clearer today about the meaning of our commitment to cultivate our Catholic mission. We have a rich, 4,000-year Judeo-Christian wisdom tradition upon which to draw, as well as a vibrant Catholic intellectual and cultural tradition.

I am pleased that we have steadily strengthened our faculty. Many of them come from the best universities in the world. They are productive scholars and they are just incredibly fine teachers. I see master teachers as those who not only educate but also inspire, who are passionate about their disciplines and who change lives. Their fire is burning brightly because they stoke it with research and then come into the classroom and light a fire for others. They have what William Butler Yeats said about the purpose of education being not just one of filling a bucket but lighting a fire.

We also have seen the student body change academically as judged by ACT scores (averages of 23.1 and 25.6 for entering freshmen in 1991 and 2012), and we are more diverse. We were mostly white middle class (4.5 percent students of color in 1991) but today we have higher percentages of students of color (14 percent) and international students (4 percent), and they have enriched the learning environment.

Q. In the essay that you submitted with your application to be president, you listed a priority to strengthen our Catholic character, and in your inauguration address you emphasized the need to avoid “a slippery path to a rather bland secularism.” What does the path look like today?

A. I no longer see that as the threat I saw 22 years ago because the academic environment is much more open to us being Catholic. A Catholic university is built on the  premise that faith and reason are not antithetical but are complementary. One can enrich the other. Science and religion can learn from the other, and I find that fun because my personal interests and background have been on the religion side, but in school I always found science fascinating.

Q. How do programs such as a Center for Catholic Studies and a Rome campus enhance our Catholic character?

A. Our Center for Catholic Studies enriches us as a Catholic university, and in ways we didn’t anticipate when we designed it. It enables students to integrate what they are learning in terms of their faith with a whole variety of other disciplines and perspectives. It traces and explores the Catholic influence in literature, science, philosophy and the arts.

The Rome campus was a bold step for us. It certainly wasn’t going to become a profit center, but the trustees agreed from a mission point of view that it was important. I love  the facility itself, located on the Tiber River just a 15-minute walk to St. Peter’s. We were fortunate to have a dear friend, the late Cardinal Pio Laghi, dedicate the campus, and I still remember him saying, “The city of Rome is a wonderful professor.”

Q. Why do students need a liberal arts education? What does it mean?

A. A liberal arts education is a process; it’s not a product. It’s not a discreet amount of information that you acquire; it’s the result of personal interaction with mentors, with professors. It’s not data; it’s an expansion of students’ horizons and of shaping their awareness and preparing them for lifelong learning. It is truly transformative.

It comes about because of interaction with talented, experienced teachers. Our class sizes are relatively small, which allows for interaction, and the approach that our faculty takes is inquiry based learning. There is an old saying, “Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I’ll remember. Involve me and I’ll understand.” That’s inquiry-based learning.

Q. More and more scholarship and research involves students. Why is that important?

A. It is not that common for faculty in higher education in the United States to involve undergraduate students in their research, but it is common here at St. Thomas. You get a sense of how much this means to students when you attend their poster sessions, such as the ones I have gone to for chemistry. There were so many students presenting research on poster boards. They used to be able to get all of them into the corridors on one floor, but this year there were so many that they had to have two shifts. That’s thrilling because it’s learning at its best.

Q. Another priority you cited before becoming president was a desire for St. Thomas to become a great “urban” university, and you later said that we should not just be in the city, but of the city. Have we taken sufficient steps?

A. When I was rector of the Basilica of St. Mary in downtown Minneapolis, every day people were at the door in need of housing, clothing, food or even bus tickets. People were living under the freeway bridge across the street. That weighed on me, and I thought an urban university would have something to contribute to alleviate the suffering.

The chief way we contribute is through education – by educating first-generation students and by encouraging an organic interaction between the university and the  community. We are not an ivory tower that is self-sufficient, but an urban university that responds to issues and whose students have an opportunity to learn from  community-based projects and supervised, reflective experiences. We always can do more, and I expect we will do more because we have created a culture where people want to be part of the solution.

By “of the city,” I meant that we have a responsibility to the region we serve to provide for its emerging educational needs. We will continue to do that. We are organically part of the city here, and our future will rise or fall with the future of the city.

Q. St. Thomas revised its mission statement in 2004. What does it mean to you when you look at it today?

A. It goes like this: “Inspired by Catholic intellectual tradition, the University of St. Thomas educates students to be morally responsible leaders who think critically, act wisely and work skillfully to advance the common good.” I love that mission statement because it succinctly captures us and it guides us.

Q. So it boils down to how people need to go out and do the right thing?

A. Absolutely. I have had a stream of students and faculty come through my office excited about projects. Like engineering professor Camille George and her project to dehydrate breadfruit in Haiti to preserve it and meet the nutritional needs of the people there. Or Brian Osende, an engineering student who went back to his remote village in Uganda with solar panels and his knowledge as an engineer, to electrify his village. It dawned on me that I had something in common with the people of that village because that was an electrifying experience for both of us.

Q. Throughout your presidency, you have expressed concern – even frustration – about the rising costs of education and the growing perception among some people that they cannot afford St. Thomas. How do you address that?

A. I tell them, “Don’t be scared off by the sticker price.” We have dramatically increased financial aid. I also point out that our average net cost has not increased in the last 10 years beyond the rate of inflation. The average debt load that an undergraduate student leaves St. Thomas with is around $30,000 – the same as what many new cars cost, and they won’t drive that car for the rest of their life. I believe $30,000 is a reasonable price to pay for an education.

Q. St. Thomas has been successful in raising funds, including $765 million in the Opening Doors and Ever Press Forward capital campaigns. Does the generosity of alumni and friends, even during a serious recession, surprise you?

A. It is astounding in one sense but not in another. People see the kind of institution that St. Thomas is and come to a judgment that we are adding great value to the community. They appreciate the way that we respond to emerging educational needs, and they want to be part of it.

Q. Enrollment growth in the 1970s and 1980s led to crowded conditions and decisions to open a Minneapolis campus and significantly expand the St. Paul campus. But needs remain: Music programs want better facilities, science and engineering programs are out of space and neighbors push for more on-campus housing. Is a university ever done with construction?

A. Never! I wish it could be so. But as educational needs continue to change, so must our programs and our facilities, and that entails reimagining and retrofitting the physical campus.

Q. What would you consider the “signature” buildings of your presidency?

A. Each building has been important in meeting critical needs. The Minneapolis campus buildings gave us an opportunity to concentrate many graduate and professional programs there, and each has served its distinct profession well.

In St. Paul, the Frey Science and Engineering Center addressed perhaps our greatest need, and McNeely Hall has made a huge difference to our business faculty. The three Anderson buildings have enriched student life immeasurably: the Athletic and Recreation Complex and the Student Center bring people together and allow the community to come to know itself in ways not previously possible, and you can never have enough parking.

Q. Why is diversity important?

A. I love the diversity I see on campus because it enriches the learning experience for all of our students. It better prepares them for the world in which they will live and work. In practice, when a student from Eden Prairie or New Market or Lake Benton meets a student from the Middle East or China or Africa, that student starts to ask questions about his new friend’s experiences, culture and perspective. In the process, he learns more about the world.

Q. In becoming more diverse, have we become a better reflection of the region’s racial and ethnic makeup?

A. We are definitely more reflective of the community. I can’t recall many Hmong students here 20 years ago, and there are many today. I also am pleased with the recruitment in immigrant communities. Who would have thought that the largest representations today from foreign countries would be Saudi Arabia (99 students last fall) and India (56)?

We had the opportunity a decade ago to provide space for English Language Services, and we brought international students to campus and gave them a chance to look around. The Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission in Washington provides full scholarships, and I began to develop a relationship with those officials. I was concerned about how they might view St. Thomas and they told me, “We love Catholic universities because they respect the role that faith plays in life.” We have had an excellent experience.

Q. Another way that St. Thomas provides greater access for lower-income students is through the Dease Scholarship Program. How did that come about?

A. Greg Roberts, our vice president for student affairs (until 2003) came to me one day and said the number of African-American students had dropped to a critical level. There was a general feeling in that community, he said, that St. Thomas was not a good fit for African-American students. That got my attention. I realized we would need to re-engineer our efforts. And we did.

When I see someone like Laura Lee, who was a Hmong student at St. Thomas, now at the top of her profession as a (television) anchor in Rochester, I can’t find words to express my gratitude that we were able to be there when she was saying, “Educate me, expand my horizons, give me some skills!” It’s humbling and it’s gratifying to be part of this journey.

Q. St. Thomas has largely managed to avoid controversy over the years. There have been some dust-ups and we have come under criticism for positions we have taken on certain issues, but for the most part our alumni and the broader community have stuck with us. Why?

A. It’s because people accept who we are. They may disagree with us, but they respect who we are. They also respect our graduates. I have long believed that the ultimate measure of the quality of a university is the quality of its graduates – and ours are extraordinary.

Q. Have you ever second-guessed any decisions? Or looked back and said, “I should have handled that differently”?

A. I haven’t had time! Seriously, so much has happened here. Maybe I will in retrospect, when I have had the chance to think, but not now. This is such a busy place – when one chapter closes you are already working on the next.

Sure, I have made mistakes along the way, but people are good here. Not a lot of finger pointing goes on. They acknowledge any mistakes and the explanations and say, “Let’s move on.”

Q. You never seem more a priest than when you say Mass and never more a president than when you are handing out diplomas at graduation. How are those special moments to you?

A. When I am holding the host or chalice in my hand, I feel like I am in the presence of Jesus in a way that I can’t even begin to understand or appreciate. I often experience Jesus’ love intensely in those moments, but trying to comprehend it would be like trying to understand the light that comes from the other side of the universe.

When I hand out diplomas, I see the smiles as students come up and cross the stage. They’re just so happy. There’s no finer moment in the life of a university president than when you see students who know that something very good has happened.

Q. What kind of role do you want to have as “president emeritus”?

A. I will try to be of help in whatever way I can – to the university and to Dr. Julie Sullivan, who is a wonderful person and will be an extraordinary leader. I see myself as becoming a goodwill ambassador. I have been blessed with good health, and as long as it holds up I will be active. I’m not yet ready to spend my time watching the daytime soaps or the Weather Channel.

Q. What advice do you have for your successor?

A. I will tell her to enjoy what will likely be the most wonderful job she’s ever had.

Q. In past Q&A interviews for St. Thomas magazine, we closed with the famous John Ireland quote about the need to “ever press forward” because “God intended the present to be better than the past and the future to be better than the present.” How do you relate those words to the mission of St. Thomas?

A. It inspires us to dare to be great, to dive into life, to become part of it, to make tomorrow better than today. We can actively and significantly contribute, and that is what we here at St. Thomas choose to do – to advance the common good.

Read more from St. Thomas Magazine.

From the inception of St. Thomas, we have had pre-eminent designers complete buildings that are important to the history of American architecture, including Clarence Johnston’s Chapel of St. Mary (1905), Emmanuel Masqueray’s Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas (1918), and Edwin Lundie’s Gainey House (1954-1957). But, perhaps the most notable work completed for St. Thomas was done by turn-of-the-20th-century architect Cass Gilbert.

The year is 1890. The high school, college and seminary of St. Thomas Aquinas, founded by Archbishop John Ireland, have been holding classes for five years in a single, Second Empire style building located on the site of the present day north campus. The time had come to consider a more elaborate setting, given the expanding interest in religious training at the seminary.

Ireland had the land, 60 acres donated by Irish immigrant William Finn. He needed an architect and patron to create and finance his vision. The patron? None other than railroad baron James J. Hill, who would contribute $500,000 to the project in honor of his devout Roman Catholic wife, Mary.

As historian Mary L. Wingerd noted in Claiming the City: Politics, Faith and the Power of Place in St. Paul (2003), Hill had a vested interest in the seminary for business reasons as well. Archbishop Ireland was committed to the Americanization of Minnesota’s culturally diverse Catholics, and his goal was to establish a seminary that would train priests to impart American Catholic principles to their parishioners. Since most of Hill’s employees were Catholics, it served his purposes to support the education of priests who would Americanize his workforce. It also served Hill’s purposes to recommend a capable designer to the archbishop.

On Oct. 22, 1891, James J. Hill summoned Cass Gilbert to his imposing new residence on Summit Avenue. Gilbert, a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Ecole des Beaux-Arts based architecture program, had worked in the office of the most important architecture firm in late 19th century America, McKim, Mead and White, before returning to St. Paul in 1882. A six-year partnership with James Knox Taylor dissolved about the time of this particular meeting.

Cass Gilbert. (Photo courtesy Minnesota Historical Society)

Gilbert’s career was taking off and Hill had been the benefactor of his success in Gilbert’s designs for several depots for his Great Northern Railway. When Gilbert arrived at Hill’s mansion, he found Archbishop John Ireland and Father Louis Caillet (Mary Hill’s confessor) there with his host. The purpose of their meeting was to discuss the design of new buildings for the expanding seminary. The next day, Gilbert and Archbishop Ireland drove out to see the land Ireland had selected: forty wooded acres sloping toward the east bank of the Mississippi River at the end of Summit Avenue.

Archbishop Ireland contributed to the seminary’s design as much as he could, but Hill left no doubt that he was the one who was fully in charge. Gilbert historian Geoffrey Blodgett described their encounter in Cass Gilbert: The Early Years (2001): Hill “fixed his intimidating one-eyed glare on the young architect and told him that he was answerable to Hill, not the archbishop, on all issues touching design, construction, and cost.”

Hill’s continuous intervention into the minutia of everything from heating systems to door locks must have challenged Gilbert. He regularly gave the architect a dressing-down if the slightest changes were made without his approval; and he even threatened to find someone else to work with or to stop work altogether.

Gilbert seriously considered withdrawing from the project more than once, but he saw it through to the end.

Despite the power struggle with Hill, Gilbert succeeded in producing an environment that supported Ireland’s goals: a place for the education of American priests with a  campus that engaged with its natural environment and developing residential area around it.

Gilbert designed six buildings for the seminary: an administration building, a classroom building, two dormitories, a refectory and a gymnasium. The original plans called for a chapel as well, but this was put on hold until later. Hill wanted the buildings to be plain but dignified. Gilbert responded with a pared-down aesthetic similar to the Great Northern depots he had already designed for Hill in Willmar, Grand Forks and Anoka, a safe choice since their design had already weathered Hill’s exacting scrutiny.

As Hill kept pushing Gilbert to reduce costs, the architect drew together Renaissance inspired elements to produce well-proportioned buildings with smooth brick walls, hipped roofs and arched windows. The north and south wings of the administration building housed, respectively, a private chapel and a library large enough for 20,000 volumes. The three stories of the central portion housed administrative offices, apartments for professors, a common room, parlors and reception rooms. At four stories plus the attic, the north and south dormitories each had a chapel, and together they provided enough space for each of 120 students to have two private rooms. There also were bathrooms with hot and cold water and an infirmary.

The St. Paul Seminary building, now demolished. (Photo courtesy Minnesota Historical Society)

In the two-story classroom building there were four classrooms, one of which was a “physical” and chemistry laboratory. On the second floor there was a “great hall” (also referred to as the aula maxima) with a platform at the front and seating for as many as 500 people, a space that served the community as well as seminary.

The two-story refectory housed a kitchen and dining hall described by a contemporary writer as having a “lofty ceiling of native woods, broad, old time fire place, plentiful supply of light.”

From the outside, the most notable feature of the gymnasium building that doubled as the school’s heating plant was its smokestack, complete with a Latin cross in brick relief at its uppermost reach. For recreation, the two story structure offered a large gymnasium with open trusswork and four smaller rooms, one of which was used for  reading. Although the 1893 financial panic slowed things down, the buildings were completed in 1894 at a cost of $184,268.13, well under the $200,000 budget, as Gilbert was proud to point out — and even then Gilbert had a hard time getting Hill to pay him in full.

In an article in the April 1895 issue of the Catholic University Bulletin, Father Patrick Danehy, one of the seminary’s professors, described the new buildings as being “in the North Italian style, simple, solid and impressive.” To him, “the solidity of their walls reminds one strongly of the monastic edifices of a bygone age.” For Archbishop Ireland,  on the other hand, the seminary was meant to be contemporary and forward looking, designed to meet the latest needs of the modern, American Catholic Church.

Even with its nod to tradition, the facilities the seminary provided were fully up-to-date,  from a heating plant that was reportedly so advanced that it was written up in the Engineer’s Journal, to a physics and chemistry laboratory designed to make sure the students would be well-informed when questions came up about the relationship between science and religion.

The campus also was decidedly unmonastic. Rather than clustering the buildings tightly around an inward-looking, cloister-like courtyard, Gilbert oriented all of them  northsouth and grouped them loosely, leaving a good bit of space between them. He also oriented them so that they would have a connection with the surrounding community.

Summit Avenue skirted the northern boundary of the site, and the east-west trajectory of Grand Avenue defined the campus’ main axis. This became all the more apparent when a drive – essentially an extension of Grand Avenue – was installed through the center of the court. The campus was thus connected with and open to the community, and it also provided a reason for people to come: the classroom building housed an auditorium that could seat as many as 500 people for public lectures.

Ireland’s decision to place different functions in separate buildings was an unusual choice at a time when most seminaries were housed in a single, large building. Ireland believed that seminary education ought to cultivate the body as well as the mind and spirit, and he contended that exercise should be part of the students’ education.

Ireland may have been responding to growing concerns about seminarians being too stationary and disconnected from the world, as they remained holed up in the large, all-purpose buildings where they lived and typically were educated. And he also may have imbibed the growing taste for “muscular Christianity,” a movement that advocated physical exercise as a means to the production of a form of Christianity that was robust and manly.

Physical education was becoming an increasingly important component of education, as Gilbert would find in designing buildings at the Shattuck School in Faribault, Minn., and Madison Central High School. With the campus-like arrangement Gilbert produced, the students would be compelled to get outdoors to go from building to building,  and they also would have the gymnasium available for more vigorous exercise. Beyond this, there were acres of what Danehy described as “native sward threaded with graveled walks and dotted with flower beds” where the seminarians could stroll.

The result was a campus designed to produce a new, American priesthood, through modern facilities serving a modern educational agenda, encouragement of physical as well as mental exercise, and integration with the community.

Perhaps Gilbert’s most iconic Minnesota design is the state capitol building.

By the time the seminary was ready to build its chapel, Gilbert had extricated himself from the project and moved to New York. He may have been relieved rather than offended when his architect friend Clarence Johnston was tapped to do the chapel’s design. Predictably, the seminary was known, for a time, as the Hill Seminary after its major benefactor, and its resemblance to Hill’s Great Northern railroad buildings was not lost on observers.

What remains of the St. Paul Seminary is now part of the University of St. Thomas’ south campus. Three of the buildings have been demolished and several still serve the  university community. The two dormitories – Cretin and Loras halls – have been remodeled, with the former an undergraduate student residence and the latter an office building. The gymnasiumheating plant survives as the university’s Service Center, although at one point it was considered as a potential dedicated art gallery for exhibitions, a notion that may come to be in a new fine arts building in the coming years.

In To Work for the Whole People: John Ireland’s Seminary in St. Paul (2002), author Sister Mary Christine Athans noted that designing and overseeing the construction of the Minnesota State Capitol (1895-1905) or even the United States Supreme Court Building (1928-1935) in Washington, D.C., probably was an easier task for Gilbert than building the seminary.

Even though Gilbert at times was constrained by Hill’s patronage, he stayed true to his classically inspired architectural vision and created at the end of Summit Avenue, the start of our own version of an American architecture, appropriate to the Catholic identity of those creating it.

About the authors: Victoria Young is an associate professor of modern architectural history at St. Thomas. Katherine Solomonson is an associate professor of architectural history in the College of Design at the University of Minnesota, and is working on a book documenting Gilbert’s career.

Read more from St. Thomas Magazine.

“I try to go off the beaten track when I choose where to take my students,” said George, director of bands, Symphonic Wind Ensemble and string orchestra, and chair of the St. Thomas Music Department. “I want to take them out of their comfort zone and be pushed into a different atmosphere that they wouldn’t be able to experience here.”

This wasn’t George’s first time traveling abroad to work with international composers and music ensembles. His music exchange started 19 years ago when he was invited to Mexico City to lead a weeklong seminar at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. His charge was to discuss wind band music, form an experiment ensemble and give a concert.

The trip was such a success that they invited George back and asked him to direct and form what is now the Banda Sinfonica at the Escuela Nacional de Musica of UNAM. George returned to Mexico City two to three times a year to help develop the program until they finally hired a full-time conductor. People heard of the work he did there, and George began to receive invitations to work with other international ensembles.

Listen to the fourth movement of Roger Cichy’s Bugs, a piece commissioned by the Symphonic Wind Ensemble in 1999.

George’s research has taken him around the world to learn about the different ways countries make and perform music. As a conductor, clinician and lecturer he has traveled across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Costa Rica, continental Europe, Ireland and the United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, China, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and India. He has worked with professional groups such as the National Youth Wind Orchestra of Great Britain and the Band of the People’s Liberation Army in  China. He also has conducted in prestigious venues such as the Sydney Opera House, the Oriental Arts Center in Shanghai and the National Theatre of Performing Arts as well as the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing.

Perhaps the most meaningful benefit of these shared experiences is that they have allowed George to bring international composers back to St. Thomas to write original music for his students to perform.

“I think the most unique thing we do that most other music programs don’t is to commission new works of composers, particularly from other countries,” George said. In the last 22 years they have commissioned 80 new works for the symphonic wind ensemble, and at least half of those come from international composers.

Students learn more than they anticipate from the international pieces they have performed. Philip Smithley ’15 said that the band members were challenged last fall when they were given a piece of music titled “Desi Jhalak,” meaning “A Peek Into India,” written by Bollywood composer Shamir Tandon. Smithley said there is a “vast difference in the way music is rehearsed and performed in India, where it is not notated but rather improvised after years of studying, compared to Western music where all of our music is written out.”

George smiles as he ends a performance of the String Orchestra in the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas. (Photo by Mark Brown)

Alexandra Gobell ’13 explains that the band members are often out of their “comfort zone” when performing international pieces, but that bringing the composers to St. Thomas allows them to learn about the story behind the pieces and teaches them about the composers’ native countries. Then, when possible, George takes the students to the countries where they perform such pieces as “Desi Jhalak.” Going to India was a way for the students to experience the culture of the music that they perform.

“A very important part of our touring process is the exchange of experiences. I want the students to be able to serve the culture through their music. Instead of going somewhere passively like a tourist, I want them to be immersed in the culture by meeting with their peers and trading stories and experiences of what it’s like to make music in our country, what it’s like in their country and what the differences are,” George said.

This exchange happened between Amber Neid ’14 and composer Tandon. The song was originally sent to the band in an electronic audio format without any sheet music. Neid worked with Tandon to put the song on paper so that the band could read, rehearse and perform the piece.

“That gave us a lot of practice on aural skills rather than just reading music off a piece of paper,” Neid said. “I think that made all of us better musicians. Seeing the composer light up when he heard a ‘western ensemble’ play his traditional Indian music was worth all of the work we put into it. Then, when we played it in India, it was a huge hit because it was music the audiences could relate to, but with instruments they had never seen or heard before.”

George and the students are challenged musically when working with groups of different countries, and because they are working in a new culture.

“Whenever I’m asked to conduct national music of the country I go to, it’s really intimidating because I know everyone knows it, and I’m just now learning it,” George said. “It takes a lot of study, a lot of asking questions, a lot of listening to styles of music so I approach it and seem competent.”

George has experienced many differences between how cultures approach music and rehearse. In Latin America, he learned how musicians approach rhythm differently; “What’s popular to them is highly rhythmic dances. Instead of our Top 40 music, they listen to samba and all kinds of art and dance forms. They feel these rhythms rather than read the music on the printed page.”

There are similar challenges in China where communicating meanings of the same word is expressed by tone, and George says that their music approach also is that way with bending and inflection that our language – and music – do not possess. In England or Australia, learning new terms for familiar musical functions is the challenge. “I have to think about how I’m going to say certain things and as I speak, I have to translate the terms in my brain,” George said. The same translation process happens when he must speak Spanish in Latin America. In countries where George does not know the language, however, a translator is needed, which presents numerous challenges.

Listen to a selection form Chen Qian’s Ambush! From All Sides as played by the Symphonic Wind Ensemble.

“My rehearsals are very fast-paced and to the point,” George said. “When I can’t just deliver what I want to say and I have to use a translator, I must adjust to still make it efficient. And you just hope that what the translator is saying is exactly the message that you’re trying to get across.”

In order to adapt to these situations, a certain kind of personality is needed to not only travel but also to work with people of different cultures. “If you try to force your preconceived notions onto what you’re going to experience, you’re going to be miserable. You have to have a personality that is adaptive,” George said. When he worked in Mexico, he had to get used to starting later; “When we started rehearsals at 10 a.m., we wouldn’t actually start until 11:30 a.m. At first I got upset, but then I just went with it. So, the next time we started at 11:10 a.m., then at 10:30 a.m. and then finally we started at 10 a.m. If I just tried to force it, it wouldn’t have worked.”

Traveling as part of his career was not something George expected. His first time on a plane wasn’t until he was 18 years old. Now his children, who he and his wife often bring on these trips, have seen more of the world than most adults.

“I’ve been extremely fortunate. When I started at St. Thomas I never thought my life would take me in the direction it has taken me in terms of international experiences,” George said. “The best part for me is that when I go places, people native to the culture will take me to where they go, not to where tourists go. It’s a tremendous opportunity and I feel very blessed.”

Though his interest in traveling came later in life, George’s love for music started when he was a young boy in Geneva, N.Y. “It all goes back to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass,” George said. His uncle used to have eight-track  tapes that he and his older cousin would listen to, and the sounds of Herb Alpert’s trumpet playing fascinated him.

When his cousin began to play trumpet, George was inspired to learn to play as well. He played trumpet from elementary school through high school, and then played professionally. But it was in high school when George’s interest in conducting began.

During study hall, George went to the band room to practice. When no one was watching, he stood on the podium and pretended that he was conducting a full band. Without knowing it, George was being watched by his band director. To encourage George’s interest in conducting, the band director let him rehearse a piece that George later conducted at a high school band concert.

“My life ambition was to become a high school band director,” George said. After receiving a B.M. in music education and trumpet performance from Ithaca College, he began teaching high school band in New York.

“I realized that there was more than just teaching music in high school; there’s also hall monitoring and cafeteria duty. I wasn’t interested in doing those things,” George said. So, he earned an M.M. degree in music education from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and a D.M.A. degree in conducting from the University of North Texas. During that time he also performed as a professional trumpet player and taught at the university and privately. George then came to St. Thomas in 1991.

Once a solo conductor in an empty band room, George has conducted some of the best bands and orchestras in the world, and his students are greatly benefiting from his passion and ambition. “Dr. George has been a huge inspiration for me as a future director, teacher and conductor,” Neid said. “Watching him conduct during our rehearsals has taught me a lot that I can’t learn at a desk,” Neid said.

The student musicians in Brady Educational Center practice and rehearse for perfection. But George gives them something more than notes on paper – he introduces them to the world through the music they play.

Read more from St. Thomas Magazine.

So he moved to Alaska.

“I picked Juneau thinking it was the largest city in the state since it was the capital. It wasn’t,” he said, laughing at his innocence. He didn’t know it then, but his misjudgment would prove inconsequential. His yet-to-be-lived career would fly him to the world’s most cosmopolitan cities.

As founder and executive director of the Clean Washington Center (1991 to 2006), an environmental technology center in Seattle, Dougherty brought his vision – to assist U.S. companies in processing and finding markets for recyclable materials − to manufacturers and governments around the globe.

In 2007, his work for the United Kingdom was honored by Her Majesty, the Queen of England, Elizabeth II, who bestowed on him the title “Honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.”

Dougherty said he doesn’t know who nominated him (the process is shrouded in secrecy) or why he, in particular, was selected, but he left a prolific trail of crumbs that may lead to the reason.

His story begins nearly 50 years ago in a tiny capital city on the panhandle of southeast Alaska.

“You can make a difference if you believe in something and you push for it”

Dougherty got his start at 22 in the office of Alaska Gov. William Allen Egan, the state’s first governor. (Alaska was a territory and did not officially become a state until 1959.) Egan tasked a small team that included Dougherty to secure national funding to get anti-poverty programs going for the rural villages inhabited by Eskimos and Alaska natives. Their effort was part of the national Great Society program, a plan created by President Lyndon B. Johnson to eliminate poverty and racial injustice in the United States.

“That was really transforming,” Dougherty said. “Even though I was a junior guy I realized what an impact I could make. … I realized, ‘Gee, I can make a change.’ And these were substantial changes we were making up there. Not only did we bring Head Start, we brought electricity to these villages and created co-ops for them.”

Dougherty also took part in educating Eskimos and Alaska natives on their rights to their lands − “lands that had never been ‘bought’ from them (when the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867),” Dougherty explained.

“So there was a land claims bill submitted to Congress to pay them for their land, but it wasn’t going anywhere until oil was discovered (in 1968) on the North Slope (the northernmost section of Alaska),” he said. “A judge ruled that the oil companies couldn’t build a pipeline through Alaska to Valdez until they knew who owned the land. So the oil companies jumped in with the natives and got them to push a settlement to the land-claims groups. In the end, the Eskimos and Indians received a huge settlement from the federal government, which then helped them create a more economic base and growth.”

This first job, he emphasized, “made it clear to me that you can make a difference if you believe in something and you push for it.” After several years, Dougherty and his family moved to Anchorage, where he served as assistant city manager. There he led an initiative to consolidate the city of Anchorage and all of its emerging, outlying suburbs – which had their own local governments – into one unified government. It had to go to vote, and it passed.

“I think Alaska was a good thing for me because it’s so sparsely populated that one young guy in his early 20s could make an impact,” he said.

Even so, after getting married and having two children in Alaska, Dougherty began to feel confined and isolated and wanted his kids to grow up in a bigger city with more opportunities.

Seattle and Tougher Challenges

After relocating to Seattle with his family, Dougherty took on “bigger” and “tougher” challenges as assistant director of the state’s Department of Trade and Economic Development.

Gov. Booth Gardner tasked Dougherty with helping smaller businesses get more financing, for which he created two programs − one in which the state of Washington allowed small business to make public stock offerings, an option available only to big business at the time. The other would create an economic development finance authority that would “sell nonrecourse bonds to help small business and economic expansion in the state,” Dougherty explained.

While hearing Dougherty’s testimony before the state legislative committee on behalf of his proposals (both of which passed after much effort), Maria Cantwell, the committee chair and now a U.S. senator (D-WA), played an inadvertent role in charting the course of his career.

She asked him to conduct a yearlong study to devise a plan for reducing Seattle’s ballooning collection of recyclables – a pile so massive the Wall Street Journal dubbed it “Mount Glassmore.”

Dougherty remembers how Cantwell broached the subject: “She said, ‘You know, the cities are collecting papers and plastics and glass. Where are the markets for those?’”

The question threw him for a loop. Dougherty responded with a laugh, “I don’t do garbage!”

One thing he did know: Seattle had started recycling plastic, paper, glass and aluminum, and they were piling up. He also knew the city was paying $20 per ton to ship the papers “to somewhere in Asia to do something with them,” he said.

After completing their study, Dougherty and his team “came to the conclusion that if you didn’t get the industry in your own region to figure out how to process that material and put it back into your own products then recycling wasn’t going to work. Because nobody wanted glass. Plastic companies certainly didn’t want plastic. And the paper industry could only take certain grades of paper.”

The study brought to light a number of conundrums. Dougherty asked himself: “What are the engineered properties (of the recyclable materials)? How do you process this stuff in an economical way so they can be put back into product?”

His answer to these challenging questions was the Clean Washington Center, which he created in 1991. The organization, an effective blend of industry experts and government officials, worked to create markets for recyclable material. Its offshoots continue its mission today.

The CWC was so successful that it soon received $4 million from the federal government to make its work available to other states.

Among its successes were developing markets for recyclables that resulted in an average of about $100 a year per household in avoided waste removal costs.

In 2001, Dougherty told online magazine Recycling Today, “This region has always had the capacity for paper, but we have also developed the capacity for plastics, too. Five years ago we had no capacity to use recycled plastics – mainly PET and HDPE. Now it is a different story. Our engineers went to plastic plants and helped them convert to recycled feedstock. The result is that now we have an annual capacity of 12 million pounds of PET and HDPE. … so that has worked really well.”

After helping several states develop similar programs, the CWC’s trail of success stories caught the attention of New Zealand. Hong Kong, Spain, Australia and Scotland followed suit.

That’s a WRAP

Dougherty remembers the fraught phone call he received from the United Kingdom in 2000: “I was up in Scotland helping them develop a program (Remade Scotland) when I got a call from a spokesman for the environment minister from the U.K. saying, ‘We are so far behind in recycling. … The European Union has set down regulations and if we don’t meet certain levels of recycling we get financial fines. Could you set up a center for all of the U.K., including Northern Ireland?’”

The challenge he was up against was huge. And tough.

David Dougherty’s Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire medal. (Photo by Mark Brown)

Using the CWC as a template and £84 million from the British government, Dougherty acted as a special adviser to shape the work programs and strategy that culminated in WRAP (Waste and Resources Management Programme). Among his collaborators was WRAP founding chairman Vic Cocker CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire, a rank one notch above “Officer”), brother of rock musician Joe Cocker.

Liz Goodwin, CEO of WRAP, who worked with Dougherty in the organization’s infancy, attested, “There were a lot of market failures that needed to be addressed. Some of the issues were lack of awareness, lack of infrastructure to make it easy for people, lack of reprocessing – both technology and infrastructure – lack of end markets, lack of confidence in end markets and lack of standards.”

When WRAP first began, Goodwin said, “household recycling rates (in the U.K.) were around 10 percent compared to 43 percent today. We were just starting on the journey  to increase recycling. … There hadn’t been any real focus on end markets or developing markets for the materials that were collected. There was very little infrastructure.”

WRAP was, and continues to be, a success. Its achievements include helping the U.K. recycling and reprocessing sector to quadruple in size between 2000 and 2008,  diverting 670,000 tons of food from landfills, decreasing growth in household packaging waste and developing a “world-first technology for the closed-loop recycling of plastic bottles, which has led to the creation of a new market for recycled plastics in the U.K.,” according to its website.

Dougherty’s work on WRAP did not go unnoticed.

He remembered, “I got a call at 5 a.m. from the British Embassy. He informed me ‘You have been to the U.K. a lot.’ And I thought ‘Uh oh, I’m going to need a working visa. This is not good.’”

But the man continued: “‘ … your significant contributions to the United Kingdom and other countries have been noticed, and noticed at the highest level. This culminates six months of research on you, and I’m calling to tell you Her Majesty wishes to bestow one of the highest titles on you for your contributions to the world.’”

The honor is not given liberally. Notably, that year Bono was named an honorary Knight Commander of the OBE. Few Americans have received the title. Gen. George S. Patton and Bob Hope are among the Americans honored with the title “Officer.”

A Reluctant Tree Hugger

Thinking restrospectively on his career, Dougherty said, “To be honest, I was more attracted to the prospect of making recycling work than answering a calling to be an environmentalist. My wife is more of an environmentalist than I am.”

But when you spend a couple hours with him, it becomes clear he harbors an inner tree hugger.

“I’ve never seen this as a waste issue. It was always a materials efficiency issue,” Dougherty said. “Once you take down a natural resource, how do you use it many, many times before you eventually have to discard it? As the population continues to expand, these resources are going to get scarce.”

When he reminisces about how far recycling has come in the United States and his small part in its progress, his eyes light up: “When we started recycling it was just glass, paper and aluminum. And then we expanded to plastic. With paper in the beginning they could only take certain grades of fiber, but now they can take all grades. That’s a true example of recycling. We used to cut a tree down to make the Sunday paper and it had a 20-minute life span before you threw it away. Now that same fiber gets used seven or eight times before it gets thrown away.”

In addition to his work with governments, Dougherty has innovated technologies for recycling discarded material into usable, marketable products for corporate clients. He worked with Adidas, turning shoe scraps – canvas, plastic, leather – into artificial turf and other products. In a collaboration with the Miami Heat, he worked with engineers to turn tire rubber and shoe scrap into better cushioning for the team’s practice court. He also helped facilitate the invention of rubberized asphalt from ground-up car tires,
an innovation that is laid on California roads by law and has been implemented in several other states.

“You’ve got to use those resources because this planet is going to have a lot more people and it has got be able to stretch its resources. To me it was always an issue of using our natural resources more intelligently,” the environmentalist in him said. Retired for a few years now, Dougherty “found a new challenge: working with Seattle Historic Parks.” As a board member, he is leading an initiative to create a conservatory for each of the budget-tight city’s 18 deteriorating historic parks.

In his long and decorated career, Dougherty traveled a path that took him around the world and transformed him into many things: executive, government worker, officer, problem solver, believer, even, arguably, environmentalist.

But when reflecting on the whole of his career, Dougherty’s choice of words evoke the spirit of a 22-year-old adventurer who once made his way from Minnesota to Alaska in 1965: “I didn’t plan this. I just followed the road.”

Read more from St. Thomas Magazine.

The St. Thomas Dance Team has just completed the two-minute routine it has been preparing for since its auditions in April. Dancers wait on stage at Disney’s Wide World of Sports next to the seven other Open Division teams that made it to the final round of competition in the jazz category. Hands clasped and eyes closed, they wait as teams are announced in reverse order of where they placed.

In third place: longtime rival and consummate contender Lidenwood College from Missouri. In second: regional peer College of Saint Benedict. There is only one team left to call.

According to sophomore Annie Lindberg, the most exciting moment is when second place is announced. “You want to jump up and down but you also want to be respectful of the other teams,” she said.

But when the Tommies are called, “it’s instant tears.”

Alex Brown and Julia Randall

Samantha Maroney

Ensuring there is time for homework is critical. Ulfers requires the dancers to maintain a 2.5 GPA to stay eligible for the team. “Their primary role is to be students first. That’s why they’re here,” she said.

In addition to maintaining good grades, school spirit also remains a priority. Ulfers sees it as the team’s primary commitment. “After academics, our first responsibility to St. Thomas is to be supporting athletics,” she said. It’s a responsibility the dancers take seriously, but also one in which they take great pride.

Perdew recalls performing at football games as one of the highlights on the team. “You are proud when you’re out there because it’s such a great school, such a great team,” she said. “The football team especially talks about being one big family. We feel like we get to be part of that family on game days too.”

Maroney says that the pre-game festivities that were new this year helped raise the team’s profile: “We got to talk to alumni and their kids before games and hear about how much they love to watch us perform. We would never have gotten to do that without the pre-game parties on the plaza.”

While school spirit obligations keep them busy throughout the fall, it also is the time of year that the dancers begin preparing for competition by meeting with choreographers and learning the routines they will bring to nationals. Another reason the team has been so successful, according to Ulfers, is that each year she tries to bring something innovative or different – an ironic notion, considering the team has used the same jazz choreographer for nine years, former Tommie dancer Rachel (Brenk) Doran ’07.

“Ever since she was a sophomore on our team, Rachel has been an innovator,” Ulfers said. “Besides producing beautiful choreography, she understands the scoresheet we’re judged on and makes sure to include elements that help maximize our points.”

Alex Brown

For this season’s hip-hop routine, Ulfers was looking for something new that would challenge the team. She was not disappointed. The complex choreography from Shandon Kolberg called for intricate footwork and gravity-cheating lifts and tricks that were completely new to the dancers. “When they first learned their hip-hop dance, they truly couldn’t do it,” Ulfers said. “It makes me that much more proud of our second-place finish knowing how far they’ve come with the routine.”

Back at practice, injuries are checked. Maroney applies an Icy Hot patch to her neck as Ulfers asks, “How’s it feeling? Make sure you take it easy.” It’s an unfortunate necessity in the dance community to dance through the pain. The competitive nature of the sport often teaches dancers to perform even when they are injured because there’s always someone out there willing to take your place. But while some teams operate under the assumption that everyone is replaceable, the Tommies don’t subscribe to that notion.

Wood found that out during the final week before nationals when executing one of the difficult lifts in the team’s hip-hop routine. She was nearly sidelined by a shoulder injury, and her doctor recommended she rest. Her teammates were a motivation in pushing through the pain.

Samantha Maroney, Kelly Olson and Julie Randall lift Morgan McGowan.

“The best bet,” he said, “is to surround yourself with good people, and bet on yourself.” The president, chief executive officer and sole principal of Industrial Equities L.L.P. makes the comment quietly but not arrogantly, exuding a self-assuredness that has evolved one project at a time over the last three decades.

“I sit down with my children all the time and I always tell them the same thing: have confidence in yourself,” he said. “I studied the real estate business north, south, east and  west until I knew it, and I invest in and choose projects that I understand.

“Bet on yourself and don’t rely on others who might steer you in a different direction. You have to trust your own instincts and your own judgment.”

Allen’s philosophy has allowed him to build Minneapolis-based Industrial Equities into a commercial real estate investment, development and management firm with a portfolio of nearly 3 million square feet. His Windsor Development of Florida, a residential development company, has completed 1,500 lots in Minnesota, Arizona and Florida, and he has developed several hotels.

Projects like those are a long way from Suamico, Wis., north of Green Bay, where Allen grew up the second oldest of six children. He enrolled at Northland College in Ashland, Wis., to major in social science, minor in history and political science, and play outside linebacker in football and center in basketball.

After graduating in 1977, Allen moved to Minnesota and law school at Hamline University. He had no intention of practicing law but he believed a legal background would  better enable him “to think logically and intelligently in understanding the complexities of business and politics.”

A magazine article piqued his interest in the real estate sector, and Coldwell Banker Commercial Real Estate Services hired him – “the first and only job I ever interviewed for” – as an industrial broker in January 1981. His first deal involved an 800-square-foot lease and within two years he was one of the top five producers in the firm’s Edina office.

“John had an overriding resolve to excel and succeed, and I also saw a guy who was very proud of his family,” said Ken Sandstad, the Coldwell Banker executive who hired both Allen and Patrick Ryan ’75, now president and CEO of Ryan Companies and a fellow St. Thomas trustee with Allen. “I have seen many people who say they are highly motivated and driven, but in the end they do not live up to the talk. John always did. The pride in his family stood out for me, too.”

Allen remained with Coldwell Banker until 1995, advancing to become senior vice president and arranging more than 10 million square feet of sales and lease transactions,  and he also struck out on his own in 1983. He founded Industrial Equities because “ultimately, I wanted to develop my own portfolio,” and he has long favored institutional-grade industrial properties with the most up-to-date technology, extensive glass, ample parking and attractive landscaping.

“We are very nimble and engaged,” he said, referring to a “guerilla development” strategy that allows him “to get in, don’t take too big a bite out of the apple, get the deal  done and then move on to the next investment.” It’s important to always manage risk, especially in challenging economic times.

“We also have to remain focused,” he said. “We have resisted the temptation to go in other real estate directions. We did some hotels and residential lots and had really  good runs, but our best thrust is multitenant, institutional-grade industrial projects. We understand the market demands – and what is going to lease.”

Lee Anderson, a fellow St. Thomas trustee who owns more than 30 construction related companies, admires Allen’s ability to assess a project’s potential and move quickly if he deems it a good fit.

“John sees opportunities where others might not,” Anderson said. “He knows how to size up a good deal. He has an engaging personality, and he uses it to his advantage. People like being around John.”

Dee Ann Stinebaugh, a 1988 St. Thomas alumna, has worked for Allen since 1995 and today serves as director of property management at Industrial Equities. She calls her boss “super driven,” with an innate sense as to whether a project will work.

“He has made so many right decisions along the way, and he also has walked away from some deals that could have been bad,” she said. “He has the touch.”

Most Allen projects fly below the public radar, but one that didn’t was his proposal last year to construct a 68,000-square-foot office and warehouse building on the north side of Interstate 94, east of Highway 280 in St. Paul.

The project complied with all city requirements and industrial zoning codes, but the city council voted “no” in response to neighborhood concerns about design and parking. Allen successfully sued the city and expects to open the warehouse this year.

“I’m not litigious by nature,” Allen said, “but in this case I had to protect my investment. This will be a good project for St. Paul, with more new jobs (150) and more taxes for the city.”

Among Allen’s hobbies – and one he shares with Anderson – is restoring wooden boats, which he keeps on property he owns on Gull Lake in northern Minnesota. He has acquired 22 boats; the oldest, Chief Mackinac, is a 1917, 32-foot launch constructed by Consolidated, and the youngest dates to 1955.

“Gull Lake is one of my favorite places to be,” Allen said. “Lee encouraged me to get into antique boats and I have thoroughly enjoyed them. We have a healthy collection and competition.”

Allen’s fondness for Gull Lake led him to purchase the legendary Bar Harbor Supper Club in Lake Shore. The original 1938 restaurant burned down in 1968 and was rebuilt twice before Allen purchased it last year with an eye toward an extensive renovation that would recall its past.

“Bar Harbor’s historic presence appealed to me,” he said. “Three and four generations of families have dined and danced there. After the renovation, an older gentleman told me, ‘I am 92, and I have been coming here every summer since 1938. I thought I would hate what you’ve done, but I love it!’”

Allen jokes that Bar Harbor “never will make my Top 10 deals from a standpoint of profitability,” but he has no regrets. As he examined the project, he chose to move ahead in large measure because he believed it would benefit the community.

And it was, he might have added, another example of betting on himself.

Read more from St. Thomas Magazine.

Talk to St. Thomas graduates working in journalism, and they don’t take long to get around to it. Here’s Ryan Shaver, sports anchor at KIMT-TV in Mason City, Iowa: “I think the only surprise was how much work the Real World is. I knew that we were going to be turning out stories, but my first day on the job I had two voice-overs and a package. I was used to having a week to turn in stuff.

“So even though the deadlines were harsh at TommieMedia, I was just not expecting the amount of work that goes into my job now.”

Shaver ’12 is among the first group of graduates from the Communication and Journalism program who didn’t have a chance to work for The Aquin, the venerable student newspaper that had operated on the St. Thomas campus since 1933. Shaver earned his stripes working for TommieMedia, the online student-operated news organization that replaced The Aquin in 2009. Shaver served as TM’s sports editor, production editor and, finally, as its director.

He and 10 other TommieMedia veterans stepped into the Real World in May 2012. Those of us who keep an eye on the Real World of journalism were a bit surprised when all 11 found jobs in their desired field.

Dana Ashby is one. She was TommieMedia’s advertising and public relations director in spring 2012, a position that did not exist with the ad-free Aquin. Ashby works as a digital media coordinator at Periscope, an advertising agency in Minneapolis.

“My boss says on a weekly basis, ‘I only hired you because you knew what media was,’ and I learned that at TommieMedia,” Ashby said. “I was doing sales at TommieMedia, and I learned what this area was because that’s what we did there.”

Her job at Periscope is “more behind the scenes of working with that ad server and being able to monitor different campaigns and being able to interact with clients immediately.”

“TommieMedia gave me those decision-making opportunities and showed me the consequences with this real living, breathing digital experience,” she said.

The Real World was a concern among those of us who laid The Aquin to rest and replaced it with the brave, new whirlwind TommieMedia, one of the first online student-operated news organizations in the country. The goal was to reflect what was happening in the Real World.

At the time, the Real World of journalism was changing rapidly. Newspapers cut staff as revenue from retail, national and classified advertising tumbled. The Pew Research Center reported that print advertising revenue nationwide fell from a peak of $49 billion a year in 2006 to about $27.5 billion in 2009, when the plot to kill The Aquin was hatched. Online advertising revenue was growing, while the cost of printing and delivering thousands of papers every day seemed less and less sustainable.

We watched thousands of dollars each year go for printing 11 editions of 2,600 copies of The Aquin for a student population of more than 11,000. Even with those few copies, The Aquin would pile up in the Murray-Herrick post office like fallen leaves.

CAS Associate Dean Kris Bunton, chair of the Communication and Journalism Department at the time, set TommieMedia in motion. We would merge The Aquin and Campus Scope, a periodic television news magazine, into one website. Campus Scope adviser Tim Scully came onboard as a TM adviser, as did I and professors Mark Neuzil for his editorial experience, Greg Vandegrift for his video reporting experience and Craig Bryan, who would lead the students in our new advertising venture. The website launched in September 2009.

We were further ahead of the curve than we thought.

Print Still Reigns

Imagine my surprise when Shane Kitzman ’10 told me that newspaper design was something he wished TommieMedia had taught him. Kitzman, the last Aquin editor and second TommieMedia director, took the job of sports editor at the Northfield News after he graduated. When he said this over sandwiches at a Northfield eatery, Jordan Osterman, current Northfield News sports editor, and Miles Trump, sports editor of the Waseca County News, nodded in agreement.

“When I went into the Real World, and when he did and he did, you had to be able to design a page,” Kitzman said. “So TommieMedia was great, but the first position that you get when you come out of school will probably have a design element. I had to learn on the fly.”

“That’s where you start,” Osterman said. “If you’re in print, it’s going to be at a weekly newspaper.”

Print operations still generate far more income in the Real World of community journalism than does online advertising. Video skills are prized, too, but print reigns.

“They love [video] at small newspapers,” Kitzman said. “They drool over that.”

“But at the same time, they didn’t hire you to do that video, to be a video person for them,” Osterman added.

“Video is like this added bonus,” Trump said, “but it’s not like this mandatory part of your day-to-day job, whereas layout is.”

The fact is, print advertising still accounts for far more revenue than the online edition.

“We hear it all the time that print is still where we make our money,” Osterman said. “And maybe somewhere down the line, it will be online, but right now, print is still the money horse.”

So did TM fail in preparing them for the Real World? No. Community journalism is the art of doing everything, and doing everything is something TommieMedia stresses. All three of these TommieMedia veterans found success at small papers. They represent the past three winners of the Minnesota Newspaper Association’s Best Young Journalist award for weekly papers.

Sean Crotty covers a men’s basketball game. (Photos by Mike Ekern ’02)

Kitzman moved from Northfield in July 2012 to become a Web producer for WCCO-TV in Minneapolis. Like Shaver, Kitzman has found the TommieMedia experience to be right in line with his new job.

“I loved the print,” Kitzman said. “I loved having a finished product that could be so set in stone and so tangible.

“Now at WCCO.com, it’s just like TommieMedia again, where my work is cool for one day, but then I haven’t done anything for a day. If I don’t create a blog for one day, the next day it’s deadly. I really didn’t do much that day.”

TommieMedia provides the greatest gains for St. Thomas students interested in broadcasting, advertising and public relations. TM produces daily video news and sports reports, and weekly studio shows. Its ad people have built a growing clientele, and the PR staff does everything from signing up students for email updates to handing out TM goodies at football games.

Shaver said TommieMedia’s hands-on approach has served him well.

“I learned a lot about the basics of writing and editing,” Shaver said, “but just that we had our own TV studio, and had people like Professor Vandegrift, who had been in the business, really prepared me for what I was getting myself into. People like Professor Scully could go over my video for things that were as simple as lighting an interview.

“When I got to my real job, my bosses were really impressed that I knew how to light an interview, how to frame things like that, and they didn’t have to sit down and teach me to do all that stuff over again.”

Shaver and Kitzman agreed that for online journalism, TommieMedia gets it right. Kitzman uses the same content-management system at WCCO that he used at TommieMedia, while Shaver said KIMT’s system is much like it. And each of these alumni said TommieMedia’s emphasis on using social media is crucial.

“Twitter is one of the most powerful tools we have that we use on a day-to-day basis,” Trump said. “It’s how we engage with everyone.”

Engaging Readers … and Student Journalists

TommieMedia has been engaging people like The Aquin never could. Online analytics show that for Nov. 15 to Dec. 15, 2012, the last month of the fall semester, 24,250 “unique” visitors came to the site 50,193 times and viewed 122,026 pages. They came to the TM website from 97 countries and translated its pages into 60 languages.

The most-viewed page for the month profiled Tommie Award finalists (3,177 views), followed by the memorial service for a student who died on campus (2,678). Athletics was a big draw, topped by 1,298 viewers for the football team’s national semifinal victory and 1,004 viewers for St. Thomas’ victory in the volleyball national championship game.

Having thousands of people see your work is about as real as it gets. Finding value and reward in your work is even better. The greatest contribution TommieMedia makes might be in hooking 35 to 50 students a semester on the Real World of journalism.

“I never worked at The Aquin,” Trump said, adding that he enjoys online journalism because TommieMedia was where he “first jumped into journalism.”

“I enjoy more the fact that online, there is a sports section that can be constantly changed and updated,” Trump said, “because I just see that everything is constantly moving, that the media is constantly changing and constantly flowing, and I have this area where people can go to check the progress as these teams play. I like that.”

Read more from CAS Spotlight.

St. Thomas Day recognizes the extraordinary contributions that members of the St. Thomas community have made to the university and the wider community. The awards that are presented on St. Thomas Day were instituted over a period of 60 years.

St. Thomas Day events began with Mass in the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas led by Archbishop Emeritus Harry Flynn, chair of the university’s Board of Trustees. A dinner and awards program followed in Woulfe Alumni Hall, Anderson Student Center. More than 500 members of the St. Thomas community attended.

Father Dennis Dease, president of the University of St. Thomas, was pleasantly stunned at the St. Thomas Day awards Wednesday night when he was presented with the Distinguished Alumnus Award.

This marked the first year the recipient of the award was kept hush-hush until the night of the ceremony.

Dr. Rachel Wobschall, executive director of Alumni and Constituent Relations at St. Thomas, said, “The Alumni Association Board of Directors unanimously nominated and approved Father Dease. We decided to keep it a secret because of Father Dease’s humility − we thought he might not accept it if he knew about it.”

Dease’s brothers, sisters and other family members showed up at the dinner to surprise him, but he did not read anything into their appearance other than to think they were there to help him celebrate his final St. Thomas Day as president. He also did not read the printed program at his table, listing him as the Distinguished Alumnus Award winner, so when his named was announced he had a surprised look on his face. He received two standing ovations from the capacity crowd In Woulfe – one after his name was announced and the other after a video was played.

Nominations for the Distinguished Alumnus/Alumna, Humanitarian and Lavin awards are welcome throughout the year but are required by July 1 for consideration for the following year’s St. Thomas Day. For forms and more information on how to submit a nomination, visit the Alumni Association website.

Distinguished Alumnus Award

Father Dennis Dease took office as president of St. Thomas on July 1, 1991, but he has a longer association – nearly 50 years – with the university and the St. Paul Seminary.

A native of Corcoran, Minn., he taught theology at the College of St. Thomas and served as spiritual director and dean of formation at the St. Paul Seminary. Ordained into the Roman Catholic priesthood in 1969, Father Dease has myriad degrees: a B.A. in Latin and philosophy, a Master of Divinity degree from the St. Paul Seminary, an M.A. degree in counseling psychology from St. Thomas and a Ph.D. in systematic theology from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

In 1982 he joined the St. Thomas Board of Trustees. He served rector of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis from 1985 to 1991.

The university grew significantly and made many notable achievements during his 22-year tenure, including:

• Establishment of a Minneapolis campus and constructed four buildings for programs in business, law, education and professional psychology
• Construction of a dozen major buildings on the St. Paul campus, including a student center, an athletic and recreation complex, a science and engineering center, a business building, two apartment-style residence halls and a parking ramp
• A new campus in Rome (2000)
• New academic programs in law, Catholic studies, mechanical and electrical engineering, entrepreneurship and Irish studies, and quadrupled study-abroad participation with semesterlong programs based in London and Rome and many opportunities during January Term
• A tripled student-of-color population as well as a tripled number of international students.
• $765 million raised in two capital campaigns – $250 million in the Ever Press Forward campaign, which concluded in 2001, and $515 million in the Opening Doors campaign, which came to a close last October.
• Accreditation from national or international associations for all major graduate programs.

Dease will retire as president of St. Thomas June 30 this year.

Professor of the Year

Dr. Mark Neuzil, a member of the Communication and Journalism Department, will receive this year’s Professor of the Year Award. Neuzil, who joined St. Thomas in 1993, also serves as director of St. Thomas’ Office for Mission and is an adviser to TommieMedia.com.

He is the author or co-author of four books with environmental themes: Mass Media and Environmental Conflict: America’s Green Crusades, co-written with William Kovarik; Views of the Mississippi: The Photographs of Henry Bosse, which won a Minnesota Book Award; A Spiritual Field Guide: Meditations for the Outdoors, co-written with Dr. Bernard Brady; and The Environment and the Press: From Adventure Writing to Advocacy.

Neuzil earned a bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University, and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Minnesota.

Humanitarian of the Year

Charles Lugemwa ’03 M.M.S.E. will be honored with the 2013 Humanitarian of the Year Award for his work with Hope Medical Clinics. Lugemwa co-founded the Ugandan clinics with Father Dennis Dease.

A native Ugandan, Lugemwa serves as in-country director of Hope Medical Clinics Uganda and is manager of data management in the IT Division of the Uganda Revenue Authority.

Hope Medical Clinics Uganda provides people access to health care services, regardless of income. The organization operates clinics in the Kampala suburbs of Ndejje and Kasubi, and the Ruth Gaylord Maternity and Pediatric Hospital, which opened in January 2012.

Lugemwa lives in Kampala, Uganda, with his wife, Maria, and their three children.

Monsignor James Lavin Award

Don Traxler ’50, retired president of Northern Star Co., is the recipient of this year’s Monsignor James Lavin Award. Established in 1994, the award honors a volunteer for his or her service to the St. Thomas Alumni Association. Traxler has served the alumni community for decades as a volunteer and active participant, most notably as a member of the Old Guard and its annual reunion committees.

As a student at St. Thomas, he majored in business administration – general business management and economics. The parents of nine children, Traxler and his wife, Dolores, have provided scholarship support to St. Thomas students, and Traxler has been a member of the President’s Council since 1986.

Tommie Award

Eyo Ekpo of Andover, Minn., was voted recipient of the Tommie Award by St. Thomas faculty, staff and students. He is an entrepreneurship and finance double major. He also is a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, an international business honor society; Delta Epsilon Sigma, a national scholastic honor society; and Delta Sigma Pi, a professional business fraternity; HANA, a multicultural student organization; Practicing Entrepreneurs; Senior Legacy; Real Estate Society; Undergraduate Business Council; and Tommie Ambassadors.

An athlete in varsity football and varsity track and field, Ekpo also served as a representative on the Student Athletic Advisory Committee. In track and field, he was named an NCAA All-American four times, to the All-America Academic team three times and a national runner-up for the CoSIDA First-Team All-America.

The Tommie Award is sponsored by the Division of Student Affairs and is awarded annually to a senior who best represents the ideals of St. Thomas Aquinas through scholarship, leadership and campus involvement.

Catholic Identity
• Co-sponsored and hosted “Catholic Higher Education: Practice and Promise,” a national conference attended by 450 educators from 130 colleges in 1995.
• Established the Center for Catholic Studies, the first such program in the country, in 1993. The center has bachelor’s and master’s degrees and institutes in Catholic Leadership, Catholic Social Thought, and Catholic Thought, Law and Public Policy, and publishes the journal Logos.
• Opened the Bernardi Campus in Rome in 2000.
• Opened the School of Law, with its distinctive mission of “integrating faith and reason in the search for truth,” in 2001.
• Established the Murray Institute, which has provided 700 teachers and principals in archdiocesan schools with tuition-free education specialist and master’s degrees and certificates since 1992.
• Helped to strengthen two affiliated seminaries; enrollment of men preparing for the priesthood at the St. Paul Seminary grew in 2012 to 104, the highest since 1980, and St. John Vianney Seminary enrollment set a record of 165 in 2009.
• Renovated the sanctuary of the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Community Engagement and Community Service
• Established Business 200, a 40-hour community service requirement for undergraduate business majors, in 1991. More than 11,500 students have donated 460,000 hours at 4,000 different service sites in 27 states and 21 countries.
• Serves as the authorizer of six charter schools in the Twin Cities area; three charter schools first were sponsored by St. Thomas in 2000.
• Established the Interprofessional Center for Counseling and Legal Services, a collaboration among the School of Law, School of Social Work and Graduate School of Professional Psychology, in 2003.
• Created the Jay Phillips Center for Jewish-Christian Learning in 1996 by combining similar programs at St. Thomas and St. John’s; the center was renamed the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning in 2009.
• Became the home for ThreeSixty Journalism, a program to strengthen the writing skills, civic literacy and college-readiness of teenagers, in 2001.
• Established the Center for Intercultural Learning and Community Engagement in 2008 to replace the Center for Community Partnerships in supporting community and service learning programs.

Facilities
• Initiated 20 major building projects with an investment of $350 million.
• Established a downtown Minneapolis campus with four buildings – Terrence Murphy Hall (1992), Opus Hall (1999), School of Law (2002) and Schulze Hall (2005) – and commissioned the fresco project on virtues in Terrence Murphy Hall.
• Opened three academic buildings in St. Paul – O’Shaughnessy and Owens Science halls in the Frey Science and Engineering Center (1997) and McNeely Hall (2006) – and renovated Albertus Magnus Hall for seven departments, renaming it the John R. Roach Center for the Liberal Arts (2000).
• Improved campus and residential life experiences by opening Morrison Hall (1998), Flynn Hall (2005) and three Anderson buildings: Parking Facility (2009), Athletic and Recreation Complex (2010) and Student Center (2012).
• Reached agreement with the City of St. Paul on a Conditional Use Permit to govern the redevelopment of the two blocks bounded by Summit, Cleveland, Grand and Cretin avenues (2004).
• Dedicated architect Frank Gehry’s renowned Winton Guest House at Gainey Conference Center in Owatonna (2011) after moving the house from its original site on Lake Minnetonka.
• Moved the Child Development Center into its own building at Grand Avenue and Finn Street (2005); it began in Christ Child Hall (1998).

Financial Stewardship
• Raised $765 million in two capital campaigns: Ever Press Forward ($250 million from 24,387 benefactors, concluded in 2001) and Opening Doors ($515 million, 43,359 donors, 2012).
• Grew investments from $122 million to $442 million (+262 percent).
• Increased the number of annual donors from 6,499 in 1991 to 15,419 in 2012, and increased faculty and staff participation in the Annual Fund from 17 percent in 2002 to a record 58 percent in 2012.
• Received $15.5 million in federal funds for planning and construction of the Frey Science and Engineering Center.

Institutional
• Adopted a new mission statement in 2004: “Inspired by Catholic intellectual tradition, the University of St. Thomas educates morally responsible leaders who think critically, act wisely and work skillfully to advance the common good.”
• Began using the tagline, “Challenge Yourself, Change Our World” in 2003, replacing “Come Prepared to Learn, Leave Prepared to Succeed.”
• Set enrollment records of 11,570 (overall) in 2001, 6,336 (undergraduate) in 2012 and 6,154 (graduate) in 2001. Students of color tripled (to 14 percent in 2012) and international students tripled (to 401 in 2012).
• Increased four-year graduation rate from 42 percent to 60 percent and five-year graduation rate from 63 percent to 72 percent.

Honors and Recognition

• Cited as early as 1992 by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top 15 (among 122) regional institutions in the Midwest, and achieved its highest ranking in the national universities category in 2012: No. 113 (among 281).
• Ranked by the Institute for International Education as high as first nationally (in 2005) and regularly in the top 10 among doctoral universities for undergraduate participation in study abroad programs, which more than quadrupled (216 students in 1991-92 to 915 in 2011-12).
• Designated in 2006 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as one of 76 U.S. institutions in a new “Community Engagement” classification.
• Received (Dease) the National Catholic Education Association’s highest honor, the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Award, in 2008 for lifelong work as a Catholic educator.

Even when discussing the financial benefits, many people, including the national media, make a serious error in focusing exclusively on the first job for which the college senior is prepared. While everyone is relieved when the graduate finds that first paid position, the most important thing about that job is that it leads to a second one, which leads to a third and so on. I am reminded of this fact on the many happy occasions when I run into a former student. Among other of their life’s details, I am always interested to learn where their career paths have taken them. While I never could have predicted in advance where their paths would lead, I am never surprised by even the most unexpected of outcomes. This is because I know that their liberal arts education has prepared them for just about anything.

As a result of their liberal arts education, students do not receive only a limited body of knowledge with which they might practice a profession. Were that the case, many people who graduated 20 years ago would no longer be employable, since the profession for which they might have thought to be training no longer exists. That they still are employable, and that students of today will continue to be employable 20 years in the future, has little to do with any job-related information they may have received and much more to do with important skills they learned. These would include critical-thinking skills, problem-solving skills and the ability to consider new ideas on one’s own – to become a lifelong learner.

I believe these learned skills, and others, are the ones that lead our students successfully along their career paths. I was reminded of this fact while reading this year’s Star Tribune feature on 10 Minnesota business leaders to watch in 2013. For those featured, the single most popular college major field of study was history, a major chosen by three of the 10. Other majors included psychology, political science and philosophy.

Obviously, liberal arts graduates do not begin their careers at the top, but the skills they learn in college help lead them there. Let’s be sure to include that fact when calculating the return on investment.

Read more from CAS Spotlight.

Tonia Bock

Consider for a moment two extreme historical examples: Martin Luther King Jr. and Adolph Hitler. The degree to which each was a good person is a rather stark contrast. One worked to alleviate gross societal injustices and oppression while the other worked to instigate it. How did each get to be such a person?

We can look to historical biographical sources, of course, to help answer this question. Yet we also want a more general answer that applies not only to these two individuals but also to you and me, and our young generation in particular. How do infants become morally upright adults? Ultimately, psychologists studying morality, such as myself, want to understand moral development so that we can inform teachers how to facilitate, strengthen and support future generations’ moral character. Some psychologists (e.g., the late Lawrence Kohlberg) dedicate their entire career to advance our knowledge of moral development so that we can educate our young to be more like King and less like Hitler.

One of the first generations of psychologists studying moral development (e.g., Kohlberg) focused on understanding how our reasoning about right and wrong changes from childhood to adulthood. The psychologists believed that adults who grow to reason in morally principled ways will behave morally. Plato once said, “To know the good is to do the good.” If we know the morally principled thing to do, then we will do just this. Right? Certainly this early generation of psychologists believed as much. Many studies since have shown that the psychologists weren’t necessarily wrong – there is a positive correlation between moral reasoning development and moral behavior; however, the correlation, even though it is statistically significant, is pretty small, meaning that knowing the right thing to do does not always lead to the person doing the right thing. We have countless examples of this from history as well as from our everyday lives. We regularly see news stories about politicians and Hollywood stars who do things they know are wrong. If we look closely at ourselves, we see that we also sometimes do things we know are wrong, except that unlike the politicians and stars, our wrongdoings are not usually news headlines.

So if people know the right thing to do, why don’t they just do it? This question has inspired some psychologists studying morality to turn their attention away from moral knowledge and reasoning to a concept called moral identity. What is moral identity? It is generally defined as the degree to which moral concerns (e.g., justice, caring, generosity) are a central part of one’s identity (i.e., your sense of who you are). It is a somewhat new concept, with psychologists starting to develop slightly different conceptualizations. Regardless of how psychologists are conceptualizing moral identity, they all assume and are interested in individual differences, meaning that some individuals have a strong moral identity while others have a weak one. Individuals with a very strong moral identity prioritize moral commitments over all other nonmoral commitments, obligating themselves to live consistently with their respective moral concerns; thus, one who has a strong moral identity would feel compelled to be a good person, at least respective to his or her prioritized moral commitments. Theoretically, then, these people would not only know the good but also prioritize and consistently do the good. A person with a weak moral identity, on the other hand, would highly prioritize nonmoral commitments (e.g., having wealth, being attractive, being popular) over moral commitments; thus, he or she would be more likely to know the right thing to do but not act accordingly with their knowledge, presumably because they are more driven by their highly prioritized nonmoral commitments.

Being a psychologist who studies morality, I of course find this notion of moral identity to be quite fascinating. My particular interest in this area surrounds two specific questions: How do we think moral identity is developed over time? How do we best assess people’s moral identity? Given that psychologists are still working on their theoretical conceptualizations of moral identity, there is a lot of work to be done on answering both of these questions. I’ll briefly sketch out some of the ideas and challenges that lie ahead for us.

If psychologists presume that individuals vary in how strong their moral identity is, then they should have some idea about how these differences emerge over time; currently, it seems we have some very general ideas. Some psychologists mention the importance of parenting in early childhood, describing how parents who frequently, consistently and jointly attend to the moral dimensions of situations with their young child will help them to not only build mental images of what it means to be a moral person but also construct memories of morally relevant events and interactions.

Other psychologists have focused on the importance of moral identity formation in adolescence. According to them, adolescence is a time of unique growth in cognitive, social and personal understandings. Individuals in their teens (and early 20s) become better able to construct more complex notions of who they are, now being able to incorporate abstract ideals and traits, possibly moral, into their sense of identity. To date, the most specific theory of moral identity formation argues that individuals must simultaneously develop and increasingly prioritize the values of (a) benevolence and (b) achievement. As the theory goes, these two values are initially independent from one another. As they become increasingly prioritized, the person cannot allocate his or her attention and resources to both – the person either needs to choose one over the other or integrate them. According to this theory, those who integrate the values of benevolence and achievement in their goals and commitments are those who have the strongest moral identity. Initial research has supported such a developmental model, but there is a long road ahead to more fully verifying it. It is hoped that additional explanations and models of moral identity development will also be advanced in the near future to paint a more complete picture of moral identity development from birth through old age.

My other interest in moral identity is how we should best assess it. The currently existing assessments have faced some rather serious criticisms. A few paper-pencil surveys of moral identity exist. The advantages of this type of assessment are that they are very easy for researchers to use and participants to complete. For example, one assessment has several virtues listed at the top of the survey (e.g., caring, fair, generous). Participants are then asked to indicate whether they agree or disagree with several statements about the importance of these virtues. Not surprisingly, all participants rate these virtues as being important to who they are. Individual differences exist, but they are very small.

The main criticism is that surveys such as these underestimate the individual differences in moral identity because, well, who would want to acknowledge that these virtues are not important to them? Psychologists call this social desirability bias, and it is a frequent issue in any research that deals with morality.

The other type of moral identity assessments are lengthy, intensive individual interviews. Social desirability is less of an issue because researchers ask rather general open-ended questions about how the interviewees describe themselves. The main disadvantage, though, is the time and energy it takes psychologists to not only conduct the interviews but also reliably code and analyze the data. Few researchers use this method, and when they do, it takes a rather long time to complete the entire research process.

These are just a few examples of the issues and challenges that researchers currently face in studying moral identity. I am quite confident that exciting theories and research are yet to come. I am most curious about how important researchers will find moral identity to be in doing the good. Maybe one day we can modify Plato’s saying to read, “To prioritize the good is to do the good.”

Read more from CAS Spotlight.

Five teenagers had been on a Saturday morning duck hunt on Lake Elysian in southern Minnesota. Their boat had capsized, and one was missing. Trump, the paper’s sports editor, sports reporter, sports photographer, sports columnist and sports-page designer, soon found himself in the middle of a heart-wrenching story about an athlete dying young.

Brady Hruska, 17, was a wide receiver for the Waterville-Elysian-Morristown High School football team that was to face Medford that night in the state playoffs.

“I was the one who found out that he died that morning,” Trump said. “Then I was the first one to go out to the scene, and authorities were still looking for his body in the lake.”

Trump posted reports of Hruska’s death on the paper’s website, with pictures of the search effort. After the playoff game that evening, he wrote about the community’s tribute to one of its children. His story, including a photo slide show, was a tribute as well to the small towns he serves around Waseca and to the art of community journalism.

In the next two days, he added a news story about the accident – full of the details and quotes that are the hallmark of good reporting – and a touching column about how proud he was to be part of the Waseca County community. A close reading of those stories shows why Trump deserved to be honored in January by the Minnesota Newspaper Association as New Journalist of the Year for a weekly paper.

Trump is the third TommieMedia veteran in three years to win the award. Jordan Osterman won in 2011 when he was at the Waseca County News, and Shane Kitzman was honored in 2010 when he was the Northfield News sports editor – the job Osterman now holds. They all worked together at TommieMedia in various leadership roles, and in the small world of Minnesota journalism, their lives remain intertwined.

That October Saturday, Trump did not write his usual “gamer” about WEM’s playoff victory.

“What they wanted me to do was write a community reaction story for the football game,” Trump said, “and then they needed someone to actually cover the game, because it was a playoff game. So Jordan came down.”

The Northfield News and the Waseca County News are owned by the same company, Huckle Media, and often share resources.

“You kind of have to, because for sports, especially, it’s only one guy per place,” Osterman said.

But Osterman’s stake in the story was personal, too.

“I’d covered that kid and that team the whole year before, so I knew him pretty well,” Osterman said.

As the story broke, Kitzman was working a shift as Web producer for WCCO-TV in Minneapolis. One of his practices was to monitor Twitter for breaking news.

“We only found out because I was reading (Miles’) tweets that were retweeted by Owatonna,” Kitzman said. “When I saw that come down, I thought, ‘Oh boy, oh boy.’”
WCCO sent a satellite truck and reporter Reg Chapman to cover the story.

Trump grew up in Mankato, 30 miles from Waseca. Kitzman is from Northfield, and Osterman is from St. Paul. With their ties to the area and their experience at TommieMedia, the three are well-suited for the do-everything duties of community journalism. For Trump, those tasks have their own special rewards.

In a column he wrote shortly after Hruska died, Trump told about an incident at a Waseca High School volleyball game. A chant started in the student section:

“WE LOVE MILES, CLAP-CLAP, CLAP-CLAP CLAP.”

“That, I can honestly say, was one of the higher points in my life,” Trump wrote, adding that he wasn’t telling the story to brag.

“I feel blessed to have a job that’s appreciated in the community,” he wrote.

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Questions of how the nervous system influences human behavior can be traced to 3,000 years B.C., when an Egyptian surgeon noticed that soldiers suffering particular head injuries displayed specific kinds of behavioral changes. Nearly 2,500 years later, Hippocrates taught that the brain was the origin of all intellect and emotions. But without the ability to directly observe its complex inner workings, medieval physicians and philosophers discounted the impact of the brain, and attributed thoughts and emotions to other internal organs. Depression, for instance, was said to be caused by an excess of black bile in the liver. This perspective was highly influential, and it persists in some aspects of the modern world, where a Valentine’s Day card evokes feelings of love by showing a heart, rather than a brain.

Although philosophers, poets and playwrights through the centuries could draw upon introspection to gain insight into the mind, the scientific study of the brain was not possible until technology helped to solve key mysteries of its fundamental nature. At the turn of the 20th century, a few scientists applied techniques borrowed from photography, electricity and biology to carefully study the brain and nervous system. Further technological breakthroughs in physics, chemistry and computing during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s allowed nerve cells and brain circuits to be examined directly, and the seeds of neuroscience were planted.

True to these roots, modern neuroscientists approach some of the most intriguing questions in biology and human behavior from a wide range of perspectives. Neuroscience is an interdisciplinary endeavor in which scientists weave webs of collaboration through seemingly distant fields. Molecular biologists who study DNA collaborate with psychologists who use carefully crafted behavioral experiments to explore how genes affect memories. Even the Dalai Lama has paired with functional anatomists to help investigate how meditation impacts the brain. Such a wide range of perspectives and collaborations can bring about insights into human thought and behavior that would not have been possible a decade ago; however, this complexity also can make neuroscience a difficult subject for undergraduates to explore.

Evolution and Growth

At the University of St. Thomas, undergraduate study in neuroscience can trace its origins to a “behavioral neuroscience” concentration first offered by the Psychology Department in 1990; however, this early program did not reflect the interdisciplinary nature of modern neuroscience. As psychology professor Roxanne Prichard noted, “The major did not require much biology, chemistry or advanced math.” Upon being hired in 2006, one of Prichard’s first tasks was to make sure the program addressed the breadth of the field and prepared students to compete for positions in top neuroscience graduate programs. The result was the creation of a new interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience, jointly administered by the Biology and Psychology departments. The program began in 2008, offering a bachelor of science degree in neuroscience. Three faculty members were officially affiliated with the fledgling program, and one student graduated with a neuroscience major that year.

The low initial numbers masked tremendous growth the program would soon face. Two more faculty members were hired in 2009 (one each in biology and psychology), and as word spread about the new program, it quickly gained popularity for its interdisciplinary approach. Sibel Dikmen, now a senior, recalled being attracted to the program her freshman year: “I liked that the neuroscience major adds diversity to the sciences. From an educational standpoint, the Neuroscience Program forced me to broaden my horizons.”

A student works with a microscopic section of brain tissue at a Cryostat machine during a neuroscience class. (Photo by Mark Brown)

Evan Eid, a 2010 graduate who is now a researcher with the Environmental Protection Agency in Duluth, Minn., said the Neuroscience Program provided him with the motivation and focus to complete his studies. “When I heard about the neuroscience major, I jumped at the opportunity. Neuroscience opened up such a fascinating world for me,” Eid said. “I saw my professors’ passion for the subject and that really motivated me to try harder.”

Appealing to a group of students whose interests span traditional disciplines, the program now counts more than 200 degree-seeking students, making neuroscience the university’s largest interdisciplinary program and one of the most popular majors in the College of Arts and Sciences.

In response to this rapid growth, several changes were made to the Neuroscience Program. In 2012, the faculty approved a new structure for the major that brings more cohesion to a body of interdisciplinary coursework that might otherwise feel disconnected. This curricular overhaul also added eight new courses to the neuroscience major that strengthen the program by helping students unify their foundational coursework in biology, chemistry, math and psychology within the framework of neuroscience. The breadth of coursework might seem overwhelming, but Prichard sees it as a clear advantage, particularly for students interested in the health professions. “The program has really given students more choice in their course plan,” she said. “Many students are interested in the body and human health not just from a biological standpoint but also from chemical and psychological perspectives. The Neuroscience Program exposes students to multiple ways of investigation and problem solving.”

Students agree. Adam Wieckert, a senior who transferred to the University of St. Thomas after learning about the Neuroscience Program, said, “The program adds an interdisciplinary approach to understanding life. I think the program is headed in the right direction.”

The rapid increase in numbers of students and courses has raised some challenges. Almost immediately, the Biology and Psychology departments had to hire several new faculty members to support the program. For these newly hired professors, the Neuroscience Program was a significant reason for joining the College of Arts and Sciences. Sarah Heimovics, a behavioral neuroendocrinologist hired by the Biology Department in 2012, was particularly attracted by the opportunity to help build a strong Neuroscience Program. “I was thrilled to join a university where student interest in neuroscience has grown,” she said. “There is a community of faculty trained in the neurosciences, there is strong support for the program at the administrative level, and there is a large pool of bright, motivated students. These are the primary reasons why I accepted a position here.”

The Neuroscience Program also attracted Sarah Hankerson, a behavioral ecologist who joined the Psychology Department in 2012. “The presence of the program and the strong support by the administration showed a lasting commitment to interdisciplinary education,” she said. “It also demonstrated the ability of the university to adapt to the rapidly changing face of science.” Hankerson, whose own work encompasses both biology and psychology, pointed out the value of this interdisciplinary approach: “Our students gain an understanding of how biological processes impact our daily lives, social interactions and mental health. Being a part of the Neuroscience Program allows me to fully embrace the interdisciplinary nature of my work.”

The College of Arts and Sciences faculty affiliated with the Neuroscience Program reflect the diversity in modern neuroscience. For example, Heimovics might be out in the field observing birds one day and in the lab looking at neurons under a microscope the next. Students benefit from this diversity in approach. As Heimovics remarked, “Moving forward, our students will understand the nervous system at multiple levels of analysis, making them better prepared and more competitive in their chosen careers.”

Making Connections Through Student-Faculty Research

As a result of recent hiring, 10 faculty members from the Biology and Psychology departments are now associated with the Neuroscience Program, and it is an active group. These professors conduct cutting-edge research, attract external scientific funding and publish their work in prestigious scientific journals. But most importantly, these faculty members are committed to involving undergraduate students at every stage of their research programs. Each year, dozens of undergraduate students gain research experience by working alongside professors in labs and during field studies. These opportunities give students the chance to experience modern neuroscience as it happens, often in the role of a scientific colleague. Jadin Jackson, a computational neurophysiologist who joined the Biology Department in 2011, emphasized the quality of these experiences: “The laboratory experience that students gain is on par with specialized graduate student workshops offered at the national and international level. Students gain hands-on experience with neuroscience techniques that deeply enhance and enrich the topics covered in the classroom.”

Professor Sarah Heimovics, right, works with student Carissa Libbenga and St. Catherine University student Margaret Miller (standing, left), at a Cryostat machine during a neuroscience class. (Photo by Mark Brown)

In addition, some students earn competitive research grants awarded by the University of St. Thomas to conduct their own projects in collaboration with a professor. Chloe Lawyer, a junior who conducts research in neuroscience, has experienced all aspects of scientific projects. But when she started, she wasn’t sure she was interested in research. “When I started working in the lab, I was uncertain about my future,” she said. Lawyer began working on a project in Kurt Illig’s lab in the Biology Department, investigating whether the chemical dopamine impacts memory formation in the brain. Dopamine is widely known as the neurotransmitter that is activated during pleasurable events, like eating chocolate.

Dopamine also is activated by drugs of abuse such as cocaine, and this activation may be the reason such drugs are addictive. After working on this project, Lawyer’s uncertainty cleared. “I quickly realized that I had a passion for research,” she said. Lawyer continued to collaborate with her professor to conduct experiments to discover how the dopamine system changed during adolescence. With experience on two projects, she was ready to design and carry out experiments of her own that would help determine whether the changes in the dopamine system during adolescence might contribute to the prevalence of drug addiction in teenagers.

Working with two other undergraduate students in the lab, Lawyer examined the brains of developing laboratory rats, which are used as a model for human brain development. The students started out by looking at the levels of dopamine receptors – the part of a neuron that receives messages from other cells – and found that these levels were low in juvenile and adult rats, but were very high during adolescence. Genes that encode these receptors were activated more during this time, too. But did this spike in receptor levels have any behavioral relevance? To complete this project, the students conducted two more sets of experiments. In the first, they showed that adolescent rats had a more difficult time learning new information than juvenile or adult animals. In the second, they showed that learning in adolescent rats could be improved by using low doses of drugs that specifically target the activity of dopamine receptors. Finally, in February 2013, the paper detailing their work was published in the high-profile, peer-reviewed scientific journal PLoS One. Lawyer and the two other undergraduates are co-authors on the study.

The project took almost two years to complete, but the hard work paid off in a number of ways. Lawyer reflected, “Research has allowed me to form close relationships with the faculty at St. Thomas, and also has connected me with neuroscientists throughout the country.” Neuroscience students make these connections by presenting their findings at national and international meetings, including the Society for Neuroscience and the Association for Chemoreception Sciences conferences. Lawyer plans to use these connections next year as she begins to identify programs where she can pursue a Ph.D. in neuroscience, but she said the experience has been about more than networking: “Most of all, it has been an incredible learning experience, and the St. Thomas faculty do a fantastic job at developing students’ skills as researchers.”

Betsy Smith, a junior neuroscience major, also conducts independent laboratory research. She said this has been her best experience at the University of St. Thomas. “It is an incredible opportunity that has allowed me to learn more than I would have in a classroom alone. The collaborative student-faculty research programs are unique because they focus on students being the primary investigators in the lab, allowing them to explore their own interests.”

By working closely with professors on innovative research, students learn how to critically analyze problems and pursue innovative solutions with modern scientific tools. Many recent graduates of the Neuroscience Program have continued their education in medical, dental and graduate schools. Brittni Peterson, a 2010 graduate and co-author on the PLoS One study, is now a Ph.D. student in neuroscience at the University of Minnesota. She credits the research experience she had as an undergraduate with helping her find her career path. “The research experience at St. Thomas is exquisite, because it allows for direct, one-on-one interactions between students and faculty,” she said. “At a larger university such as the University of Minnesota, it is uncommon to have these close interactions. I would not be where I am today without the St. Thomas Neuroscience Program and its faculty members.”

In just five years, the Neuroscience Program has made a positive impact on CAS students. With new courses in the curriculum and a larger, more engaged community of faculty and students, the program is in position to support further collaborative learning; however, new challenges can limit these opportunities. As Prichard said, “We have expanded with new faculty hires, but we really need to expand our teaching and research space to provide a high-quality experience.” Psychology professor Uta Wolfe agreed: “Most of us temporarily set up our projects in shared spaces. More research would get done if rooms could be set up permanently.”

Another challenge is that faculty members in the program are split between two departments that are housed in separate buildings at different locations on the St. Paul campus. This physical separation limits the opportunities to work together to foster cross-disciplinary relationships. As Hankerson said, “A closer connection between departments would enhance our communication and collaboration, both in the classroom and in the lab.” Such enhanced collaboration would lead to more and better opportunities for students; “the closer the connection among faculty, the stronger the program.”

The ongoing challenges and changes facing the Neuroscience Program do not diminish the strength of its approach, however. “The future of the program looks bright,” said Dr. Greg Robinson-Riegler, chair of the Psychology Department. “Interdisciplinary study holds the key to answering the ‘big’ questions, and there really are no bigger questions than the nature of the biological mechanisms underlying consciousness and behavior. The Neuroscience Program puts students on the cutting edge of science. I’m proud that UST is one of only a handful of comparably sized institutions to have a rigorous Neuroscience Program.”

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It wasn’t really planned. The first degree was a product of wanting to continue my education and see where things would end up. Then I got a fellowship from Harvard to study in Vienna for a year, and so I decided to pursue that a little further and ended up staying for personal and professional reasons longer than expected. When I started the joint Ph.D.-M.A. program at Boston University, I knew that I wanted to be in academia, and I knew that I wanted to be in philosophy. Throughout this time, the studies were never really a burden; I was just happy to wake up each morning doing what I was doing. I’m glad where I ended up.

Did your St. Thomas experience help set you on the path to this advanced study?

Yes, it most certainly did. In addition to the kind of skills and knowledge that I acquired at St. Thomas, my experience with the liberal arts and my study of economics really just ignited a classical desire to know. The nice thing about St. Thomas is that I also had an environment where I could take risks and maybe even make some mistakes and pursue this quest in an environment that was ultimately supportive.

You are a professor of philosophy at the University of Scranton, a Jesuit university in Pennsylvania that enrolls some 6,000 students. Does your experience there remind you of St. Thomas? How does it feel to be teaching the liberal arts now, instead of studying them?

It very much does remind me of St. Thomas. It’s about the same size; the students come with a similar background, interest, perhaps potential capacity, etc. Perhaps the people who brought me here saw or kind of felt that there might be some similarities in my undergraduate education and the education they offer here. In terms of teaching versus studying, I would almost undermine the distinction a little bit and just say that I still feel as though I am studying the liberal arts. I’m just leading the group that’s studying them in the classroom and, on occasion, I do the same here with the faculty in various interdisciplinary seminars and reading groups.

Which aspects of your St. Thomas education do you wish to pass on to your own students? 

Well there are the basic things; you just want to have them be more knowledgeable about your subject matter and learn the skills of critical thinking and writing and expressing oneself. But what you are really trying to do is get them to open up to the pleasures of both learning about themselves and the world, and to link that in some sense to a project of self-development as not just, let’s say, a basketball player or musician or an engineer, but as persons and then to take that project of self-development and link it up to something greater than themselves like the surrounding community, the world or even God. I say at the beginning of my syllabi that I’m trying to make each of my students a philosopher in the original sense of the word, which is ultimately a lover of wisdom, and so maybe that’s my goal.

As your former economics professor, I was of course interested to watch on YouTube a talk you gave at the University of Scranton that focused on self-interest, greed and corruption from ancient to modern times. Do you think your interest in this topic can be attributed to your training in economics?

What was interesting was the interplay that I would get between my training in economics, which seemed to rely on certain assumptions about what human beings pursue, and then to read philosophers who presented alternative ways of thinking about the human being. In the end, I learned that it is important to think economically about buying butter, flat-screen TVs, cars and so on, but what a long tradition of philosophy suggests is that we might want to resist applying this type of thinking to all aspects of our lives.

Your first book, Reading Nietzsche through the Ancients: An Analysis of Becoming, Perspectivism, and the Principle of Non-Contradiction, is scheduled to be published this year. Congratulations. How are you linking Nietzsche to the ancient Greek philosophers?

The purpose of the book is just trying to figure out what Nietzsche is up to and to clarify what his philosophical positions are. What the book ends up saying is that Nietzsche’s philosophy is largely a revival of views that can be found in the pre-Socratic philosophy and poetry of ancient Greece. One important upshot of this reading, I think, is that the debates that Nietzsche’s philosophy has initiated are not actually that new, but rather very, very old, and therefore it turns out that the study of the history of philosophy is always a timely and relevant affair.

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An exhibition seminar differs from a regular graduate seminar in that, in addition to working on individual research projects, students produce a coherent exhibition with that research. Unlike typical graduate courses, having an exhibition focus in a course provides opportunities for student research to find a real-world audience beyond the classroom – the exhibition visitors who see the artworks, read the wall labels, and peruse the catalogue.

In 2007 I led a similar seminar on national identity and the historical design of printing types. The students’ research for that course resulted in a 2008 exhibition held at Minnesota Center for Book Arts titled “Face the Nation: How National Identity Shaped Modern Typeface Design, 1900-1960.” Their research is still accessible at the exhibition’s website (www.stthomas.edu/facethenation). I knew from that experience that another exhibition seminar would be a rewarding experience for students and teacher alike.

The objective of a seminar built around the Fiterman collection was for students to undertake original research and share what they found, both in the scholarly format of a journal article and in the functional format of wall labels and exhibition catalogue entries. Putting this in practice would lead us to ask this fundamental question: How does one undertake and present research about modern art effectively, engaging with complex ideas yet producing a report that is of practical use and limited length, and is coherent for a given audience? This is a question of great importance for the two traditional subdomains of the art history discipline: the academy and the museum. Neither is served by the notion that intellectual and pragmatic approaches to talking about art are strangers to each other. We would need to develop strategies and skills for integrating these approaches.

From Handling Artwork to Writing Museum Labels

For students to experience the full spectrum of research challenges, I required that each investigate both well-known and lesser-known, or even unknown, artists. For well-established artists, a bulk of existing scholarship should be consulted and synthesized in order to advance knowledge on the topic. On the other hand, for little-known artists, the challenge is not too many sources to consult but too few.

Whether there was a wealth or dearth of available information about a particular artist, students had the extraordinary experience of having direct access to the artworks themselves. Once the artists were assigned, preliminary research conducted and best practices for the physical handling of artworks reviewed, the seminar moved from the classroom to the art storage space that had been set aside in the Murray-Herrick Campus Center. For three weeks in the middle of the semester, students took turns presenting their research-in-progress and showing their works to the class.

Art History graduate students Brady King and Lauren Greer take some measurements as they hang art in O’Shaughnessy Educational Center. (Photo by Mark Brown)

Working with artworks directly is a special opportunity. In typical art history classes, students experience works of art as digital images projected on a classroom screen. With the actual art in front of us, we could perceive subtleties of color, texture and, of course, scale that are lost in a photo on a screen. In addition, as unique artifacts of human creation, artworks have what German cultural critic Walter Benjamin famously called an “aura,” which is lost or compromised in photographic reproductions. This artistic presence also added to the excitement of our class meetings in the storage space.

After conducting preliminary research on three artists, each student chose two artists to pursue further. I encouraged students to build persuasive arguments for their projects using ideas first advanced by Wayne Booth, Gregory Colomb, and Joseph Williams in their book The Craft of Research. Analyzing the key parts of a research argument – the claim that the author wants to prove, the reasons for believing the claim, and the evidence that can demonstrate the persuasiveness of those reasons – we discussed how these parts manifested not only in scholarly articles but also in other formats: lectures, exhibition labels and exhibition catalogue entries.

Using feedback from me and from each other, students refined their arguments and entered the last stage of the seminar: expressing their research results in very different formats. For each project, students were required to write an essay suitable for an academic audience, and also a museum label and catalogue entry that would be suitable for an on-campus exhibition. Faced with this challenge, students acutely felt the differences between these two worlds. Readers of academic journals expect exhaustive research, clear citation of sources and a patient layout of a complex argument. Exhibition visitors, on the other hand, seek engaging and accessible written guidance for viewing the work of art in front of them. They are likely to skip labels that do not provide that guidance concisely. While the academic articles could each be 12 pages long, the museum labels could be no more than 150 words each.

Museum label writing is a specialized skill. The brevity and straightforwardness of the resulting text belies the effort required to make it work well. One of my favorite seminar meetings happened late in the semester, when Erika Holmquist-Wall, a curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (and a 2006 graduate of our master’s program) visited our class to consult students on professional practices of writing effective museum labels. In small-group discussions that resembled professional label-editing workshops, Holmquist-Wall guided students in revising their texts to speak more effectively to museum visitors.

Results

The research projects that the seminar students accomplished were remarkable, and hearing about their findings made me doubly excited about the gift of the Fiterman collection to St. Thomas. I was introduced to new artists and learned more about familiar ones from the diligent historical exploration my students undertook.

Fiterman played a major role in the Twin Cities art scene, and so it comes as no surprise that some of the creators represented in the collection were artists of local renown. I enjoyed learning more about the paintings of Aribert Munzner, the prints of Eugene Larkin, and the sculptures of Harriet Bart, for example. The hard-edged, high-saturation prints by Peter Busa looked familiar in style to me, and then student Marquette Bateman-Ek explained why: Busa also painted the bright, crisp murals on the Valspar building in Minneapolis.

Several projects expanded my understanding of the artworks by decoding their subject matter and symbolism. What was going on in Miriam Schapiro’s silhouetted version of a “Punch and Judy” puppet show? Student Kate Tucker deciphered the work, noting references to artist Frida Kahlo and unveiling the collage as a feminist effort both to address domestic violence and to point to an ancestry of female artists. What accounted for the spiraling shapes in the prints and drawings of Nigerian artist Uche Okeke? Student Lauren Greer discovered that those shapes were derived from uli, an art form used by women of the Igbo culture for body decoration and wall painting. Was there purpose to the seemingly random objects – nails, shoeprints, sunglasses – that appear in Pop artist James Rosenquist’s print in the collection? Bateman-Ek explained that they actually reflect an autobiographical story of a traumatic era in the artist’s personal life.

Greer and Ivanova check the fit of a piece from the Dolly Fiterman collection. (Photo by Mark Brown)

In addition to these decryption keys, student research uncovered the processes employed by artists whose works are in the Fiterman collection. French photographer Georges Rousse is represented in the collection by several photographs of messy, graffitied interiors. Student Carin Jorgensen explained Rousse’s method of entering a building slated for demolition, painting figures on its walls, and taking a photograph as the enduring memory of the doomed space. Student Barbara Quade-Harick traced the source of Nancy Graves’s brightly dotted abstract prints from the early 1970s to NASA maps of the moon. Artist John Raimondi is represented in the collection by two very different works: a realistic color drawing of wolves and a tabletop-size model of his monumental abstract sculpture “Cage.” In interviews with the artist, student Brady King discovered his manner of addressing human emotional concerns through a process of moving from realistic animal imagery toward ever more abstract visual language.

Some students particularly impressed me with the originality of their research. Alyssa Thiede learned that one of her artists, local painter Ta-Coumba Aiken, thought of his art-making as a healing process. Thiede considered this idea not only through typical art-historical methods, such as decoding the traditional symbolism of the paintings; she also looked into the very different field of health studies to gauge whether forms such as those in Aiken’s paintings fit with what current studies have concluded about the therapeutic effects of art in health care settings. Abby Hall looked into a late print by painter Milton Avery, and made a persuasive case that it reflected influence from his fellow New York artist and former student Mark Rothko, the noted abstract expressionist; heretofore, scholars had observed influence that Avery had on Rothko, but Hall proposed that late in his life it appears the influence went in the other direction as well, as indicated by both visual and biographical evidence. Would I believe that Avery the teacher could learn something from Rothko the student? After learning so much from the students in this seminar, I had no doubt that was possible.

The donation of artworks from Fiterman has added valuable, beautiful and interesting works of contemporary art to the collections of the University of St. Thomas. The “Insights into Modern Art” exhibition (on display in the O’Shaughnessy Educational Center lobby gallery through May 26) offers a chance for the public to see choice works from this collection. At the same time, it serves as a showcase of the pedagogy that this gift has enabled. The students in my seminar learned valuable lessons about working directly with contemporary art, a kind of professional training that was made possible by the donation. I look forward to future opportunities both to display the university’s modern collections in dynamic ways and to teach future students via such hands-on learning.

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Take a walk through the halls of the Opus College of Business and you’re likely to run into Corey Eakins ’09 M.B.A., director of the Evening UST MBA Program. In the morning, you may find him in the skyway with his iPad, on his way to meet with faculty members about a new study-abroad offering. In the afternoon he’s in Terrence Murphy Hall, meeting with the student advising team to understand a concern raised by one of their advisees. You might see him in the evening, too, networking with attendees at an event designed to provide students and alumni with the opportunity to learn from the local business community. Eakins is a man on the move, always thinking about how to improve the student experience.

Eakins, in his career and his personal life, has always shown an eagerness and an interest in moving forward, in putting his skills to work to launch a new business, to help a student launch a new career and to help a college launch a new program. Interestingly, this education administrator began his career as a golf professional.

“I grew up around the game,” said the Wisconsin native. “My mom was the general manager of a country club in Hudson.” While completing his undergraduate degree in communications and public relations at St. Cloud State University, Eakins took a job as an assistant golf professional at a nearby country club. He decided to transform his love of and skill in golf from a part-time hobby to a full-time profession. He took the PGA Playing Ability Test and entered the PGA Apprentice Program to become a Class-A member of the Professional Golfers Association of America.

The Business of Golf

Eakins realized that “a golf professional really is a very specialized business person in a niche industry.” Freshly certified as a golf professional, in 1996 he became one of the first four employees at Heritage Highlands, a new golf course in Tucson, Ariz. When he came on board, the course hadn’t even opened yet and Eakins jumped in to get it up and running. “I worked for four months before we saw a golfer,” he said.

Building an organization from the ground up and opening a brand new facility from scratch was very interesting for Eakins. “I was doing everything and anything – I helped laser [measure] yardages so we could order the numbers to go on the sprinkler heads,” Eakins said. His communication degree came into good use, too, in producing brochures, collateral and even websites. The work paid off, and Heritage Highlands was nominated for the best new course of the year in 1997.

Eakins came back to River Falls, Wis., for a break after a busy summer on the course. While home, some friends told him about a new golf course under construction in Hudson. “I wandered out there and knocked on the door of the construction trailer,” Eakins said. One of the partners invited him to play the course as the grass was still growing in and they spent the afternoon talking shop. Months later, because of this chance encounter, Eakins was invited back to help open the course, Troy Burne Golf Club, Tom Lehman’s first signature design in the Midwest. It was a great opportunity for Eakins to “come in to a golf facility that already had name recognition” and to be involved with Lehman in getting another golf club up and running. Plus it was nice to be back home – both Eakins and his wife, Lauri Eakins ’10 M.B.A., are natives of River Falls.

Eakins’ experience in these golf clubs taught him some important business lessons. “I opened these facilities and realized that I was really a professional business person running a complex organization. I was able to develop staffing structure, help develop membership programming, plan corporate events and develop the marketing of the golf course.”

He also learned the importance of providing an exceptional customer experience. “You’re asking for a significant amount of money for a day of golf,” he said, “so we owed it to our golfers to treat them very well. For probably three-fourths of our guests, playing our course was a once-a-year treat, and we had to make it really special.” He worked with the college students he hired each summer to help them provide that experience. “The term you heard a lot was ‘country club member for a day,’” Eakins said.

Making a Career Change

“The tough thing about being a golf professional, especially in a seasonal market like here, is that from April to October you’re just busy,” Eakins said. As he and his wife became parents in 2001 and again in 2003, Eakins sought greater work-life balance. “I am very much the kind of person who has to feel passionate about what I’m doing every day in order to want to go to work. I enjoyed that in golf; even when I left golf, I still loved the sport, and I was just looking for a different schedule that worked with my family.”

The question for his next step became, “What environment most energized me?” The answer was higher education. “I wanted to do something different and looked at the M.B.A. as a key tool to help me transition careers and open up other doors,” he said. “I kicked around an M.B.A. back in Arizona but never got around to it.”

As we have seen many times in our research, it is not just a relentless focus on value creation that allows entrepreneurs to bring new products and services to market; it is also a reliance on personal values (what is important, what is not, what must be done, what must not, why efforts must be made, how tasks should be carried out) and acting as an authentic embodiment of these values that enable entrepreneurs to inspire the commitment of others. This, in turn, allows them to secure the resources they need to bring innovations to market and to create organizations that – years after the departure of the entrepreneurs – continue to bear the stamp of the founders’ values in the form of organizational culture.

When Kieran Folliard was planning to enter the crowded and notoriously fickle bar and restaurant business in downtown Minneapolis, he knew exactly what he wanted to create. He wanted to develop a landmark, beautiful and handcrafted building, reminiscent of the grand 18th-century public houses of the Dublin he remembered from his youth. Of course he spent time raising finance, arranging suppliers, hiring staff and developing budgets, but his heart – and most of his days – were invested in sitting at a dusty desk in the middle of the construction site working with local wood carvers and artisans to try to create a thing of beauty that would last 100 years. Would his customers even notice that this section was handcarved or the stained glass handmade?

“I didn’t do any customer research,” he said. “At the end of the day, you’re doing it so that you can be proud of what you’re doing, for the authenticity, for yourself and, hopefully, for the people who work and frequent the establishments. I can still hear my father’s voice saying, ‘If you don’t want to do it right, don’t do it at all.’ It’s important for me to try to create beautiful things that last and that is why I focused on the craft and the design of The Local.” The importance of aesthetic beauty became a central theme of what is today the Cara Irish Pubs Group.

When Howard Schultz began developing the concept that became Starbucks, he knew that he needed to look beyond more efficient execution of the existing model of the American café. While he initially was inspired by the café culture of Italy, much of the unique and high-quality experience he sought to craft was developed through a  collaborative approach with his employees, many of whom were used to a more transactional relationship with their retail employers. Guided by values of respect and fairness, even in a low-pay environment, Schultz departed significantly from retail norms by offering his employees extensive training and education, health benefits and stock options.

Why did Schultz take this approach? Because he had researched the power of intrinsic motivation? Or because he had benchmarked such practices in other industries? No. The reason he developed a unique approach to managing hourly workers goes back to the values he learned in his youth. Schultz grew up in a stable lower-middleclass home in the 1950s; however, that all changed the day his father fell and broke his ankle. His father had neither health insurance nor workers’ compensation when he got hurt on the job. With no financial support, the fragile middle-class environment crumbled. His father could not work, could no longer put food on the table and, worse, eventually lost his confidence and esteem. “He was beaten down; he wasn’t respected,” Schultz said. Schultz recalled that after this incident, he vowed to put an end to that vulnerability if he ever owned his own company: “I wanted to try and build the company that my father never got a chance to work for.”

Today, Starbucks has one of the lowest rates of employee turnover in the industry and is regularly one of Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For.” What became critical differentiators began as personal, normative values, rooted in his own experiences as a young boy.

The ‘Four Goods of Entrepreneurship’

Most of us are guided through our personal lives by the values forged in our early years alongside parents, teachers, coaches and friends. In our professional lives, however, we often feel the pressure to hang many of those values on the coat hook on the way in to work each day, and to adopt the more generic and, often, aridly economic values of the institutions in which we work.

In contrast, the entrepreneur has the opportunity, indeed necessity, to create from scratch a new organization and culture, along with unique and distinctive products or services and a new set of stakeholder relationships. As catalysts of all this activity, entrepreneurs both consciously and subconsciously use their own personal values, experiences and dreams to inspire others to believe in and commit to their entrepreneurial journey. We call this “weaving the web of belief,” where it is the personal values of the founder that inspire and bind together the initial resources of a venture, long before concrete financial or other extrinsic motivations come to fruition.

One useful way to understand how personal values infuse and shape the entrepreneurial process is using a framework we have developed with Michael Naughton of St. Thomas’ Center for Catholic Studies, called “The Four Goods of Entrepreneurship.”

1. Products and services that are inherently good
2. Trading relationships that are good
3. Altruism that promotes the good
4. The development of good character and substantial leadership in the entrepreneurs themselves

While it may seem obvious to say that most entrepreneurs are starting their business for good rather than “evil” purposes, at St. Thomas we go further in our belief that it should be the primary purpose of business to contribute to the greater good. This is very different from suggesting that we should only found businesses that solve world hunger or eliminate injustice. But it does mean that good entrepreneurial businesses should make the world better rather than worse. “The Four Goods of Entrepreneurship” framework identifies how the entrepreneur’s values can contribute to the greater good in many more ways than by simply determining the best destination for a year-end altruistic contribution. Philanthropy is good, but it is not the only source of good in an entrepreneurial venture and sometimes it is not even the best source of good.

A case in point is Kate Herzog ’10 M.B.A. and her growing venture, House of Talents [profiled in B., spring 2010]. Like Folliard, Herzog has a love of beautiful things that  harken back to her childhood, in this case, in Ghana; thus, her initial idea was to link talented artisans from Africa with consumers in developed markets. But Herzog also wanted her business to serve as a vehicle for economic development.

She remembered feeling as a child that charitable aid took little account of the personal hopes and dreams of the people it was trying to help. So her goal was not simply to import good products but also to develop relationships with her suppliers that allowed them to gain financial independence so that “those artisans could construct the lives they envision for themselves.” She worked closely with her suppliers, providing feedback and  mentoring that helped them refine and strengthen the design and quality of  their products. She committed not only to paying them a fair price, but also providing them with a 50-percent advance with each order to enable them to access needed resources without having to turn to exploitative local money lenders.

In addition to the entrepreneurial goods created through her product and trading relationships, Herzog also actively gave back; however, even her altruistic acts were laden with her personal values of respect and dignity toward the poor. Instead of cash or aid, House of Talents donated useful equipment that helped the artisans build on their successes: laptops, digital cameras, welding glasses and a bicycle, within the first two years.

Entrepreneurial Values

In the Opus College of Business Entrepreneurship program, we give our students the opportunity to consider the role of their own personal values as they ask themselves a critical question, “What sort of an entrepreneur do I want to be?” One vehicle we use to generate these discussions is case-study analysis. Over the past five years, with  support from the Ron Fowler Case Study Awards, we have developed a collection of local case studies of entrepreneurs, many of whom are alumni from our program. We do not start these case studies with the founding of the business. In order to fully understand the strategic direction of the business, we first have to understand the lives of the entrepreneurs up to that point: What is important to them? What is not? How would they define success or failure? What are they trying to achieve? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How do they make decisions? What do they value? Only by asking these questions can we start to understand the complex situation facing the entrepreneur and make effective decisions. Thus, our students learn not just the importance of business technique but also the importance of thinking through their own personal values and experiences to determine how they might structure their businesses around what is actually important to them.

Another important vehicle for exploring how their values shape the entrepreneurial process is the Lemonade Stand Project. In our introductory Entrepreneurship class,  professors Jay Ebben, Ph.D., and Alec Johnson, Ph.D., have created a course centered on a “build it from scratch” project, which requires students to develop their own concepts and bring them to market within one semester and with only the resources that they can beg or borrow. Given these constraints, students quickly come to  understand the importance of their own experiences and values in driving insights about new ways to create value in the market.

In the most recent semester, one group created a venture called Love Your Melon to promote  awareness of children’s cancer: For every hat sold, another was donated to a child undergoing cancer treatment. The source of the idea came from one student’s own experience with a family member suffering from the disease. Other students have used, for example, a personal love of art to develop graphic business ideas, love of music to develop auditioning software, and belief in the character building power of sports to develop youth mentoring proposals.

Like Herzog, the students have created more than just good creative products and services. Through teamwork, and desperation (Ebben and Johnson push them pretty hard!), strong relationships of trust, friendship and community emerge. And, perhaps most importantly, the Lemonade Stand Project illustrates again the development, deepening and enriching of the character of the actual entrepreneurs themselves. Not only can these young entrepreneurs make the world a little bit better, but in trying to do so they can transform themselves, becoming more capable, more connected, more confident and more community oriented.

As one student said, “In just a few months, I think I have evolved completely and grown as a person, not only in business knowledge but also in confidence, in knowing what I can actually do.” In the words of another, “If we are able to take this one idea in a matter of one semester and get it to market and affect thousands of children’s lives, think of what we can do with more than two or three months.”

In sum, we believe that personal values and value creation are tightly intertwined and mutually reinforcing. Through an understanding and expression of their personal values, entrepreneurs can create multiple sources of good. And along the way, their entrepreneurial journeys can lead them to a deeper understanding of what they truly  value. As one of our new students recently put it when reflecting on his experience in the Lemonade Stand Project, “I learned that if I choose my responsibilities and recognize that I am representing St. Thomas, my class, my family, and if I choose to let them show themselves in the way I do my business, I can take pride in everything I am doing. And there is something beautiful in that.”

Read more from B. Magazine.

Perhaps the most motivating members of our student body are the military veterans who have chosen to earn their degrees after they complete active duty. Whether they choose to begin or continue an undergraduate business degree or pursue an M.B.A. or other graduate business degree, these individuals bring a wealth of experience, deeply held convictions and a great sense of responsibility to their studies. They also bring perspective. Most of the veterans in our programs have seen active duty overseas, have witnessed events that few of us ever will, and that few of us wish to dwell on, frankly. These types of experiences allow veterans to understand that the world of business is just one part of the world and that it should serve a greater good. This understanding is what makes them leaders.

As a Vietnam veteran, I know not only the leadership traits military service can instill in an individual but also the importance of developing those traits into skills that can be put to meaningful work. This is the cornerstone of our efforts to serve U.S. veterans in our business programs.

The University of St. Thomas has been a proud member of the Yellow Ribbon program since its inception following 9/11. This program is part of the GI Bill and allows approved degree-granting institutions and the Veterans Administration to partially or fully fund tuition and fees for post-service veterans. We recognized early on that  those who serve our country have the experience and perspective that business leadership needs. We also recognized that they require more than our commendation; they also require our complete support.

Each of our students, regardless of background, receives personalized attention and service from our recruiting and advising staffs; this is an essential part of the St. Thomas culture. But veterans, our experience has shown, benefit greatly when our recruiting staff go even further in helping them understand how their military service can be translated into success in business. Once enrolled in our programs, veterans often rely on our student advisers to help them balance not only family and class obligations but also ongoing obligations to the reserves. Rather than being seen as an interruption or distraction, we see this continued service as an enhancement to their studies, and yet another element that will contribute to their ability to prioritize, to work collaboratively and to lead effectively.

In all we do, the Opus College of Business is committed to fostering diversity and inclusion among our students, staff, faculty, stakeholders and communities. Our goal is to develop morally responsible leaders who understand the importance of inviting and honoring input from and engagement by all traditions and viewpoints. Ensuring that our veterans are given the opportunity to succeed and, with that success, continue serving our communities is, for me and my colleagues at the university, one tangible means of that commitment.

Read more from B. Magazine.

The St. Thomas Board of Trustees unanimously elected Sullivan, 55, to succeed Father Dennis Dease, who will retire June 30 after 22 years as the 14th president of Minnesota’s largest private college or university.

With a Ph.D. in business administration, Sullivan has a strong background in business education that she will bring to St. Thomas. John M. Morrison, a trustee who served as chair of the search committee, said Sullivan’s extensive background as a professor and administrator has prepared her well for the St. Thomas presidency.

“Julie is tailor-made for the position,” said Morrison, a banker and founder of the Morrison Center for Entrepreneurship at the university’s Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. “She has the academic experience, business acumen and personal qualities we need in our next president, and her Roman Catholic faith is central to her life. St. Thomas, which is similar in many respects to that of the University of San Diego, will thrive under her leadership.”

While an undergraduate at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Sullivan thought she would become a public accountant. After a six-month internship with what then was Ernst and Whinney, she concluded that she preferred tax accounting over auditing. She needed a master’s degree to work directly in tax accounting, so she continued her studies at the University of Florida.

“I had a teaching assistantship during my master’s program and discovered I loved to teach,” she said. “Thus, I decided to remain at Florida and pursue a Ph.D. in business administration.”

She began her academic career in 1983 at the University of Oklahoma, and four years later moved to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, to be a visiting professor for one year. She was hired as a tenure-track faculty member at the end of that year.

During her 16 years at North Carolina, Sullivan became an Ernst and Young Distinguished Professor and served as co-director of the Center for Innovation and Learning, director of the Center for International Business Education and Research, associate dean of the master’s of accounting program and senior associate dean of the Kenan-Flagler Business School.

She was interim dean of Kenan-Flagler in 2003, leading a $180 million capital campaign, when she moved to California and became a full professor in the Rady School of Management at the University of California-San Diego.

Sullivan was named executive vice president and provost of the University of San Diego in 2005. Today, she is responsible for all degree and nondegree educational programs, information technology services, admissions, financial aid and career services. She also oversees the chief financial officer and has responsibility for the operating budget.

One achievement of which she is particularly proud is the 2011 designation of San Diego as a “Changemaker Campus” by Ashoka, an Arlington, Va.-based organization that supports successful social entrepreneurs around the globe.

Sullivan believes St. Thomas, too, can become a “changemaker” campus – if not by designation by Ashoka, then certainly by day-to-day practice.

“St. Thomas is an outstanding university which enjoys a wonderful history and legacy that is firmly rooted in its commitment to Catholic values and the liberal arts while looking forward with an entrepreneurial spirit,” Sullivan said. “It is poised to do even more – to expand its influence and its visibility.”

Dease also applauded the choice of Sullivan and promised a smooth transition over the next few months. He will become president-emeritus following his retirement and will work with Sullivan and the board on special projects.

Read more from B. Magazine.

But is this really true? On social media sites, are people really connected to each other, or merely engaged in an aggregation of anonymous contacts? While it is true that Facebook’s popularity has increased exponentially each year since its inception, many current users censor what photos and comments they share, posting only content that positions them in the best light possible. Yet even with this, a large amount of personal information is being made available online that may hinder your online reputation, as well as aid marketers in creating targeted advertising intended to appeal to your interests and preferences.

Beyond capturing a user’s time and attention, social media is deemed a safe place to share one’s innermost thoughts and feelings for the world – or at least a large online audience – to read. The need for a sense of community and constant audience often means users of social media sites such as Facebook share far more information about themselves than they reasonably should. Gone is the demand for privacy. Now, people put their lives on the Internet for all to see. For Christopher Michaelson, Ph.D., an  associate professor of business ethics at the Opus College of Business, this means that people don’t fully understand the extent to which they are exposing themselves online.

Today, there is more information available to decision makers than one can feasibly manage, make sense of or put to use. What does this mean for marketers? Jonathan Seltzer, an instructor of marketing at the Opus College of Business, said, “The sheer wealth of data that is available increases the segmentation well beyond what was previously imaginable.” Social media sites and online networks leverage the power of peer-to-peer relationships and referrals to learn about their users and make money based on what they know. “In theory, better targeting should mean more efficient marketing for business, and in a consumer economy that should equate to lower costs and happier customers,” said Michael Porter, Ed.D., director of the Master of Business Communication program at the Opus College of Business. But this may not always be the case.

Information is Power

Not so many years ago, large companies were cautious about using social media sites to gather information about job applicants for fear of legal repercussions. Today, it is common practice to Google an applicant’s name as a way to learn more about past work history, interests and hobbies, as well as an applicant’s personal life. Mick Sheppeck, Ph.D., an associate professor of management at the Opus College of Business, noted, “Companies are increasingly using personal information as they search for qualified applicants and this is likely to continue until people become more cognizant of what they are sharing online and who can access that information.”

In a January 2013 WCCO segment “Beware: Your Reputation is Now Being Googled,” Greg Swan, a digital strategist at Weber Shandwick, noted that 70 percent of job candidates are rejected purely based on the results of searching one’s name online. “It used to be that you’d ask someone, ‘Have you Googled yourself lately?’ and we’d all  giggle. But now that’s a real thing,” Swan said.

That’s not to say people are naive about what they do and don’t share online, but many do not realize the full extent of their actions until it’s too late. Generally speaking, social media users can be broken into two camps in terms of how they think about personal information and one’s right to privacy. Sheppeck said the smaller camp believes that access to personal data is the way of the world. Regardless of safeguards, individuals cannot protect themselves and should quit worrying. The other, larger camp needs to pay more attention and be mindful of what they choose to share. “Millennials, even more than other groups, are limited in their awareness of how personal information is being used today,” Sheppeck said.

Targeting the Masses

According to a February 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center, 73 percent of 2,253 adult respondents answered that they would not be OK with a search engine (such as Google) keeping track of their searches and using the results to personalize future searches. And 68 percent said they were uncomfortable with targeted advertising for the same reason: They didn’t want anyone tracking their behavior. That being said, user actions do not reflect these findings as millions of people routinely share the most intimate details of their lives online.

When Facebook launched in 2004, it was heralded for its lack of advertising. With 1 billion active monthly users as of October 2012, a lot has changed since its founding. The  average Facebook user is regularly commenting on photos and “liking” content, updating their status and connecting with friends and family, as well as those they’ve never met. While no stranger to advertising, the average Facebook user may not realize how her information is being used to generate the targeted ads she sees every time she logs in. If you recently became engaged, the ads are tailored accordingly and may include bridesmaid dresses, photographers, upcoming wedding shows and invitations, with many products and vendors showing up as promoted posts in a user’s news feed. Once you update your status to reflect your recent nuptials, the ads will change again, likely  focusing on the next logical step after that blissful walk down the aisle … the honeymoon followed by babies.

For those looking to advertise with Facebook, the online social giant leverages its more than 1 billion users, saying, “We’ll help you reach the right ones.” But what does that mean? Every piece of information shared on Facebook says something about a user. Individually, those pieces of information aren’t much, but together they tell a very complete story about each user’s personal life, education and work experience, likes and hobbies, and much more. By targeting a group based on location, age and likes, marketers can reach a very specific segment of their target audience and one that is likely to be receptive to the message being communicated.

Facebook’s primary source of revenue is advertising. By selecting key words and personal information shared by each user – such as relationship status, location, employment, likes and activities – businesses can run ads targeting a selected subset of users. A February 2012 article on the New York Times opinion page stated that Facebook earned $3.2 billion in advertising revenue in 2011, which makes up 85 percent of its total revenue.

The same article noted Google’s use of personal data for advertising and its resulting $36.5 billion in advertising revenue in 2011. By simply “analyzing what people sent  over Gmail and what they searched on the Web,” Google obtains a mass of data and information to sell ads, markedly more information than even Facebook, given that Google is one of the most popular search engines used today.

A Right to Privacy

According to Porter, “There is a balance that consumers need to accept between privacy and free services as a part of the economic exchange.” As consumers, your buying habits and purchases provide information about you, and retailers would be foolish to ignore this information, but at what point does it cross the line? To that end, Sheppeck raised several interesting questions: “How much data is too much? Where should companies draw the line when it comes to mining for customer information? If privacy is the number one concern, at what point is an individual’s privacy breeched?”

Additionally, Sheppeck added, the mere act of tracking and storing personal data puts that data at risk and, therefore, puts individual privacy at risk. If the practice of mining personal information is to continue with little or no legislation regulating it there must be safeguards in place to protect said data. While breeches of security are to be expected, consumers expect that personal information will be protected in addition to being leveraged.

What the Future Holds

With far more questions than answers, this issue is just starting to heat up. As users of social media start at a younger age and people become more conscious of how their personal information is being used, as well as how it impacts their online reputation and subsequent ability to get a job, the legal ramifications will start coming to light. “Right now, the economy is our primary concern. As the economy improves or at least stabilizes, issues regarding user privacy and how personal information is managed will find their way into the courtroom, and the resulting legislation will better safeguard the personal data being shared online,” Sheppeck said. “In the near future, we will need a federal standard that articulates data areas that are off limits.”

Until then, users must be vigilant about what they do and don’t share online. It often is forgotten that the Internet lives on. You may delete a post or picture, but  somewhere, on some far distant server, there is a record of you at last year’s office party with a lampshade on your head.

Read more from B. Magazine.

A year before they graduated from the University of St. Thomas, Emily Pritchard ’11 and Martha McCarthy ’11 were guaranteed millionaires – in the eyes of a fellow entrepreneur, at least. As the only undergraduates, and the only women, to make it to the finals of the Fowler Business Concept Challenge in 2009, Pritchard and McCarthy’s concept for SnapSystem Bikes won rave reviews from one of the judges, who was so impressed by the uniqueness of the idea and the professionalism of their presentation, he felt sure he could make them millionaires.

After additional research, however, the two women discovered that a key element in the future success of their new venture was missing – passion. “We just weren’t very  interested in making bikes,” Pritchard recalled. “It was a great idea, it met the market need our entrepreneurship professors had told us about and it had little or no competition, but we just couldn’t get excited about it.”

What did excite them, was social media and the opportunities it afforded. Spurred by the confidence gained in receiving such positive feedback during the Fowler Business Concept Challenge, Pritchard and McCarthy went on to write another business plan, this one for a social media marketing company, the Social Lights, which they launched in January 2011.

The forum is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. When you began working with the forum, how was diversity and inclusion (D&I) defined?

When I started in 2002, the forum – and the field – was very much about diversity and not inclusion. Representation was the main focus and the definitions of what that meant were multiplying – mental health, size, transgender and immigrants. The topic of generations in the workplace was (and still is) hot, as was the role of women, especially in leadership roles. There was also pushback about that expansion, too. We hadn’t solved race and gender issues, among other things, but were already moving on to open opportunities for many other groups of people. There certainly wasn’t talk of cultural competence or much on bias. … Somehow, it felt like we hadn’t gone much beyond compliance, but that seemed to change rather dramatically over the next few years.

What are the differences and similarities between “diversity” and “inclusion”?

Diversity is about who is at the table – it’s numbers and representation (and hopefully representation at all levels). Inclusion is about how these people are valued, how they interact with each other, what their opportunities are. It’s about engagement. Think about it this way: You recruit a person who is different from the majority of employees because you want the diversity of his or her thoughts and experiences and the creativity that this difference brings. But then you require conformity to your organizational culture. Once/if the new employee assimilates, you have lost the edge that was the reason you brought him or her in. It is a fine art to be able to balance multiple cultures within an overall organizational culture. But those organizations that master it become the best places to work and are paid back with loyalty, productivity and a creative edge.

How did the forum begin?

In 1989, Minneapolis Community College (MCC) hosted what was then called American Management Association’s (AMA) Black Managers Forum, a two-hour teleconference. The event grew over the next few years to include sponsorship by the Twin Cities Chapter of the National Black MBA Association, a panel of local experts to respond to questions immediately following the teleconference broadcast and, in 1993, a morning workshop. In 1994, the name was changed to the “Multicultural Forum.” The University of St. Thomas was granted permission to use the name and continue the event in 1997, after the AMA backed out. At the first teleconference, 75 people took part; more than 1,200 people participated in the 2012 forum.

Historically, who have been the main attendees of the forum? How have you seen this change?

When I first began, the typical forum attendee was from the Twin Cities and worked in human resources or diversity (heavy HR emphasis). We had attendees from all levels, but more managers and below, and fewer directors and above. There has been a rather dramatic shift in my 11 years. More than 50 percent of attendees are now line managers, working every conceivable function – marketing, sales, operations, finance, etc. We’ve also seen an increase in attendance from upper-level management, no matter the function – 25 percent are at the director level, with 14 percent at the vice president level and higher.

What is the impact – both on the forum and on the field – for this change in attendee profile?

In an inclusive workplace, the people not working in HR or D&I are the front line of the effort. They make the environment inclusive or not by their actions and attitudes. The fact that so many of them are attending a diversity conference means that their organizations are getting something right. … The message is out that we are more productive and more profitable if our employees are happy and engaged in their work. An inclusive workplace, where all employees understand their value because the organization treats them as valuable just as they are, is key to that engagement.

What do you see as the primary reason for this shift?

I think it is the emphasis on inclusion. D&I leaders realized that creating a diverse workforce was only the beginning of the work. In order to retain those workers and advance them into increasingly more influential positions, an environment where they could bring everything they had to offer to the table was crucial. That could only be done if they felt valued and safe, and if they were included in the conversation.

I wish I could say that increasing the number of line managers who attend the forum was fully intentional on our part because we saw the inclusion trend coming and reached out to line managers in a very purposeful way based on that! There definitely has been an outreach to members of employee resource groups and diversity councils because we were and are offering content relevant to them. Those folks are the core of inclusion efforts. But I think it was the diversity leaders in their organizations that saw what the forum was offering and determined to bring their line leaders to the conference. Organizations are now doing that even more by holding their diversity council meetings in conjunction with the forum to take advantage of the learning we offer. The same is true for the leaders of employee resource groups – they are being sent to the forum to learn from the presenters and each other.

What is it about the forum – the location, timing, format, for example – that you think most makes this a “must attend”?

I do think location is part of it. We have a very loyal following here with an amazing wealth of Fortune 100, 500 and 1000 companies in the Twin Cities that are very global in their outlook. Our location has its drawbacks, too – there are some who think of us as flyover land and all white, so what could we possibly know about diversity? We work hard to overcome that perception, and I think we’re having success in the effort. Of course, that hard work essentially means being the best at what we do, offering something that our attendees perhaps can’t get elsewhere. Practical applications and best practices brought by subject-matter experts, whether consultants or company peers, training of all our speakers so they understand adult learning principles in order to deliver the high caliber of teaching, a robust evaluation process that leads to a continuous learning process. … These are key.

This year’s conference is a great example. We’ve wanted to increase the interaction of attendees with each other, to bring them a more robust conversation and a different way of learning.

So this year, not only will the general sessions build upon each other and thoroughly align with the theme (Our Time to Lead), but attendees will be intimately involved in the discussion of leadership.

What does “Our Time to Lead” mean – to attendees, to the D&I field, to the forum?

The theme is based on several convergences and opportunities I see occurring right now. The first is an ongoing trend from the past several years: D&I practitioners are focusing their efforts on the ways they can directly or indirectly improve a company’s bottom line, and are learning to speak the language of business so they can effectively communicate that to their business leaders. D&I is not a cost center; rather, it is a revenue enhancer and maybe even a revenue generator.

The second convergence is globalization. In a globalized world, we are all dealing with unfamiliar cultures. In order to understand contracts, employment norms, or the shades of meaning in a language in another culture, business leaders need a level of cultural competence. Cultural competence dwells in the D&I space, so we have a direct role to play in furthering business interests around the world.

Finally, the downturn in the economy has led to extensive changes in businesses large and small. As things are rebuilt and reorganized as we recover, there is a unique opportunity to embed D&I processes into the restructuring.

For all these reasons, it is our time to lead. The theme was created to point that out and to challenge attendees to find their personal and collective leadership abilities and initiatives.

Does the “our” refer to the attendees, to the forum, to both?

Good question! The “our” refers to the attendee and D&I specifically. But it also refers to the forum … 25 years of leadership and looking into the future, 25 more years of leadership. While it is a celebration of the 25 years, I don’t want to dwell on that; rather, I want to look to what more we need to be doing. The theme next year is “Breaking New Ground,” which will be announced at the close of the 2013 conference along with a new name, logo and lead sponsor. I want the forum to be known for breaking new ground, for leading in new ways throughout the year.

What will leadership look like, to you, in the next 25 years?

Before we plan for the next 25 years, we have to understand where we are. The forum works with some of the largest companies on earth. Many companies that size do have some things basically right, although their commitment isn’t always secure – the recession has shown us that. That is true of a lot of smaller companies, too. But there is a vast number of organizations that haven’t even begun their journey and likely don’t know they need to be on one. Even the federal government – keeper of affirmative action and equal opportunity – has only just begun to understand that diversity is more than just numbers, that there are opportunities to engage employees that will make the government workplace a better place to work and consequently a more customer-friendly organization. That is the work of inclusion.

If D&I leaders are successful, it will mean that we have embedded diversity and inclusion practices into our organizations’ DNA, that working in an inclusive environment becomes natural and expected and that more companies, large and small, are on the journey. I just read an article the other day that stated D&I work is taking off in Europe and other places because of the work of U.S.-based multinationals. We have already led the way.

Read more from B. Magazine.

Bignall is, first and foremost, president and CEO of ReconRobotics Inc., a company that creates tactical micro-robot systems used by the military, law enforcement and rescue teams. Bignall and his entire team are devoted to increasing the safety of military and law enforcement personnel and other responders through robots that are increasingly sophisticated. Currently, their robots can explore an environment that might be dangerous for humans to enter and provide auditory and visual feedback, even in complete darkness. Some robots are designed to examine the undercarriage of a vehicle for explosives or narcotics. The robots have become increasingly advanced since the company was founded in 2006, and they will continue to provide improved information as more sensors are added for hazards such as radiological, chemical and biological threats.

Alan Bignall (Photo by Mike Ekern ’02)

These innovations have led to lots of attention for this relatively small company. Fast Company named it to its annual list of the most innovative companies in both 2012 and 2013, and in 2011 Popular Science named the Recon Scout XT micro-robot one of the top 100 tech innovations of that year. Bignall himself received the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business 2011 Entrepreneur Alumnus of the Year Award. Bignall attributes ReconRobotics’ success to the fact that what his company does – saving  lives – creates enthusiastic employees. “Passion drives us and coalesces around our goals,” he explained. “You can always hire smart people, but how do you get passion and a drive to make a difference?”

The employees at ReconRobotics are indeed enthusiastic about delivering products that provide advance warning to those who put themselves in harm’s way in their line of  work. Aimee Barmore, a St. Thomas M.B.A. student and director of the law enforcement and federal programs North American sales team, said that passion inspires her work. “Alan and I were at a trade show in California,” she said. “A soldier came up and said, ‘Sir, Ma’am, I have to say this thing [one of the robots] is awesome. It saved my life. Thank you, thank you, thank you!’” Hearing stories like this makes her proud of her work.

Bignall has been with the company since it was formed by a University of Minnesota professor and students who wanted to commercialize their work. Recently,  ReconRobotics turned to the work of students again. As a result of a senior-year engineering project that involved designing a landing system for unmanned aerial vehicles, four St. Thomas students formed a company, Xollai, to further develop their initial idea and to create additional products. ReconRobotics purchased Xollai because, Bignall said, the young alumni who created it were a very innovative group. “They had potential patents. They had great ideas that solved key user problems.”

During a 2009 interview for St. Thomas magazine, Bignall said that the state of Minnesota had the opportunity to become “Robotics Alley” due to its positioning in miniatures, motors and electronics. His vision led to the founding of Robotics Alley, a public and private initiative that hosts an annual robotics conference in the Twin Cities.

To make a point, Bignall made a comparison between hockey and robotics. “We spend enormous amounts on youth hockey. Why not on robotics?” he asked, noting that  there are now more high school robotics teams than hockey teams. A strong robotics industry could bring 10,000 high-paying jobs to Minnesota, he said. Robotics Alley brings together academic, business and government leaders to build on Minnesota’s already solid presence in the industry.

The desire to promote the robotics industry in Minnesota is also behind the Global Robotics Innovation Park (GRIP), a planned research park and business incubator in the Twin Cities. Tenants will include companies and academic research institutions. ReconRobotics and Robotics Alley are both partnering with GRIP to encourage the development of Minnesota’s robotics industry. For Bignall, ReconRobotics’ investment in outside projects such as Robotics Alley and GRIP are important. “This is about being a leader. If you want to make a difference, you need to reach beyond the edges of your business.”

While leading ReconRobotics, Bignall has channeled his enormous energy into other projects as well. In 2010, he co-founded Biolyst, LLC, with his chiropractor, Tim Kelm, who had successfully treated Bignall’s peripheral neuropathy with lasers. “Peripheral neuropathy is extremely debilitating. The Mayo Clinic told me there was no  treatment,” Bignall said. After finding relief through laser therapy, he asked Kelm to join him in founding a company that would provide this treatment through franchise Realief Neuropathy Centers. There are now three Realief Neuropathy Centers, located in Minnesota, Arizona and South Carolina, and more will be opening soon. Bignall isn’t running the business, but he is excited to be a part of it as a founder and board member. “I love businesses where you can help people,” he said.

Bignall also loves the game of baseball. “Did he tell you how he wants to die?” Barmore asked. “He wants to be seated at a baseball game, eating a hot dog and drinking beer.” It should be no surprise that such a dedicated fan of baseball owns the Albany Dutchmen, a team belonging to the New York Collegiate Baseball League. Bignall, who dreams of owning a minor-league team, said, “I love business and the game. Owning the Albany Dutchmen has been a chance to learn the business of baseball.” He doesn’t attend games as often as he would like, but he watches his team on the Internet.

On top of all this, Bignall recently finished serving as entrepreneur in residence at St. Thomas, a volunteer position that entailed being available to help students and faculty at the Schulze School of Entrepreneurship in the Opus College of Business. “I was available to mentor groups and individuals and to guest speak as needed,” he said. “I was not there as a teacher; I was there to boost the program, and I helped raise money for it.”

The Throwbot XT. (Photo by Mike Ekern ’02)

Before he joined ReconRobotics, Bignall worked for other companies, both large and small, including Rolls-Royce, IDS, Fingerhut and Visual Interactions Inc. When asked  about the high points and low points of his career, he was characteristically optimistic. “I am generally high on life,” he said. For him, the challenging situations one can face at work are merely opportunities to learn. His lowest point was probably at a time when he was between businesses. “I had no team, no energy,” he said. “I wasn’t surrounded by smart people. I’m energized by dealing with entrepreneurs.”

He pours this energy back into the people around him. “I have had such a wonderful professional life,” he said. “I want to make other people successful. Personal recognition  is nice, but that’s not what I’m looking for. I’m looking for how to help people.” He added, “I’m always looking for new businesses to start. They just pop up all the time.”

Jack Klobucar, marketing director at ReconRobotics, has noticed Bignall’s investment in people. “What really separates him from others is the way he thinks and runs his business. He focuses on two groups. First, he focuses on the customer. If a customer has a problem, we’ll fix it immediately. Not tomorrow; today. There’s no one like that in the industry. We have a loyal customer base. Second, he focuses on each employee. He feels that if he can help an individual to be challenged and to grow, everything else  takes care of itself. This is highly unusual. I’ve consulted with dozens of companies. Most CEOs focus on numbers, but Alan focuses on the individual customer and the individual employee.” He noted that Bignall’s focus on these two groups has had a ripple effect, making the other stakeholders happy, including shareholders.

Bignall gives in part because he is grateful for what he has received from others. “I haven’t had just one or two mentors,” he said. “I’ve had hundreds of mentors. I try to listen to advice from everybody, and I try to be self-aware. I have a rule: If something’s not working, it’s always my fault.” Barmore has seen this in him. “He’s not a know-it-all,” she said.

The result of Bignall’s humility, energy, vision and focus on the individual is a successful work team that has fun while delivering results. “From day one, he wanted to create a business where he would like to work,” Klobucar said. “He looks at it through the eyes of the employee.” And, he noted, the employees respond: “We’re all in this together, creating something entirely new.”

Read more from B. Magazine.

The oldest of six siblings, Carlson grew up on a second-generation farm in southeastern North Dakota. Her family was involved in many community organizations, especially North Dakota Farmers Union. She majored in political science and in Honors (a liberal arts program) at the University of North Dakota. After graduation, she worked for Sen. Byron Dorgan in Washington, D.C., on agricultural policy; on Sen. Kent Conrad’s re-election campaign in North Dakota; and for National Farmers Union as a lobbyist back in Washington.

Law School, a Logical Next Step

Pursuing a law degree was a logical next step for Carlson. Working for senators and as a lobbyist, she had become intrigued by the legislative process. “I was interested in how bills become laws, and thought law school would help me understand that process more fully,” she said.

As Carlson was completing her law school applications, she wrote what she considered to be a “pretty standard essay.” But for St. Thomas, her essay became much more personal. She said she wrote about her relationship with her grandmother. “It just seemed appropriate for St. Thomas.”

It certainly was. Carlson received a phone call from Assistant Dean of Admissions Cari Haaland, who said she remembered reading the essay because it embodied the school’s mission so well. “I didn’t know about the mission as much then, but I felt drawn to it,” Carlson said.

She also liked the idea that the School of Law was both new and connected to an established university. “I was excited about being involved in something from the start – something that had big goals,” she said.

Carlson said she loved her time at St. Thomas, with its respectful conversations about a variety of issues. Many people contributed to her positive law school experience. Among them were Lisa Brabbit (“the best mentor you could find”), Neil Hamilton (“so thoughtful about developing himself and students into servant leaders”), former dean Tom Mengler (“a compassionate person who truly wanted to see all stakeholders get what they needed”) and Tom Berg (“he fosters such a great open dialogue; he is such a good teacher”).

While she always appreciated her experience at the School of Law, she said she didn’t realize how unusual it was until she was in practice. “I would be talking to colleagues and would say, ‘Remember when in law school you talked about the kind of lawyer you wanted to be and what kind of law community it should be?’ And they’d say that they didn’t have those kinds of conversations in law school.”

Her Professional Journey

Carlson’s professional journey has taken a few twists and turns. Following graduation, she clerked for a year for District Court Judge Steven Cahill in Moorhead, Minn. After working in-house at Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota, Carlson went back to her rural roots to work at Minnkota Power Cooperative. In April 2012 she became general counsel and director of government relations for the North Dakota Farmers Union, a 40,000-member advocacy organization for family farmers.

Her work is far-ranging. Carlson provides legal counsel to the organization itself, ranging from contract review to employment issues. She also offers legal counsel to the Farmers Union Mutual Insurance Co., which is owned by the members of the Farmers Union.

Much of Carlson’s work is focused on government relations. “It is an advocacy organization, after all,” she said. After the members determine the organization’s policies, she and other staff members advocate for those policies on both the state and national levels. These policies cover anything and everything connected to a rural way of life – infrastructure issues such as roads and energy development, family issues, including health care and day care, how to feed a growing world via the system of family farming, and much more. Carlson is involved in the entire process, from policy development to day-to-day advocacy to legislative and regulatory responses.

It’s a big job, but for Carlson, it feels like coming home. “I always thought I would end up working on rural issues,” she said. “I grew up on a farm and in this organization. It’s great to work for an organization you really believe in, one in which everyone else – from staff to members – believes in its mission as well. Nobody is just doing a job. Caring for the members drives their work every day. It feels good to know we’re doing really important work.”

All this good work leads to one inevitable challenge: time. “It’s tough to find enough hours in the day to do everything that’s on my plate,” Carlson said. Part of that challenge is professional. She tries to carve out time daily to work on both legal and advocacy issues. Part is personal, trying to balance her professional responsibilities with her family life.

Carlson and her husband, Ryan, who also is an attorney, have three sons: Quinn, 6, Will, 4, and Tommy, 2. “Evenings with our kids is sacred time. My family is my priority,” she said, noting that she often works after the children have gone to bed.

The School of Law prepared Carlson for that work. “First and foremost, it made me think about what is important in both a career and a workplace,” she said.

After her year as a judicial clerk, she went through the motions of applying and interviewing at many law firms. “Through that process, I realized that those jobs weren’t the ones I really wanted,” she said. “In school, I was really thoughtful about where I wanted to work. I stepped back and thought about it more, and went a different direction.”

Each step along the way brought new clarity for her on what is really important. At Blue Cross Blue Shield, Carlson learned a lot about how to serve clients with excellence, she said. Both Minnkota and the Farmers Union have a strong element of servant leadership, stewardship and ties to members.

“These are the kind of important things that we focused on in the culture at St. Thomas,” she said.

Read more from St. Thomas Lawyer.