spring '12 owl & spade

T H E M A G A Z I N E O F W A R R E N W I L S O N C O L L E G E SPRING 2012

FAREWELL TO PRESIDENT PFEIFFER

STEVEN SOLNICK NAMED 7TH PRESIDENT

ADVOCACY INITIATES LIBERTY

GLOBAL EXCHANGE FOR SUSTAINABILITY

KEEPING FOOD ON THE TABLE

&OWL SPADE

President Sandy Pfeiffer at a recent Commencement

On the CoverBy the time of his retirement in June, President Pfeiffer will have presented more than 1,000 diplomas. This spring the College had a record number of degree candidates.

The academic regalia worn by WWC presidents includes a tartan stole, which was designed by Sharon Fullerton Grist '77 in commemoration of the College's centennial in 1994. Blue and gold

of maroon represent the Triad of academics, work and service. Gray represents the rock upon

the valley, forest and surrounding mountains. The tartan is registered with the Scottish Register of Tartans.

Owl & Spade (ISSN Spring/fall publication: 202-707-4111) is published twice a year (spring, fall) by the staff of Warren Wilson College. Address changes and distribution issues should be sent to [email protected] or Rodney Lytle, CPO 6376, PO Box 9000, Asheville, NC 28815.

Printed on Rolland Enviro100 Print paper (made with 100% post-consumer waste and processed totally chlorine free). Printed with vegetable oil-base inks. Compared to virgin paper, using this paper saved 81 trees, 29,261 gallons of water, 56 min BTUs of energy (224 days of power for an average American household), 7,049 pounds of

Calculator at www.neenahpapers.com/Resources/Calculators/ECalculator

OWL & SPADE SPRING 2012

MissionThe mission of Warren Wilson College is to provide a distinctive undergraduate and graduate liberal arts education. Our undergraduate education combines academics, work and service in a learning community committed to environmental responsibility, cross-cultural understanding and the common good.

&OWL SPADET H E M A G A Z I N E O F W A R R E N W I L S O N C O L L E G E

Correction from Fall 2011In the “MFA Program for Writers celebrates 35th anniversary” article in the fall 2011 issue, we mistakenly omitted the faculty reference in the photo caption on page 21. The caption should have read, “January 1979 MFA for Writers faculty and graduating class.” MFA Program Director Deb Allbery writes, “As much as we’d like to claim the education of Ray Carver or Toby Wolff et al. (and as much as we faculty do in fact feel taught by this program, every semester), they were instructors, not students.”

Thanks for pointing that out, Deb. –JB

Weekend@Wilson June 22–24, 2012

Learn. Laugh. Live.

Alumni and families are invited to campus for a weekend of workshops, toe-tappin' music, tasty food and more.

For more information, contact Ally Wilson— [email protected]

or call 828.771.2092www.warren-wilson.edu/weekend

of communications, media relations and advancement for alumni, faculty, staff, students,

parents and friends of Warren Wilson College.

EditorJohn Bowers

[email protected]

Graphic DesignerMartha Smith

Contributing WriterBen Anderson

ContributorsWilliam Connelly ’13

Tracy BleekerTimothy Burkhardt ’13

Mary CraigElizabeth Dacy ’10

Melissa Ray Davis ’02 Ally Wilson

Jack Igelman Rosie McDermottLaura Meiss ’10

Sheridan Philipp ’14 Kathryn Schwille MFA ‘11

Kevin Walden

Copy EditorJennie Vaughn

www.warren-wilson.edu/~owlandspade

& TRIAD NEWS 2

FACULTY & STAFF NEWS 16

FEATURES 18 JESSE FRIPP ’94: LEADER IN GLOBAL MICROFINANCE AND MOBILE BANKING DONGPING HAN: KEEPING FOOD ON THE TABLE

THE WINDS OF THE RESIDENCY: A SENIOR IMMERSED IN THE MFA PROGRAM FOR WRITERS CLAUDIA AND MIKE NIX: ADVOCACY INITIATES LIBERTY

HOMECOMING AND FAMILY WEEKEND 24

ALUMNI NEWS 26

LOOKING BACK 30 MFA BOOKSHELF 31

OWL SPADECONTENTS

2 22COVER: FAREWELL TO PRESIDENT PFEIFFER LEADER IN GLOBAL MICROFINANCE CLAUDIA AND MIKE NIX: LIBERTY BICYCLES

18


2

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

As I write this last Owl & Spade message before I retire in June, I’m re!ecting on a trip to Washington D.C., where I acquainted several legislative o"ces with the wonders of Warren Wilson and the other six work colleges. Such trips give me a chance to view our college through others’ eyes, and I always return to campus with an even greater appreciation for what we’ve accomplished together.

Having spent four decades teaching and working at six di#erent colleges and universities, I’ve acquired some perspective on the many options from which prospective students have to choose. At the same time that these options have expanded, students and their families have been forced to take on more debt to a#ord college. $us they scrutinize their choices as never before. Every college that wants to survive, let alone thrive, must take a long, hard inward look to make sure it meets the needs of students today and tomorrow, not yesterday.

Here at Warren Wilson we’ve been taking that long, hard look and are making adjustments accordingly. Convinced as we are that our college will “lead the nation toward a new model for liberal arts education” (as stated in the vision statement in our 2010-2015 strategic plan), the campus is working tirelessly to improve and integrate the three parts of our distinctive Triad: academics, work and service. For example, the general education curriculum is being reviewed, the Work Program is being expanded and the Service Program is being revised. Plus, we’re investing in internships, career counseling, faculty, co-curricular activities, and facilities, among many other changes.

In short, the College is in excellent shape as we prepare for the arrival of the seventh president of the College, Steven Solnick. I wish Steve all the best as he begins his tenure as president of Warren Wilson, a college poised to become an even greater national leader in the coming years.

Sandy Pfei#er

In the 70-year history of Warren Wilson as a college, only six people have held the title of president. William Sanborn “Sandy” Pfeiffer will have served six years at the helm by the time he retires in June.

The Pfeiffer years have been marked by growth in enrollment and endowment, and by many other achievements and recognitions of the College as its national reputation has continued to grow.

During the Pfeiffer presidency, undergraduate and graduate enrollment surpassed

has grown from about $34 million to more than $54 million amid a turbulent economy.

Under Pfeiffer’s leadership the College adopted a sustainability decision-making model and a strategic plan for the period 2010-2015. Warren Wilson also has received an impressive number of national recognitions during his presidency, including feature stories in The New York Times Sunday Magazine and on CNN International.

The Pfeiffer Years 2006-20122006. William Sanborn "Sandy" Pfeiffer, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Ramapo College of New Jersey, becomes sixth president of Warren Wilson College, succeeding Douglas M. Orr Jr.

2007.North Carolina to sign a letter of intent for the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment (ACUPCC).

2007. President’s Advisory Council formally adopts sustainable decision-making model for college policy issues.

2007. Pfeiffer and Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy sign partnership on behalf of Warren Wilson College and the City of Asheville, declaring support for each other in their respective climate commitments.

2007. Warren Wilson is ranked No. 3 on Sierra Magazine’s inaugural “Coolest Schools” list, which recognizes 10 colleges and universities nationwide that are

2008.

2009.

2009.

2009. Bryson Gym, built in 1920, reopens after extensive restoration.

2009. Fall undergraduate enrollment of 938 is highest in college’s history.

2009.

2010. Strategic Plan for the College adopted with eight strategic priorities and goals for the years 2010-2015.

2011. Pfeiffer announces to Board of Trustees at February meeting that he will

A farewell to President Sandy Pfeiffer

3

Warren Wilson College Presidents 1942–2012

Arthur M. Bannerman, 1942-1971

Reuben A. Holden, 1971-1986

John J. Carey, 1986-1988

Alfred O. Canon, 1988-1991

Douglas M. Orr Jr., 1991-2006

William S. Pfeiffer, 2006-2012

Steven L. Solnick, seventh president of the College, begins July 1, 2012

Warren Wilson’s eight-month search for a new president led the College not only outside academia, but also far beyond the

United States to its successful conclusion in December 2011.

Steven L. Solnick, Ph.D., New Delhi Representative for the Ford Foundation and former Columbia University professor, was named by the Warren Wilson College Board of Trustees as the college’s seventh president, effective July 1. He will succeed Sandy Pfeiffer, who is retiring in June after six years as president.

“Steve has a wonderful coalescence of intellectual capacity, curiosity, ability and integrity to lead Warren Wilson forward,” board chair Joel Adams said. “We are delighted to welcome him and his family to the college and its greater community.”

Alice Buhl, search committee chair and board vice chair, said that “Steve embodies the values that are important to Warren Wilson College.

“He has learned and taught in rigorous and renowned academic settings. He has extensive leadership experience in diverse international settings. He built community wherever he has served in a leadership role. He also has a deep understanding of and commitment to environmental responsibility, as well as to social and economic justice.”

Solnick, 51, is poised to assume the presidency of a College that has a distinct niche in American higher education, a niche that he fully embraces.

“I am honored and excited by the opportunity to lead Warren Wilson, a college that believes, as I do, that higher education should offer not an escape from the ‘real world’ but a set of tools for thriving in it,” he said. “Work, service and scholarship are all essential elements of a fully formed world view, and at Warren Wilson these are all integral parts of the learning experience.

“With the liberal arts model drawing increasing scrutiny, Warren Wilson demonstrates how classroom instruction can blend with practical work and public service in a community of shared values that is at once intimate and globally connected.”

As New Delhi Representative since 2008, Solnick has been responsible for the programmatic and administrative leadership of the Ford Foundation’s oldest and largest

Lanka. From 2002 to 2008, Solnick was Moscow Representative for the Ford Foundation, providing leadership of the foundation’s activities across the Russian Federation.

Steven L. Solnick named seventh president of Warren Wilson College By Ben Anderson Photos by Tim Steadman

“I am honored and excited by the

opportunity to lead Warren Wilson,

a college that believes, as I do, that

higher education should offer not

an escape from the ‘real world’ but

a set of tools for thriving in it. Work,

service and scholarship are all

essential elements of a fully formed

world view, and at Warren Wilson

these are all integral parts of the

learning experience.”

—Steven L. Solnick

4

5

During his 9½ years with the Ford Foundation, Solnick has given shape and direction to the foundation’s work across areas such as human rights, higher education, arts and culture, media, livelihood promotion, sustainable agriculture and reproductive health. Solnick also has directly managed the foundation’s programming to combat HIV-AIDS in Russia and to promote government accountability and transparency in India.

“Steve Solnick is a leader who brings out the best talents of his colleagues, inspires innovation and creativity, and has a deep respect for tradition and institutional history,” said Susan Berresford, Ford Foundation President when Solnick was Moscow Representative. “He also brings to Warren Wilson knowledge of the global realities students should understand as they prepare for life in the 21st century. He is an inspired choice for the presidency.”

Before joining the Ford Foundation, Solnick was associate professor of political science at Columbia University and coordinator for Russian studies of its Harriman Institute. He is author of the book “Stealing the State: Control and Collapse in Soviet Institutions,” as well as numerous articles on post-Soviet affairs and comparative political economy. He has been a full member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 2001.

A native of Jersey City, N.J., Solnick holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was Phi Beta Kappa, and a doctorate in political science from Harvard University. He also has a B.A. (First Class) in politics and economics from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar. He was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a Fulbright-Hays Fellow at Moscow State University.

Solnick will be joined in Asheville by his wife, Maeve O’Connor, and their children: Elinor (15), Naomi (13) and Reuben (10).

“My family and I are thrilled to be moving to Asheville, a city we visited over a dozen years ago and have remembered fondly ever since,” Solnick said. “We cannot wait to join this vibrant community and to become a part of the Warren Wilson family.”

After Pfeiffer announced in February 2011 his intention to retire, the Board of Trustees formed a presidential search committee that included several trustees as well as faculty, staff and student representation. The committee was assisted by the

Upon the trustees’ announcement that Solnick would succeed Pfeiffer, the College bell tower rang seven times— one for each Warren Wilson president.

Steven Solnick’s educational and professional journey1981 S.B., physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1983B.A. (First Class), politics and economics, Oxford University (Worcester College) 1983-1985Associate, space systems practice, Booz, Allen and Hamilton Inc., Arlington, Va. 1985-1993Research associate, Russian Research Center and Center for International Affairs, Harvard University 1993Ph.D., political science, Harvard University 1993-2002Assistant/associate professor of political science, Columbia University

1994-2002Coordinator for Russian Studies, Harriman Institute, Columbia University

2002-2008Representative, Ford Foundation, Moscow 2008-presentRepresentative, Ford Foundation, New Delhi 2011President-elect of Warren Wilson College

“Steve Solnick is a leader who

brings out the best talents of his

colleagues, inspires innovation

and creativity, and has a deep

respect for tradition and

institutional history”

–Susan Berresford

Ford Foundation President when Solnick was Moscow Representative

Solnick in Izhevsk, Russia

6 OWL & SPADE SPRING 2012

Grammy Award winner Janis Ian will deliver the main address at Commencement on May 12 at 10 a.m. on the lawn of Sunderland Residence Hall.

Best known as a singer-sonwriter, Ian also is a magazine columnist and science Society’s Child, received much acclaim upon

publication in 2008. She has received several Grammy nominations and in 1975 won “Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female” for her huge hit record “At

on the debut of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”

Ian and Warren Wilson have forged strong ties in recent years. In 2010 the Pearl Foundation, founded by Ian and named in honor of her late mother, established the Pearl Foundation Scholarship at the College. Ian and her partner, Patricia Snyder, oversee the foundation. This past summer, Ian was one of several Grammy Award winners who taught and performed at the Swannanoa Gathering during its 20th anniversary season.

Janis Ian to deliver Commencement address

Two distinguished North Carolinians will be awarded honorary degrees at the 2012 Commencement ceremony. Irwin Belk of Charlotte and Billy Edd Wheeler of Swannanoa each will receive the Doctor of Humane Letters from the College. They are

Warren Wilson. A successful businessman and decorated World War II veteran, Irwin Belk is a member of the family that established the Belk department store chain and is the retired president of the Belk Group of Stores. He has served in both the N.C. House of Representatives and N.C. Senate, and in 1999 was appointed by President Clinton as the U.S. public delegate to the 54th U.N. General Assembly. He has been a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee for more than 40 years and received the committee’s highest volunteer award, the Olympic Order. He also is a longtime higher education philanthropist who endowed the Carol Grotnes Belk Outdoor Leadership Chair at Warren Wilson in 1996, in honor of his wife. Billy Edd Wheeler is a 1953 graduate of Warren Wilson Junior College and has remained a great friend of the College

TRIADNEWS

through the years. He came to North Carolina from West Virginia as a 16-year-old in 1948, initially to attend Warren Wilson’s high school. A resident of Swannanoa for

songwriter and singer, playwright and poet, painter and sculptor. His songs are literally known all over the world, including such hits

Belk and Wheeler to receive honorary degrees

as “Jackson,” “Coward of the County” and “Ode to the Little Brown Shack Out Back.” He has been inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame and the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.

Billy Edd Wheeler '53Irwin Belk


TRIADNEWS

ELC Internship Portfolio

Each year, the College publishes the Environmental Leadership Center (ELC) Internship Portfolio, a publication that includes

accounts of student internship experiences. Since 1996, 316 students have taken advantage of paid internships organized by ELC staff. Through these experiences, students emerge inspired and

Following is an excerpt by Laura Meiss ’12 from the 2011 Internship Portfolio.

CooperRiis Healing Community

Set in rural North Carolina, CooperRiis is a therapeutic healing farm community that aims to empower people struggling with mental illness. As an intern, my job entailed being a pair of helping hands in whatever capacity was needed. For the most part, my work was divided into life skills, farming and milieu. There are six life skills on the farm: garden, animal barn, art barn, wood shop, housekeeping and kitchen. In farming I worked with the garden manager and focused less on residents and more on agriculture. Milieu involves evening and weekend support. While working milieu shifts, I accompanied residents on weekly outings, planned movie nights or spent time with people who were struggling and needed extra support.

Though my concrete accomplishments were obvious to other people, I came to realize that the smaller things sometimes made a bigger difference to residents. Playing music, making people laugh and encouraging residents to do the things they love often empowered them to be proactive in their recovery. When residents come

“What’s your dream?” As staff, we try to teach residents to learn how to empower themselves, how to regulate their emotions and how to continue to feed their passions.

While gardening, I often thought about how people interact with food. I found myself thinking about crops, agricultural cycles, and the beautiful, nutritious meals that appeared for us daily. I anticipated that a much larger percentage of the population was involved in food production and expected that working with plants was one of the main alternative therapies that residents engaged in. Back on campus, I’ve begun to consider food systems more seriously. I’ve rekindled a passion for food security and have started to attend hunger-related service projects and write about the importance of having a connection with the land where our food grows.

On the Web: http://bit.ly/Amuv1M

“Though my concrete

accomplishments were

obvious to other people,

I came to realize that the

smaller things sometimes

made a bigger difference

to residents.”

Laura Meiss ’12 working at the CooperRiis garden.


Even though senior swimmers Johnathon Bland from Raleigh, N.C., and Amelia Hubbard from Tobaccoville, N.C., ended their four-year careers Feb. 18 at the Appalachian Conference Championships, their names will not soon be forgotten.

Both three-year captains will have ended their four-year careers as two of the most

College. They’ve etched their names in the WWC swimming record books, having broken a combined total of nine school records. They’ve also helped lead a swim program of 10 team members during

season. They and their peers have added consistency and a competitive spirit that will continue to grow.

“The combined efforts of Amelia Hubbard, Johnathon Bland and their peers have been instrumental in jumpstarting this awesome swimming program,” said swim coach Andrew Pulsifer. “Their work as captains and their willingness to lead peers by example have made a positive impact on so many areas of the college community. I am so grateful to have these rich relationships with all the seniors.”

Bland, a transfer from Florida Atlantic University, has competed for the Owls primarily in the 50- and 100-yard freestyle and the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke. At the Appalachian Conference Championships in Barbourville, Ky., Bland broke the 50-yard freestyle school record and missed three additional records by less than one second.

Bland has been successful in the pool and is very active in the WWC community.

on the Accounts Payable and Design &

National Anthem at the Senior Day men’s basketball game with fellow senior and

women’s soccer player Claire Bicchieri. He has been successful in the pool, in the community, in his work crews and most importantly, in the classroom. He plans on graduating with a degree in sustainable business management and a minor in outdoor leadership.

For his senior capstone project, sustainable business startup, Bland helped to create a start-up business, “Wings over Wilson,” a hang-gliding school. During his free time for

gliding in the Outer Banks for Kitty Hawk

as a 2-year-old with his father and hopes to continue to work for Kitty Hawk after graduation.

said about his Warren Wilson swimming experience. “You stand on the blocks waiting for the start, as if you’re standing on the edge of a mountain about to shout ‘clear’ before launching into the air like a

my experience at Warren Wilson will always be with me.”

Similar to Bland, Hubbard came to Warren Wilson intrigued by the Triad and desiring a small school close to home while also having the opportunity to compete in the pool.

Competing in the pool is exactly what she’s done. Over her four years, she’s raced for the Owls in a total of 13 events including the 200-, 500-, 1000- and 1650-yard

200-, 400- and 800-yard freestyle relay. Of those 13, she’s broken the school record in eight of her individual events. Since her

records and hasn’t let up. Her most recent records came in the spring 2012 semester in the 500- and 1000-yard freestyle, where she raced past her own record in the 1000 by over 12 seconds.

Hubbard plans to graduate in May with a degree in biology. She has worked on the Farm Crew for the past three years as the Cattle Crew Boss and plans to become a large animal veterinarian. She has applied to veterinary schools and is currently interviewing in pursuit of her dream.

“Swimming at Warren Wilson has provided balance in my life that I would have otherwise not been able to achieve,” Hubbard said. “It gives me the opportunity to de-stress in a healthy environment while also getting to hang out with an awesome group of people. We support each other through rough times, help transform tears to smiles and hold each other accountable every day.”

Along with fellow senior swim team members Heather Pregartner, Maddy Dillon, Brett Parmenter, Hilary Sullivan and Amelia Wiggins, Bland and Hubbard

Warren Wilson College Triad and Fighting Owls swim program. With their hard work and determination, they can both graduate proudly, knowing that they’ve made a lasting impact on our community.

Senior swimmers lead in and out of the waterBy Kevin Walden

TRIADNEWS

“Swimming at Warren Wilson

has provided balance in my life

that I would have otherwise not

been able to achieve. It gives

me the opportunity to de-stress

in a healthy environment while

also getting to hang out with an

awesome group of people.”

–Amelia Hubbard ’12

Amelia Hubbard ’12

Johnathon Bland '12


TRIADNEWS

Cycling Owls place second at collegiate national championships

$e College’s mountain bike team earned the silver medal in Division II of the Collegiate National Mountain Bike Championships, held in Angel Fire, N.M. $e Owls captured 89 total points, 11 points shy of national champion Union College. $e team had a great showing over the three-day competition in Angel Fire. Eva Wilson ’14 highlighted the Owls’ e#orts by %nishing %rst in the women’s omnium after a third-place %nish in the short track and downhill, a %fth-place %nish in the dual slalom, and a sixth-place %nish in cross-country.&

Other highlights included senior Molly Friedland’s sixth-place women’s omnium %nish and sophomore Michael Flynn’s 13th-place men’s omnium %nish. Friedland %nished sixth in the dual slalom and eighth in the downhill, while Flynn %nished 31st in the short track.

$e Owl men were also led by freshman TJ Trotter’s 17th-place %nish in the dual slalom and 36th-place %nish in the downhill. Fellow freshman Izzy Cohan placed 2fth in the cross-country.

$e mountain bike team has now %nished in the top three of Division II teams in the past nine national championships.

It’s been a long time since Warren Wilson put together a winning season in men’s basketball—so long, in fact, that no one on campus seems to recall the exact year. $e consensus is that it last happened sometime during the Reagan administration, before most current Warren Wilson students were born. In any case, it’s safe to say that the last winning season for the men’s team occurred well before the most recent millennium.

Enter the 2011-12 season, the fourth at WWC guided by head coach Kevin Walden. Walden’s teams won a total of 27 games during his %rst three seasons, a vast improvement over previous years but still short of winning records. A winning season continued to seem an elusive goal, perhaps even more so after the Owls lost their %rst three games of 2011-12.

As the season progressed, however, the Owls began piling up victories despite being unable to win more than two consecutive games for most of the schedule. But a tough buzzer-beating loss at home to Milligan College—after a 17-point Owls rally had tied the game in the %nal minute—dropped WWC two games below .500, at 7-9.

After the Milligan defeat, the Owls regrouped and reeled o# nine straight wins to %nish the regular season 16-9, capped by a hard-earned 73-69 victory over Florida Christian College on Senior Day in WWC’s DeVries Gym. Another highlight of the winning streak was an 84-76 win over neighboring Montreat College, fueled by a raucous crowd in DeVries. Just how loud was the crowd that night? Warren Wilson biology professor Lou Weber, who lives on campus near the gym, described it even though she wasn’t at the game:

“$e crowd inside the gym was so loud, I could hear the outcome of the last %ve minutes from my carport, ' mile from DeVries. I could clearly hear “stomp-stomp dee-fence,” then clearly hear the disappointment when a foul was called, then the fans screaming when Montreat shot the foul, then a fast break, then the victory and storming the !oor, all oozing out of the walls and drifting across the soccer %eld.”

At long last, a winning season By Ben Anderson

In their next game after Montreat, the Owls defeated Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte for their 13th win of the season, thereby assuring a winning record over the 25-game schedule. But they didn’t stop there, sweeping the %nal three games to extend their winning streak to nine and making the Owls’ %rst winning season since the 1980s even more impressive.“It’s been a fantastic year for our basketball program,” Coach Walden said. “We’ve got a great group of young men who understand the importance of being successful on and o# the court and have competed each and every day. Our team has come together this season and we played our best basketball toward the end.”

$e winning season may have been especially sweet for three Owl seniors who have been stalwart members of the basketball program: James Gaza, Patrick Rulong and Matt Kantor. $ey completed their college careers with the satisfaction of knowing they contributed to the Owls’ %rst winning mark in more than a generation.

$e Owls also just missed receiving one of seven at-large bids to the national championships of the U.S. Collegiate Athletic Association (Division II). But even absent a bid, the 2011-12 men’s basketball season at Warren Wilson has been one to remember. Chances are the 2012-13 season will be, too, as the Owls seek to build on their nine-game winning streak.

Rashad Ali '14 scores two in the 84-76 victory over Montreat Photo by R.L. Geyer

OWL & SPADE 10

TRIADNEWS

At the College Farm: Two breeds of sheep By Sheridan Philipp ’14

Earlier this year the College Farm ventured into an additional realm of animal husbandry by introducing 24 ewes to share the pastures with the cows and swine that have helped sustain the farm since 1894.

production,” Farm Manager Chase Hubbard said. “They were purchased from the Biltmore

restaurants.”

Owl & Spade went to press, the Farm Crew was awaiting the

retail sales.

young female donkey, to keep the predators at bay. Another addition is Jack, a nine-month-old Border Collie bred in Transylvania County by champion breeder/handler Dwight Parker. Jack will help move the sheep for grazing and regular care. Hubbard is Jack’s handler and trains him regularly with the sheep and cattle.

A former sheep farmer himself, Hubbard is an ideal resource and mentor for the newest Farm Crew component, the Sheep Crew—Alice Sloan ’12 and Leah Palmer ’15. Hubbard says the farm has high hopes for the sheep program and plans to expand it to continue providing experiential education for WWC students and for other colleges considering adding a sheep

The Always Broken Plates of Mountains,

writing professor Rose McLarney ’03 MFA ’10, was published by Four Way Books. “Though thick with fences, barns, and livestock, The Always Broken Plates of Mountains is not a book

life beyond a single lifetime, the whole, continuous life of one place and the

WWC MFA for Writers faculty member Maurice Manning.

Sacred Acts: How Churches are Working to Protect Earth’s Climate, a book by outdoor leadership/environmental studies professor Mallory McDuff, was published by New Society Publishers. The book includes a foreword written by Bill McKibben and contributions by Katharine Hayhoe. Sacred Acts documents the diverse actions taken by churches to address climate change through stewardship, advocacy,

Faculty Bookshelf

11 OWL & SPADE

TRIADNEWS

International Photo ContestEvery fall, the International

College community to submit

photographs from their study

abroad experiences and

international travels. Submissions

are displayed in the library as

community members vote for

their favorite photographs in three

categories.

Top to bottom:

Samantha Capps ’12 won the best landscape/nature category for her image of an optical illusion near Hôtel de Ville in Paris. Samantha participated in a CIEE summer study abroad program in France.

Maddy Dillon ’12 won the cross-cultural category for her photograph of children hula hooping in Kayamandi Township, Stellenbosch, South Africa. Maddy studied in South Africa for a semester through the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE).

Autumn Stinson ’12 won the people’s choice award for her photograph taken on the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. Autumn spent a summer in Kenya volunteering with the Alice Visionary Foundation Project, an organization that seeks to help orphans and those impacted by AIDS.


to the classroom. The Triad is a model of learning and growth through academics,

far beyond the Swannanoa campus. A joint initiative between the College’s International

Leadership Center (ELC) provides students and faculty with an additional opportunity for studying and working abroad through the new Global Exchange for Sustainability Program (GESP).

The College’s partnerships with international universities through GESP will foster the exchange of community members. Faculty may serve as visiting scholars, students may enroll at the partnering institution and staff may participate in a joint summer project. “Both schools identify service and work opportunities for faculty and students around the idea of sustainability,” says ELC Community Outreach Director Phillip Gibson. “Warren Wilson and partner schools will build lasting relationships and gain a broader range of sustainable practices.”

The GESP pilot initiative began last fall when faculty and staff traveled to Puebla, Mexico, to research forest management at the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP). The work in Puebla became the preview of the exchange program and helped to develop an understanding of how such an arrangement was mutually

Global Exchange for Sustainability By Elizabeth Dacy ’10

the example of how the UPAEP’s medical school could provide an opportunity for pre-med students from WWC to further their research. Students studying Spanish could

immersing themselves in the language and Mexican culture. As the program evolves, both institutions will discover opportunities for community service projects as well as research toward global sustainability.

In late February and early March, professor María Cristina Miranda Vergara from UPAEP was on campus for two weeks visiting classes and presenting guest lectures. Professor Vergara teaches molecular cell biology, general physiology, cell biology and ecosystems and is responsible for the school’s environmental engineering and biotechnology engineering programs.

WWC Environmental Studies Professor Dave Ellum will travel to Mexico this summer to initiate projects in sustainability and community forestry in Puebla and the nearby village of La Preciosita. Beginning in the summer of 2013, environmental studies students will have the opportunity to travel to Puebla with Ellum and participate in on-the-ground implementation of projects designed in cooperation with community members.

“This relationship is an important component of our efforts to expose students to other cultures’ perspectives on sustainability and

TRIADNEWS

to develop and strengthen ties between Western North Carolina and the Puebla Region,” Ellum explains.

A second GESP initiative involves history/political science professor Dongping Han and ELC interim executive director John Brock, who have received a grant from the Luce Foundation through the ASIANetwork Service Learning and Environment in Asia Program. With the grant, Han, Brock and three students, Mary Reding ’13, Johnny Slaff ’13 and Jacey Walrod ’14, will travel to Kunming, China, where they will join their Chinese collaborators at Yunnan University to assess the hazardous exposures of urban waste pickers and develop amelioration strategies. The project will also explore why these waste pickers gave up farming in their rural ethnic villages and moved to the cities where they

Environmental Leadership Center are looking

will work to identify partnerships with other international universities where exchange opportunities can be developed. The focus will remain on the College as a global community member and identifying the skill sets necessary to help students promote the change they’re seeking to make in the world.

WWC faculty and staff meet with women from La Preciosita, Mexico, on a project to protect 600 acres of forest

“This relationship is an important

component of our efforts to

expose students to other cultures’

perspectives on sustainability and

to develop and strengthen ties

between Western North Carolina

and the Puebla Region.”

–Dave Ellum, Professor Environmental Studies


Wendell Berry visits WWCIn November, Kentucky author, activist and farmer Wendell Berry

in the College Chapel. Berry’s writings—and his actions—correlate with Warren Wilson’s commitment to a Triad approach to education. In more than 50 book-length publications, he has articulated an agrarian worldview that values community, celebrates labor, promotes environmental stewardship and advocates for social justice.

Wendell Berry taught for many years at the University of Kentucky, while writing and farming. Over the years, he has been recognized

Stanford University, where he was in a seminar with Edward Abbey, Larry McMurtry, Tillie Olsen and Ken Kesey.

Berry, who the Christian Science Monitor has referred to as “the prophetic American voice of our day,” was impressed by his time in the Swannanoa Valley. On the night of his reading, he offered some commentary on Warren Wilson.

“I never leave home gladly, and I don’t like the ways we have of getting places,” Berry

going. And this—you students and faculty and administrators—this is a great place. This is an exceptional place. And I’ve collected an immense weight of good things to be grateful for since I’ve been here.”

TRIADNEWS

Wadley receives student service awardIn November, senior Madeline Wadley received the North Carolina Campus Compact’s Community Impact Student Award. She is one of 19 college

innovative contributions to their campus’s efforts to address local

from Gov. Beverly Perdue.

Wadley, a senior from Birmingham, Ala., is a member of the College’s Service Program Crew and Bonner Leader Program. She has taken advantage of leadership opportunities by organizing and facilitating Kids

and helping move forward the infrastructure of the College’s break trip and service-learning program.

She also has played an important role in the College’s increased commitment to the issue of housing and homelessness by co-leading two

working with other students and community partners to increase educational, advocacy and policy work.

Wadley received the award at the 19th N.C. Campus Compact Student Conference at Wake Forest University that brought together more than 200 college students and guests representing 26 North Carolina institutions of higher education. The compact’s executive director, Lisa Keyne, presented the awards with John Barnhill, founding director of N.C. Campus Compact.

Left-right: NC Campus compact executive director, Lisa Keyne, Madeline Wadley and John Barnhill, founding director of NC Campus Compact.

Jill Winsby-Fein ’13, a member of the Fine Woodworking Crew, presents Kentucky author, activist and farmer Wendell Berry with placemats, candlesticks and a lazy Susan made by student work crews.


This winter, music professor Kevin Kehrberg and global studies professor Jeff Keith traveled to Central Asia with their Appalachian string band, the Red State Ramblers, for a two-week U.S. Department of State tour of Kyrgyzstan. As a part of the tour, the Kyrgyz National Opera and Ballet Theatre, located in the capital city of Bishkek, hosted an evening of folk music to celebrate twenty years of friendship between the Kyrgyz Republic and the United States. The Red State Ramblers and the Kyrgyz folk ensemble Ustatshakirt shared the stage for a celebration of both

the ensembles performed a few pieces together. Both groups also performed together in village schools and town concert halls throughout the Issyk-Kul oblast. At the U.S. Embassy’s America Center, a performance space in the Kyrgyz National Library, the Red State Ramblers conducted a workshop on traditional American music.

TRIADNEWS

On a mission: Kehrberg and Keith in Kyrgyzstan

Kehrberg and Keith were excited to collaborate with Nurlanbek Nyshanov, the musical director of Ustatshakirt. Nyshanov is a member of Tengir Too, the celebrated group of Kyrgyz master musicians featured

Folkways Music of Central Asia series. Tengir Too and Ustatshakirt are at the center of a national movement to revive and reinvigorate the traditions of their nomadic ancestors.

“These exchanges provide understanding between cultures and help the people of Kyrgyzstan to understand that there is more to the United States than mainstream popular culture and geopolitics,” Keith said.

“These exchanges provide

understanding between cultures

and help the people of Kyrgyzstan

to understand that there is more to

the United States than mainstream

popular culture and geopolitics.”

–Jeff Keith

The Red State Ramblers together with the Kyrgyz folk ensemble Ustatshakirt at the National Opera House in Bishkek,

Kevin Kehrberg (left) and Jeff Keith (right) with Nurlan-bek Nyshanov, a Kyrgyz master musician and the Us-

and Keith presented Nyshanov with a dulcimer built by the College's Fine Woodworking Crew.

C H I N A

I N D I A

M O N G O L I AT U R K M E N I S T A N


Dusty BenedictAfter 33 years at the College, art professor Dusty Benedict will retire. In 1979, Dusty was hired to develop a visual arts department. “When I arrived, the art department was in the log cabin and had one classroom,” Dusty recalled.In the late 1980s Dusty helped create

in 1995, he was instrumental in the implementation of a full studio art major. Today, the department has grown from one

has become an ever-expanding art center complete with painting and drawing studio, sculpture and foundry shelter, ceramics and kiln area, photography lab, printmaking space, auditorium, gallery and faculty

Dusty encouraged creativity and nurtured talent in thousands of students over the years. His approach to art involved “having discipline coupled with keeping an open mind and going with your own style,” Heidi Zednick ’86 said.

Dusty commemorated the end of his time at the College with a retrospective exhibit of his work in Holden Gallery. His exhibit was one of the College’s most visited. After retiring from Warren Wilson, Dusty plans to travel and continue working as an artist.

Don and Vicki CollinsLong-time physics professor Don Collins and chemistry professor Vicki Collins will retire at the end of the semester. Since 1970 and 1975 respectively, Don and Vicki have built a strong foundation for Warren Wilson’s chemistry and physics programs and have fostered undergraduate research. In fact, for the past 15 years WWC students have won more North Carolina Academy of

Science awards for their research papers than students at any other institution in the state.

Don and Vicki have taught, mentored and career-counseled hundreds of science graduates through the years. “I think we all remember the individual concern, attention and guidance that they provided to us through the rigors of organic chemistry, physics, physical chemistry and beyond,” Joe Daprano ’86 said.

Though Don and Vicki only planned to teach at Warren Wilson for a couple of years, the students, the freedom to be creative in their labs and classrooms, the Swannanoa Valley, and the core values of the College held them here for over 40 years. The enthusiasm and imagination with which they taught, the individual attention to student development that they provided, and the joy of discovery in science that they

work and contributions to the College will be remembered for years to come.

The Collins-Kahl Future Scientists Scholarship supports students studying science at Warren Wilson. If you would like to honor Don and Vicki with a gift to this scholarship, please contact the

[email protected].

Jim LauerJim Lauer, student services director and mailroom manager, retired in January after 24 years of service to the College. In addition to his good work keeping the mail room running

supervising the Student Services Crew, Jim did much to advocate for intercultural exchange on campus. He led two study abroad trips, one to Hong Kong in April 2009 and another to India in February 2008. Jim also traveled to Thailand to represent the College at an alumni reunion of Thai exchange students in 2000.“He’s a great boss. He’s really understanding and can tell you some amazing stories about his exploits around the world,” Stuart Holland ’14 said.

After retirement, Jim plans to stay involved with the College by continuing to facilitate the BE Buddhist group on campus with WWC Librarian Mei Mah. Interested in Buddhism since the '60s, Jim will work part-time with former religious studies professor Hun Lye in developing the Urban Dharma Center in Asheville.

Norm PropstNorm Propst will retire at the end of the semester after 44 years of service to the College. He was hired in 1967 by President Arthur Bannerman to supervise students on the Carpentry Crew. Affectionately known as “Old Top,” Norm has supervised hundreds of students over the years, though he hasn’t just taught students how to build things—he taught

work ethic.

“I speak for myself and for countless others for whom Norm was a boss, friend, mentor and counselor. His genuine concern, kindness and wisdom helped make Warren Wilson a truly special place for many of us,” Mark Banker ’73 said.

There is no doubt that Norm served as a positive role model and passed on meaningful skills to countless students. “I will miss the students the most, no doubt,” Norm said. “My goal in life was to work where I could help people. And I’ve done that.”

Three years ago, a group of alumni established the Norm Propst Scholarship, which is awarded annually to bright and deserving students. To honor Norm and his 44 years of service with a gift to this scholarship, please contact the

[email protected].

2012 RETIREES


“A Story Teller’s Story, A Poet’s Beginnings,” an essay by MFA Director Debra Allbery appeared in Fiction Writer’s Review. Her poem, “Of Evanescence,” was published in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

History/political science professor Melissa Estes Blair served as a panel member for “Re-Framing the U.S. Women’s Movement: A Roundtable Discussion” at UNC-Chapel Hill.

For 18 years biology/environmental studies professor Amy Boyd has been working on a long-term study of Nichol’s Turk’s Head Cactus and recently conducted the annual population survey for the endangered species.

ELC interim executive director John Brock and history/political science professor Dongping Han have received a grant from the Luce Foundation through the ASIANetwork Service Learning and Environment in Asia Program to travel with three students to conduct research in Kunming, China.

Art history professor Julie Levin Caro presented a paper at the Southeastern College Art Conference on the Hudson River School artist Thomas Cole and his role as an architect and landscape designer. In addition, Caro was an invited speaker at an international symposium on the German American artist Winold Reiss held at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Free University, in Berlin, Germany.

Chemistry department chair Stephen Cartier’s paper “The Statistical Interpretation of Classical Thermodynamic Heating and Expansion Processes” was published in the Journal of Chemical Education. In November he presented “Full of Hot Air? A New (Statistical) Approach to Old (Classical) Ideas” to the American Chemical Society’s local chapter.

“The Revolutionary,” a poem by creative writing professor Gary Hawkins, appeared in Spoon River Poetry Review.

Farm manager Chase Hubbard and sustainable agriculture professor Laura Lengnick were invited speakers at the Seeding the Future Conference at Dickinson College. Hubbard presented “Managing Student Labor on a Multiple Enterprise Farm: Lessons and Strategies from Production Agriculture and ‘Three-hour Blocks.’” Lengnick delivered “Sustainable Agriculture at Warren Wilson College: Cultivating Leadership for Sustainable Food Systems.”

Creative writing professor Lockie Hunterpiece “The Witness of High Hats” was published in the Winter 2012 issue of the Baltimore Review.

Former international student advisor and English language instructor Lorrie Jayne has been named the WWC Director of Diversity and Intercultural Initiatives. She is a candidate for a doctorate in interdisciplinary studies, humanities and culture concentration at Union Institute and University.

Sociology professor Siti Kusujiarti was awarded an ASIANetwork Freeman Student-Faculty Fellowship to take students with her to conduct research in Indonesia.

Swannanoa Gathering Director Jim Magill’s design for the 2011 Swannanoa Gathering catalog cover won Best of Category, Programs from the Printing Industry of the Carolinas (PICA). This recognition makes his eighth PICA award.

FACULT Y&STAFFNE WS

Tom Showalter: Service in the Smokies For 12 years, history professor Tom Showalter has been taking care of the Boogerman Trail in the Cataloochee section of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) through Volunteers in the Park (VIP), a program serving national parks. The Boogerman Trail is named for Robert “Boogerman” Palmer, whose home site is along the trail. “In a typical year, I drive some 1,400 miles, hike 130 miles and get service credit from the GSMNP for the time I’m on the trail,” Showalter said. In the 14 to 16 days he spends each year working for the park, he generally works alone maintaining campsites and trails.

“I learned of the VIP Program in the early 1990s,” he said. “A few years later, I decided to join the organization with the idea to have the College adopt a trail and to have students help with the work as a new service project. I realized that students could not carry this out on a long-term basis.” In 1999 he took on the

a remote backcountry campsite, McGee Springs (#44), to his responsibilities. His service commitment to the GSMNP is a continuation of trail work he started on campus in the 1980s before there was a work crew dedicated to trail maintenance. “I used my chainsaw when needed, and Dean of Work Ian Robertson would loan me the garden tractor to bush-hog the trails at least once a year.”

History professor Tom Showalter on a cold, rainy January day in 2000 when he and GSMNP workers removed an iron wheel that had sat alongside the trail for years.


“Holding a Vision: A Nuclear Weapon-Free World,” an article by Paul Magnarella, director of peace and justice studies, was published in the Peace Chronicle. He spent the fall semester on sabbatical research in Turkey where he examined human rights practices, Turkey’s efforts to join the European Union and recent developments in Susurluk—a town he studied and wrote a book about in the 1980s. While in Istanbul, he exchanged words of peace with an armed soldier guarding the Ottoman Sultan’s palace.

English professor Michael Matin’s article “The Creativity of War Planners: Armed Forces Professionals and the Pre-1914 British Invasion-Scare Genre” was published ELH: English Literary History. His article “Scrutinizing The Battle of Dorking: The Royal United Service Institution and the Mid-Victorian Invasion Controversy” appeared in Cambridge UP’s Victorian Literature and Culture. In addition, he delivered a lecture, “National Security Fictions and the Postcolonial World,” at Presbyterian College.

Together with Dr. Laura Cruz from Western Carolina University, Pew Learning Center and Ellison Library Director Christine Nugent presented a paper at the annual meeting of the Sixteenth Century Society & Conference. The paper, “Through a Glass Darkly: Reconstructing Early Modern Knowledge Networks through Books,” is about using geographic information systems software to represent Frankfurt Book Fair catalogs from 1565 and 1600.

For the second time, history/political science professor Philip Otterness was a featured historian on NBC’s program “Who Do You Think You Are?” Each hour-long episode of the show traces a celebrity’s ancestry and uses these stories to illustrate America’s history. In the episode that aired March 2, Otterness

appeared with Tim McGraw, telling the country singer about his family’s German roots.

WWC President Sandy Pfeiffer delivered the paper “Farming in Japan: Cultural Icon Under Siege” at the 18th Annual Conference of the Japan Studies Association.

Catherine Reid’s article, “Warren Wilson College: Modeling Sustainability through a Triad of Education,” was recently published in Schooling for Sustainable Development in Canada and the United States, edited by Rosalyn McKeown and Victor Nolet. Warren

the collection, which is part of a series of UNESCO books on sustainability education around the world. In addition, Reid has been awarded the Robert and Charlotte Barron Creative and Performing Artist and Writers Fellowship for a month’s residency at the

Appalachian College Association, she will be on sabbatical for academic year 2012-2013.

FACULT Y&STAFFNE WS

Service-Learning Faculty Fellows

David Abernathy (global studies), Amy Boyd (biology/environmental studies), Annie Jonas (education), Martha Knight-Oakley (psychology), Christine Swoap (Spanish) and Jen Mozolic (psychology) have been selected as the inaugural Service-Learning Faculty Fellows. These faculty fellows integrate service learning into their courses,

organizations and explore scholarship/research opportunities within service-learning and community-based research. “Faculty Fellows engage in a series of workshops over the course of the academic year and create new classes that include service-learning concepts for the 2012-2013 academic year,” WWC Director of Service-Learning Brooke Millsaps said.

Psychology professor Bob Swoap presented “Helping People Make and Maintain Changes: Lessons from Sport Psychology” at the Southeastern Psychology Association annual conference.

Sociology professor Laura Vance has been invited to serve on the board of editorial consultants for Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions.

Writing Center Director Julie Wilson participated in conducting a com-munity writing program for teens in the Durham County Library. She also co-wrote the chapter "'Here in this Place':

North Carolina” in Circulating Communities: The Tactics and Strategies of Community Publishing.


Jesse Fripp ’94:

By Tracy Bleeker

I’ve had the opportunity to meet and work with a wide range of people, from former U.S. presidents, Nobel prize-winners, CEOs and senior diplomats to refugees rebuilding their lives afterwar, rickshaw drivers starting their businesses, women house-holders trying to earn income to rebuild their homes after

grounding of experience that began at Warren Wilson has helped me to appreciate the common bonds of humanity and the aspiration that unites us far more than divides us. That’s a great gift, and I owe a debt of gratitude to the College for giving me that opportunity. –Jesse Fripp ’94

Jwhen he was 11. In 1983 his mother, Sarah Jane, a registered nurse, took a position

spent three months living in thatched huts in a small jungle village with 20 Warren Wilson students,” Fripp remembers. “You could say that I had Warren Wilson in the DNA from that experience.”

After graduating from Asheville High School, Fripp wanted a college experience that was more personal and meaningful than at larger universities where his friends were going. Though he had strong verbal SAT and English AP scores, Fripp said he was a “diamond in the rough” in regard to academic potential. But at Warren Wilson, the caliber of the English department and the opportunity for one-on-one interaction helped him to break bad academic habits, focus on building strengths and address weaknesses head on.

“The humility, discipline, understanding and rigor I learned from pursuing the English honors track have served me very well, both personally and professionally,” he said.

In the work program, Fripp started with the Motor Pool Crew, then moved on to the Print Shop Crew experiencing what he calls “Pete’s Inferno,” a combination of an English literature context and the exacting work ethic of crew supervisor Pete Tolleson. He also worked on the Theater Crew and as co-editor of the Common Tongue, now The Echo.

“I internalized Dean of Work Ian Robertson’s ethos and took great pride in my own small contribution to the functioning of the campus community,” Fripp said. “The College created the space for learning, and we learned to do what is interesting and important to us in a way that helps the human community.”

In service, Fripp was involved with the Juvenile Evaluation Center Big Brothers Big Sisters program just as founder Janine Rhodes and faculty advisor Dorothy Herbert were getting it off the ground. “The service component taught me a lot of personal lessons, along with professional ones related to organization, management, planning and training,” Fripp said.


Not long after graduation, he joined the U.S. Peace Corps and worked in community and NGO development in Romania. After completing his two years of service in the Peace Corps, Fripp remained overseas working as a consultant for a development organization in Romania and the Balkans. He later served as country director for CHF International and launched a non-bank

In 2001 he returned to the United States to continue his work with CHF

focused on management of major post-

his master’s degree at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy.

Since 2005, he has worked with ShoreBank International (SBI), a mission-driven

community banking movement. At SBI he is a vice president with responsibility for the Middle East and South Asia. Globally,

mobile banking.

“I work with a great team that is engaged

economically active people who currently have no or limited access,” Fripp said. In addition to his worldwide work at SBI, he serves as vice chair of the board of directors for Oikocredit USA, a leading global socially-responsible investor in fair trade, social enterprise, cooperative businesses and

at George Washington University. He treasures any and all free time with his wife, Margareta, and their two children, Geanina and Arthur.

“The College created

the space for learning, and we

learned to do what is interesting

and important to us in a way that

helps the human community.”

–Jesse Fripp

Fripp with colleagues and community members in a semi-permanent refugee camp


“If you don’t have a job and can’t eat, that is bad. But if you know how to farm, you will be

his message, he urges everyone, “When you graduate, seek out government grants to get land to farm, then teach the homeless how to farm the right way.”

Raised in the Shandong Province of China during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Han grew up in a farming village under the Hukou system, in which every citizen’s fate is directly tied to the well-being of his or her village. This system can be perceived by

the system worked well in his home village of He Nan, which he affectionately refers

to as “the village.” While not advocating that Hukou be established in America, Han believes that a return to rural agriculture

food hardship.

Han looks at his childhood experiences of farming within his community as valuable

time off from school as a boy in order to help during the planting and harvest seasons. “We had 67 days of full-time work every year, planting winter wheat in the fall and harvesting it in May and June.” Han says that even though they did not go to school during harvest, he learned from the stories told by older farmers.

Though working on the farm meant less time for studies, Han attended the Chinese University where he received bachelor’s degrees in English and translation. At the age of 23, or according to Han, “24 in China, where we count from when you are conceived,” he left China to continue his education abroad. After receiving graduate training in education in Singapore, he moved to the United States to study history at the University of Vermont, where he received his master’s degree, and at Brandeis University, where he completed his doctorate.

Despite having left the village, Han has never forgotten his farming roots. He has kept a small garden everywhere he has lived. When he came to Warren Wilson in 1999, he was able to create a larger garden using his front yard. He planted in stages to ensure fresh food every month.

Han’s garden is so successful he has virtually

stores. “I get everything from my garden, and when I want meat, I buy a pig from the

Warren Wilson farm,” he says. “Many of the pigs are sent away to be butchered,” says Han. “I kill my own because I like to use every part.” In a nation where most people get their meat packaged in plastic, this level of commitment to local food is inspiring. Archeology professor David Moore is a big fan of Han and what he represents to the local food movement. “What better model of individual responsibility for producing your own food is there? Dongping’s food

is,” Moore says.

Back in his garden, Han surveys his crops. “I

he says. Looking at the bountiful harvest he has made in a space usually reserved for sprinklers, lawn mowers and pesticides, it is easy to imagine a nation that looks like this—communities growing and sharing food together, solving hunger issues. “It has to be like that,” Han says. “There is no other way we can survive: better food, health and environment.”

Dongping Han: Keeping food on the tableBy Timothy Burkhardt ’13Photo by Taylor Moore ’12

“If you don’t have a job

and can’t eat, that is bad.

But if you know how to farm,

you will be OK.”

–Dongping Han

20

Dongping Han never needs to mow his lawn. Walking through the maze of wooden planters covering his yard on

the edge of campus, he stops to point at the varieties of plant life thriving in place of a typical suburban lawn monoculture.

“This is a cabbage,” he says. “These will be tomatoes. These are garlic, peas, onions, kale and spinach. I love my spinach.”

Every inch of his lawn is bursting with food.

As food costs and unemployment rise across America and as the economy continues to recover, many people are at a loss for what to do. For the Warren Wilson College history/political science professor, the answer is simple: teach people how to farm. In one of his classes, Environmental Politics in Global Perspectives, Han encourages students to pursue knowledge about agricultural practices.


The winds of the residency: A senior immersed in the MFA Program By William Connelly ’13

21

“Immersion and patience—the

residency’s lessons, like each

semester’s lessons, can be slow

apprenticeship is lifelong.”

–Debra Allbery MFA Program Director

I had the pleasure of starting off the year as a student in Warren Wilson’s renowned MFA Program for Writers. Each

year, an MFA graduate teaches several undergraduate writing classes. One of these is the MFA class, offered to a select group of 10 undergraduate writers. The class starts with the ten-day residency, which is the launching point for an eight-week course where the class continues to workshop each other’s writing and discuss MFA readings and lectures.

The MFA program follows the low-residency model, so faculty and students are together on campus twice a year—in January and

At the residency, MFA students are paired

carried out through one-on-one mentoring. Undergraduate writing professor Catherine Reid described the residency as “an active time of lectures, classes, readings and meetings—a time of creative and intellectual community.” The interface between the undergraduate creative writing program and the MFA program started in 1995 with MFA alumna and then-director of the undergraduate writing department, Ann Turkle. “The

make the MFA program more accessible to undergrads,” Turkle said. “I was impressed by the generosity of the MFA faculty and that of graduating MFA students to meet with undergrad students.”

This year the class was taught by Joan Beebe Teaching Fellow Rachel Howard, who had this to say about her work with the class: “It was really great to reconnect with the MFA program and to help bridge the gap between the MFA curriculum and the undergraduate course content.”

As an undergraduate majoring in creative writing, I was excited to take part in the MFA program. This excitement was slightly dashed, though, when I encountered a barrage of cryptic ideas and concepts in the lectures, like asyndeton, dactyl, trochee and other esoteric poetic terms. As a writer of

that all writing disciplines share the same deep conceptual basis—human expression and the approach of mastering what is said. MFA faculty member and distinguished scholar and poet James Longenbach touched on these ideas when he asked, “What makes us the individual we are? Essence? Culture? Language?” This line of thinking was taken further when faculty member Alan Shapiro said in his lecture “Convention and Mysticism,” “Understand the conventions you are working with, and when you break them, understand why you break them and what effect that is having.” It was nice to meet with fellow undergraduates after the lectures and discuss what was said. Some of us felt overwhelmed by the high-level thinking

presented. Director of the MFA program Debra Allbery describes the lectures as “a heady experience, in the density and velocity of their thought.” She added, “We consider the lectures the ‘common texts’ of

inform each other in exciting ways as the residency progresses.” Undergraduate creative writing director Gary

after because so many of the lectures are

residency.”

The residency was about far more than just the mechanics of writing. At times, we talked about huge, far-reaching issues like meaning and relevance. For example, on one occasion Kevin McIlvoy, a longtime MFA faculty member known as “Mc,” came to our class and participated in the discussion. Some angst spilled into the classroom when

faculty readings. In light of all the problems in the world, the student said, many of the faculty readings didn’t seem to be relevant or important. The student asked Mc what the point of their writing was. The bright-eyed Mc replied with genuine humility by saying it was

azalea and its beauty when in bloom. He asked the class, “What’s the point of the azalea?” Coming into direct contact with beauty can have a deeply transformational effect, he concluded. Another component of the undergraduate MFA course is a meeting of each undergraduate writer with a graduating MFA student, who reviews the undergraduate’s work and provides feedback. This was one of the best experiences I had during the residency. It was wonderful to meet with an

of various aspects of my writing.

The opportunity to take part in the MFA program as an undergraduate was a rare opportunity that I’m thankful to have had. Many of the ideas are still impressed in my thinking, and I’ve noticed a marked improvement in my writing. Allbery describes it well: “Immersion and patience—the residency’s lessons, like each semester’s

writer’s apprenticeship is lifelong.”

“It was really great to reconnect with the MFA

program and to help bridge the gap between

the MFA curriculum and the undergraduate

course content.” –Rachel Howard Joan Beebe Teaching Fellow


Claudia and Mike Nix: Advocacy initiates Liberty

One of the nation’s most successful bicycle shops, Liberty Bicycles in Asheville, can trace its beginnings

to Warren Wilson College.

And an army base.

In 1970, Mike Nix ’70 was serving at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina, when a fellow soldier who wanted to save a few bucks, cycled to base on a new Kmart 3-speed. But after riding in the scorching Piedmont heat, the soldier reconsidered his choice of transportation and urged Mike to buy the bike. Mike didn’t hesitate. Later that year, when he returned to Asheville to teach and enroll in graduate school, he purchased another bike—this one for his wife, Claudia Pugh Nix ’69.

Fast-forward four decades, and the two are still pedaling. During that time, they’ve managed to help thousands of others climb in the saddle. As newlyweds, the couple transformed their home into a bike shop—spending every evening after work adjusting gears, truing wheels and selling refurbished cycles. Since then, through their business savvy and advocacy, they’ve anchored a community of riders and elevated cycling’s stature in the North Carolina mountains,

and with it, the ability of cyclists to more safely tour scenic roads, bomb down trails and commute to work.

“$ey’ve been at the forefront of leading the charge to create more access and more awareness of cycling,” says Craig Friedrich, the owner of Ski Country Sports in Asheville and the president of the Western North Carolina Bicycle Dealers Association. Friedrich himself purchased his %rst two bikes from Mike and Claudia in the early 1980s and credits Liberty’s success as a catalyst for the !ourishing cycling culture in the region.

While their homegrown cycling enterprise is now among the nation’s most respected, their mission has stayed the same: to put people on bikes.

Before discovering their passion for cycling, the two met as students at the College.

While working at a summer camp in Ohio after high school, Claudia contemplated college to study social work or enter the ministry. $e %rst in her family to enter college and with little cash saved, she %gured a school with a work program would be a sensible option. So, after looking at a

handful of schools, she left behind a foot of snow in Cleveland and fell in love with Warren Wilson. Although, recalls Claudia, the College wasn’t nearly as wowed by her. Doc Jensen, then the College’s dean, told Claudia—a late bloomer academically—to prove her ability. Undeterred, she went home and excelled at courses at a community college and was admitted to Warren Wilson in the fall of 1965.

Mike, too, was attracted to the College’s work program. Raised in Haywood County, North Carolina, Mike graduated from North Georgia’s Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School, a boarding school with a tradition similar to Warren Wilson’s. “$e work part really excited me,” says Mike, who had two uncles attend the Farm School. “Farmers could do anything. $ey could %x their own cars and do the plumbing; that’s the atmosphere I grew up in. Warren Wilson has always had that.”

And although Jensen was underwhelmed with Mike’s prior academic performance, he agreed to admit Mike on probationary status.

Despite the dubious start, the two thrived. Claudia, in fact, was a member of the College’s %rst junior class when it began to o#er four-year degrees. After graduating, the two tied the knot in 1970 and settled in Asheville, Mike teaching middle school and Claudia working with in youth services and teaching adult basic education.

$eir busy lives kept them from their real passion: bike touring. While they hoped to cycle coast to coast, they decided to start with a relatively shorter ride: across the state from Murphy to Manteo. To stay on track, they invited friends to join them. $e immediate problem, however, was %nding the equipment to make it possible. $e specialized cycling gear they needed wasn’t available locally, so the group pooled their resources and launched the Recycle Shop in the Nixes’ Asheville home, which soon became a repository of frames, wheels and chains.

While juggling their full-time jobs and a !edgling bike business, the two were

22


also taking the lead on promoting bike facilities in the area. $ey were pushing for dedicated bike lanes and other infrastructure improvements to accommodate pedestrians and cyclists. $at didn’t leave much time to keep the house tidy and manage the mounting collection of bike parts. “It was a hobby gone bad,” jokes Mike. “We decided we had to do something to get it out of the house.”

But rather than easing o# their cycling venture, they dove in. In 1980, they transplanted a complete inventory from a recently folded shop in Southern Pines to a space in North Asheville in what had been a popular watering hole named for the corner of Liberty and Chestnut streets. To help customers %nd their way, they tweaked the name slightly and called the shop Liberty Corner Cycles. For the next few years, Mike and Claudia kept their day jobs and partnered with a manager to run the store. $ey achieved success, and spurred by the boom in BMX cycling in the early 1980s, they decided to expand to another location in south Asheville. In a career that has been %lled with sharp business decisions, this probably was not one of them. “We basically split our business between the two locations,” recalls Mike. “$ings went down the tubes pretty fast.” It didn’t help that another cycling shop opened in Asheville around that same time. Finding themselves with a pile of debt, their manager suggested bankruptcy. Instead, Claudia decided to abandon her career, and in 1985 she took the helm—relying on gut instinct, long hours and the bookkeeping skills she learned when she was a teenager working at her father’s service station in Ohio.

To survive, they shuttered the original location and focused their e#orts on the shop on the south end of town. Liberty moved to its current South Asheville location near the Blue Ridges Parkway in 2001. “We really had to learn the skills to run the business,” says Mike, who credits the ethos of hard work and self-con%dence they soaked up at the College. It took two years to dig out of debt. Mike left teaching in 1987, and over time the business excelled, %rmly establishing Liberty as a %xture of Asheville’s cycling community.

$e store and the Nixes developed a national reputation: In 2003 they were the National Bicycle Dealer of the Year; in 2007, the National Bicycle Advocate of the Year; and they’ve been recognized by the cycling retailing industry as a top 100 retailer every year since 1993.

$at’s a telling accomplishment in Asheville’s highly competitive outdoor and cycling retail market. “$eir passion for excellence and taking care of the customer has been their secret sauce for years,” says Dan Titus, a Trek Bicycle sales manager who’s known the Nixes for two decades. “I work with some great bike shops and Liberty is not just a top 100 store, they are a top 10 store.” Friedrich, of the WNC dealers association, adds that their success has directly bene%ted cyclists by raising the bar in the retail market; an operation as well-run as Liberty has forced the competition to turn it up a notch by providing better service and better gear.

Of course, the success of a bike shop is dependent on the availability of safe and alluring places to ride. In the early 1970s in Asheville, there weren’t many. Decades ago, policymakers %gured there was little need for recreational resources in the city since it was surrounded by public land and a heap of opportunities. $e city was also saddled by an enormous debt—a byproduct of the Great Depression—that wasn’t settled until the mid-1970s. $e result was an underdeveloped local park system and little or no vision to accommodate pedestrians and alternative modes of transportation.

$e Nixes saw the gaping hole and addressed it in earnest. Not only did the two %gure out how to run a business, says Mike Sule, co-founder of the cycling advocacy group Asheville on Bikes, “$ey have a knack for drawing people into good ideas. $ey know that community makes changes.”

In 1974, in perhaps the %rst e#ort to develop a cycling community in the region, Mike and Claudia hosted a public meeting on bike facilities that was attended by members of the city council, county commissioners and the general public. It was the start of a long-term commitment to advocacy and developing a cycling culture long before it was cool. Soon after, in 1976, Mike was awarded a $500 grant from the North Carolina Department of Transportation to write the state’s %rst bike safety curriculum.

While their advocacy has helped the shop’s bottom line, the success of Liberty has helped cyclists ride safe and e"cient bicycles. And that’s just it: getting more people on bikes has been a major factor in gelling a forceful cycling movement in the mountains.

Despite a cancer diagnosis for Claudia in the spring of 2011, the two are busy as ever. And still cycling. During Claudia’s cancer treatment, Mike installed an electric system on her rear wheel to assist during climbs. And while Mike is in the shop every day, most recently Claudia has turned her attention full-time to advocacy—which, they say, is the reason they got into the bike business in the %rst place.

“We don’t see Liberty as just a business; we just happen to be selling stu#,” says Claudia. “We really want to help people live better lives.”


HOMECOMING &FAMILY WEEKEND 2012

Homecoming and Family Weekend is a

fall tradition in the Swannanoa Valley.

Alumni, parents, grandparents and

friends come to campus for a weekend

of eating barbecue, reuniting with

friends, cheering on the soccer team,

visiting professors and connecting with

students. At 2011 Homecoming, vibrant

colors and a brisk wind supplied the

perfect autumn setting for a special time

of community building at the College.

Make plans to return, reconnect and

reminisce this year.

October 5-7, 2012

On the Web:warren-wilson.edu/homecoming

During Homecoming weekend last October, the Alumni Association presented the 2011 Distinguished Alumni and Distinguished Service Awards at the annual association meeting. The six recipients were Dr. Ki Sub Joung ’56, Harry Atkins ’56, Mark Hare ’87, Evelyn Henderson ’48, and staff members Ray Stock and Beverly Ohler.

Dr. Ki Sub Joung ’56 received the Distinguished Alumni Award. Dr. Joung came to Warren Wilson from South Korea in 1954. At WWC he was a star soccer player and was honored with a Scholar’s Medal at graduation. After receiving bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering, a doctorate in engineering mechanics, and an MBA, Dr. Joung went on to succeed in a distinguished career in industry and academia.

Harry Atkins ’56 received the Distinguished Alumni Award. Mr. Atkins graduated from Warren Wilson in 1956 with an associate’s degree. He received a bachelor’s in physics and math from Marshall University and a master’s in physics from the University of Georgia, with further work toward his doctorate. Mr. Atkins had a distinguished career at NASA, where he held various

leadership positions. Since retiring from NASA, Mr. Atkins has worked for U.S. and international companies and governments regarding advanced technology programs and economic development.

Mark Hare ’87 received the Distinguished Community Service Award, which was accepted on his behalf by his sister Carol Hare ’81. Mr. Hare earned a degree in environmental studies from Warren Wilson and went on to earn a master’s degree in forestry from Michigan State University. He currently lives and serves in Haiti for the Mouvman Peyizan Papay, or Farmer’s Movement of Papaye, a grassroots movement that organizes small farmers in order to improve their living conditions.

Evelyn Henderson ’48 received the Distinguished Community Service Award. Mrs. Henderson graduated from Warren Wilson in 1948 and has had an exemplary life of community service to others. In 1961 she began a Spanish ministry at her church in Boiling Springs, S.C., and began literacy missions in 1980 to help migrant workers learn to read and write English. She is the recipient of numerous awards recognizing

Return, Reconnect, Reminisce

Alumni and Service Awards 2011


her service, including Eckerd 100 Salute to Women, I Care award from the governor of South Carolina and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Spartanburg County Missions.

Ray Stock received the Distinguished Service Award. Mr. Stock was a professor of math and physics at Warren Wilson from 1968 to 1985 and served as director of administrative computing from 1985 to 2007. A true community servant to the

give of his time and energy to help students and staff and assist the WWC Presbyterian Church and cemetery.

Beverly Ohler received the Distinguished Service Award. Mrs. Ohler has dedicated over 53 years of her time, talents and resources to Warren Wilson. Her contributions to the College are many, from organizing festivals that unite the community to teaching and designing in

Warren Wilson staff member to receive the Teaching Excellence Award.

Alumni and Service Award WinnersLeft-right: Carol Hare ’81 accepting for her brother Mark Hare ’87, Ray Stock, Evelyn Henderson ’48, Beverly Ohler, Harrry Atkins ’56, Dr. Ki Sub Joung ’56

26

ALUMNINEWS

WWC Alumni Board 2011-2012

PresidentMelissa Thomas Davis 1971

President-ElectMike Nix 1970

Past PresidentSusannah M. Chewning

1987

Secretary Lin Orndorf 1987

2011 Graduating Class Representative

Robin Criscuolo DeButts

Class of 2012

Dennis Thompson 1977

Donna Kilpatrick 1988

Christine Toriello Walshe 2001

DruAnna Williams Overbay 1961

Tim B. Deuitch 1983

Samuel E. Ray 1956

John Wykle 1961

Class of 2013

Peggy Burke 1956

Faris A. Ashkar 1972

Barbara Withers 1966

Dan Scheuch 1990

Gretchen Gano Schwartz 1992

Wade Hawkins 2007

Cheryl Harper 1969

Class of 2014

Julianne Delzer 1994

Mark Demma 1999

Nancy Allen 1964

Bo Walker 1974

Erica Engelsman 2003

Clipper Holder 1986

Bill Miller 1951

Dear friends,

I am Melissa Davis, president of the Warren Wilson Alumni Board. We meet three to four times a year to represent alumni and to foster a spirit of fellowship and active interest and support of the College. The Alumni Board is composed of 28 members representing different decades of Warren Wilson history. Every year seven members rotate off the board and seven new members join us. We encourage all alumni to consider being a part of this group. Board members are hard at work supporting and planning upcoming alumni activities. Homecoming will be October 5-7 this year. Don’t miss the opportunity to meet and hear Dr. Steven Solnick, Warren Wilson’s president-elect. I know that his leadership and vision will inspire you. In addition, don’t forget Weekend@Wilson June 22-24. I have enjoyed the workshops, events and alumni fellowship each year. It is a weekend for the entire family.

You may have heard from Alumni Board members earlier this spring. Board members called to thank donors for contributions to the College in the last year. Your contribution and willingness to continue to support the College is what keeps us going. If you have not made your contribution this year, please consider it. The board celebrates ongoing alumni connections. I would like to suggest for all alumni to become involved with WWC. Are you receiving your Owl & Spade and e.newsletter? Do you get invitations to campus events and regional gatherings? If not, please contact WWC Alumni Director Rodney Lytle ’73 at [email protected] or 828.771.2046.

are many ways to get involved with spreading the news about the College. You can host an alumni gathering, help at a college fair or refer new students to campus. Your company might be interested in providing internship programs for students. There are opportunities for alumni to share work experiences with students.

The board needs your help. Each year we give awards to worthy alumni. The names for consideration for these Distinguished Alumni awards come from alumni like you. Information is on the College website or you can email me at [email protected] for more information.

If I can borrow a few lines from our alma mater, “Where the stalwart pioneers built their highland home, still our college presses near, frontiers yet unknown... Take your place and do with us what tomorrow needs of you.”

This is an exciting time to be a part of this wonderful college. Please contact me at

out more about any of these activities.

Melissa Davis ’71Alumni Board President


OWL & SPADE SPRING 2012 27

’50sJim McDonald ’51 retired in 1993. $e skills he learned while attending Warren Wilson High School have served him well over the past 61 years, which included a career that took him from Japan to Saudi Arabia. He spent his last 20 years of work in the eastern Arabian oil%elds as a drilling foreman.

’60sHelen (Bessent) Byrd ’61 is a professor emeritus and former department chair of the special education department at Norfolk State University. She serves as pastor at the Covenant Presbyterian Church in Norfolk, Va. She is also a wife, mother and grandmother. Helen would love to hear from the classes of ’60, ’61 and ’62.

Lois Ann (Autrey) Hancock ’62 says, “I am so lucky to be living close to my roots.” She lives on the same property where her great-grandparents once lived and shares it with her husband, two sons, and one granddaughter so far. Lois hopes to see friends at her 50th Class Reunion in October 2012.

Jack Allison Jr. ’63 received the Distinguished Medical Alumnus Award of the School of Medicine of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Judy (Thomas) Cullum ’64 retired in 2010 from the Cleveland County (N.C.) Schools after 23 years of service. She was the transition coordinator with the CCS Exceptional Children’s Program for 19 years and was awarded the 2010 Lighthouse Award for outstanding leadership, commitment and dedication to students with disabilities in North Carolina. Since retiring, Judy and her husband, Bill, have been fortunate to visit their son on the Big Island of Hawaii, the red rock country of Sedona, Ariz., and the Grand Canyon.&In April 2011, they returned from a Mediterranean cruise with Clemson alumni after visiting six countries including Greece and Turkey.

Pixie Ward ’66 says that Homecoming 2011 was great but cold. She enjoyed the Cow Pie Café for her Class of ’66 dinner.

’70sJan Ellis ’70 enjoys being a regional director with the Council on International Educational Exchange. She and her husband have been privileged to travel to Rio de Janeiro, Munich, Athens and Scotland through CIEE. $eir youngest child graduated from Indiana University in December 2011. Life is good!

Mary L. (Strome) Stahl ’74 retired from teaching in May 2011 and has become the manager of the Junction City Opera House in Junction City, Kansas. Visit them online at jcoperahouse.org.

Dennis Thompson ’77 retired from Ohio State University in December 2011 after 30 years as an academic advisor to undergraduate students. He had spent 22 years as a theater critic for Columbus Suburban News Publications and the $eatre Roundtable, 16 years as an audio describer for Accessible Arts Inc., and 20 years as a volunteer for the Ohio Historical Society, where he played 1860s vintage baseball for the Ohio Village Mu"ns. Dennis has now moved back full-time to East Liverpool, Ohio, with his wife, Barb. $ey share %ve adult children and a granddaughter. He serves on the Warren Wilson Alumni Board.

Beth Neville Evans ’79 writes from San Mateo Ixtatan, Guatemala, about her 11-year-old nonpro%t, the Ixtatan Foundation. San Mateo Ixtatan is a province of Guatemala; its residents speak Chuj, a Mayan language. Beth Neville’s foundation helped start the Seeds of Wisdom School, the %rst high school in the entire Chuj area (about 50,000 people.) Please visit their website at ixtatan.org.

’80sJohn Colman Wood’s ’80 novel, !e Names of !ings, will be published in April 2012 by Ashland Creek Press.

Carmen Ricketts ’81 enjoyed Homecoming 2011 despite the cold weather and wind. She thinks the historical documentary about WWC is awesome. “It brought tears to my eyes to see Dr. Holden and Dr. Bob Yeager included in the %lm.” She enjoyed visiting with Norm Propst, Mr. Laursen and Rodney Lytle at the barbecue.

Julia Nunnally Duncan ’82, MFA ’84 had poems published in the February issue of Southern Women's Review and Western North Carolina Woman. She also has poems forthcoming in a new anthology and in the spring issue of Parting Gifts. She continues to teach English at McDowell Technical Community College, where she has been a full-time instructor since 1986.

Joanne E. Lincoln ’84 went with the Lakeview Senior group to Sky View Apple Farm. Also, she was on television in Black Mountain for a voting issue.

Mary Elfner ’85, Geoff Wilson ’85 and their son, Eli Elfner Wilson, are happy in Virginia. Mary works for Audubon and Geo# works for HCA Healthcare System.

Leslie (Posten) Carreiro ’86 continues to work as the superintendent of water production and water quality for the City of Asheville. She is also serving as president for the North Carolina Waterworks Operators Association, which trains individuals to treat drinking water.

’90sKevin S. McGuire ’90 is working on an MBA in sustainability management at DePaul University’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business in Chicago.

Greg Wilkins ’90 spent December 2011 in Nicaragua working on beach restoration for sea turtles, teaching English and&collaborating& on recycling e#orts with after-school programs. He recently presented an educational session, “Beyond Boundaries: An Online Leadership Toolbox,” at the Association of College Unions International regional conference at the University of North Dakota. In summer 2012&Greg will venture to Russia to co-teach an undergraduate course&through Minnesota State University.

Jamie (Gentry) Buckner ’92 is so excited for her 15-year-old son, who traveled to France, Ireland, England, Belgium, Wales and the Netherlands in July 2011 as an ambassador with People to People to help promote peace.

John Gavin ’92 and Ruth (Herring) Gavin ’99 welcomed their third child into the world on January 11, 2012. Rebecca Maeve joins her older brothers Ronan (5) and Liam (2). John is a senior project engineer with the City of Asheville. Ruth owns and operates her own business, Roly Poly Crafts.

ALUMNINEWS


Lucy Wheeler ’92 was recently honored by Asheville’s Sophie Magazine as a “woman of in!uence.” She is administration manager of CarePartners Health Services in Asheville, where she answers to the CEO, writes reports and newsletters, and manages board meetings.

Floyd Reed ’96 and Vanessa (Whitaker) Reed ’96 welcomed daughter Freya on March 12, 2011.&Freya joins her enthusiastic siblings Teigue (12) and Molly (9). Floyd led the Population Genetics Group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön, Germany, until August 2011, when he became an assistant professor in the department of biology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Andy Cotarelo ’97 and Alison (Searle) Cotarelo ’97 continue serving at ECHO farm in Ft. Myers, Fla., where Andy is the farm manager. $ey have two sons, Saar (8) and Reuben (6). ECHO, which stands for Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization, is an international seed bank and prepares agricultural missionaries.

Keri Parker ’97 accepted a new position in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with the International A#airs Program’s Division of Management Authority, Branch of Permits, as a senior biologist. $is program is responsible for providing scienti%c and management guidance in the conservation of species, populations and habitats a#ected by international trade.

Keller Staubes ’98 and his wife, Nicole, welcomed their daughter, Emmalyn Morgan, to the world on October 28, 2011.

Kendra Powell ’99 has moved to Charlottesville, Va., after living in northwest Montana for four years. She would love to reconnect with old friends and any other Wilson folks in the Charlottesville area. Email her at [email protected].

Julie (Shaw) Hasfjord ’99 was named teacher of the year at Julia Green Elementary in Nashville, Tenn., where she teaches third grade. She has led e#orts at the school and district levels to develop curriculum for school gardens and to increase teachers’ time spent outdoors with students. Julie credits her work on the Environmental Leadership Center’s work crew for in!uencing her career path. She lives in Nashville with her husband, Jon Hasfjord ’99, and their two children, Anders (6) and Isabel (3).

’00sAmy (Frey) Ager ’00 and Jamie Ager ’00 have three boys: Cyrus (7), Nolin (4) and Levi (2). $ey live in Fairview and run Hickory Nut Gap Farm, which was recently honored as a “North Carolina Company to Watch” by CED, a nonpro%t that promotes entrepreneurial e#orts in the state. Get in touch with the Agers: [email protected] or [email protected].

!e Sinks, the %rst collection of poems by Ryan Walsh ’03, was published in April 2011 by Midwest Writing Center Press. In July, Ryan started a new full-time job as the grants program manager at the Vermont Studio Center, an international artists’ and writers’ residency program in Johnson, Vt. In August, he was a %nalist for a 2011 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship along with WWC classmate Rose McLarney ’03, MFA ’10.

Audrey Preston '04 married Robert Tjossem on June 12, 2011. $ey honeymooned in the Galapagos Islands over Christmas.

Tim O’Connor ’05 and over 25 WWC alumni raised money for the WWC Fund with “Bachelor Christmas” held at Douthat State Park in Millboro, Va. For the sixth consecutive year, alumni enjoyed a weekend of Wilson-style merriment, hijinks and the rekindling of friendships during bouts of battle sleds.

Ahliae Toulouse ’05 and Gabrielle Haynes ’05 welcomed their son, Sequoia Toulouse, into the world on April 18, 2011. $ey currently live in Portland, Ore.

Nicole Accordino ’07 and Renee Gaudet ’08 enjoyed visiting in Guaira, Paraguay, where Renee is serving her second year in the Peace Corps as a beekeeping extension volunteer. When not harvesting honey, they enjoyed sitting in the shade laughing, sipping on cold maté (tereré), shelling beans and anxiously awaiting rain. Last year, Renee focused her energy working with small subsistence farmers to facilitate marketing of their agro-products, o#ering assistance with soil recuperation and promoting beekeeping.

Peter C. Geiger ’07 and Cody Luedtke Antioch married and moved to Athens, Ga., where

they are both studying at the University of Georgia. Peter is pursuing a master’s of science in arti%cial intelligence and is fully supported through his work with the Scienti%c Instrumentation Division programming robots.

Leslie Knapp ’07 is serving in Leon, Guanajuanto, Mexico, as an engineering specialist volunteer while working on her master’s in environmental engineering through the University of South Florida-Tampa’s Master’s International Program. She loves spending time there and learning about Mexico’s solid waste and water challenges. She’s also enjoying plenty of delicious food and making good friends.

Andrea Glenn-Fink ’08 and Michael Fink ’08 were married on August 7, 2011, at Erin’s Meadow Herb Farm in Clinton, Tenn. $ey are living in Endwell, N.Y., and attending graduate school at Binghamton University. Michael is working on his doctorate in math while Andrea is working on a master’s in archaeology. $ey both miss Warren Wilson and would love friends to contact them. Look them up on AlumniLink, https://a.warren-wilson.edu/.

Robin Serne ’08 transferred to UNC Asheville where she completed her degree in environmental science and management after attending WWC in ’05-’06. Robin and her %ancé, Eason Burke, are&building a shiitake mushroom production facility in Brightwood, Va.,&called North Cove Mushrooms. Visit their Facebook page.&Laurel (Ady) Howard ’09 and Jon Howard tied the knot in March 2011. $ey bought a house in Baltimore and convinced a stray cat to live with them. Laurel and Jon celebrated their six-month anniversary by getting caught in a snowstorm while on a camping trip.

Gabriel Sistare ’11 is working on Ad Atticum: !e Idea Library, an online database and academic collaboration tool that will improve access to critical learning materials. You can learn more about Ad Atticum at Gabriel’s website, gabrielsistare.com.

Carlos Lara ’12 is the assistant manager at the WWC Bookstore.

ALUMNINEWS


ALUMNILOSSES

Warren Wilson College

Jason E. Buckner ’45November 7, 2011

Wennie Chow ’49August 26, 2011

Rue McKinney ’49June 15, 2011

Harold E. Chambers ’50January 6, 2012

Allen E. Fine ’51December 14, 2011

Louise Keener ’55October 13, 2011

James L. Mustoe ’61August 30, 2011

Martha Brodrick ’66January 5, 2012

Arthur L. Russell ’66November 13, 2011

Lynda Cherry Thomas ’69February 10, 2012

May 23, 2010

Helen Davies ’90September 2, 2011

Callum Robertson ’08January 6, 2012

Asheville Farm School John L. Solomon ’40Former TrusteeOctober 24, 2011

Asheville Normal and Teachers College

Grace Brown ’33September 10, 2011

Cathryn Wolfe Gilliam '33April 4, 2011

Mae Slagle ’33January 11, 2012

Margaret W. Black ’40September 12, 2010

Amaryllis V. Linderman ’40February 16, 2011

Sarah Haworth ’41August 5, 2011

Frances P. Zimmerman ’41October 16, 2011

Ethel R. Austin ’43September 22, 2011

Dorland-Bell School

Viola Ramsey ’34November 22, 2011

Employees, Volunteers, Friends

James S. ClarkeNovember 11, 2011

Joan DuntonOctober 10, 2011

Evelyn L. DeVriesFebruary 16, 2012

George E. EwingAugust 23, 2011

John B. FisherNovember 23, 2011

Warren Wilson College lost two dear friends on the same day this winter. Both left an enduring legacy at the College.

Evelyn A. Jones died February 16, 2012, at Brooks-Howell Home in Asheville. Born in 1916 in Portsmouth, Ohio, Miss Jones received her nurse’s training at White Cross Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. She came to Warren Wilson in 1942 as the school’s nurse and worked in the College in%rmary for 36 years. Miss Jones was on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, treating ill students and sta# members with kindness and care. She saw the College through the polio scare of the 1950s and many !u epidemics, and was known for her famous “pink slips” that excused students from work or class.

From 1978 to 1985, after retiring from her position in the campus in%rmary, Miss Jones was a devoted campus volunteer, working tirelessly to archive the College’s history and in the alumni and development o"ces. In 1994, Miss Jones was honored with the Warren Wilson College Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award. She generously donated her time to the Red Cross; the Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry; Pack Place Education, Arts and Science Center; and transcribed the written word to Braille for those who needed it. In August 2000, Miss Jones was honored as a Hometown Hero for her service as a volunteer. $roughout her life, she was a member of the Warren Wilson College Presbyterian Church, where she served as deacon and elder.

Evelyn L. DeVries died February 16, 2012, at the age of 101 at Brooks-Howell Home. Mrs. DeVries was the wife of the late Samuel H. DeVries, beloved Warren Wilson teacher and coach from 1934 to 1976.&Mrs. DeVries served the College alongside her husband in many capacities. Ever the model of gentle hospitality, Mrs. DeVries volunteered as hostess in the campus dining room, ensuring manners and seating arrangements were enforced and dining ran smoothly. From 1955 to 1976, Mrs. DeVries served as the campus postmistress, managing the post o"ce operations for the College.

Mr. and Mrs. DeVries gave their heart and soul to Warren Wilson and spent the entirety of their working years at the College. Going far beyond the call of duty, their dedication and hard work made campus a special place for many people. When Mr. DeVries passed away in 1991, Mrs. DeVries generously established a scholarship in his honor to provide %nancial assistance for students. $e College named this the Samuel H. and Evelyn L. DeVries Scholarship to honor Mrs. DeVries as well. In 1998, Mrs. DeVries was honored with the Warren Wilson College Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award in recognition of her continued fruitful and meaningful relationship with the College. July 11, 2010 was declared Evelyn L. DeVries Day at the College in honor of her 100th birthday.

Mary GarnerJanuary 5, 2012

Mary B. HarrisonDecember 16, 2011

Evelyn A. Jones February 16, 2012

Mabel McLeanJanuary 27, 2012

Ruth L. RicketNovember 23, 2011

Margery RumphOctober 26, 2011

If you are aware of a loss we have failed to acknowledge, please contact Rodney Lytle, Alumni Relations Director at 828.771.2046 or [email protected].


Where cows and chickens now peacefully graze was once the site of athletic prowess

and endeavor. From 1922 to 1948, the mighty Aggies of the Asheville Farm School (AFS), later Warren Wilson

to play area high schools in football. A band marched, cheerleaders cheered and people came from miles to enjoy the Swannanoa Valley spectacle. Using artifacts loaned by our beloved Ernst Laursen ’49, former College Farm Manager and a member of the last football team (#47), the College Archives has mounted an exhibit documenting the brief shining years of the AFS/WWJC gridiron. If you’re on campus this spring, stop by the library to enjoy the photographs and artifacts in the two display cases downstairs. Student archivist Amanda Cloninger ’14 researched and designed the exhibit.

–Diana SandersonCollege Archivist

SHARE THE WORD ON WILSON Two ways you can help us reach out to new students

contact information, and we'll take it from there.

Call us at 800.934.3536 or e-mail [email protected]

LOOKINGBACK


“The applied learning

experience at Warren

Wilson is invaluable

and something

that will contribute

to my success. My

opportunity to be

a part of a school

like Warren Wilson

would not have been

possible if I didn’t

have the assistance

of a scholarship. Without it, I would not have had

the deeply profound and inspiring experiences

that I have had.”

–Iman Khree-Johnson ’12warren-wilson.edu/give

A gift to the Warren Wilson College Fund, no matter what size, helps provide

essential scholarship funds for

bright and deserving students like

Iman. You can make a difference

for current and future students

by supporting the Warren Wilson

College Fund today.

M FA B O O K S H E L F

Awards and works by MFA for Writers alumni

Lewis Buzbee ’82A new novel, Bridge of Time, will be published by Feiwel and Friends.

Aneesha Capur ’10Stealing Karma was published by HarperCollins India and became a Top 5 Fiction Pick in $e Hindu, India’s leading newspaper.

Martha Carlson-Bradley ’89If I Take You Here, her fourth poetry collection, was published by Adastra Press.

Patrick Donelly ’03Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin, his second poetry book, was published by Four Way Books. He co-translated a classical Japanese poem collection, !e Wind from Vulture Peak: !e Buddhi"cation of Japanese Waka in the Heian Era, which appears in the Cornell East Asia Series.

Marjorie Hudson ’00 She was awarded a 2012 N.C. Arts Council Fellowship for her %ction writing.

Margaret Kaufman ’92Inheritance 2010, her latest poetry book, has been published by Sixteen Rivers Press.

Krys Lee ’08Her story collection, Drifting House, begun at Warren Wilson, was published by Viking/Penguin.

Jacquelyn Malone ’82A chapbook, All Waters Run to Lethe, was published by Finishing Line Press.

Elizabeth Mosier ’91A novella, !e Playgroup, was published in GemmaMedia's Open Door series, a series designed to promote adult literacy.

Matthew Olzmann ’09His poetry manuscript, Mezzanines, won the Kundiman Prize and will be published by Alice James Books in 2013.

Robert V.S. Redick ’01!e River of Shadows, the fourth in his epic fantasy series, was published by Del Rey.

Kristen Rembold ’06Leaf and Tendril, a chapbook, is available from Finishing Line Press.

Joe Schuster ’91Ballentine Books published his novel, !e Might Have Been.

Daniel Tobin ’90His most recent poetry collection, Belated Heavens, was published by Four Way Books and won the Massachusetts Book Award in Poetry. His essay collection, Awake in America, is out from the University of Notre Dame Press.

Rosalynde Vas Dias ’06Only Blue Body, a poetry manuscript, won the Robert Dana Award from Anhinga Press and will be published this fall.


Make a lasting impact on future generations of studentsby designating Warren Wilson

retirement plan assets.

For more information on including

the College in your estate plans, call

Don Harris or Janet Doyle at

866.992.6957

or email Don at

[email protected]

or Janet at

[email protected].

Naming Warren Wilson College as a charitable

assets is a wonderful and meaningful way to support the College. It may also help you avoid certain tax liabilities for your family and estate.

Students who welcome me to their lunch table whether they know me or not.Students who will help anyone in need.Students who are not afraid to look me in the eye when talking to me.Students who have had remarkable life experiences in their relatively short lifetimes because they went out and grasped it.Teachers who care how I feel.Teachers who happily share their lunch table with students.Teachers who gently force me to think outside my own comfort zone.Teachers who care how well I do.Teachers who care how well they do.Administrators who smile and wave when they pass by.Administrators who go above and beyond to help the community.Administrators who know what's going on and who's doing what among the student body.Solidarity with activist issues and sustainability campus-wide.Work Day where everyone comes together to co-create.A highly successful eating establishment called "Cowpie."A community who cares so much about one another.Alumni who arrive on campus with a huge grin of great memories, anxious to reconnect to the remarkable heartbeat of this school.An occasional ride to class or lunch in a horse-drawn cart.

–Nina Anmahian Lantis '12

Connect and stay in touch with your fellow alumni through AlumniLink, your online alumni directory. Through AlumniLink, you can search for alumni living in your area

Wilson events and more.

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Nina Anmahian Lantis ‘12 responded to a call for submissions from The Echo asking “Do you have a ‘You know you’re at Warren Wilson when...’ story?” The Echo is collecting voices and stories of our shared experience to publish online. If you have poetry, prose or anything in-between to contribute, send it to writing professor and The Echo supervisor Lockie Hunter, [email protected].

WHAT’S GOING ON IN YOUR LIFE? A new job, a new home, a wedding or birth of a child? Please take a few minutes to let us know about the latest developments in your life by %lling out this form. Please print clearly and indicate dates and/or places of

events so we get the facts straight. We generally refrain from publishing events that are expected to occur in the future to avoid any mishaps. If you have a picture of an event or child, please send it along.

I would like the news below printed in the Class Notes section of the Owl & Spade. It is not necessary to print this news in Class Notes.

Name (Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms.) ___________________________________________________________________ Class ______________

Street address ______________________________________________________________________ City ______________________

State ____________ Zip _________________ Country __________________ Email _______________________________________

Home phone ________________________ O"ce phone _______________________ Cell phone _____________________________

Job title _______________________________________ Company _____________________________________________________

Marital status ________________________ Spouse’s name _____________________________________________________________

Class Notes News: Please limit to 50 words or less. Alumni O"ce reserves the right to edit for space and content.

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Please %ll out this form and send it to: Alumni O"ce, Warren Wilson College, CPO 6324, PO Box 9000, Asheville, NC 28815-9000


Return to campus and reconnect with all that made your time here special.

dancing, run the Homecoming 5K or simply watch the sunset. Regardless of how you spend your time here, be sure to…

return, reconnect, reminisce.

HOMECOMING &FAMILY WEEKEND 2012 Oct 5-7

CLASSES OF 1962, 1987 AND 2002Believe it or not, it's your reunion year.

Contact Rosie McDermott—[email protected] or

828.771.2088— to learn more about the plans

for the 50th, 25th and 10th year

reunion dinners.

warren-wilson.edu/homecoming

PAID

PO B() *+++A,-./011., NC 23345-*+++

Address Service Requested

WARRENWILSONCOLLEGE

Melissa Ray Davis ’02 was on Dam Pasture Trail near the Bull Creek dam ruins and snapped this shot of trout lilies, Erythronium umbilicatum. Biology/environmental studies professor Amy Boyd tells us

extensions called elaiosomes that attract ants to disperse the seeds. In a process called myrmecochory, ants pick up the seeds, carry them back to their nests, eat off the elaiosome and then toss the rest into their underground refuse piles where they germinate in nutrient-rich waste.

spring '12 owl & spade

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staff of warren wilson

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