OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE2010 COLLEGE OF Arts & Sciences STAR OF THE SILVER SCREEN | TRAILER: BRAND OF SUCCESS | NOW PERFORMING AT A CLASSROOM NEAR YOU STAR POWER A Salute to Fine Arts and Exceptional Sciences
Arts and Sciences Magazine is a publication of the Oklahoma State University College of Arts and Sciences. All communications should be mailed to OSU College of Arts and Sciences, ATTN: Arts and Sciences Magazine, 205 Life Sciences East, Stillwater, OK 74078-3015. Oklahoma State University, in compliance with Title VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Executive Order 11246 as amended, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and other federal laws and regulations, does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion, disability, or status as a veteran in any of its policies, practices or procedures. This includes but is not limited to admissions, employment, financial aid, and educational services. Title IX of the Education Amendments and Oklahoma State University policy prohibit discrimination in the provision of services or benefits offered by the University based on gender. Any person (student, faculty or staff) who believes that discriminatory practices have been engaged in based upon gender may discuss their concerns and file informal or formal complaints of possible violations of Title IX with the OSU Title IX Coordinator, Mackenzie Wilfong, J.D., Director of Affirmative Action, 408 Whitehurst, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078, (405) 744-5371 or (405) 744-5576 (fax). This publication, issued by Oklahoma State University as authorized by the College of Arts & Sciences, was printed by University Printing Services at a cost of $7200.00/7M. #3281 10/10 2010 © OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY 2010 v12 Editor Eileen Mustain Art Director Paul V. Fleming ’90/’00* Photographers Phil Shockley Gary Lawson Associate Editor Janet Varnum’86 CAS.OKSTATE.EDU This scene, photographed by Phil Shockley, is from an OSU opera production, The Medium, performed at the Seretean Center in 2008. COVER Like his namesake, Elvis the iguana is a charismatic celebrity whose unique performances captivate young audiences around the state. As both an artist and a zoological phenomenon, Elvis embodies the inclusiveness of the college that’s home to 24 art and science disciplines. Cover photography is by Phil Shockley. Writers Joseph Dunn Matt Elliott Abby Fox ’08 Lorene Roberson Hickey ’84 Sylvia E. King-Cohen ’81 Jacob Longan ’05 Stacy Pettit ’09 Timothy R. Ryan ’84 Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Peter M.A. Sherwood Associate Vice President for Development College of Arts and Sciences Jason J. Caniglia Media and Alumni Relations College of Arts and Sciences Lorene Roberson Hickey ’84 s t a f f 18 Now performing at a classroom near you This past year, three outstanding professors in the college received Regents Professor designation, OSU’s equivalent of the Oscar. 2 Star of the Silver Screen OSU’s talented alumni excel in all areas of the fine arts, including the movie and television industries. 38 Trailer: Brand of success Three alumni have responded to OSU’s $1 billion Branding Success campaign to place their personal marks on the future of the college. c o n t e n t *YEAR INDICATES OSU COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES GRADUATES.
ABOVE Peter M.A. Sherwood, dean of OSU’s College of Arts and Sciences, waves from the cockpit of the supersonic jet fighter, T-38 Talon, prior to an hour-long flight from Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Okla., to 20,000 feet over western Oklahoma. Sherwood visited Vance, often the first stop for cadets commissioned at OSU, to broaden his understanding of student Air Force training, which is one of two military science programs in the college. Welcome, Friends and Alumni. Peter M.A. Sherwood, Dean, College of Arts & Sciences By highlighting these alumni, we wish to draw attention to our performing and visual arts programs, which we are very proud of at OSU. We want to focus on ways to enhance the support and facilities needed for these excellent programs. To achieve this we have made the fine arts a major funding priority for the College of Arts and Sciences in Branding Success: The Campaign for Oklahoma State University. We currently are working with OSU to plan for the development of a new performing arts center and new visual art facilities. I am delighted at the prospect of a new performing arts center. Our music and theater departments have many achievements and have presented outstanding performances in facilities that have been especially challenging. This is an excellent time to provide a worldclass facility for two departments that have so much to contribute to OSU, to the Stillwater region and to the State of Oklahoma. These are exciting developments in visual arts including the acquisition of the old post office building in downtown Stillwater, which will become a location for art exhibitions and other art-related activities. The Doel Reed Center for the Arts continues to develop, and we are all very grateful for the outstanding support provided by numerous donors to help this project. Our course offerings at the center in Taos, N.M., have grown significantly this year. I am thrilled to see the many advances in the fine arts, and I am sure you will enjoy reading about the many achievements in this key area, as well as the many articles from all parts of the college. THIS ISSUE OF OUR ALUMNI MAGAZINE INCLUDES STORIES ABOUT OUTSTANDING EDUCATORS, SCIENTISTS AND ALUMNI IN BOTH THE ARTS AND SCIENCES. WE ALSO FEATURE ALUMNI WHOSE IMPRESSIVE CAREERS AS ENTERTAINERS BEGAN HERE IN THE COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. Lorene Roberson Hickey ’84 PHOTO
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3 It’s been quite a life for 1980 alumnus Rex Linn, the actor who co-stars in CSI: Miami and who has appeared in more than 35 films alongside actors such as Kevin Costner, Tom Selleck and Sylvester Stallone. © CBS Entertainment PHOTOS Today, people easily recognize Linn, 53, as homicide Det. Frank Tripp on the enduring CBS hit CSI: Miami. There’s one constant in his career — perseverance. Linn never forgot advice from the late actor Roy Scheider. Scheider and Linn had just wrapped up Night Game in Galveston, Texas. “All I wanted was Roy Scheider’s autograph since it was the first time in my career that someone really gave me a chance,” says Linn. Linn got the autograph (he still has it at his Sherman Oaks, Calif., home) and solid wisdom from Scheider, who told him, “One of the things I realize about you is that you listen and that’s important for an actor to do. I can tell you’re raw, but you have a lot of talent. Just remember, it doesn’t matter what coast you’re on, perseverance is the key.” Linn now gives the same advice to new actors. “Hit the street and do whatever you can. It’s the toughest business you can be in.” Linn talks easily about Hollywood and the many actors (he doesn’t like calling them movie stars) he has worked with over the years. However, thoughts of Oklahoma pepper his conversation. Recently, Linn returned to help pack the belongings at his dad’s home in the Waterford community in Oklahoma City. James Paul Linn died at the age of 83 on Oct. 24, 2009. The Luckiest Guy on the Planet “I buried my hero, so these have been a tough few months,” Linn says of his dad who was a trial attorney representing clients who included rock star David Bowie, the former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos and former OSU football coach Jim Stanley. ON SAFARI In 1956, Rex Maynard Linn, the third child of James Paul and Darlene Linn, was born in Hansford County, Texas. In 1969, the elder Linn moved the family from Spearman, Texas, to Oklahoma City, so he could practice law. When 5 years old, Linn wanted to be three things when he grew up — an actor like Boris Karloff who played Frankenstein or Lon Chaney Jr. who played Wolf Man, a football player at the University of Texas and a veterinarian. Linn’s come close to reaching those goals but not without a few detours. He hasn’t forgotten his first day at Heritage Hall School, a private prep school in north Oklahoma City. “I walk into a classroom with a flattop and red grease in my hair wearing penny loafers and white socks. This one guy, Anthony Meyers, wearing his T-shirt and tie-died jeans with long hair says to me, ‘What planet you from, dude?’” Meyers and Linn became lifelong friends. In the summer of 1970, Linn met Greg Curtis when they both worked at the Oklahoma City Zoo. Linn worked in the concession stand. While behind the counter, Linn would peek out and observe the tram drivers. On breaks, he would walk down to the herpetarium — the snake house. “All I wanted to do was be around the animals,” he says. By the third summer, Linn donned a zoo uniform and safari hat to give a 25-minute tram tour of the 110-acre zoo. Both he and Curtis memorized 23 pages of dialogue. “Now that I think about it, memorizing the long spiel helped me in acting a lot,” Linn says. His passion for animals didn’t completely overshadow Linn’s mischievous side or forestall the dubious activities of racing the trams or overstaying a break at the herpetarium when a new shipment of snakes arrived. The zoo fired and rehired Linn and Curtis four times in five years. “Greg and I had the coolest job in the state of Oklahoma, but we got in more trouble than you could imagine. Working at the zoo is one of the highlights of my life,” he says. “Except for getting fired.” CONTINUES STORY BY Lorene Roberson Hickey ’84
4 Theta Pond. The caper involved a plan, a truck and a chain. “It was a great feat, and we were all so happy until we learned the (Stillwater) detectives were investigating it.” In 1980, Linn earned a bachelor’s in radio-television-film. His dad hung the diploma in his law office. Linn recalls his dad’s words: “I thought this would never happen, but I don’t want to know all the particulars.” From 1980 to 1990, Linn worked as a loan officer for two banks in Oklahoma City and later oversaw oil field operations in western Oklahoma. At the same time, Linn auditioned for acting roles. He recalls shooting some very bad commercials. “The first time I was in front of a camera I did a commercial for Safeway,” Linn ruefully tells of shilling beef brisket in a firefighter’s uniform. “Beef brisket for only 88 cents a pound. Now that’s a hot deal.” In 1986, he worked with Oklahoma Publishing Company president E.K. Gaylord II on a film called Shadows on the Wall. “My acting career started behind the camera thanks to Ed Gaylord,” he says. “I was a nervous wreck, but I hung in there.” At his dad’s urging, Linn sold his home, packed up a U-Haul and finally made the move to Hollywood at the age of 32. THE 88-CENT LEAN YEARS Linn graduated from Casady School in Oklahoma City. At OSU, he roomed with Tom Taggart, now a successful veterinarian in Minnesota. There was always a pack of dogs at their house on Fourth Street in Stillwater. Despite Linn’s love of animals, vet school was not in the cards. “To be a vet, you have to hit the books hard, and you can’t go to Pokes or The Attic and stay out until 2 in the morning,” he says. Again, the mischievous side had a way of coming out, and Linn participated in his share of college pranks. He might know something about how a 1,800pound plastic cow “borrowed” from Sirloin Stockade restaurant on Sixth Street found its way into I RIDE INTO TOMBSTONE IN LATE AFTERNOON WITH PURPLE SKIES AHEAD OF ME. I’M ON MY KICK-ASS HORSE NAMED DALLAS, HAVE ON THE COOLEST WARDROBE, A SIX-GUN AND A SCAR ON MY FACE, AND THINK TO MYSELF, ‘I DREAMED ABOUT THIS AS A KID. HELL, I’D PAY THEM TO DO THIS. THANK YOU, LORD. I WILL NEVER FORGET THIS MOMENT. NEVER.’ PHOTO / COURTESY
5 TALL IN THE SADDLE Fast forward 21 years and Linn plays the cynical police Det. Frank Tripp on CSI: Miami opposite David Caruso starring as Lt. Horatio Caine. “It’s great working with David Caruso. He raises the bar professionally. I do 99 percent of my scenes with him, and you have to be prepared to come to work with David. He has helped me become a better professional.” Fans also know Linn for his bad-guy role in Cliffhanger starring Sylvester Stallone and John Lithgow. One of Linn’s favorite experiences was playing cowboy Frank McLaury in the 1994 Wyatt Earp film featuring Kevin Costner. “I ride into Tombstone in late afternoon with purple skies ahead of me,” Linn recalls. “I’m on my kick-ass horse named Dallas, have on the coolest wardrobe, a six-gun and a scar on my face and think to myself, ‘I dreamed about this as a kid. Hell, I’d pay them to do this. Thank you, Lord. I will never forget this moment. Never.’” More recently, he appeared in Appaloosa, written by fellow Oklahomans Ed Harris and Robert Knott. Although Linn had worked with Knott several times as an actor, he had never worked with longtime friend Harris until Appaloosa. In April, Linn emceed the Western Heritage Awards for the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. The Hall of Great Western Performers inducted Linn’s close friend Tom Selleck with whom he has filmed four westerns. “I have seen my dad on the stage at the Cowboy Hall a lot of times,” Linn says. “So inducting Tom Selleck was a great thing to do and really special. It was my tribute to my dad.” In the 1980s, Linn’s dad gave legal advice to help the museum weather a financial crisis that almost forced a move out of state. Linn remembers his father’s last words before walking on the stage to induct Selleck, “Carry the torch and represent the Linn family well.” “I’ve acted in a lot of successful westerns, and it has helped me growing up around cowboys,” Linn says. “I’m a good rider, and I don’t have to fake much. But I have never considered myself good enough to ease into the cowboy world.” A LONGHORN COWPOKE Linn may deny he’s a cowboy, but he’ll admit to being a cowpoke even though he’s been a Longhorn fan since he was a toddler. “But I am a longhorn and a cowpoke, baby! Longhorns and cowpokes never argue. We have one thing in common. OSU wants to beat OU. Texas wants to beat OU!” Last year, Linn saw the Boone Pickens Stadium for the first time when Texas played OSU. “I walked in the stadium and said, ‘Wow.’ The stadium is unbelievable. I am so proud of OSU fans. It’s good to be a part of Stillwater.” There’s no doubt Linn loves his life — football, family, friends and then the acting … one thing seems to elude him, however. Marriage, he says. That’s about to change. “I came all the way to California to find my Texas girl,” Linn says of Renee Derese, a trauma unit nurse. “The guys on the (CSI: Miami) set said I have met my match. “I am the luckiest guy on the planet.” TOP LEFT One of Rex Linn’s favorite experiences was playing cowboy Frank McLaury in the 1994 Wyatt Earp film featuring Kevin Costner. Adam Baldwin, left, played his brother Tom McLaury. BOTTOM LEFT Rex Linn and fiancee Renee Derese, a trauma unit nurse, are both native Texans. BELOW Rex Linn plays homicide Det. Frank Tripp on the CBS hit CSI: Miami starring David Carusco, left, as Lt. Horatio Caine.
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7 STORY BY Matt Elliott A LOT OF REALLY TALENTED PEOPLE GIVE UP, AND THERE ARE A LOT OF AVERAGE SINGERS MAKING A GREAT LIVING BECAUSE THEY STUCK IT OUT. In addition, she can add that, as Bajazet’s daughter Asteria, she shared the stage with Spanish tenor Placido Domingo during a 2009 production of Tamerlano with the Los Angeles Opera. She soared as a soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and in the title role of the Cincinnati Opera’s production of Lucia de Lammermoor. And those are just a few snapshots of a year that took her from Cardiff, Wales, to Los Angeles, Calif. By the way, The Huffington Post called her “stunning” and “stellar.” The Cincinnati Enquirer, “breathtaking.” “Luminous,” states the Financial Times. Juilliard or not, Coburn’s young career is taking off. “It’s a great school, absolutely,” she says, in an interview from her home in Greenwich, Conn. “But, no, you do not have to go to Juilliard. Save your money and stay home. I would’ve been lost in the crowd and totally intimidated at Juilliard in New York City.” Coburn grew up in Muskogee, a small manufacturing town in northeast Oklahoma. Her father, 1970 OSU alumnus and Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, is a physician there. She spent her childhood growing up around family in the close-knit community and attending OSU football games with her parents. She came to OSU in 1995 because of its music education program and her family connections to the university that include grandparents, great uncle, cousins and a sister. Her mother, 1970 alumna, Carolyn Denton Coburn, is a former Miss OSU. Coburn says she always wanted to be a Kappa Alpha Theta sorority member at OSU like her mother, sister and aunts. So naturally, her whole family, packed with talented musicians, was ecstatic about her decision to study music education at OSU. “I think OSU has a fantastic music school,” says Coburn, who graduated in 1999. “When I was there, the faculty challenged me, and I thought the curriculum was academic and competitive. It could hold up against any conservatory out there.” She praises her OSU professors, including her voice and chorale instructors, Julie McCoy, now at Texas Wesleyan, and Julie’s husband, Jerry McCoy, now at the University of North Texas. The two inspired her to love what she sang and exposed her to new repertoires. “She has, and did from the beginning, a truly beautiful voice — just one of those voices that really comes along very rarely,” says Julie McCoy, who also notes Coburn has an innate understanding of music that makes her a good musician as well. “That kind of a combination in a singer is rare.” The life of an opera singer can be hectic. Sometimes Coburn has to memorize 250 pages of music in a few days. The OSU program’s theory and analysis courses help her during crunch time, as does what she learned from other instructors, including Tom Lanners, Brant Adams and Gerry Frank. “I’ve seen many, many of my friends who’ve gone to very reputable conservatories but have less knowledge of musical basics,” she says. An OSU background “helps your enjoyment of an art form when you understand the way it’s constructed. You can enjoy it regardless of performance.” CONTINUES Talent and Resolve Rejected by Juilliard. Sarah Coburn, an OSU alumna and operatic soprano with a stage voice like liquid gold, can put it on her résumé. Stacy Boge PHOTOGRAPHY
8 I’VE SEEN MANY, MANY OF MY FRIENDS WHO’VE GONE TO VERY REPUTABLE CONSERVATORIES BUT HAVE LESS KNOWLEDGE OF MUSICAL BASICS. Since she graduated, she has been all over the nation, married in 2008 to a consultant with Oracle, and had her first child, Katie Rose. Between being a singer, new mother and a wife, her life doesn’t allow much time to make it back to Stillwater, she says, and some opera assignments can last as long as seven weeks, such as her trip to Cardiff last summer. But she was on campus last January for a performance with OSU’s Allied Arts series. She told a master class that while some success in music is due to talent, it’s mostly due to perseverance. “A lot of really talented people give up, and there are a lot of average singers making a great living because they stuck it out,” she says. “In this business, you get rejected much more than you get accepted. You have to have a thick skin about it. You never know why companies decide they’re not going to hire you or have no desire to listen to you. It just happens to everybody.” That persistence comes in part from her stubborn nature, she says, but she also attributes it to the seed Julie McCoy planted when she encouraged her protégée to audition with Larry Keller at Oklahoma City University. The new graduate was getting ready for a job interview at an Edmond elementary school. “I had applied to several — lots of them, actually — big, important music schools, conservatories, and didn’t get into any of them. So, I thought, ‘Well, that’s obviously not meant to be.’” However, she took McCoy’s advice, and the rest is history. Keller honed her on-stage performance craft and, thanks to a bit of luck, some hard work and no small amount of expensive vocal lessons and rejections, some great opportunities came along. She ended up in New York City anyway, but it wasn’t to attend Juilliard. While she was finishing her master’s degree in voice with Keller, she was a national grand finalist in the 2001 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in New York City. She would move there in 2002 after an apprenticeship with the Seattle Opera. Since then, there have been too many highlights for her to remember them all, but a big one was singing with Placido Domingo. These days, she’s considering pulling back a bit so she can spend more time being a wife and a mother, and she admits it’s a struggle balancing work with enjoying her life. “So many things have been great, and I’m very thankful. It’s one of the most fun careers. It can be crazy at times, exhausting and lonely,” she says. “But I feel very blessed to do what I do. I get to play dress up and sing beautiful music with an orchestra and play pretend on stage for a living. I have many things to be thankful for.” Stacy Boge PHOTOGRAPHY
Jason J. Caniglia, M.P.A. Associate Vice President of Development — A&S Oklahoma State University Foundation 400 South Monroe | Stillwater, OK 74074 (405) 880-2430 | (405) 385-5619 fax jcaniglia@OSUgiving.com | www.OSUgiving.com Jason Caniglia invites you to join him in the well of knowledge that brands success at OSU. As a land-grant university, OSU is here to serve the state and nation. Let Jason help you … help OSU. Contact him today.
10 Chance Hays describes himself as a real cowboy. Anyone who has seen him riding his horses or doing competitive roping for the rodeo would have to agree. But as the rodeo winds down and the horses rest, most spectators and competitors alike put the excitement aside until the next event. Taking a Chance
11 Stacy M. Pettit ’09 WORDS courtesy PHOTO Not Hays. With thoughts of horses, riding and the thrill of the rodeo still on his mind, Hays sets down his rope, takes off his dusty boots, and his calloused hands pick up the tool needed for his other passion — a paintbrush. “I’m a tall, lean guy who lifts weights and works for a sport, but my passion is on the canvas,” Hays says. “I’m blessed that I’ve been able to travel the world with the sport of rodeo and use that in my art.” Others have noticed this connection as well. Even though Hays graduated from OSU with a bachelor’s in fine arts in May 2009, his work has already become a well-known statement of western culture. Hays’ art, which typically ties together his love of the Midwest with expressionist techniques, has caught the eye of Oklahomans such as Bob Funk, founder of Express Employment and majority owner of the Oklahoma City RedHawks, as well as several Stillwater business owners. Hays realized he could be on his way toward becoming a successful artist when admirers of his work purchased his entire senior show at OSU. “When I was leaving, I was delivering all my paintings throughout Stillwater,” he says. The stack of pieces Hays delivered burst with color, as most of his artwork does. Many of Hays’ creations pop with expressionist techniques and bright colors. They feature anything from horses to Native Americans to eagles — anything that has inspired Hays. Even at an early age, Hays’ unique talents were catching others’ attention. His mother, an art teacher, hoped to encourage those talents when Hays began drawing at 5 years old. “While she cooked in the kitchen, she would give me huge rolls of paper, but she never let me have a coloring book,” he says. “She’d make me illustrate my own stories.” One of these stories, titled Dragonfly, became Hays’ big break into the art world. Dragonfly won a children’s book contest, and the story landed in the Library of Congress. Hays was making a name for himself, all at the age of 12. His father, a rodeo cowboy, encouraged Hays to rope and ride horses as he was growing up. Soon, roping tied his two worlds into one passion. “I had a real connection to what I did with artwork and rodeo and horses,” Hays says. “My parents pushed me to explore and find out who I was and not take the easy road.” After graduating from high school in Bristow, Okla., Hays received a rodeo scholarship at Panhandle State University in Goodwell, Okla., where he studied art for two years. Hays then took a cue from his name and decided to take a chance. He packed up his books, paintbrushes and canvases and walked onto the OSU campus for the first time as an OSU Cowboy. CONTINUES
12 IT WAS ALWAYS MY DREAM TO GO TO OSU. AS A KID, I JUST ALWAYS KNEW I WOULD BE CONNECTED FOR LIFE IF I WENT THERE. Michael Schumacher PHOTOGRAPHY Amarillo Globe-News “It was always my dream to go to OSU,” he says.“As a kid, I just always knew I would be connected for life if I went there.” At OSU, Hays says he discovered his way to express life through every two-dimensional medium, including watercolors, acrylics, oils and charcoals. Of course, Hays still had to find time to practice for the OSU rodeo team. Hays worked to find the balance between competing for the team and constructing his pieces. “There are not many people who are the real deal in the rodeo world and the real deal in the art world and are still chasing an education,” he says. Hays continues to be this unique individual as he continues to pursue his education. He now attends West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas, where he is studying to earn his master’s degree in fine arts. “I’ve taken chance after chance,” Hays says.“You get what you put into whatever it is you do. I put in full days every day with the rodeo, my artwork and my education.” Even at WTAMU, Hays stays true to his cowboy roots. When he is not putting his vision from his OSU rodeo days on canvas or reading up for one of his graduate courses, Hays, wearing those same dusty boots and calloused hands, is helping the WTAMU rodeo team get ready for the next competition. “I’m a cowboy at heart,” he says.“I’m out here riding every day.” Riding through a life different than most, this Cowboy is excited to see where the next chance he takes will lead him. “People ask me why I chose art,” he says. “I think it’s all summed up with the freedom of being who I want to be.”
13 Alumni Board of Directors PRESIDENT Dr. Timothy Geib, ’98 NATIONAL BOARD REPRESENTATIVE Dana Glencross ’82/’86 MEMBERS Carol Ringrose Alexander ’86 Dr. D. Erik Aspenson ’89 Claudia Holdridge Bartlett ’80 Dr. Carla Britt ’83 Matt Caves ’97 Stacy Dean ’86 Doug Fort, Ph.D., ’88/’90 The Rev. Mark Foster, ’90 Christopher Gafney ’90 Dana Glencross ’82/’86 Lisa Helms-Suprenand ’01 Brian Huseman ’94 Scott Levy ’99 Amy Logan ’97 Theresa McClure ’78 Pam Mowry ’04 David Parrack ’80 Annawyn Shamas ’56 Sara Sheffield-Forhetz ’04 ALUMNI LIAISON Lorene Roberson Hickey ’84 Office of the Dean 201 LIFE SCIENCES EAST STILLWATER, OK 74078 (405) 744-5663 WWW.CAS.OKSTATE.EDU DEAN Peter M.A. Sherwood, Ph.D., Sc.D. ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR INSTRUCTION AND PERSONNEL Bruce C. Crauder, Ph.D. ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR ACADEMIC PROGRAMS Thomas A. Wikle, Ph.D. ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR RESEARCH Ron Van Den Bussche, Ph.D. DIRECTOR OF OUTREACH H. Walter Shaw DIRECTOR OF FISCAL AFFAIRS Renee G. Tefertiller ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT OF DEVELOPMENT Jason Caniglia DIRECTOR OF STUDENT ACADEMIC SERVICES Amy Martindale, Ed.D. COLLEGE OF Arts & Sciences College of Arts and Sciences Alumni: Stronger Every Day For more information or to join the OSU Alumni Association, visit www.orangeconnection.org/ng, or phone Lorene Roberson Hickey, media and alumni relations for College of Arts and Sciences, at (405) 744-7497 or e-mail lorene.hickey@okstate.edu. This is an exciting time for the College of Arts and Sciences at OSU. Our remarkable college continues to grow, and today we have more than 42,000 alumni. The Office of Alumni Relations for the College of Arts and Sciences serves as the constituency to the OSU Alumni Association and, since 1896, has served to strengthen ties among its alumni and friends through its programs and services.
14 THAT’S WHAT I THINK LIFE IS ABOUT — MAINTAINING BALANCE IN WHATEVER YOU DO, WHETHER IT’S YOUR FRIENDSHIPS, YOUR ARTWORK OR THE WAY YOU LIVE. RIGHT The Moon or Sun, in color; Harjo The Age of Sacrifice, black and white
15 Each day is a balancing act between the personal and spiritual, the business world and the art world, says the soft-spoken Shawnee and Seminole Indian artist Benjamin Harjo Jr. That search, laced with a fair amount of good-natured humor, has endeared the ’74 OSU art alumnus’ work to Oklahomans and Indian art lovers all over the nation. Phil Shockley PORTRAIT Harjo has made his name eschewing romanticized notions of Indian art. There are no images of teepees or buffalo hunts in his work. Instead, he draws upon his heritage and whimsical sense of humor shown in bright acrylic and gouache paintings, pen and inks and woodblock prints inspired by Native American fables, spirituality and religions. Those works have appeared in museums ranging from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian to the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Ariz. Harjo’s Art, on Balance “Sometimes I ask people what they see in my work because some of it has no story,” he says. “It’s just because I wanted to paint. Some of it doesn’t have a story until I finish it. And then I come up with a meaning to it.” His work has a dark side to it as well. The Age of Sacrifice depicts an Indian prophet heralding a time of suffering and strife. The prophet’s weather-beaten face has whited-out eyes against a background of sharp black and white squares and an image of a snake taken from Central American civilizations, which Harjo uses to explain how he sees alienation of modern Indians from their past. “We’ve always had people in religion who were prophets — the same thing with Indian people. We’ve always had medicine men who would tell what was going to happen in the future, and I really don’t know if we have any of those people today,” he says. “You know, when you live close to the earth, you can predict things. By moving away from the earth, by living in houses, by CONTINUES STORY BY Matt Elliott
16 WHEN I LAY MY DRAWING ON THE BLOCK OF WOOD AND START TO CARVE INTO IT, IT’S LIKE PEACE OF MIND. I’M CARVING AND SEEING THINGS FALL AWAY AND REVEAL THEMSELVES ON THE BLOCK OF WOOD.
17 wearing shoes and getting disconnected from a lot of things that are here on the earth, maybe we lose that ability,” he says. “The Shawnees have a prophet who said that when the earth became covered with spider webs, it would end. What did he mean by spider webs? It could be all the telephone poles and the high line wires that are going across the country.” It is his brighter works that have made him a household name in Oklahoma’s arts community. Oklahoma commissioned him to create a poster and used it along with another Harjo piece, A Returning of Nations, to promote its centennial celebration in 2007. The Oklahoma Museum of Natural History and the Red Earth Center have displayed his work, and state officials have given his work as gifts to visiting dignitaries, such as Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That didn’t happen overnight. Living with his grandparents on their farm outside of the southern Oklahoma town of Byng, he spent his childhood running around the backwoods of Pontotoc County with a sketchpad. After high school graduation in 1965, he attended Santa Fe’s Institute of American Indian Arts where he met his mentor, the famed painter, printmaker and sculptor Seymour Tubis, who encouraged the aspiring cartoonist to do printmaking. Harjo spent two years in Santa Fe while his love of printmaking grew. “When I lay my drawing on the block of wood and start to carve into it, it’s like peace of mind,” Harjo says. “I’m carving and seeing things fall away and reveal themselves on the block of wood. Then, once I’ve carved out the basic block, if I add other colors to it, I have to do more woodcarving. When I discovered I wanted to print, I wanted to print trees. I wanted to print concrete. I wanted to print anything that I could find.” After he graduated from the arts institute, Tubis talked him into attending OSU, where he found a good friend in Moses Jackson, a 1969 art graduate, and inspiring professors in Dean Bloodgood, Dale McKinney and Nick Bormann, who allowed him to work more with Native American topics. His work became more abstract, often with backstories that would be unnoticeable to others, such as My Daddy’s House, a painting that’s not a painting of a house, but of a series of concentric circles, symbols and colors arranged like points on a compass. He only called it that because he expected it to sell for enough money to buy his dad a house. “It’s the four directions, white, red, yellow and black. Yet other cultures also have those colors as their directions. The red circle around it is continuing life. The hands that are around it represent friendship. The trees represent the earth. The forest and the half mountains represent the earth,” Harjo says. “Before I enclosed it with the two circles, it vibrated. I could see it in my eye moving. Then when I closed it up, it quit vibrating. I added those little design elements that are in between the women I painted. And then coming out of the center, going in all directions are birds, and birds represent prayer to the Creator.” Drafted in 1969, he spent a year in Vietnam attached to an artillery regiment. He prefers to keep his distance from Vietnam, and it doesn’t appear in his work. He returned to OSU after two years in the military to finish his degree. Afterward, he moved to Tulsa where he caught the attention of famed country music promoter Jim Halsey. Halsey bought several of Harjo’s paintings and set up a mobile art gallery with a local collector, Diane Henry, who showed some of the artist’s early work. The ’70s was a time full of Indian artists, Harjo says, and it lasted until the oil bust and bank failures of the late 1970s and early 1980s. While many of his peers sought other careers, he stuck out the downturn. He credits Barbara, his wife of 27 years, with keeping them on track. She freed him to focus solely on his art when she began handling the business of booking shows and festivals. They live in Oklahoma City where Harjo, now an award-winning, internationally known artist, continues his search for balance working in his home studio. “When I was growing up, we would go to stomp dances. If we went to the dance, my grandmother would say, ‘Don’t tell anybody at the church,’ because there was a separation. It was not right if you were a Christian to go to the dance — to practice the other way of seeing the Creator,” he says. “And I think that’s a great detriment to a lot of our people. Once you become totally absorbed in Christianity, or one belief in God, you repudiate your tribal belief in the Creator and all living things. “There are the positive aspects of the medicine people who can help heal with the mind. Yet at the same time, you can carry that too far and always try to heal with the mind when there is help such as drugs that can alleviate the situation. “There’s got to be a happy balance. And that’s what I think life is about — maintaining balance in whatever you do, whether it’s your friendships, your artwork or the way you live.” Along Came a Spider
18 I WAS FASCINATED WITH THE MATH AND UNDERSTANDING THE FORCES OF NATURE. I THINK MOST PHYSICISTS ARE ATTRACTED TO THAT. ESSENTIALLY, A LOT OF US TEND TO BE PROBLEM SOLVERS, MORE INTERESTED IN THINGS WE HAVE TO FIGURE OUT. Shelly Elizondo got more than an expert background in nanotubes and computational methods for materials from her thesis adviser, Regents Professor and physicist John Mintmire. He inspired the future Raytheon engineer to think creatively in physics and communicate her ideas. A Student of Nature’s Forces STORY BY Matt Elliott
19 “Our computational simulations and related theoretical work stimulated a large group of experimentalists who were trying to make these carbon nanotubes in pure form to test whether they were really conducting,” Mintmire says. “With devices, we have hit a limit as far as performance goes. You can see this in the increasing number of cores in computers. The limits in switching speeds for processors in PCs are pushing us toward other avenues for improved computational performance.” Mintmire, an avowed science fiction lover, began his fascination with physics when he was a kid growing up in rural Russell Springs, Ky., and read his older brother’s college physics textbook. “I was fascinated with the math and understanding the forces of nature. I think most physicists are attracted to that. Essentially, a lot of us tend to be problem solvers, more interested in things we have to figure out. I must have been seven to nine years old when I read it.” He also remembers a math teacher in high school who used to take him to the local junior college where he learned about computer programming using the college’s early accounting mainframe computer, typing in his input using punch cards. He graduated from the University of Florida with his doctoral degree in 1980 before beginning his postdoctoral work at the Navy’s corporate research laboratory. In 2001, he came to OSU for the opportunity to work with students and develop a thriving physics department. Accepting a department head position at OSU, Mintmire became the College of Arts and Sciences associate dean of research two years later. He spent five years as an administrator, but these days he prefers teaching and working with his computational materials physics research group. Last January, he finished a grant from the Department of Energy to study nanostructures (objects somewhere between atomic and microscopic in size) and is now finishing a Department of Defense grant to develop nanoscale models of ionic materials. He has published more than 100 journal articles and other publications, as well as given presentations from Washington, D.C., to Saint Petersburg, Russia. He is on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Quantum Chemistry and Advances in Quantum Chemistry and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry. He received a University of Florida Outstanding Alumni Award and was a finalist in 2000 for the Foresight Institute’s Feynman Award in Nanotechnology. “He taught me how to communicate well — writing publications, preparing posters and slides for presentations, helping with grant proposals and delivering effective presentations,” says Elizondo, who works in advanced infrared imaging for military use. “He had many tips and tricks that I have often kept for myself over the years.” An expert in computational physics, Mintmire is one of the three College of Arts and Sciences’ faculty members OSU named Regents Professor in 2009. He began his career nearly 30 years ago as a theorist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. There the University of Florida alumnus cut his teeth modeling carbon nanotubes and electroactive polymers (special compounds that conduct electricity) in the laboratory’s chemistry division. Gary Lawson PORTRAIT
20 Preston’s 50-Year Love Affair Oklahoma is a state of contrasts, says linguist Dennis Preston, but “fixin’ to” is the great equalizer. “All Oklahomans like ‘fixin’ to,’” says Preston, with a twinkle in his eye,“even those fancy pants smart alecks in Tulsa. They all say ‘fixin’ to.’ They wouldn’t say ‘pin’ and ‘pen’ the same if you paid them. And they certainly wouldn’t say things like ‘might could’ and a lot of other southernisms Oklahomans use, but ‘fixin’ to’ seems to be a matter of state pride.”
21 He moved around at different colleges for a few years, receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1962 from the University of Louisville. By 1969, he had his doctoral degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and began his career teaching at Ohio State. Several university teaching jobs later, he has learned no less than eight languages, including Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, English Caribbean Creole and Xhosa (the Bantu dialect prominent in South Africa) and a perfect Louisville dialect, but adds he doesn’t sound like “Li’l Abner.” At OSU, he’s working on a grant with the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland to study language among Helsinki residents. However, his main project is something he calls RODEO, or Research on the Dialects of English in Oklahoma, with a former student and Langston University professor Darnell Williams. Previous projects in the state have ignored blacks, Native Americans and certain immigrant populations in Oklahoma, he says, including Oklahoma’s Czech descendants. His drive is to catalog their dialects and understand how they fit in the state’s language picture. “Blacks in Oklahoma have been completely ignored in previous dialect work, both in urban and rural areas. There’s OSU named Preston a Regents Professor in 2009 for his work delving into the “fixin’ to’s” of the world of sociolinguistics and dialects. In fact, his telling of its history is a good explanation of what he does at OSU. The linguist, who has spent nearly 50 years in his field, studies how people talk and uses sociology, ethnography, history and psychology to weave a tapestry that depicts peoples’ movements over time. The movement of “fixin’ to” from rural Oklahoma to urban areas shows in part how populations moved within the state during the last 65 years. “Before 1945, there was no presence in Oklahoma of ‘fixin’ to’ in the urban areas,” Preston says. “It was only in the countryside. Normally, what happens is it goes from the city to the country. Here, it’s been just the opposite.” Preston came to OSU in 2008 wanting his own research program, bored after retiring from Michigan State University, where he spent 17 years as a sociolinguist and dialectologist. That’s the latest chapter in what has been a long love affair with words. Growing up in Harrisburg, Ill., his dad’s side of the family was from Hungary, and his grandmother didn’t speak English. His mom’s family, his “hillbilly side,” was full of coal miners from the Louisville, Ky., area. not one minute of tape of residents from the traditional black towns of Oklahoma. It’s also unthinkable in Oklahoma that there’s been no study of what traditional Native American English sounds like.” Although he’s dedicated to his research, he keeps lifelong ties with many of his former students, who end up becoming friends as well as protégés. Terumi Imai, a Japanese linguist, studied under Preston (whom some of his former students call “Grampaw”) at MSU, and she credits his guidance with helping her obtain her doctoral degree in 2004. She and other former students regularly send him their articles and research for his feedback, and he’s always willing to help. She says they all reconnect each year at the annual Linguistic Society of America conference. “He taught me a lot of things,” says Imai, now a professor at Wittenberg University, a liberal arts college in Springfield, Ohio.“I learned from him how to be a good mentor to students. When I first came to MSU, I was getting my master’s in semantics, but his sociolinguistics class was eye opening. I never knew that it was so deep and had such a great influence over people’s lives.” Preston received the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Polish Republic, an Erskine Fellowship at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the Paul Varg Arts & Letters Alumni Association Distinguished Faculty Award from Michigan State University’s College of Arts & Letters. He is also a Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. ALL OKLAHOMANS LIKE ‘FIXIN’ TO,’ EVEN THOSE FANCY PANTS SMART ALECKS IN TULSA. THEY ALL SAY ‘FIXIN’ TO’ … ‘FIXIN’ TO’ SEEMS TO BE A MATTER OF STATE PRIDE. Matt Elliott WORDS Gary Lawson PHOTOGRAPHY
22 Beyond Gotham City Zoologist Ron Van Den Bussche teaches his graduate students they need to get out of their labs and hoof it into the wilderness to understand the species they study. STORY BY Matt Elliott
23 Van Den Bussche has a host of grants looking into the animals’ mysteries, as well as those of other small mammals. One included a Fulbright Fellowship that sent him to the Polish Academy of Sciences’ Museum and Institute of Zoology in Warsaw where he set up a lab that specializes in ancient DNA and got the chance of a lifetime to work with some rare bat fossils. When bats die, they decay too quickly in most climates to form fossils due to their small, delicate bodies and the effects of moisture. That makes the animals’ fossil record spare and adds to their mystery. However, the bat cave in the Caucasus was dry — prime for fossilized remains. “We pulled out these dead bats, and initially we thought they were ones that had just died. When we carbon-dated them, we found they were about 5,000 years old. They were preserved that well.” It was part of an effort to resolve a long-running controversy over whether two types of bats that used the cave, both termed the lesser mouse-eared bat, were different species or subspecies. Using DNA from a groundup tooth, researchers determined the animals were very similar genetically, but their reproduction and feeding habits differed significantly, indicating they may be different species. Earlier in his career, his studies of genetic changes in rodents collected in the exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear plant ended up in the journal, Nature, in 1996, one year after he started at OSU. The power plant’s meltdown and explosion in 1986 contaminated thousands of square miles, rendering the region uninhabitable to humans and making it a prime location to study how wildlife recovers after a nuclear accident. Braving enough radiation to fry a Geiger counter, Van Den Bussche made his first trip to the burnt-out plant and the abandoned nearby city of Pripyat, Ukraine, in 1992 while finishing his postdoctoral work at the University of Idaho. “When I first started going over there, there were tons of rats, but around 1997 or 1998, wolves, moose and Russian wild boar became a problem. They were destroying our traps. We were seeing them all over the place. In this big enclosed area where humans will never live again, the animals are doing great. That showed me that humans are far worse on animals than radiation.” Although he doesn’t make any more trips to Chernobyl, he says he’ll continue his research into small mammals while also joining his wife, fellow zoologist Meredith Hamilton, on research trips to the jungles of Honduras with their graduate students. Van Den Bussche holds a doctoral degree in zoology from Texas Tech University, a master’s degree in biology from Memphis State and a bachelor’s degree in wildlife management from Eastern Kentucky. He is a winner of the Southwestern Association of Naturalists Donald W. Tinkle Research Excellence Award and the OSU College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Professor Award. From the Amazon rainforest to the doorstep of Chernobyl’s Reactor No. 4, the College of Arts and Sciences associate dean for research has practiced what he preaches. He has studied small mammals in Texas, Oklahoma, Honduras, Siberia, Poland and the exclusion zone surrounding the world’s worst nuclear accident. That, as well as his more than 100 published articles, is part of why last year he became one of the college’s three new Regents Professors for 2009. Balancing research with teaching and administrating is a lot like working two full-time jobs, Van Den Bussche says. Yet he enjoys being an administrator, helping fellow professors get funding for their work while also keeping up his own research. Much of his work deals with bats, which he says make up onefourth of the world’s more than 4,000 species of mammals. That means he often ends up bending his lanky, 6-foot 3-inch frame into caves, attics, rotted trees and other dark nooks and crannies in nearly every climate in the world. “The evolution that’s had to happen with these animals is just fascinating,” he says. “We’ve got solitary bats. We have bats that form harems. Anything you can think of happens in bats. Look at vampire bats. If they don’t have a meal in three days, they’ll die. So if somebody hasn’t had a meal, somebody else will regurgitate its blood meal for it. They’re very social animals.” IN THIS BIG ENCLOSED AREA WHERE HUMANS WILL NEVER LIVE AGAIN, THE ANIMALS ARE DOING GREAT. THAT SHOWED ME THAT HUMANS ARE FAR WORSE ON ANIMALS THAN RADIATION. Gary Lawson PHOTOGRAPHY
24 Elvis Has Left the Building STORY BY Timothy R. Ryan ’84 PHOTOGRAPHY BY Phil Shockley
25 Much like his namesake, this Elvis has a growing fan club of some 200 Facebook friends and is pampered, bathed and fed by a coterie of attentive handlers dedicated to his care and comfort. The comparisons to the legendary pop star end here. This Elvis is a strict vegetarian who tips the scales at 13 pounds and is more renowned for his abstract expressionist art than his vocal styling. OSU’s famous Elvis is an artist, teacher’s aide and literacy advocate. He is a 5-foot, black-andorange Mexican subspecies of Green Iguana that calls the Learning Resource Center on the third floor of Life Sciences West home. He is the reptilian star of the zoology department’s introductory biology course where he helps students understand basic principles of evolution and physiology. Accompanied by an interesting variety of reptiles, amphibians, spiders and insects, Elvis also travels to K-12 schools across Oklahoma as the centerpiece of the Elvis and Friends Educational Outreach Program. The enormously successful program brings science alive in the classroom with hands-on lessons in natural history, wildlife preservation and the often too demanding responsibilities of exotic pet care. Elvis regularly visits schools and libraries as part of a childrenreading-to-animals program. The mild-mannered and people-loving lizard makes the perfect listening partner for children who are just beginning to read, helping to build their self-confidence. Equally remarkable are Elvis’ talents in the studio. Using waterbased paints and his whip-like tail, he creates elaborate abstract paintings on 18-inch by 24-inch canvases that the department sells or auctions to raise funds for the Elvis and Friends traveling classroom. The department posts Elvis’ art endeavors and outings along with the occasional science facts tidbits on his Facebook page found at Elvis Iguanidae. When Elvis leaves the building there is no doubt he is the most beloved reptile in the state. On a warm day when this unlikely social media star announces a lunchtime appearance on campus via Facebook, his two-legged fans line up to see him, eager as the autograph seekers that once followed his musical namesake. MORE RIGHT Moria G. Harmon, zoology department lecturer and lab coordinator for the introductory biology course, has been Elvis’ handler for the last eight years. The iguana’s original owner, Jim Bidlack, a biology professor at the University of Central Oklahoma, gave Elvis to the zoology department in 2002. When the announcement comes that Elvis has left the building, he’s either headed for a leisurely bask in the sun by the fountain at the Edmon Low Library or off to a classroom to help teach such weighty topics as evolution, adaptation and osmoregulation.
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