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W I N T E R 2 0 18 – 1 9
10 0 Y E A R S U P O N T H E H I L L
The Staten Island Campus, Rephotographed
Page 22
�Contents
Wagner Magazine Winter 2018–19
VO L . 1 6 ,
NO.1
F E ATU RE S
12
22
‘Create Your Own Story’
Over the past 20 years, the Wagner Plan for the Practical
Liberal Arts has shaped a generation of alumni.
100 Years Upon the Hill
Celebrating the College’s centennial on Staten Island
with photographs, old and new, side by side.
D E PART M E NT S
2
From the President
3
From the Editor
4
From Our Readers
5
Upon the Hill
30 Alumni Link
35 Class Notes
42 In Memoriam
44 Reflections
City of Dreams
For President-Elect Joel W. Martin, Wagner’s location is one of its outstanding
strengths. “I mean, my God, what a view!” he said during his introductory talk.
“It’s a portal of opportunity to all who dream big.” Read more on pages 5–6.
P H O T O G R A P H : J O N AT H A N H A R K E L
��From the President
Introducing Joel and Jan Martin
IT WAS WONDERFUL to
see
the historic moment that
happened on campus
in December with the
introduction of Dr. Joel
W. Martin as the 19th
president of Wagner
College. I could not be
more thrilled with his
selection. (You can read more about him on pages 5–6.)
Joel is a gifted educator, an accomplished scholar,
and a strong advocate for liberal education and the
practical liberal arts. That’s exactly what we were
looking for as a president going forward. He is the
provost of Franklin and Marshall College, one of the
esteemed liberal arts colleges in the country. He has
been a department chair, held an endowed chair, and
been a top administrator at well-regarded universities.
He’s well prepared in his experience, academically
as well as administratively, to lead an institution like
Wagner. In addition, he’s a true scholar.
His wife, Jan Martin, is a special person in her own
right. She’s a K-12 science teacher, currently working
in York, Pennsylvania. In this economically depressed
city, she coordinates a “�They are the most
STEAM academy —
gracious, loving
science, technology,
couple that you
engineering, the
arts, and math —
could imagine.
working to provide a
It’s just a home run
powerful education to
in every way. ”
underprivileged kids.
They are the most
gracious, loving couple that you could imagine. It’s
just a home run in every way. They are a wonderful
fit on every level.
I want to thank the search committee and the
trustees personally for successfully completing such
a challenging task, especially Andy Cortese ’72, who
chaired the search committee. He did a phenomenal
job and gave an inordinate amount of time. Board
chair Warren Procci ’68 H’17 also gave much time
and effort to the selection.
For Carin and me, Wagner is a precious place, and
it will be very deep in our hearts and minds every day
for the rest of our lives. You will never be far away
from us in our thoughts.
As Carin and I move on to the next stage of our
lives, we’ve been comparing leaving Wagner to parents
letting go of a child — they love the child dearly, of
course, but it’s time for the child to move out of the
home. This situation is always a little threatening to
parents — until they see that the child has met her
or his soul mate, and they see how wonderful the next
stage of their child’s life journey is going to be with
a partner like that. I’m convinced that Joel and Jan
Martin are those soul mates for Wagner.
Richard Guarasci
President
A WONDERFUL FIT President-Elect
Joel W. Martin and his wife, Jan, with
Carin and Richard Guarasci in the
Wagner president’s office.
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
�A
From the Editor
The Master Teachers of the Wagner Plan
t the beginning of the fall 2018 semester,
I spent some time reading the descriptions
of all 21 First-Year Learning Communities
offered to Wagner’s 425 first-year students.
What an interesting slate of topics the
Wagner faculty created! I wished I could take
all of them. I’m curious about “the nature
of science and its relationship to modern
life”; I’d like to know more about “how
language, culture, social and political events
are interrelated,” whether there is “a place
for consciousness within an evolutionary
account of human beings,” and “the triangular
interaction of humans, microbes, and the
environment,” just to name a few examples.
As we celebrate the Wagner Plan’s 20th
anniversary in this magazine issue, I want to
recognize that the Wagner Plan works because
of the commitment of the faculty. Their
enthusiasm for giving students a rich and
meaningful education from their first to their
last semester has made it successful.
First-Year Learning Communities, in
particular, require extra time, coordination,
and care. The two professors who collaborate
on each Learning Community create a theme,
teach basic courses in their disciplines around
this theme, organize learning opportunities
outside of the classroom, offer in-depth writing
workshops in the Reflective Tutorial course,
and provide academic advising to each student.
Two of the many master teachers in this
program are Alison Smith, professor of history,
and Anne Schotter, professor of English. Smith
has taught in the First-Year Program every
Winter 2018–19 • Volume 16 Number 1
year since it began except one. For 15 of those
years, she and Schotter have offered a Learning
Community together — making them the
most experienced pair in the program.
Their Learning Community’s title has evolved
from “City and Civilization” to “Encountering
Others in the Old World and New” to this
year’s “Exploring the Global Roots of New York
City.” It has always incorporated basic courses
in literature and history, but with varying
emphasis as interests and needs have evolved.
The Reflective Tutorial focuses on exploring the
history and culture of New York City.
“We’ve always tried to connect the
past to the present for our students,” said
Schotter. “And the present provides frequent
opportunities for it.”
Smith has also worked with economics
professor Mary Rose Leacy to teach
“Urbanization, Civilization, and Collapse” and
with psychology professor Larry Nolan to offer
“Citizen Appetites,” which combined historical
and psychological perspectives on food. Schotter
has also collaborated with Patricia Moynagh
(government and politics) to offer “Human
Rights and Human Wrongs,” which looked at
issues of justice in politics and literature.
It takes an unusual degree of dedication
to offer a First-Year Learning Community, as
well as all other components of the Wagner
Plan. Wagner is indeed fortunate in its faculty
and their joy in teaching.
Laura Barlament
Editor, Wagner Magazine
EDITOR
Natalie Nguyen
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
Writers
Laura Barlament
Steve Jenkins
Lee Manchester
Photographers
Vinnie Amessé
Deborah Feingold
Jonathan Harkel
Anna Mulé
Illustration
Natalie Nguyen
Anja Reponen
Production Manager
Donna Sinagra
Editorial AssistantS
Lauren Serrato ’19
Wagner Magazine
Advisory Board
Lisa DeRespino Bennett ’85
Susan Bernardo
Jack Irving ’69
Scott Lewers ’97
Lorraine McNeill-Popper ’78
Brian Morris ’65
Hank Murphy ’63 M’69
Andy Needle
Nick Richardson
Wagner Magazine:
The Link for Alumni and Friends
is published twice a year by Wagner’s
Office of Communications and Marketing.
Wagner Magazine
Wagner College
One Campus Road
Staten Island, NY 10301
718-390-3147
laura.barlament@wagner.edu
wagner.edu/wagnermagazine
On the Cover
The inset black and white photo is from March 1985 by
Morris Warman. The color photo is from July 2018 by
Jonathan Harkel. The photo composite was created by
Natalie Nguyen. See more then-and-now photos celebrating
Wagner’s Staten Island centennial on pages 22–29.
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
Laura Barlament
wagner.edu
�From Our Readers
Fraternity Council] wasn’t playing
scrimmage football. Wonderful Rita
Rauba, professor of physical education,
was our coach. We had no trainer
or equipment room. We laundered
our own uniforms and played games
against other New York area colleges
and universities at Staten Island
Academy. Most members of the team
were on the Dean’s List, too. Field
hockey is a wonderful game; I’m happy
to hear that it is returning to the Hill.
“
I’m happy
to hear that
[field hockey]
is returning to
the Hill.
”
A Strong Role Model
Thank you for the touching
remembrance of Jeanne P. Corbo,
former director of placement at
Wagner, which appeared in
the summer 2018 issue of
Wagner Magazine. I served
as one of Mrs. Corbo’s
student assistants in
1970. I know firsthand
that she was a dynamo
on campus as she assisted
current students in finding jobs and
planned recruitment events for seniors.
She was also a subtle, but effective,
role model for strong family values
and work ethic, the importance of
celebrating special events, and just
being available for hurting folks.
She is missed. Mrs. Corbo was
the topic of my recent icebreaker
Molly LeVan ’72
Editor’s Note: In October 1978, the
Wagnerian announced the cancellation of
the field hockey team. That program had
existed for at least 10 years. Coach Rita
Rauba cited lack of interest in the sport in
the region, which made it difficult to create
a competitive season. Now, field hockey is
on the upswing; the Northeast Conference
announced in September 2018 that it will
reinstate field hockey as a championship
sport in 2019–20. Wagner will be a
member of the NEC’s six-team league.
One other note of interest: Title IX of the
Education Amendments, which prohibits
discrimination on the basis of sex in any
federally funded education program, was
signed into law on June 23, 1972.
at New Day Toastmasters on
September 6, 2018, in Staten Island.
Rose Stella Proscia ’72
Retired SSA Bilingual Claims Rep
and Competent Communicator,
Toastmasters
A New Era for
Field Hockey
I just read in the summer edition of
Wagner that the College has added two
new athletic teams, including women’s
field hockey. What happened to the
women’s field hockey team of old? I
played four seasons of varsity field
hockey during my years at Wagner.
There was no such thing as Title IX
back in the day. We practiced on
the Oval — when the IFC [Inter-
WE’D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU We welcome letters from readers. Letters
Laura Barlament, Editor
should refer to material published in the magazine and include the
writer’s full name, address, and telephone number. The editor reserves
the right to determine the suitability of letters for publication and to edit
them for accuracy and length.
Office of Communications, Wagner College
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
One Campus Road, Staten Island, NY 10301
laura.barlament@wagner.edu
�‘We Have Found
Our Family’
A warm welcome for the 19th president
of Wagner College, Joel W. Martin
JOEL W. MARTIN, PH.D. ,
was introduced to the Wagner
community on December 5, 2018, as the next president
of Wagner College. He will begin his term on July 1, 2019.
He succeeds President Richard Guarasci, who is retiring.
D I S T I N G U I S H E D AC A D E M I C R E C O R D
with a long
record of teaching, service, and leadership at colleges and
universities large and small.
Martin earned his bachelor’s degree at a small liberal arts
college, Birmingham-Southern, in Alabama, his home state. He
holds a master’s in theological studies from Harvard University
and a Ph.D. in the history of religions from Duke University.
He began his academic career at Franklin and Marshall, a
liberal arts college located in Lancaster, Penn., in 1988 as a
professor and, later, chair of the religious studies department.
A noted expert on Native American religions, he is the
author and editor of several books in this field, including
Native Americans, Christianity, and the Reshaping of the
American Religious Landscape (2010) and The Land Looks
After Us: A History of Native American Religion (2001). In
2000, he was named the Costo Endowed Chairholder in
American Indian Affairs at the University of California
Riverside, where he also served as interim dean of the
College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.
From 2006 to 2014, he held academic leadership positions at
the University of Massachusetts Amherst: He served as dean of
the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, then as the university’s
vice provost for academic personnel and dean of the faculty.
He then returned to Franklin and Marshall to serve
as provost and dean of the faculty. He has led key efforts
there, such as engaging the faculty in the design of a new
visual arts center; spearheading initiatives on creativity
and innovation, the humanities, and science education; and
securing a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to
support faculty diversification and inclusive pedagogy.
MARTIN COMES TO THE WAGNER PRESIDENCY
THE SEARCH PROCESS
“OVER THE COURSE OF SEVEN MONTHS ,
a very diverse
search committee evaluated a large and talented pool of
candidates and unanimously endorsed Joel Martin to be the
next president of Wagner College,” said Andrew F. Cortese ’72,
a Wagner trustee and chair of the presidential search committee.
“The Board of Trustees then unanimously and enthusiastically
voted to select Dr. Martin. We are thrilled to welcome him as
our next president.”
The 16-member search committee represented the trustees,
faculty, administration, and the student body. They reviewed
dossiers submitted by more than 140 candidates for the position.
Confidentiality was guaranteed to ensure that candidates who
held key positions at other institutions would apply.
The committee interviewed 12 semi-finalists, from whom
they selected three finalists for in-depth interviews and
campus visits.
“Joel blew us away,” said search committee member Patricia
Tooker ’79 M’04 D’16, dean of the Evelyn L. Spiro School of
Nursing. “I told him, ‘You are our next president.’ We were
impressed with his resume, but even more so in person. He’s
{ C O N T I N U E D O N N E X T PAG E }
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
�{
First the
Facts . . .
6,450
148
Alumni who have completed the
Wagner Plan for the Practical Liberal Arts
Professors who have taught
at least one First-Year LC since 1998
{ C O N T I N U E D F RO M P R E V I O U S PAG E }
so genuine, appreciative, and interested in who we are. He
wants to keep what we do intact and build on it for the next
generation. He’s also fun; he has a sense of humor.
“What resonated was his love for Wagner, his respect for
Wagner, and his vision for who we can be in the future.”
FIRST VISIT
ON DECEMBER 5 ,
the day of the presidential selection
announcement, Joel Martin and his wife, Jan, made their first
visit to meet all constituents on campus. An introductory
program with President Guarasci was live streamed, followed
by a reception in the Union.
The couple’s warmth was warmly returned.
“The first thing I noticed about him was you could tell he
cared and came from a genuine place,” said Dan Hughes ’19,
the student representative on the search committee. “I feel
that genuine spirit propelled him through the process. And
his wife is phenomenal. She did a fantastic job of stamping
that approval for us.”
Jan Martin is a longtime K–12 science teacher. Most
recently, she has worked for Pennsylvania State University
in York to organize a conference inspiring young women
to study science; she also coordinates enrichment activities
for a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and
mathematics) academy within a public school.
Joel Martin highlighted three key strengths of Wagner in
his introductory remarks. He began with the Wagner Plan,
describing it as an “extraordinary vision of the curriculum
that does more than focus on academic development for its
students: It focuses on social development, and asks students
how their learning can make a difference in the world.”
The second strength he mentioned was Wagner’s location
overlooking New York City and its “Arcadian” campus. “It’s
a gateway, a portal to opportunity for anyone who dreams
big. … That’s powerful symbolism of what this college means
to students and to the future of our society.”
Finally, he emphasized the personal culture at Wagner.
“The people of Wagner are incredible,” he said. “The culture
you have here, the friendliness, the warmth, is authentic. …
We have found our family.”
Watch a video of Joel Martin’s introduction at Wagner
at wagner.edu/newsroom/new-president-intro.
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
THE SEAL
OF THE COLLEGE
Wagner introduces a new rendition
of a familiar icon
100th anniversary on its
Staten Island campus, the Office of Communications
and Marketing is introducing a renewed version of
the College’s official seal in 2018–19.
The new drawing contains the original elements
from the seal, which dates back to 1916: A circle
that incorporates the name and location of the
College, surrounding the overlapping shapes of an
open book, a sword, a trumpet, and a palm branch.
The new rendition adds two new elements to the
design: 1883, the year of the College’s founding in
Rochester, New York; and the monogram “NYC,”
acknowledging the importance of New York City as
Wagner’s location for the past century.
In keeping with traditional and modern practice,
the seal is used only on official documents, presidential
events and documents, and high-end products. The
diplomas of the class of 2019 will feature the new seal.
IN HONOR OF WAGNER’S
�418
First-Year Learning Communities
offered since 1998
. . . Then
the Quiz!
Which professors hold the record
for teaching the most First-Year
Learning Communities?
Answer on Page 11
‘Small Windows,
Wide Views’
}
a part of trade, carrying information about ownership,
content, and even measurements or quantities.
S E A L S T O DAY
for identity and transfer of authority is
the same now as it was in ancient Mesopotamia,” Scott notes.
Scott points out the connection between the clay used in
SARAH JARMER SCOTT , associate professor of art history and
seals and sealing, clay’s religious significance as the material
dean of integrated learning, has been studying the seals of
from which the gods made humans, and the seals’ ability to
ancient Mesopotamia ever since her graduate
act as authority-bearing agents for people.
school days at the University of Pennsylvania.
That notion still has modern relevance,
That university’s large museum collection
she says. Having a document notarized, for
was acquired in the 1930s, when a team of
instance, is a modern way of using a seal
scholars from Penn helped to excavate the
to represent a person’s physical presence,
ancient city of Ur. While some were focused
identity, and authority.
on the precious metals and gems of an elite
In another modern parallel, giant statuary
burial site, others collected “sealings” — that
or other imagery of gods in ancient temples
is, clay pieces on which seals were impressed
were miniaturized on seals. In the same
— that had been discarded on the same spot.
way, images associated with institutions are
A new book that Scott co-edited, Seals and
miniaturized on modern seals to convey the
Sealing in the Ancient World: New Approaches
power or authority of that institution.
to Glyptic Studies (Cambridge University
“Wearing the seal, on a pin for example,
Press, 2018), showcases the vast amounts of
is remarkably similar to antiquity. What
information about ancient religious views,
IMAGES OF AUTHORITY
we wear is carefully curated. It’s a sign of
A cylinder seal from Ur, in today’s
social status, and communication that
allegiance or support of the idea that image
Iraq, dates to approximately 2600
scholars glean from these tiny objects.
represents,” she says. “It’s a way to show
BCE, a time when seals were used
In Scott’s chapter of the book, she focuses
your kinship.”
in trade to indicate ownership
on a type of seal that is shaped like a hollow
In ancient times, the seal was also a sign
and contents of a shipment.
tube — the cylinder seal. Like stamp seals,
of authority. If you imprinted your seal on
which have an even longer history, cylinder seals were carved
something or someone, it showed your ownership or authority
with imagery and impressed on objects for various purposes.
over that thing or person.
Seals originated around 7,000 BCE to express their
That’s why Scott is fascinated by objects like Main Hall’s
owners’ religious rank and shamanic powers. Inscribed with
old brass doorknobs embossed with the College’s name.
anthropomorphic animals and geometrical shapes, the seals
“It’s a visceral, physical embodiment
may have evoked their owners’ ability to cross boundaries
of the institution when you touch
between people and animals, or between the material and
it and open the door,” she says.
the spiritual world.
“I think people today are
Scott writes about that moment in history when the use
visually literate in a way
of seals intersected with the advent of cuneiform writing.
that’s similar to the ancients,
Both were used to convey information, while increasing
but we can process images
urbanism and commodity exchange changed the cultures
faster now. The ancients
of ancient Mesopotamia — an early “revolution in
were better at processing
communication,” Scott says. During this time period —
details. They saw a lot fewer
around 3,500 to 500 BCE — seals increasingly became
images than we do today.”
An art historian on the ancient history of seals
and their modern relevance
“THE USE OF SEALS
P H OTO G R A P H , R I G H T: V I N N I E A M E S S É ; A B OV E : B R I T I S H M U S E U M / U N I V E R S I T Y
MUSEUM EXPEDITION TO UR, IRAQ, 1928. COURTESY OF THE PENN MUSEUM
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
�Upon the Hill
{
Quote
Unquote
“We need a more integrative approach
to seeing the body not just as a machine,
but as an integrative organism.”
Where She Found
Her Stride
One of the first female Wagnerian editors
gives back to the College
was elected editor in chief
of the Wagnerian in February 1952, she was the second woman
ever to serve solo in that role since the student newspaper was
founded in 1934.
She didn’t give her unusual position much thought at the
time. She just knew that she had found a home at Wagner
and on the newspaper staff.
“When I arrived on the Wagner campus, a very confused
17-year-old commuter student, my safety net became the
newspaper office,” she wrote in a 1993 reminiscence on her
Wagner years.
She was a first-generation college student, from Staten
Island. It was her pastor, Rev. Frederic Sutter, who guided her
toward enrollment at Wagner. An 1894 Wagner graduate,
Sutter was the pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Staten
Island. He led the College’s relocation from Rochester to
Staten Island and served on the Board of Trustees for decades.
Ehren’s “safety net” at the newspaper office, however, was
not a quiet place. She remembers students arguing about
the controversies and politics of the day. They needled the
administration about what they considered to be uninspiring,
male-dominated chapel services. She and her fellow Wagnerian
staffers were intrigued by Norman Thomas, who was running
for the U.S. presidency as a socialist. They even invited him
to speak on campus — a plan that was crushed by the
Wagner president.
A history major, Ehren went on to
earn a master’s in educational psychology
from Columbia in 1955. In the 1960s, she
worked for several years on a curriculum
project of the Institute for Developmental
Studies, focused on the “social and academic
problems of environmentally disadvantaged
children,” as she wrote at the time. That
effort laid the groundwork for the federal
government’s Head Start program, which
WHEN JOAN BANSEMER EHREN ’53
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
Martin Picard
}
Columbia University
researcher,
Kaufman Repage
Lecture, Oct. 3
provides support for the developmental needs of young
children from low-income families.
Later, she changed her career focus, earning a Ph.D. in
higher education administration from the University of
Denver. Her husband, Charles Ehren, was a professor of law
at that university. He later served as dean of the law schools of
Pace University and Valparaiso University, and Joan also went
into higher education administration. She worked at Saint
Xavier University in Chicago for 10 years as the director of
the career center and associate dean for student life services.
The Ehrens retired to East Hampton, New York, and
began a life of volunteer service. Joan has been president of
several nonprofits and volunteer organizations, and Charles
has served on committees for the East Hampton Town
Board and other local causes.
Joan always stayed connected to Wagner as well, making
annual gifts and becoming a member of the Inner Circle
donor group. Most recently, the Ehrens designated a
significant portion of their estate plan to Wagner College.
“Wagner gave me so much,” she explains. “They gave
me the first steps to becoming a professional woman. I so
appreciate Frederick Sutter’s belief
in me and the support I received
from the College. They helped
me, and many others, pull
ourselves up by our bootstraps,
when we didn’t even have boots.
I want to give back to them,
and hopefully that will help
students now and in the future.”
�WHAT’S INSIDE
The Triathlon Team
began
competing in fall 2018. The six-member team
concluded its inaugural season as one of the
nation’s top four in NCAA Division I.
WAGNER’S WOMEN’S TRIATHLON TEAM
1 �Fabia
Maramotti ’18 M’20 was the top Seahawk finisher at
the 2018 USA Triathlon Collegiate National Championship.
Her time of 1:08:44 earned her 12th place. A native of
Reggio Emilia, Italy, she came to Wagner in 2014 for her
undergraduate education and is now working on her MBA.
1
2
2 �A
triathlon kit or “tri kit” sees the triathletes through all
three segments of the race: swimming, biking, and running.
3 �NCAA
Division I teams compete in sprint triathlons.
They begin with a swim of 750 meters (about half a mile),
in open water, such as a lake or ocean.
4 �Before
the race, triathletes stage their
bikes, with helmets on the handlebars
and shoes clipped in to the pedals.
After the swim, they execute a “flying
mount”: Running from water to bike,
they don their helmets and start riding
while slipping into their cycling shoes.
4
3
5
6
5 �Following
the swim, athletes pedal a route of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles). They use
lightweight road bikes; Maramotti rides her own Argon 18, a Canadian brand.
6 �While
approaching the cycling finish line, athletes slip out of their shoes. They replace bikes and helmets in the
staging area, and pull on running shoes with bungee laces for a quicker transition. The run is 5 kilometers (3.1 miles).
�Upon the Hill
{
Quote
Unquote
“A leader … is someone who shows
initiative for growth, drive to succeed,
and passion for what they are doing.”
Teaching As They
Were Taught
Two Wagner Plan alumni have returned
as faculty members
have a special relationship to
the Wagner Plan curriculum: They not only teach it —
they also were taught it.
Chris Corbo ’06 M’08, associate professor of
biological science, earned his bachelor’s in biology
and master’s in microbiology at Wagner. Racquel
Campo DeCicco ’07, assistant professor of
chemistry, earned her bachelor’s in chemistry
at Wagner.
For both professors, Wagner was a place
that broadened their perspectives during their
undergraduate years, and they were excited to return
to the College as faculty members to nurture the
next generation.
“We know what it’s like to be a student here,
and it helps,” DeCicco says.
Corbo says that, as a college freshman, his
ambition was to work in a zoo. That focus
started to shift when he met biology professor
Zoltan Fulop and became involved in his
laboratory research, which looks at life from the molecular
level. Corbo started to see that he could do research, that he
enjoyed its intellectual challenge and its camaraderie — and
that it offered him more opportunities in life.
Corbo completed his Ph.D. in molecular neuroscience
at the CUNY Graduate Center. Besides biology and
microbiology courses, he teaches the First-Year Learning
Community “The Love-Hate Relationship Between
Humans, Microbes, and Chemicals,” which combines his
microbiology class with a chemistry class.
Corbo emphasizes breadth as the advantage of a Wagner
Plan education. “Many students come to the sciences
because they think they want to go into medical professions.
But, science is not just about human health, but also the
planet’s health, and this all interacts with each other.
“I’m always telling students not to take so much science,
but to spend time getting breadth in their education,”
TWO WAGNER PROFESSORS
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
Nick Bouzas ’19
}
Leader on the Horizon
Award Recipient,
Opening Convocation,
Sept. 27
Corbo says. “The Wagner Plan helps to show the importance
of a liberal arts education and all you can get out of it.”
DeCicco came to Wagner as a freshman thinking she
wanted a pre-health major; but, like Corbo, she started down
a different path when she found a role model. Hers was
Wendy DeProphetis, who was then an assistant professor
of chemistry at Wagner. “She was young and starting out,”
DeCicco says. “I wanted to be her, and
now I have her job.”
“The Wagner
DeProphetis’s lab focused on both
Plan helps
chemical synthesis and chemistry
to show the
importance of education research, and DeCicco found
that she enjoyed both. She earned a
a liberal arts
education and Ph.D. in organic chemistry at Stony
Brook University. “As soon as I saw the
all you can
position open up at Wagner, I jumped
get out of it.”
on it,” she says.
Now, she offers chemistry courses, mentors students in
her lab, and also team teaches an Intermediate Learning
Community, “Cuisine: Chemistry and Culture,” with
anthropology professor Celeste Gagnon, showing students
an integrated approach to food chemistry and culture.
Hands-On and Knee-Deep
Students in the First-Year Learning Community “Exploring
the Anthropocene Through Film and Science,” a new
course in fall 2018, work in Wagner’s composting area.
This Learning Community focused on the science behind
concepts such as global warming and pollution, as well
as the uses of film in documenting these phenomena.
The course included site visits around Staten Island,
which served as a microcosm and a laboratory for
observing environmental change. The professors and
creators of the LC, Elizabeth Suter (biology) and Philip
Cartelli (film), both started teaching at Wagner in 2017.
Suter is an environmental scientist who studies the
microbial ecology of aquatic environments. Cartelli is
a documentary filmmaker and researcher whose work
centers around themes of geography and the environment.
�{
The
Answer
Quiz Question
on Page 7
Skills and
Knowledge
A new approach to the
core curriculum
FOR MANY YEARS ,
}
Professors Linda Raths (biology) and John Esser
(sociology) have each taught 21 First-Year
Learning Communities, every year since 1998.
students at
liberal arts colleges (including Wagner) have
been required to take a broad-based core
curriculum in addition to their major.
At Wagner, these requirements have been
known as General Education. It includes a
distribution of courses across the humanities,
social sciences, sciences, and the arts, plus
foundational skills in writing, math, speech,
and computers.
“The limitation in Wagner’s curriculum has
been its ability to demonstrate that it develops
within its students the intellectual and practical
skills employers demand and citizenship
requires,” said sociology professor John Esser.
This year, the Wagner faculty
introduced a new approach to this
broad-based element of the Wagner
Plan. First-year students in 2018–
19 will instead follow the Key
Skills and Knowledge curriculum —
which, as the name indicates, emphasizes
skills as well as disciplinary knowledge.
The skills that the faculty identified
in the curriculum are intercultural
understanding, creativity, critical reading and
analysis, information literacy, quantitative
thinking, technological competency, oral
communication, and written communication.
“Students work with their academic advisor
to select courses that develop six skill areas,”
Esser explains. “Students must take at least one
course that provides intensive skill development
plus additional courses that provide skill
practice or exposure. Students are encouraged
to see the value of general education through
focusing on the skills they develop.”
How to Write a Great Play
“What is water?” asked the professor.
“Life-giving,” answered one student.
“Refreshing,” added another. “And
purifying. But you can also drown in it.”
And so, the playwriting class’s
discussion of the Pulitzer Prize-winning
drama Water by the Spoonful was off
and running.
At issue for Professor Ben Marshall
and his students: What makes the script
work? And why?
Marshall should know. His play,
Incident at Willow Creek, won the 2018
Stanley Drama Award. Given by Wagner
College since 1957 to up-and-coming
playwrights, the award has recognized
the likes of Terrence McNally, Lonne
Elder III, and Jonathan Larson (for Rent).
“We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great,
having a Stanley winner teaching our
playwriting course?’” recalled theater
department chair Felicia Ruff.
“Ben, who’s an English professor
at Middlesex County College, is
on sabbatical this semester,
and he said yes.”
The nine student
playwrights enrolled in
Marshall’s class will produce
10-minute scripts for
submission to a new
project, The Originals,
which will be produced
in April in Wagner’s
Stage One theater.
Visit wagner.edu/theatre
for more information.
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
�launched in 1998, the Wagner Plan
for the Practical Liberal Arts has now guided
a generation of Wagner students.
What sets the Wagner Plan apart from a
traditional liberal arts education? A series of
special courses, called “Learning Communities,”
show students how different disciplines work
together to address large questions or issues.
The Wagner Plan also incorporates experiential
learning, so that students apply what they are
over the past 20 years,
the wagner plan for the
practical liberal arts
has shaped a
generation of alumni
learning in the community or in the workplace.
Wagner students take three Learning
Communities — First-Year, Intermediate, and
Senior — along with other general education
courses and their major and/or minor courses.
Over the past few months, I have interviewed
alumni who have graduated under the Wagner
Plan, asking them how this educational model
affected them and what continuing influence it
has in their lives.
by laura barlament
illustrations by anja reponen
What I heard again and again is that the
Wagner Plan enables students, in the words of
yo
‘create
Quincy Rasin ’18, to “create your own story.”
own
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
sto
�an internal auditor
who knows how to
connect the dots
I N 2 0 1 8 , Olatunde Ogunlana ’10
M’11 joined the legal and audit group
of Goldman Sachs, with a focus on the
investment management division.
Ogunlana is a Staten Island native;
his mother, Olaide Ogunlana ’08,
is a Wagner-educated nurse. He
chose Wagner for its small classes
and Learning Communities that
would expose him to many fields of
knowledge in an integrated way.
“Having a broad enough view to
understand how to connect the dots is
the greatest experience of my Wagner
education,” he says. “It’s a testament
to the Learning Communities. You
start to understand how things work in
correlation with each other.”
He started off thinking he would
major in science. His First-Year
Learning Community was about genes
and genomics, combining biology
and sociology. His affinity for science
continued as he also grew interested in
business, ultimately choosing to major
in business focused on accounting.
As a senior, he interned with
PricewaterhouseCoopers for a full
year, leading to his first job in auditing
at that company. His challenging
accounting courses — he especially
remembers those with Professor John
Carrescia and the late Professor Janice
Buddensick — prepared him well.
The professors’ accessibility after class
helped him understand the real-world
applications of their courses.
Ogunlana says that interacting with
Wagner students prepared him for
today’s diverse workforce. As a football
player, he also learned discipline,
attention to detail, and performance
under pressure.
An integrated liberal arts education
was a great base for going into the
world of finance, he says. “Finance is
really just social science with numbers,”
he says, laughing.
“It’s a testament
to the Learning
Communities. You
start to understand
how things work
in correlation
with each other.”
our
ory’
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
�“I think I
th
I could
an urban physician
devoted to diversity
L AST S UM M E R , Dr. Violeta Capric ’12 started the first
year of her residency at SUNY Downstate Medical Center
in Brooklyn.
Practicing medicine among the rich diversity of peoples
and cultures at a large, urban hospital is a challenge she
sought out, influenced and prepared by her experiences in
the Wagner Plan curriculum.
Her First-Year Learning Community combined studies of
English and political science. The students learned to advocate
for political and social issues and served in local soup kitchens.
“It was a great experience, an eye-opening experience,”
she recalls. “The best part about it is you get to do
something that you never thought would be your strength,
or that you wouldn’t have chosen for yourself.”
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
Capric embraced as many diverse experiences as she
could fit into her schedule. She was a biology major and a
chemistry minor, and she also took extensive coursework in
anthropology, math, and art. “The more I took those other
courses, the more I fell in love with them. I couldn’t stop.”
After her sophomore year, she did a summer internship
in medical research at Johns Hopkins, thanks to the SpiroHopkins Scholarship program; the summer after her junior
year, she did research in medical archaeology in Peru with
Professor Celeste Gagnon.
Many of her First-Year Learning Community friends were
interested in politics, and they influenced her to become
involved with student government. Ultimately, she served
as the Student Government Association president during
her senior year — while also doing her senior internship in
public health outreach at Mount Sinai Hospital.
Her internship helped her get her first post-college job
in genetic and genomic research at the Mount Sinai School
of Medicine. After a couple of years in laboratory research,
she realized that she wanted to work with patients, and she
applied to medical school. In May 2018, she completed her
M.D. at the Ross University School of Medicine.
“I think very highly of a liberal arts education,” she
concludes. “It helps shape you. … In the Learning Communities,
you learn to branch out, whether you’re comfortable with it
or not. You do it with friends. And in your Senior Learning
Community, you do an internship. And for me and many of my
friends, that internship turns into your first job. It might have
been difficult to get without having the opportunity to put your
foot in the door. So, it really does open a lot of doors to you as a
student. You may not know what you want to do just yet, as an
incoming freshman, but Wagner helps you find it.”
�really felt a challenge to serve
e people. I left with a sense that
make a difference in people’s lives.”
a prison social worker
and reformer
A LICENSED CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER , Stephanie
Gangemi ’06 has provided mental health programs and
therapy for jail inmates in El Paso County, Colorado, for the
past nine years. In 2018, she won a major prize from the
Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute for her work to help law
enforcement better respond to mental health issues in jails.
Gangemi is a born-and-raised Staten Islander who came
to Wagner to stay close to family and attend a small school.
A violinist, she received a music scholarship and planned
to major in music.
Her First-Year Learning Community started her down a
new track. It combined sociology and philosophy and focused
on contemporary social issues. By learning to debate and take
positions on issues, and interacting with students of different
beliefs, she started to develop her own thoughts, her own
voice, and her own sense of purpose. She also experienced
working with at-risk youth.
“I think I really felt a challenge to serve the people,” she
says. “I left with a sense that I could make a difference in
people’s lives.”
Other courses that influenced her outlook included her
Intermediate Learning Community on the history and
literature of New York City; a biology class that looked at
plagues and biological warfare; courses on criminal justice
and gender studies; and an economics course on poverty and
discrimination. “Everything combined and made sense,” she
says. “That’s when it all came together for me.”
She learned about prison issues from a former visiting
professor at Wagner, Steven Lybrand. Sociology professors
John Esser and Jean Halley were also major influences and
mentors. Two internships helped shape her path: one with a
law firm, and the other with domestic violence survivors. She
preferred the latter.
After college, Gangemi earned her master’s in social work at
Columbia, interning at Rikers Island jail. She then went to work
as a social worker for the El Paso County (Colorado) Sheriff ’s
Office. At the end of her tenure there, she served as the director
of mental health for the El Paso County Jail. She oversaw a
team of social workers and therapists, provided therapy for
serious-need inmates, and led programs for suicide prevention
and other issues. She developed a training program for law
enforcement officers, and she built a co-responder program
where social workers go out with deputies on calls.
Her paper on those programs won the $15,000 Seidenberg
Prize from the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute. The prize
money was funded by a law firm that led a successful pro bono
federal class-action lawsuit on behalf of inmates dealing with
mental illness in the Illinois Department of Corrections system.
Gangemi resigned from the sheriff ’s office last year, and is
now working to complete her doctorate in social work at Smith
College, teaching as an adjunct professor, and consulting with
law enforcement and jail administrations nationally.
“Wagner has a way of supporting you in thinking, in a big
way and in an abstract way, but then also bringing your thinking
down to reality so you can apply it,” she says. “It’s not thinking
for thinking’s sake. It’s, ‘How do I act now, because I’m able to
think.’ To me, that’s the most important thing I took away from
the Wagner Plan experience.
“I think there’s a lot of rhetoric these days about higher
education and criticism of the liberal arts being not practical,
but I found Wagner to be super practical. They taught me
that no, not only can you act, but you better act now that you
have this information.”
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
�a corporate lawyer with
a heart for social justice
JULIA ZENKER ’14 graduated from Vanderbilt Law School
and started her first job as a law clerk with the international
law firm Hogan Lovells’ New York office in 2018.
Zenker came to college from rural New York state with
an interest in the law. She wanted to major in philosophy
to hone her skills in critical reading and effective writing.
Her First-Year Learning Community combined philosophy
and Spanish, and it influenced her in many key ways: She
became a double major in Spanish and philosophy. She
found her best friends and faculty mentors. She worked with
the immigrant community in Port Richmond and advocated
for social issues.
Outside of class, she became a leader in Generation Citizen,
a national program that offers civics education in schools. As
the founder and executive director of a Generation Citizen
chapter at Wagner, she organized and trained other students to
expand the program to local schools.
Experiential learning was a key element of the Wagner Plan
for her. “I have a hard time conceptualizing things without
some kind of context, and that came through the experiential
portion,” she says. In law school, she sought out experiential
learning opportunities, such as legal clinics and externships in
Nashville and New York.
“I think employers want to see that you can do work and
are not just book smart,” she says. “You can be brilliant, but
it might not translate into someone who’s personable and can
communicate. With the work I’m going into, you need to have
all those things. Wagner makes you communicate with people
and test your skills that way. And you have a demonstrable
record of what you can do when you go out into the work
force, and that’s what will be appealing to an employer.”
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
“There’s no
better learning
experience than physically
being in the industry you want
to work in four to five days a week.”
a music promoter and
change manager
BRIDGET HERRMANN ’05 is the Midwest and Northeast
manager of radio and streaming for Warner Music Nashville.
Ever since her student days, she has been promoting musical
artists and bands — a career that she says was launched and is
continuously enhanced by her Wagner education.
“I loved how well-rounded the curriculum was,” Herrmann
says, citing favorite courses such as Military Law and
Astronomy. Wagner professors challenged her to think
differently, to speak her mind, and to keep reading and
learning more, she says, practices that are helpful now that
she works in a business undergoing so much change.
She learned to juggle multiple tasks and to contribute to a
community through her sorority, Alpha Sigma Alpha. An arts
administration major, she says that the internship integrated
into her Senior Learning Community was the key to her
career path. She interned at the record label A&M/Octone
(now owned by Interscope). “There’s no better learning
experience than physically being in the industry you want to
work in four to five days a week,” she says.
�a language teacher
and global citizen
CRE S C ENDO S M AL LS ’ 07 M ’ 08 teaches Spanish at
Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn.
Teaching Spanish is more than just a job for him. “For
me, Spanish is not just a language, it’s a part of my life,” he
says. “Speaking Spanish and being immersed in the culture,
and being able to use what I know to impact others and to
bless others has been tremendous.”
Like Stephanie Gangemi, Smalls wanted to be a music
major when he came to Wagner; but his First-Year Learning
Community, which combined literary and linguistic studies
in Spanish, led him in a new direction. While the Wagner
choir gave him an outlet for his musical interests, he found
himself more drawn to Spanish than to music theory. In
education courses, he observed classrooms in New York City
public schools, and began to envision himself as a teacher.
During his senior year, he spent a semester studying
abroad in Madrid, Spain. It was his first time traveling abroad,
and the experience capped off his studies and fueled a new
sense of mission for him. “It opened the door for me to being
global, being aware of what’s going on outside the U.S., and
connecting with people, cultural connections,” he says.
Just as he learned at Wagner to use Spanish to connect
culturally with others, he now teaches his students from that
same mindset, integrating experiential learning outside of
the classroom so that they can apply their Spanish skills to
real-life situations.
“I tell my students, ‘I don’t care how much vocabulary you
know, what you can do from a textbook, if you cannot connect
with someone culturally, if you cannot converse with someone
in the Spanish language, if you cannot use this language to
make connections with people, then I failed you,” he says.
“‘I’m giving you the tools to connect with other people across
the globe.’”
Smalls is still active in music as well, especially in his
church. He regularly volunteers with Christian student groups
at Wagner, such as Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and the
Fellowship of Christian Athletes. In 2015, he combined his
gifts in Spanish and music by teaching workshops on music
and worship at a Christian music camp in Spain — just one
of several trips abroad he has taken since he was bitten by the
traveling bug as a Wagner senior.
“Being [at Wagner] as a language major was a launching pad,”
Smalls says. “It really opened me up to the world and to being
a global citizen, and taking all that I’ve learned and sharing it
with my students.”
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
�these class of 2011 alumni were part of the same
First-Year Learning Community, “Perception, Illusion, and the Social
Construction of the Self.” I followed them throughout their four years
in a series of Wagner Magazine stories that ran from 2007 to 2011.
“I think the creative,
innovative thinking
and the ability to look
for connections in
places that you
wouldn’t normally look
is a skill that
comes out of the
First-Year Program.”
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
a teacher outside of
the school system
SA MA NT HA S I EGEL ’1 1 M’1 3
lives in Philadelphia, where she has
started a business that brings yogainspired practices, which she calls
mindful movement and meditation,
to children and teens.
“My Wagner experience, both as a
student and professionally, has given me
the ability to be both a risk-taker but
also extremely intentional as I move
forward in creating a business in a new
community,” Siegel says.
Siegel spent the first several years of
her post-collegiate life at Wagner, taking
on roles of increasing responsibility.
First, she earned her master’s degree
in education, based on her study of
Wagner’s work in schools through the
Port Richmond Partnership. Her analysis
led to her appointment as the director
of Wagner’s Center for Leadership
and Community Engagement. Under
her leadership, the center launched
new programs that promote academic,
leadership, and civic skills among
Wagner students and Port Richmond
High School students.
When Siegel decided to leave her job
at Wagner, she sought out a close-knit
community like Port Richmond where
she could live and pursue some longheld dreams and ambitions. She found
it in the Germantown neighborhood of
Philadelphia. In 2015, she had taken a
group of Port Richmond High School
students to Philadelphia to work in
Germantown’s community garden. “I
looked around at this garden that was
filled with people from all different walks
of life, color, and it just blew me away,” she
recalls. “And I said, ‘Something is really
calling me here. I want to live here.’”
Siegel has worked in childcare,
educational consulting, and writing. She
is a member of a cooperative farm at
Awbury Arboretum. She has also written
a series of children’s books, and she
incorporates storytelling into her teaching.
“I think the creative, innovative
thinking and the ability to look for
connections in places that you wouldn’t
normally look is a skill that comes out
of the First-Year Program,” she notes.
�a working actor
empowered to
create solutions
PATRICK HEFFERNAN ’11 has
a psychologist focused
on underserved
populations
a grassroots political
change-maker
KYLE GLOVER ’11 moved to San
KY L A KN I G HT ’1 1 moved to
Diego in 2018 and started a doctoral
program in psychology. Since graduation,
he has worked at a mental health
outpatient facility and an organization
that helps people with disabilities to
integrate with their communities.
“When I was at Wagner, and I was
an impetuous young man, I always
thought I was going to be the greatest
psychologist since Sigmund Freud,
right?” He laughs and continues, “I’ve
since tempered my expectations. I’d like
to have my own practice, and I’d like to
make my own unique contribution to
therapy and psychology and to humans’
understanding of themselves.”
For Glover, his Wagner experience
was profound in shaping his view of
himself, his interests, and his sense
of mission. “Things I learned there,
especially with Professor Miles Groth
and Professor Walter Kaelber, still stick
with me, whether it’s psychology, religion,
philosophy. … I’m going to try to apply
them in order to assist people if I can.”
Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2018,
where she works as an engineer for
Microsoft and as a user experience
researcher for get-out-the-vote projects.
She has worked for a couple of
different tech companies; she earned her
MBA, focused on information systems
and organizational behavior, from Baruch
College. But a lot of her post-collegiate life
has been devoted to grassroots political
activism, especially for LGBTQ rights
and marriage equality. Wagner, she says,
set her up for this work by developing her
confidence, knowledge, and maturity.
One important moment came
during Knight’s senior year, when she
was part of the Wagner Moot Court
team. At the American Collegiate
Moot Court Association’s Mid-Atlantic
Regional Tournament, she was assigned
to argue on the topic of same-sex
marriage. Her team made it to the
semi-finals — a first for Wagner.
“It’s really important to me that the
foundation of Wagner is holistic,” Knight
says. “Since we live in such a turbulent
environment, it’s so important to look
at how you can give back. Wagner does
such a good job of instilling that sense of
value of giving back to the community.”
been working as a musical theater actor
ever since he left Wagner. He has been in
three national theatrical tours and many
regional theater productions, and he has
taught at Wagner and choreographed
Wagner College Theatre shows.
It’s a life of constant learning (he
went to Germany last summer for
vocal training, for example), juggling
schedules, and occasionally waiting
tables and teaching yoga on the side if
necessary.
As a Wagner student, he learned to
be resourceful, to integrate ideas, and to
collaborate with diverse people.
“It’s so empowering [as a Wagner
student] to see that you can be a part
of the solution instead of having the
solution given to you,” he says. “Wagner’s
a place where the student is asked to
step up and contribute and make the
most of what’s being offered. Every
class you take and every co-curricular
experience feeds you and gives you
information about yourself and about
the world.”
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
�“Only a sma
privil
what are
That’s a rea
a community-based
researcher with eclectic taste
I MET QUINCY RAISIN ’18 last fall on the Wagner ferry
a public relations specialist
and civic leader
AL EX JACO B S W I L KE ’ 07 is the director of public
relations for the State University of New York, Potsdam,
and a civic leader in that upstate college town.
“My career is very important, but equally as important to
me is being engaged as a citizen and being well-rounded as
an individual,” she says. “I found that at Wagner.”
An English major and journalism minor, she was the editor
of the Wagnerian for three years, as well as a Wagner College
Choir member. She still sings in a choir, and she started
her career as a reporter for her hometown newspaper, the
Watertown Daily Times.
She serves on local commissions and boards and is
considering running for the village board. “I’m the person
who wants to know what’s going on. I want to delve in there.
… I don’t just want to complain about the dilapidated house,
I want to figure out what you can do about it under the law.”
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
shuttle. He was on his way to his internship at the New York
City Housing Authority. Today, he is a research assistant for
Neighborhood Fundamentals, in the Washington, D.C., area.
This company provides research and technical assistance to
municipalities, state agencies, developers, and others on issues
related to housing affordability and community development.
Rasin calls himself a person of “eclectic taste,” which is
what drew him to the Wagner Plan and to a major in the
interdisciplinary field of public policy and administration.
A coastal North Carolina native, he was a track athlete at
Wagner, setting Seahawk records for the 500-meter indoor run
and as part of multiple relay teams. He also participated in
Greek life, served as a resident assistant, and mentored teenage
boys at a nearby school that specializes in college preparatory
education in low-income neighborhoods.
Rasin says that interdisciplinary learning, the diversity
of courses and students, and the strong community made
the Wagner experience great. “It’s kind of like a fishbowl
that’s overflowing at this point, and you can reach in a grab
something, and you say, ‘Wow, I’m glad I learned this.’”
Eventually, he wants to be involved in policy work related
to the issues of black men, and “be a professor with practical
and theoretical experience,” like Professors Abe Unger and
Cyril Ghosh, his mentors and role models.
At Wagner, Rasin served one year as the orientation
coordinator, and the theme of his programming was “create
your own story.” “Wagner helps you do that,” he says. “You
have complete creative control over your college experience.”
�all percentage of the population is
eged to get an education, and the question is,
you going to do with it
to make the world a better place?
ally important message for young people to hear.”
an administrator serving
first-generation college students
M ICH E L E SAM P S ON- N E L SO N ’ 03 is the assistant
vice provost for student services at Iona College, overseeing
residential life and providing commuter student services.
The first person in her family to attend college, SampsonNelson was also among the first students to complete the
Wagner Plan, which had been launched the year before
she started.
“When I say that Wagner changed my life, I really do mean
it,” she says. “It’s why I have such a passion for serving at a
school that meets first-generation college student needs.”
In her Wagner Plan education, she found challenge, encouragement, and insight that profoundly shaped her interests.
Her Learning Communities focused on understanding
diverse perspectives and backgrounds, particularly those of
marginalized groups.
“It taught me how to think; it showed me my interests;
it helped me with my writing,” she says. “Now, I work with
commuter students, and they are far more physically diverse
and economically diverse than my residential students. I
sincerely think that the experiences, exercises, assignments
[I had as a Wagner student] gave me a true appreciation for
differences, and sameness, that I don’t know that I would
have had.”
Richard Guarasci, who was then provost, was one of her FirstYear Learning Community professors, and his mentorship was
particularly important. She had never thought about graduate
school until he “planted the seed” in her mind during her first
semester at Wagner. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in faith-based
educational leadership from Fordham.
“Dr. Guarasci was a visionary. I think what he brought
to fruition is profound. Only a small percentage of the
population is privileged to get an education, and the
question is, what are you going to do with it to make the
world a better place? That’s a really important message for
young people to hear,” she says.
“If you’re looking for an education that doesn’t just shape
your brain, but shapes your heart and shapes your soul, I
think that’s what Wagner did.”
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
�WAGNER CO L L E G E ’ S H I STO RY
stretches back 135 years. In 1883, two
German Lutheran pastors opened the
Lutheran Proseminary of Rochester,
New York — the direct ancestor of
today’s Wagner.
During the next 35 years, two
major moves brought the fledgling
school closer to the College we know
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
today. First, in 1886, it was renamed
Wagner Memorial Lutheran College,
in memory of J. George Wagner Jr.,
son of a College benefactor, Rochester
businessman John G. Wagner.
The second major move came 100
years ago, in 1918: the relocation of
the campus from Rochester to Grymes
Hill in Staten Island.
In celebration of a century “upon the
hill” — this beautiful hill “looking out
to sea,” as the alma mater says — we
present this “rephotography” feature.
To produce this feature, we selected
archival images of the campus from
the years 1918 to 1958. We then
analyzed the original locations and
angles of those scenes so that we could
�“rephotograph” them as closely
as possible.
As you compare the scenes of
then and now side by side, we hope
you enjoy discovering new insights
into how things have changed —
and, even more remarkably, how
they have stayed the same.
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
��T H E N , F R O M A B O V E The archival
aerial photograph (opposite page) is dated
December 1946. Enrollment was booming
with the end of World War II and advent of
the G.I. Bill. The small buildings to the right of
Main Hall were part of the “Veterans Village,”
student housing built with war-surplus
construction materials. Those buildings were
not the sturdiest structures, and they were
removed after a storm severely damaged
them in November 1950. North Hall and
South Hall (today’s Parker and Reynolds)
were the other dormitories; Main Hall was
the classroom building, library, and gym.
The enrollment was 833 in fall 1946.
T H E B I G P I C T U R E T O D A Y Today,
Wagner’s enrollment is about 2,300.
The campus has four residence halls that,
together, can house more than 1,400
students: Guild (1951), Parker Towers
(1964), Harborview (1968), and Foundation
(2010). With Campus Hall (1957), Horrmann
Library (1961), Spiro Hall and Megerle Hall
(1968), and the Union (1970), the campus
has vastly more square feet of academic,
administrative, and dining space, not to
mention the 93,000-square-foot Spiro Sports
Center (1999, not shown in this picture).
Photographer Jonathan Harkel skillfully
imitated the height and angle of the archival
photo as closely as possible using a DJI
Phantom 4 Pro unmanned aerial vehicle
(a.k.a., a drone). Beyond the expanded
campus facilities, note the addition of the
Staten Island Expressway (opened in 1964).
L O O K I N G O U T T O T H E S E A Guild Hall,
opened in 1951, was Wagner’s first residence
hall built for women. Wagner was an allmale institution until 1933; by 1950, women
accounted for more than a third of total
enrollment. In the 1950s photo, you can see
Brooklyn across the Verrazzano Narrows
waterway; in the new photo, two prominent
additional structures are visible, which both
opened in 1964: Wagner’s Parker Towers
Hall and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
A R C H I T E C T U R A L S I G N AT U R E
Main Hall (previous page) was built in
1928–1930. Designed by George Conable,
it was then known as the Administration
Building. Whatever it was called, it became
the College’s architectural signature and
the subject of endless photo shoots. The
archival inset photo is dated March 28, 1938.
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
�THE ORIGINAL BUILDINGS
This panoramic photo of the Wagner campus
in 1918 shows all of the original campus
buildings — all of which are still in use today.
Before Wagner acquired the property, it
served as a summer resort colony known
as the Bellevue Club or the Hotel Belleview.
The resort built the two Prairie Style cottages
on the left around 1905. Wagner used them
as housing for professors and their families
for many years. Later, the cottages served
as housing for female students. By the early
1980s, the old cottages were being used
for the admissions and security offices.
In 2001–02, they underwent a
metamorphosis. Henry V. Pape ’36
dedicated about $300,000 to refurbishing
buildings from his days on campus. This gift
allowed the College to add a connecting
structure between the two cottages and
build a new porch and exterior. Today, it is
known as the Pape Admissions House.
Past the two cottages stands the house
built in 1918 for President Adolf Holthusen
and his family. In the very early days, when
the College had little money, much of the
students’ food was donated by the women of
nearby Trinity Lutheran Church and cooked
in this house by Clara Holthusen, Adolf’s wife.
Today, the Holthusens’ former home is known
as Kairos House, which hosts the campus
ministry program, Knubel Chapel, and offices
for the student newspaper, the Wagnerian.
In the middle of the 1918 picture, mostly
hidden by a large tree, is the Bellevue resort
annex (today’s Reynolds House); more is
said about that building on the next page.
Finally, on the right, stands the oldest building
on the Wagner campus: an Italianate villa
built circa 1852 by Edward and Mary Cunard.
Edward Cunard’s father, Samuel Cunard, was
the founder of the famous Cunard shipping
line. Mary died in 1866 and Edward in 1869;
several of their children continued to live at
the house with their maternal grandmother
until 1873. A man named Amzi Lorenzo
Barber bought the house and its property in
1889. He used it as his summer residence
for four seasons. After that, it was leased
to various parties, who operated a summer
resort at the old villa and its grounds. It has
served the College in many ways over the
years; from the 1920s until the 1950s, the
dining hall was located there. Today, Cunard
Hall houses the administrative offices for
business and finance, the registrar, and
financial aid, as well as classrooms and
offices for the physician assistant program.
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
�W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
��G Y M A N D P A R K I N G L O T The archival
photo on this page was identified as “New
parking lot, fall 1956.” In the new photo, you
see the typical cars of 2018 and a relatively
new emergency call box, sitting in the
approximately same old parking lot. The old
photo also shows the side of the Sutter Gym,
built in 1951. The gym underwent a major
expansion in 1999, tripling the building’s
original size. It was named the Spiro Sports
Center in honor of benefactors Dr. Donald W.
’49 H’88 and Dr. Evelyn L. ’49 H’92 Spiro.
A L E G A C Y O F B E A U T Y Reynolds House
has always been a part of Wagner College’s
Grymes Hill campus. It was built around 1905
as part of the Bellevue resort. It featured
a two-tiered entry porch with two-story
columns, giving it an elegant look in the
old color photo from a 1958 postcard. At
that time, the building was North Hall, a
women’s dormitory. In the 1970s, it became
the Music Building, and the College removed
the grand front porch. The Japanese cherry
trees framing the view, however, still bloom
every spring. They were planted around
1940. Today, Reynolds House is home to
the College’s alumni, communications, and
development offices. It was dedicated in
2001 in memory of William Reynolds (1918–
1998), a former Wagner trustee. He and
his wife, Margaret “Peggy” Bambach Buck
Reynolds ’40 H’98, have been instrumental
in strengthening the financial foundations
of the College and enhancing its beauty.
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
�Object Lessons
The Wagner Antiques
Roadshow recalled
many aspects of College
history and culture
“THE CREATION OF OBJECTS, in
many ways, is essential in understanding
ourselves and what and who we are,”
said art history professor Sarah Scott,
as she introduced the Wagner Antiques
Roadshow. This special event was held
as part of the Homecoming 2018
festivities to honor Wagner’s 100th
anniversary on Grymes Hill.
Inspired by the long-running PBS
television show in which experts
evaluate antique objects brought in by
everyday people, the Wagner Antiques
Roadshow featured a panel of Wagner
staff and faculty who commented on
Wagner-related objects in the College’s
collections and contributed by alumni.
Although the Wagner antiques
have no great dollar value, they are
extremely valuable as a means of
remembering and passing along the
history and culture of the Wagner
College community.
Diverse objects sparked conversations
about varied aspects of the campus
culture throughout the past 100 years.
They included “regulation green
freshman caps,” as they were called in
the 1949 student handbook (they were
also known as “dinks”); a belt buckle,
an ashtray, and a beer stein featuring
Wagner images; fraternity and sorority
paddles; Main Hall’s interior door
handles engraved with the Luther rose;
an LP record album with a photo of
Reynolds House; and an 1899 edition of
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
Clockwise from top: Kevin Farrell ’22, a student in the First-Year Learning Community
“Creating a Human Material World,” checks out the display of Wagner antiques. Diane
Wehrli Mathisen ’79 holds a metal Wagner belt buckle owned by her father, the late Bill
Wehrli ’53; Aletta Kipp Diamond ’65 H’15 contributed her Alpha Delta Pi sorority paddle.
A Main Hall door handle engraved with the Luther rose and a Wagner beer stein owned
by Betty Henriksen ’65 were also part of the show.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin owned by George
J. V. Schorling, Wagner class of 1911.
During the fall 2018 semester,
students in the First-Year Learning
Community “Creating a Human
Material World: Objects, History, and
Memory,” (taught by Scott along with
history professor Brett Palfreyman) are
writing catalogue entries for the objects
discussed at Homecoming. Plans are in
the works to create an exhibit of these
objects for Reunion 2019.
PHOTOGRAPHS: VINNIE AMESSÉ
�Passing on
Wagner Values
Delta Nu brothers reunite
and raise scholarship funds
in honor of Gus Merkel ’55
DELTA NU celebrated the 75th
anniversary of the founding of
the fraternity with a
dinner that welcomed 80
people back to Wagner
on October 13.
The gathering not
only reunited Delta Nu
alumni, but it also raised
money for the Gus
Merkel ’55 Scholarship.
“[Gus Merkel] was
Gus Merkel,
a lifelong friend and
from the
1955 Kallista
the epitome of what a
Wagner student is on
campus and after being graduated,”
said Fred Jacobsen ’54, who has pledged
$70,000 to the fund. More than
$11,000 in additional funds were raised
through the Delta Nu reunion event.
English major Gus Merkel was
a leader in Delta Nu and on the
basketball team, serving as its cocaptain during his senior year. After
graduation, he had a successful career
in public relations with companies
including AlliedSignal and AT&T. He
was also celebrated for his work on
behalf of the elderly through Project
CARE (Community Action to Reach
the Elderly) in Morris County, New
Jersey. He pitched in
with direct aid to senior
citizens, fundraising
for the organization,
and participation in
statewide and national
commissions on
aging. Merkel died
in 1999, of a heart
attack, at age 66.
“As a family, we
are honored that Fred
Jacobsen, Delta Nu,
and Wagner College will remember
Gus in such a wonderful way — a way
to pass on the values he learned at
Wagner,” said his widow, Janet Junge
Merkel ’57.
E
S AV
T
HE
DA
TE !
W E E K E N D
MAY 31 –J U N E 2, 2 019
Jedediah “A. J.” Bila ’00
#DoNotDisturb: How I Ghosted
My Cell Phone to Take Back
My Life (Harper Collins,
2018) A former host for Fox
News and The View , Bila
“shares stories of her phone
and social media addiction
and how this insatiable need to
respond affected her deeply, many
times negatively, as she missed
out on sunsets and countless
other real-world experiences,”
says Kirkus Reviews . “Since
nearly all of us use our phones
constantly, Bila’s tale will appeal
to a wide variety of readers.”
Nadia Lopez ’98 H’16 Teaching in
the Fourth Industrial Revolution:
Standing at the Precipice
(Routledge, 2018) Working with
five fellow Global Teacher Prize
finalists, Lopez has co-authored
a book that presents a positive
and hope-filled template for the
future of education, with authentic
examples from teachers. This
work was supported by the Varkey
Foundation, which focuses on
teacher training and access to
education worldwide.
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
�H O M E C O M I N G 2 018
MORE THAN 1,000 ALUMNI, students, family, and friends turned out to celebrate Wagner Homecoming on September 22,
2018. The festivities paid homage to Wagner’s 100 years of history on Grymes Hill by featuring eight favorite Staten Island food
vendors: Alfonso’s Pastry Shop, Joe & Pat’s Pizza (where Pat Pappalardo ’70 and his son, Angelo Pappalardo ’03, are among the
family of co-owners), the Burrito Spot, La Rosa Chicken, Jac Mao Chinese Cuisine, Montalbano’s, Egger’s Ice Cream, and Mark’s
Bake Shoppe (owned and operated by Mark ’05 and Amanda Concilio ’08 Intoccia). Souvenir T-shirts featured a vintage design,
printed by Staten Island’s Short Stop Custom Screenprinting, operated by Jennifer Albrizio ’85, Hall of Fame softball alumna.
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
�Upcoming Events
FEBRUARY
APRIL
Choir Tribute to Black Music
Wagner College Theatre:
The Pirates of Penzance
February 20, 9 p.m.,
Performance Center,
Campus Hall
Wagner College Theatre:
My One and Only
February 21–March 3,
Main Stage
This zany romantic comedy set
in the glamorous Roaring ’20s is
a tap dance spectacular with an
incomparable Gershwin score.
Choir at Black History Month
Town Hall
Choir, Chamber Singers, and
Stretto: Concert
February 24, 4 p.m.,
Trinity Lutheran Church,
Staten Island
MARCH
Wagner College Theatre:
The Dance Project 2019
February 28–March 3,
Stage One
Gilbert and Sullivan’s musical farce
is filled with sentimental pirates,
bumbling policemen, young lovers,
and an eccentric Major-General.
Treble Choir and Hildegard
Ensemble: Spring Concert
April 28, 4 p.m.,
Trinity Lutheran Church,
Staten Island
MAY
College Choir, Chamber
Singers, and Stretto:
Spring Concert
Alumni Link
February 23, 12 p.m.,
First Central Baptist Church,
Staten Island
April 11–14, 25–28,
Main Stage
May 5, 4 p.m.,
Trinity Lutheran Church,
Staten Island
Nursing Night Out
May 6
Baccalaureate
May 9, the Oval
Commencement
May 10, the Oval
Choir at Carnegie Hall
March 23, 8 p.m.,
Carnegie Hall, New York
Wagner joins this MidAmerica
Productions choral concert
featuring Morten Lauridsen’s
Lux Aeterna .
Career Conversations
March 27, 6–9 p.m.,
The University Club, New York
Alumni, parents, and students
network and share information
about post-graduate life.
S E A H AW K S
COA ST TO COA ST
Regional alumni gatherings
in 2019
February 1 Phoenix
February 2 San Diego
February 10 Tampa
February 11 Naples, Florida
February 13 Palm Beach,
Florida
QUESTIONS? Contact the Office of Alumni Relations
718-390-3224 • alumni@wagner.edu • wagner.edu/alumni
wagner.edu/calendar
PHOTOGRAPHS: VINNIE AMESSÉ
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
�History Makers: Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk ’75, the quintessential medical
examiner, brought professional standards to communities large and small
In 2007, the blockbuster crime novelist
James Patterson released The Sixth
Target , his latest book in the Women’s
Murder Club series. Early on in the story,
the lead character, a female detective,
walks into the lab of San Francisco’s
deputy chief forensic pathologist.
“A fortysomething white man, five
eight or so with salt-and-pepper hair and
black horn-rimmed glasses,” the pathologist is presented as the consummate
professional: no-nonsense, precise, and
dedicated to finding out the truth.
The character’s name is Dr. Humphrey
Germaniuk. His appearance, profession,
and personality were, indeed, based on the real Dr. Humphrey
Germaniuk ’75.
At that time, the real Dr. Germaniuk was the assistant
coroner in a rural county in northeast Ohio. He was a highly
skilled certified forensic pathologist — the first professional
with those qualifications to serve that county. But how did he
make his way into a James Patterson novel?
Germaniuk (pronounced “German-ick”) was born and raised
in Staten Island, the son of Ukrainian immigrants. He had an
early interest in medicine and majored in biology at Wagner.
After reading about the New York Medical Examiner’s office,
he visited and volunteered there. New York City’s famed chief
medical examiner, Dr. Milton Helpern, became a mentor. These
experiences “inspired his pursuit of forensics, and it became a
lifelong quest,” says his widow, Genevieve Smith Germaniuk ’75.
After his Wagner graduation, Germaniuk went to Italy to
continue his education. Over the next nine years, he became
fluent in Italian, studied at the universities of Turin and Rome,
and earned his Ph.D. and his M.D. In 1978, Wagner Magazine
featured him for moonlighting as a radio DJ and television
interviewer for Radio/Tele Torino International.
He married Genevieve Smith, a Wagner nursing graduate
who was serving in the Army, in 1981. They lived in Rome
during his final three years of medical training.
He then completed a residency in pathology at The
Ohio State University and a fellowship in forensic medicine
at the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office.
After a few years as a medical examiner in Syracuse, New
York, he went to Washington, D.C., where he was deputy
chief and then chief medical examiner. In Washington, he
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
testified at hundreds of capital trials
and built a national reputation as an
authority in forensic medicine.
In 1998, he decided to leave that
high-stress environment and took a
job as a forensic pathologist for the
coroner’s office in Trumbull County,
Ohio. He built trust in the community
through his dedication, knowledge, and
ability to communicate with all kinds
of people. As a local newspaper, The
Vindicator , noted, “Especially evident is
his ability to give complicated medical
information to lay people in a way that
produces confidence that the doctor
has determined all there is to know about the cause of
someone’s death.”
In 2008, he ran for the office of coroner and won. Over the
next 10 years, he ensured that the entire coroner’s office staff
received training and certification in death investigation, and he
helped to lead statewide efforts to improve the quality of death
investigations.
Maxine Paetro became acquainted with Germaniuk when
she started working as a co-author with James Patterson in
2005. She learned about Germaniuk through a contact in the
FBI, and he became the medical examiner that she consulted
with while working on about a dozen novels in the Women’s
Murder Club series.
“I needed expert advisors to help me make it feel real,”
she says. “He was tremendous. He was very into it. He was
detail-oriented.”
Germaniuk became ill early in 2018, but he never stopped
working. According to Genevieve, his philosophy was that
death was inevitable, and he believed in allowing the disease
process to take its course.
He died on April 20, 2018, of complications from liver
disease. Trumbull County Prosecutor Dennis Watkins told The
Vindicator , “This man has been a workaholic for the people of
Trumbull County. We have been blessed with his work product.”
“If you put your mind to something, you can do it,” Humphrey
Germaniuk told Wagner Magazine in 1978. “A human being has
vast resources of potential and our institutions, like Wagner, are
there to test potentials for exploring and realizing capabilities. ...
Wagner to me was a training ground for the real world — a dress
rehearsal for developing things like leadership or patience.”
�1952
and ’53
1961
reported
on the 43rd annual meeting
of a group of Wagner
friends, which took place in
September 2018 at Mickey’s
Bar and Grill in Lyndhurst,
N.J. It includes many
Walter “Wally” Pagan
’63, Richard Schlenker
’63, Fred Williamson ’64 H’11
(former trustee), Paul Feeney
’64, Ronald Bibbo ’64 (former
trustee), Walter Frueh ’64, and
Arthur Attonito ’67.
Tricorico
1963
and her
husband, Frederick B.
Smith, celebrated their 50th
wedding anniversary in
June 2018. “Fred is District
Three Commander of Long
Island Power Squadrons,
now known as ‘America’s
Boating Club,’” Nancy said.
The organization is a part
of the United States Power
Squadrons, a non-profit
Nancy Zick Smith
1967
’67 M’72
released two more novels in
2018, King of the Vultures
(under the pen name Alastair
Flythe) and The Charleston
Assassin (in the Detective
Pete Nazareth series). In
June, King of the Vultures
was featured on Goodreads,
earning a five-star rating.
Russ Johnson
’63 M’69 was
inducted into the Curtis
High School (Staten Island)
Alumni Hall of Fame in
November 2018.
Hank Murphy
1966
educational organization that
teaches safe boating, boat
handling, and navigation,
offering courses to members
and to the public.
1968
’68 M’77 was
featured in the Staten Island
Advance in June 2018 in an
interview that highlighted
his success as a musician and
businessman. He has been
performing since 1963, and
he continues to perform
Al Lambert
Keep in Touch!
Email: alumni@wagner.edu
Web: wagner.edu/alumni
Mail: Alumni Office, Reynolds House,
Wagner College, One Campus Road,
Staten Island, NY 10301
Deadlines: This issue reflects news
received by October 29, 2018.
Content: Wagner welcomes your news
and updates, and we will happily share
them with the Wagner family. We ask
that you send us announcements of
weddings, births, and graduations
after the fact.
Photos: We accept photos of Wagner
groups at weddings and other special
events. With the photo, send the names
and class years of all alumni pictured;
birth date, parents’ names, and class
years with photos of children; and dates
and locations of all events.
Photo Quality: Digital and print photos
must be clear and of good quality. Prints
should be on glossy paper with no
surface texture; they will be returned
at your request (please attach your
address to the photo). Digital photos
must be jpegs of at least 250 pixels per
inch; low-resolution photos converted to
a higher resolution are not acceptable.
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
Alumni Link
’52 M’54
and Lee Schriever Brockmann
’53 write, “Our daughter,
New York Times bestselling author Suzanne
Brockmann, received the
Lifetime Achievement
Award for more than 25
years of writing (more than
60 romantic suspense books)
in Denver on July 19, 2018,
at the Romance Writers of
America’s annual convention.
This is like an Oscar for
authors — we are proud!”
Fred Brockmann
brothers of Alpha Sigma Phi,
as well as Delta Nu members
and other classmates and
football teammates. The
members mostly live in
New York and New Jersey,
but they also traveled in
from Pennsylvania, Texas,
Georgia, and Florida. “What
keeps us together,” says
Wally, “is Wagner. That’s the
bottom line, it always has
been. Not a fraternity, but
Wagner. Many of us were
fortunate to get scholarships
and play ball, many joined
fraternities, many [like Wally
himself] joined the Board
of Trustees.” Joining in the
gathering were fellow 1961
classmates Fred Ufferfilge,
Paul Bertholet, Bob Harvey, and
Al Palladino (former trustee);
as well as John Mangiante ’56,
Marie Attonito Alberti ’57, Lou
DeLuca ’59, Paul Nuzzolese
’60, John Campi ’62 (former
trustee), Frank Spero ’63,
Jack Smiechoski ’63, Matthew
�with both the Al Lambert
Orchestra and the Al
Lambert Trio. Al has worked
with Rodney Dangerfield,
The Shirelles, Pat Cooper,
and many other well-known
performers. He recalled
that his most exciting gig
ever was playing the I Love
NY Festival for more than
30,000 people. In total, Al
has performed for more
than 5,000 shows, events,
banquets, weddings, and
more. “Singing warms the
soul,” he said. He is also the
owner of Lambert Leasing
in Tottenville, Staten Island.
Al lived in Staten Island
for more than 70 years,
but now he and his wife,
Lenore, live in Parlin, N.J.
1969
’69 M’72 has
released a book, The
Chemistry of Leadership: A
Self-Discovery Formula to
Finding the Leader in You.
Paul says the book will help
readers in “knowing their
self-discovery formula to
finding the leader in you”
and “finding the ‘elements’
within yourself and blending
them to create an inspiring
reaction, resulting in
meaningful and impactful
outcomes.” It outlines three
“discovery areas”: “being an
authentic inspirer,” “being
an action driver,” and “being
an application deliverer.” A
Wagner chemistry major,
Paul was previously the vice
president for global learning
and development for
Maquet Medical Systems;
now, he is a consultant
and serves as managing
leader and director of the
Paul Fein
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
Crib Notes
continued as a columnist for
three more years. “Having
covered events from the
humble to the historic
over five decades, ‘Augie’
Torres is best known for the
behind-the-scenes column
he’s written for 15 years
that has helped Hudson
County and New Jersey
residents make sense of the
labyrinthine machinations
and rough-and-tumble
world of Hudson politics,”
wrote Margaret Schmidt
in a June 16, 2018, piece
about Augie’s retirement.
1972
Michele Sampson-Nelson ’03 and her husband, Donald Nelson,
welcomed Donald Clifford “DC” Nelson into the world on
August 22, 2018.
IDD Leadership Group.
Aino K. Lautsio-Riccitello is
a committee member,
professional consultant,
sponsor, participant, and
friend to Piper’s Angels
Foundation, which is
dedicated to improving
the lives of people with
cystic fibrosis. In June, the
organization hosted its third
annual Crossing for a Cure,
a long-distance paddling
championship. Aino spent
15 hours on the escort boat
during the 70-mile paddle
from Bimini (a district in the
Bahamas) to Lake Worth,
Fla. They raised $280,000 to
provide treatment, research,
and support for those
afflicted with cystic fibrosis.
Look up “Crossing for a
Cure 2017” on YouTube
to watch a documentary
about this work.
1970
and his wife,
Holly, decided to downsize
and have moved to a new,
smaller home in the town
where they have lived for
many years — Yardley, Pa.
He continues to practice
medicine as a consultant
anesthesiologist at the
Deborah Heart and Lung
Institute in Brown’s Mill,
N.J. Agustin “Augie” Torres
has retired after 45 years
in journalism. At the Jersey
Journal, Augie worked his
way up to opinions editor
and political editor. He
left full-time work at the
newspaper in 2015, but
Mark Nemiroff
In June 2018, Jean Volk was
inducted into the Hall of
Distinguished Alumni at
New Brunswick (N.J.) High
School, where she graduated
in 1968. After graduating
from Wagner with a music
education degree, she was
an elementary school music
teacher in Edison, N.J.
She developed an interest
in the law as it affects
teachers, and earned a law
degree from Seton Hall.
She worked for several law
firms and organizations. She
has also worked for more
than 45 years as a church
organist and choir director;
a member of the American
Guild of Organists, she
has served as dean of the
Middlesex chapter. Jean
is currently a full-time
professor teaching business
and marketing courses at
Middlesex County College
in Edison, where she has
also served as assistant
chair of the department,
curriculum coordinator
of the paralegal program,
�and faculty advisor to the
Student Law Association.
1974
1979
Joyce K. Anastasi ,
director
of the Division of Special
Studies in Symptom
Management at New York
University’s Rory Meyers
College of Nursing, won
a $3.5 million research
grant from the National
Institutes of Health to
study the efficacy of a
non-pharmacologic therapy
to manage HIV-related
executive. He was with
American Airlines for 20
years, ending his tenure as
the head of global sales.
He also serves on the
board of the Texas Travel
Industry Association, and
serves as an advisor to
Rocksolid, which makes
soft-shell head protection
designed for football.
1984
We received a tribute to the
late Nancy Bracco Coraggio ’86
(who identified herself with
the class of 1984) from her
longtime friends and Zeta
Tau Alpha sisters Belinda
Bardes Kielczewski, Faith
Miller Duval ’82, Gail MillerShapiro ’83, JoAnn Moore
’83, and Rosemary Gordon
Meagher ’83. Another close
friend from ZTA was the
late Madelyn Gritz De Stefano
’83. Nancy passed away on
June 11, 2017. “Nancy’s
infectious smile would light
up any room she walked
into,” her ZTA sisters
1980
In August 2018, Frank
Morogiello was hired by
the executive search firm
Caldwell in Dallas, Tex.,
as a partner in the firm’s
industrial practice. Frank
has more than 30 years
of experience as a search
professional and airline
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wrote. “She was helpful and
kind to everyone she met,
always offering a smile or
words of encouragement.
… After graduating from
Wagner, Nancy was active
in community theater in
North Babylon, Long Island.
Nancy married her best
friend, Richard Coraggio,
and had three beautiful
children, Richie, Jennifer,
and Kristen, whom she loved
deeply. As her children grew,
Nancy passed on her love of
the theater to her children,
who became active members
of their high school theater.
Nancy attended every show
and musical production they
were involved in. For many
years, Nancy worked for
the North Babylon School
district as a paraprofessional,
helping students with special
needs. Nancy was loved by
all who knew her, but her
greatest loves of all were
her loving husband and
her three children, who
will carry on their mother’s
beautiful spirit. We love
Nancy Bracco Coraggio and
will miss her always.”
1985
was presented
the Distinguished Alumni
Award at the sixth annual
Minty Awards Dinner
Gala in January 2019. The
Minty Awards are given
by the Minty Organization
for the Performing Arts,
founded by Mike Pinto ’10,
to honor excellence in
high school dramatic arts
programs in Staten Island.
Richie performed in many
shows at Monsignor Farrell
Richie Byrne
{Continued on page 40}
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
Alumni Link
won the Best
Male Supporting Actor
award at the 2018 CV Indie
Film Awards program for
his performance in the
film Rose England. Acting is
Steven’s second career and
“true passion.” After Wagner,
he pursued graduate
degrees in psychology at
the University of Virginia
and began his career as a
psychologist. After raising
two sons, he started acting
professionally, and he has
been “cast in diverse roles
such as a doctor, judge,
attorney, policeman, dad,
historic figure, and even a
psychopathic villain and
demon.” Visit his website
at stevenciceron.com.
Ruth Mitchell had a fulfilling
career in home health
nursing, and now she uses
her nursing knowledge in a
new setting. “I have a dairy
goat farm in Jamaica, West
Indies. I often recall the
nursing professors noting
how transferable nursing
skills are,” Ruth wrote.
Steven Ciceron
neuropathic pain. “Many
people living with HIV
and chronic illnesses turn
to complementary and
alternative therapies to treat
health-related conditions,
including alleviating pain
and reducing the side
effects of medication, but
few therapies have been
sufficiently evaluated,”
Joyce says. “Results from
this randomized controlled
clinical trial will provide
patients and clinicians with
an evidenced-based, nonpharmacologic therapeutic
option to manage this
painful condition, which
is sorely needed.”
�U N C O M M O N LIVE S
G O I NG ABST RACT “It was an eyeopener for me and showed me that art
could take you anywhere in the world,”
she recalls of her time at Wagner. “I was a
realistic painter when I went into college,
and was an abstract expressionist when
Joan Giordano ’60 Color, Form, and Texture
CL A I M TO FA M E Joan Baldassano Giordano ’60 is a visual artist who
combines painting and sculpting, using media ranging from bamboo to wax.
Since she finished her fine arts degree at Wagner in 1960, her work has
been seen everywhere from the city of Atlanta to the country of Zambia.
EN COUN T ERI N G T H E AVA N T GA R D E A Staten Island native,
Giordano always loved to make art, but her Wagner experience gave her
a new view of what art could be. During the 1950s and 1960s, faculty
at the College had significant connections to New York’s cuttingedge artists. Giordano was especially influenced by Tom Young, an
abstract expressionist who taught art at Wagner from 1953 to 1970.
Because of Young’s connections, Giordano got to meet New York
School artists like Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.
Photo: Joan in her studio with two pieces
she created in 2016, Free Press and Epoch.
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
�I went out.” She enjoyed the challenges
of “zeroing in on color and form and
texture, and emphasizing text and stories.
You were challenged to push your art
forward, become more exciting, and
encompass things that are more current.”
A M OT H E R AND AN ART I ST In
September 1959, at the beginning of
her senior year, Joan married fellow
Wagner student Ben Giordano ’59, a
business major and executive sales
trainee with New York Life Insurance
Co. He became a marketing executive,
while she pursued her art education
and her family life. Just a week after
graduating, in June 1960, she gave birth
to their first child, Jeffrey. She went on to
study Asian art on a fellowship at Hunter
College; have her second son, Glenn; and
earn an MFA from the Pratt Institute.
M E DI A AND SCALE “My work is always
large, because I like getting physically
into it,” she says. She has created
techniques to fuse many elements
into sculptural objects. She commonly
incorporates handmade papers, having
learned the kozo papermaking art in
Japan; encaustic, or hot wax painting;
newspapers; metals; and materials from
nature, such as branches and bark, which
she finds near her home in the Catskills.
I M P RE SSI O NS “Handsome works
that hang on the wall like a Samurai’s
divested armor” is how Peter Plagens
(Wall Street Journal) described Giordano’s
exhibit “Spin Out: Constructions” in
2012. Writing for Sculpture magazine
in 2017, Thalia Vrachopolous praised
Giordano’s “Woven in Time” exhibit for
its dedication to “human dignity, honesty,
and fair play.” Another critic writing for
Sculpture magazine, Jonathan Goodman,
saw spiritual themes in Giordano’s 2007
“Presences” exhibit. Her “sentinel-like flat
panels of charred paper ... read almost
like abstract scrolls,” he wrote. “These
flags of the spirit communicate what
we know but cannot say in response
to our slow, but inevitable, decay.”
PHOTOGRAPH: DEBORAH FEINGOLD
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
Alumni Link
ART AM BASSADO R Giordano is
perhaps most proud of being a part of
the Art in Embassies program, which
has brought her art around the world.
Former First Lady Laura Bush invited
her to a breakfast at the White House in
2004 celebrating artists who contributed
to the Art in Embassies program.
�{Continued from page 37}
High School, was a theater
major at Wagner, and has
developed a successful career
as a comedian. Keith Giglio
and his wife, Juliet, sold their
holiday movie script, A Very
Nutty Christmas, to Lifetime.
The film aired on November
30 as part of Lifetime’s 2018
Holiday Movie Schedule.
The couple sold more than
a dozen screenplays while
living in Los Angeles for
20 years. Now living in
Syracuse, Keith and Juliet are
professors at SUNY Oswego
and the Newhouse School
at Syracuse University. Andy
Williams purchased a new
Harley-Davidson Motorcycle
and a new home in Key
West, Fla. “Wagner College
students, alumni, and
administration are welcome
to visit,” Andy wrote.
1995
Tracy Vicere ,
a special-education teacher at Woodward
Parkway Elementary School
in Farmingdale, N.Y., was
featured in Long Island’s
Newsday newspaper in
October 2018 for her work
to benefit Cohen Children’s
Medical Center. Tracy
is an adolescent cancer
survivor who was treated at
that hospital after she was
diagnosed with two types
of cancer in June 1989. In
2011, she launched Friends
and Angels: The Tracy
Vicere Foundation. In
October, Tracy hosted her
eighth annual fundraiser
to benefit the hospital’s
Division of HematologyOncology and Stem Cell
Transplantation. The
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
foundation has “donated
more than $125,000 to
programs that keep patients’
spirits up and help ease
sometimes lengthy stays,”
the story said. Rosie Gioia Van
Nostrand ’96 is a foundation
board member and its
communications director.
Wagner College Theatre
alumnus Scott Wichmann,
a mass communication
specialist in the U.S. Navy
Reserve, wrote a column for
the Richmond Times-Dispatch
in October 2018 explaining
his devotion to both
military service and show
business. After graduation,
he “found an artistic home
in Richmond, and became
a mainstay in the theater
community.” His career
expanded in interesting
ways, and he even played
Frank Sinatra. Meeting a
former U.S. Navy SEAL
and going to his training
bootcamp to improve his
marathon time, however,
inspired Scott to renew his
previous fascination with
the Navy. In 2009 at the
age of 34, he became a U.S.
Navy reservist. Since then,
Scott has traveled to bases
in Afghanistan, documented
flight operations on the
deck of the USS Dwight D.
Eisenhower, and helped resupply a nuclear submarine
off the North African coast.
1996
Jennifer Marano-Gregorio ran
her fourth NYC Marathon
in November. Jennifer is
considered to be one of the
best female road racers on
Staten Island. “It all comes
down to camaraderie in
the running community,
the people I train with, the
common sacrifice of running
at 5 a.m. with my friends,
the common goal, and seeing
it all coming together. When
I’m on the roads, it’s my
peaceful place,” she told the
Staten Island Advance. Kyle
Poyer has been selected for
induction into the Indiana
High School Wrestling
Coaches Association Hall
of Fame in February 2019.
During his coaching career,
Kyle has coached two
state champion wrestlers,
two sectional and two
regional team champions,
and received seven Coach
of the Year honors.
1997
Jason Sirois, who has worked
for the Anti-Defamation
League in New York
since 2010, became ADL’s
national director of education
programs in 2017. In
January 2018, when he was
heading up ADL’s “No
Place for Hate” initiative, he
spoke at a United Nations
event marking Holocaust
Remembrance Day.
2002
’02 M’08 is
contributing to the website
The Page Community as an
expert thought leader for
comedy. He wrote about
the challenges he faced
in launching his career in
comedy and comedy show
production, and praised
Donald Crooks ’69 M’72,
professor of business
administration, for inspiring
him in his MBA classes.
Joel Richardson
2003
Michele Sampson-Nelson
and her husband, Donald
Nelson, welcomed Donald
Clifford “DC” Nelson into
the world on August 22,
2018. See a photo in Crib
Notes, page 36.
2006
’06 M’07 is
in a documentary, Coffee for
All, streaming on Netflix.
The film’s website describes
it as “a curious journey from
Naples to Buenos Aires to
New York that detours into
a reflection on the cultural
tradition involved in having
coffee in different places
around the world.” Elisabeth
owns the coffee company
Caffè Unimatic.
Elisabeth Cardiello
2007
In June 2017, Christine Wendt
was appointed the manager
of social work at Hackensack
University Medical Center
in Hackensack, N.J. “I
am enjoying it and doing
great,” Christine said.
Unfortunately, she lost
her mother, Judith Wendt,
in September 2017.
2009
In June 2018, Llew Radford
was named the head coach
for boys varsity basketball at
his high school alma mater,
Heritage High School, in
Newport News, Virginia.
The previous two years, he
served as assistant coach and
math teacher. Llew played
basketball during his time
at Wagner, averaging 11.0
�points and 7.4 rebounds as a
forward in his senior season.
Knot Notes
2010
2012
Chelsea Beck
2015
’15 M’18 left
Wagner in August 2018
after more than five years as
a College employee in the
Center of Leadership and
Community Engagement.
He served as a Bonner Intern
during his undergraduate
years, Port Richmond
Partnership Leadership
Academy coordinator for
three years, and CLCE
associate director and Bonner
Leaders coordinator.
Leo Schuchert
2016
made his
off-Broadway debut in the
Jonathan Quigley
National Yiddish Theatre
Folksbiene’s Yiddishlanguage production of
Fiddler on the Roof, directed
by Joel Grey, which opened
July 15, 2018. Originally
meant to run just six weeks,
ticket demand was so
strong that the show was
extended four times; as of
press time, it was scheduled
to run until December 30.
Another WCT alum, Jason
Daniel Rath , played Slim
in a unique, all-AfricanAmerican production of
Oklahoma! at the Denver
Center for the Performing
Arts during the fall of 2018.
2017
’16 M’17,
a certified physician assistant
in pain management, is
practicing at Pain Management of Long Island.
Connor Gibbs attended a
workshop for contemporary
music composition at the
European University of
Cyprus in November 2018.
He was one of 12 composers
Caroline J. Gelling
selected to write a new piece
for the workshop. Connor
also traveled to Houston for
the Space City New Music
Festival, and one of his pieces
made its world premiere
at the 2018 Dartington
International Summer School
and Festival in southwest
England. When he isn’t
traveling for music, Connor
is a teacher at a city high
school in Springfield, Mass.
2018
played Sphintze
in the national tour of Fiddler
on the Roof, directed by Tony
Award winner Bartlett Sher,
which launched in Syracuse
on October 17. Britte Steele
’09 also performed in the
production. Tyler Loftus was
hired as the quarterbacks
coach for SUNY
Morrisville, a Division III
program in upstate New
York. He was featured in his
hometown newspaper, the
Star Beacon of Ashtabula,
Ohio, in July 2018. Tyler was
a backup quarterback for
Danielle Allen
most of his years at Wagner,
but he told the newspaper
that his time on the sidelines
prepared him to be a
coach. “It was humbling,”
he said. “It was kind of
disappointing at first, but it
did definitely help me with
coaching. Kind of seeing it
from another perspective.”
Tyler was considering going
into the law, the story says,
but after gaining coaching
experience as a graduate
assistant at Wagner, he
decided to stick with that
profession. “It will be my
way to minister to kids, help
build young men, as well as
stay involved with football
and be able to compete,”
he said. Charles Poveromo is
traveling the United States
singing jazz music under
his stage name, Charlie
Romo. After performing in
Florida and California, he
returned to Staten Island
in October 2018 for his
“homecoming” show. He also
made his professional acting
debut, co-starring on a new
streaming network series.
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
Alumni Link
was inducted
into the athletic hall of
fame at Wilson High
School in West Lawn, Pa., in
September 2018. Chelsea
was captain of Wilson’s
swimming and water polo
teams for all four years of
high school, helping the
swim team win four state
titles and the water polo
team earn county, state, and
national honors. She had a
standout career as a member
of the Seahawk women’s
water polo team and
graduated summa cum laude
from Wagner. She played
professional water polo in
Australia before earning a
graduate degree in education
in 2017 from Johns Hopkins
University. She is lead
teacher for Mastery Charter
Schools in Philadelphia.
Erin Fitzpatrick ’10
married Cory Cousart
in Simsbury, Conn.,
on August 18, 2018.
Pictured on top of
the swing set are Erin
and Cory. Pictured
below them are
2010 classmates
Emma Acciani, Emily
Visnovsky, Don Rahl,
Ali Magistrali, Tavis
Doucette, and Kristie
Scherrer.
�Celebrating lives that enriched the Wagner family
Mrs. Frances Murray Grimes ’43
Rev. Paul C. Reisch ’44
Mr. Monroe Beim ’45
Mrs. Naomi Stover Monge ’46
Mrs. Elaine Strongman Kesner ’48
Mrs. Adele True Stoughton ’48
Dr. Guy V. Molinari ’49 H’90
Mr. William A. Volpe ’49
Mr. Thomas H. Darson ’50
Dr. Martin G. Andersen ’51
Mrs. Betty Mezzacappa Darcy ’51
Mr. Donald C. Schuster ’52
Mrs. Eleanor J. Corliss Kaufmann ’53
Cmdr. Martin D. Kiefer ’53, USN
Mr. Kenneth L. Schlamp ’53
Dr. Karl G. Fossum ’54
Mr. Herbert T. Behrens ’55
Mr. Paul J. Prester ’56 M’60
Dr. Mario Buatta ’57 H’86
Rev. Dr. Frederick G. Wedemeyer ’57
Mrs. Dorothy Becker Marcelo ’59
Mr. William P. Sloane ’62 M’66
Mr. Richard M. Cardenas ’65
Mr. Barry I. Faden ’65
Mr. Henry M. Adams ’66 M’69
Mrs. Linda P. Pecsok Auzenne ’66
Mr. Peter J. Frederick ’66
Ms. Susan E. Golick ’68
Mr. Richard A. LaRosa ’69
Mrs. June Maxwell Vigar ’70 M’73
Dr. Sharon Ivey Richie ’71
Mrs. Dorothy A. Woitasek Bush ’72
Mr. Norman J. Sokolow M’72
Mr. Richard Baldwin ’73 M’75
Dr. Edwin M. Cortez ’73
Mr. Thomas A. Belkowski ’76
Mr. James D. Heyden ’81
Ms. Laura S. Jacobs ’84
Mrs. Nancy Bracco Coraggio ’86
Ms. Rose Marie Pedro M’04
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
WA G N E R L E G A C I E S
Dr. Guy V. Molinari ’49 H’90
Dr. Guy V. Molinari ’49 H’90 died on July 25, 2018, at age
89. He represented Staten Island in the New York State
Assembly and U.S. Congress; served as Staten Island Borough
President; and became known as the “Republican kingpin of
Staten Island,” in the words of his New York Times obituary.
Both Guy and his brother, Robert (also class of 1949), attended
Wagner. “I was extremely proud to attend Wagner College,” Molinari wrote in his
memoir. He majored in social science and joined the fraternity Kappa Sigma Alpha.
He earned his law degree from New York Law School, and he served in the
Marines during the Korean War. He practiced law on Staten Island before
entering politics in the 1980s, winning 10 straight elections.
Wagner recognized Molinari with an Alumni Achievement Award in 1981
and an honorary doctorate in 1990, the same year he was sworn in as borough
president at a ceremony in Main Hall. “Throughout [his] decades of public
service, President Molinari has been committed to the welfare of Staten Island
and its residents,” the College citation for his honorary degree said.
Survivors include his daughter, former Wagner Trustee Susan Molinari H’95.
Dr. Sharon Ivey Richie ’71
Dr. Sharon Ivey Richie died on September 2, 2018, in
Clearwater, Florida. She was 68.
In 1969, when Richie was a junior nursing student, she
was elected Wagner’s homecoming queen — the first black
woman to receive that honor. She represented the student
organization Black Concern, and her election was an important
step in promoting the rights and needs of African-American students at Wagner.
Richie went on to a stellar career in the Army Nurse Corps. She spent a year as
a White House Fellow, served as chief nurse for the Army Recruiting Command,
and was promoted to full colonel at age 36, the youngest officer of that rank in the
entire Army at the time.
After retiring from the Army, Richie earned a Ph.D. in organizational behavior
from George Washington University. She was a board member of the Military
Officers Association of America and a trustee for Excelsior College, whose
distance learning program in nursing has trained military nurses around the world.
She also became the director of the School of Nursing at Norwich University, a
private military college in Vermont.
Wagner College honored Sharon Richie in 1983 as Alumna of the Year, and
again in 2010 as a Distinguished Graduate.
�FAC U LT Y A N D S TA F F R E M E M B R A N C E S
Professor Lewis J. Hardee Jr.
Lewis J. Hardee Jr., emeritus professor of theater, former
music director, and chair of the Wagner College Theatre
department, died on July 7, 2018, after a brief illness, at
the Manhattan apartment home he shared with his dear
friend and companion, Peter Monteleone. He was 81.
Born in the coastal fishing village of Southport,
North Carolina, in 1937, Hardee was deeply attached
to his hometown. “My career was in New York,” he
often said, “but my heart is in Southport, where it
always has been and will remain.”
Hardee earned a master’s degree in musicology at
UNC Chapel Hill and pursued post-graduate studies
in composition at Columbia.
As a composer and author of musicals, Hardee
was especially proud of his musical drama Revolution!,
written for Southport’s bicentennial celebration. Two
of his musicals, The Little Prince and The Prince and
the Pauper, toured the United States before Hardee
joined the Wagner College Theatre faculty as music
director in 1984.
“Whenever I think of Lewis,” said retired theater
professor John Jamiel, “I think of a Southern gentleman:
charming, funny, and a great cook who made a wonderful
coq au vin welcoming me to the department. Lewis was
instrumental in hiring me at Wagner; he mentored me,
and he changed my life and the direction of my career.”
“This talented man always
had compassion for the
students,” recalled Martha
D’Arbanville, former
WCT administrative
assistant. “He would make
a complete turkey dinner
at the holidays and transport
it to school in his beloved
Lincoln Town Car. He wanted those
students who couldn’t go home to have some of the
holiday tradition.”
A longtime member of the Lambs, the first
professional theatrical club in the United States,
Hardee wrote its definitive history, The Lambs Theatre
Club, in 2006. For a number of years, through his
graces, the Lambs hosted the Stanley Drama Awards
ceremonies, a Wagner College Theatre program that
has recognized up-and-coming playwrights since 1957.
He wrote several other books in the nearly two
decades that followed his retirement from Wagner
College in 1999. His personal favorites were two
collections of material he compiled about his
hometown, Classic Southport Cooking, published in
2005, and Of Home and the River, a combination
autobiography and local history, published in 2008.
Robert Browne
Robert Browne died at his home on Staten Island, on
August 14, 2018, at the age of 92. Browne worked in
the Business Office of Wagner College for 21 years,
starting in June 1965. He served as Wagner’s business
manager and controller from September 1981 until
he retired in May 1986.
Co-workers remember “Bob” for the hard work he
dedicated to Wagner — and for his tall stature. For
bookstore employee Pat Coffey, who has worked at
Wagner for over 30 years, Browne was unforgettable.
“He was such a nice, kind, and intelligent man. He
worked very hard for the College,” Coffey said. “Bob
always had a hello to give, with a big smile on his face.
Deaths reported to Wagner College from June 28 to November 7, 2018.
Plus, he was a very
conscientious worker.
He loved his job, and
this school. He was very
dedicated to Wagner.”
Before coming to work
at Wagner, Browne served
his country during World
War II as a Navy cryptographer
at Pearl Harbor. He was a lifelong
member of St. John’s Lutheran Church, serving as
treasurer, choir member, Sunday school teacher, and
member of the church council and school board.
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
�Reflections
Openness to Experience
My Hope for Wagner Students By Steve Jenkins
I
am now in my 14th year as a
psychology professor at Wagner,
but my educational path was
very different than that of most
Wagner students.
When I was 18 years old, I enrolled
in three courses at my local community
college in Northern California. I had
no interest in any of them. I dropped
two of those courses and failed the
third — which was, of all things,
Psychology 101. The classes I dropped
were English literature and philosophy.
Who had time for such nonsense? I
gave college a try really just to get my
parents off my back. I already knew
what I was going to do with the rest of
my life. I was going to be a rock star.
I got my first guitar when I was
13 years old, and spent every waking
moment trying to emulate my favorite
guitar players. For me, there was only
one kind of music: good old ’80s hard
rock. Now, unfortunately, people refer
to it by a term I have always hated:
“hair metal.” I wasn’t interested in
blues, rap, funk, or reggae. For me, it
was all about hair metal, and I fit the
image. I had hair down to my waist,
rock ’n’ roll boots, and a leather jacket.
When I was 19, I started playing
the local clubs around San Francisco.
My band opened for some big names,
and we started headlining our own
shows. We even had some record label
interest. I moved to Los Angeles and
started playing in bands in Southern
California. It went well for a while.
WA G N E R
M AG A Z I N E
“
There was only
one thing
I wanted to do
with my life, and
now it was gone.
”
Unfortunately, in a few years, the
1990s came around, with a new type of
rock music. The dreaded grunge rock.
Nirvana. Soundgarden. Awful! Who
could listen to that garbage? Despite
my indignation, public interest in what
I considered to be the only type of
music worth playing began to fade. At
age 24, I was rendered obsolete, and I
stopped playing music.
Of course, for me, this was a massive
personal crisis. There was only one
thing I wanted to do with my life, and
now it was gone.
One night, in a panic, I decided
to call my dad, who wasn’t someone I
usually went to for career advice. He
always supported me, but he never
really understood why his son had
longer hair than his daughter. But,
he listened to me patiently as I went
on and on about not knowing what I
was going to do with the rest of my
life. Rather than giving me advice, he
simply said, “Steve. Why do you need
to figure this all out tonight?” That
simple question made me realize that
it wasn’t a matter of life or death, and
that I could take some time to look
around and consider the possibilities.
Suddenly, I was more willing to be
more open. But still, what to do?
I decided to take a college course
again. Maybe this time I would
actually open the textbook, turn in
assignments, and even show up for the
exams. So I once again signed up for
Psychology 101.
One psychology class in particular
had a major impact on my life. My
professor was discussing theories of
personality, and said that people who
score high on measures of a trait called
“openness to experience” (which means
having intellectual curiosity, and a
preference for novelty and variety) tend
to be more psychologically healthy.
Those who score low on this trait tend
to be more neurotic, or experience more
negative mood states. In other words,
when you are closed off to learning
new things, you are more likely to
experience depression and anxiety. And
when you are open to new possibilities,
you tend to happier and healthier.
I began to reflect on how closed off
to possibilities I had been in life so far.
There was only one thing I ever wanted
to do with my life, only one type of
music I liked, only one path to stardom.
No wonder I felt anxious and depressed
when life didn’t follow along the perfect
path that I had designed for myself.
In my very narrow world, there was
nothing else.
�I share the story
of my educational
path with students
in the hope that they
will learn from my
mistake — my mistake
of being closed off to
possibility, and of being
rigid in my way of thinking.
Students at Wagner are exposed
to people of different religions,
different sexual orientations and
identities, different racial and cultural
backgrounds, different abilities and
disabilities, and different interests and
ideologies. They have tremendous
potential for growth if they are open
to learning to communicate and
understand more about people who
differ from themselves.
When I say “openness,” however, I
want to be clear that am not referring
to “tolerance.” To me, tolerance
suggests, “I know that I am in some
way fundamentally superior to you,
but I am willing to tolerate your
existence, while I look down upon you,
exclude you, and possibly even ridicule
you when you are not around.” If we
can move past tolerance and bring
ourselves to be open to others, we
open ourselves to new possibilities.
As part of a liberal arts education at
Wagner, students are required to take
courses in a variety of disciplines. In
their First-Year Learning Communities,
they may be required to go out into
the community to better understand
I L L U S T R AT I O N : N AT A L I E N G U Y E N
the practical applications of what they
are learning in the classroom. Some
may be asked to be of service to others
who are less fortunate.
In the years I have taught in the
First-Year Program, I have seen
firsthand those who simply tolerate
the experience, and those who are
truly open to it. Those who engage
themselves in the program often find
it so rewarding and inspiring that they
continue their work in the community
years after they have completed their
course requirements.
Being open to experience, however,
does not come without consequence.
When we become more knowledgeable
about others, about different disciplines,
and about the world, it forces us to
critically evaluate our own ideologies.
This can be scary. If we learn a new
way of understanding, the foundation
for which we have lived our lives so far
can become unstable. Things that we
always accepted as truth get called into
question. The very essence of who we
are is no longer quite as clear.
There is a reason for the saying
“Ignorance is bliss.” It takes great
courage to question your way of being,
but I believe that with it comes great
reward. My own life is much richer,
much more fulfilling, than it was when
it consisted of only one dream, one way
to get there, and one type of music.
I still enjoy some good old-fashioned
’80s hair metal from time to time, but
I’d like to end with a quote from a very
different type of artist whom I have
grown to appreciate over the years —
the blues and folk singer Bill Withers.
He said, “I feel that it is healthier to
look out at the world through a window
than through a mirror. Otherwise, all
you see is yourself and whatever is
behind you.” I hope my students will
choose to look through the window and
be open to experience.
Steve Jenkins, associate professor
of psychology, originally delivered a
version of this reflection as a speech to
the class of 2020, at their freshman
convocation, in 2016.
W I N T E R 2 0 1 8 – 1 9
�Office of Communications and Marketing
Wagner College
One Campus Road
Staten Island, New York 10301
Wagner’s 19th President
On December 5, 2018, President Richard Guarasci introduced
Joel W. Martin, provost and dean of the faculty at Franklin and
Marshall College. The Wagner Board of Trustees has named Martin
as Guarasci’s successor as president. “It’s just a home run in every
way,” Guarasci said of the appointment. Read more on pages 5–6.
P H O T O G R A P H : J O N AT H A N H A R K E L
�
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Wagner College Alumni Publications
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This collection contains the publications created for the alumni of Wagner College. Starting in 1948 and known as the Link, this series has gone through a variety of name and format changes and is currently known as Wagner Magazine.
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Wagner
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Wagner College, Staten Island, NY
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Winter 2018-2019
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Wagner College Digital Collections
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48pp
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eng
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Text