Impact
E-Connection
Are you connected?
The Emory community has gone virtual. This isn’t a new thing, of course. The Emory Alumni Association (EAA) and many other alumni groups have had a strong presence on a variety of social networking sites— Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and many others—for some time. What is new is a recently launched online social network, exclusive to the Emory community, which connects alumni from all Emory’s schools with current students, and even Emory faculty, in ways that strengthen bonds both professional and social.
It’s pretty popular, too.
Emory E-Connection (found at www.alumni.emory.edu/econnection) launched on December 15, 2008, and in the first two weeks more than 1,500 alumni signed up. The alumni numbers continue to grow, and the community at large will get a boost soon, once students and faculty are invited to join in early 2009.
“We are excited by the immediate response to this new online network,” says Sarah Cook 95C, senior director for EAA initiatives and technology and one of E-Connection’s charter members. “It has some great new features. For instance, users can immediately see all the fellow alumni who have worked at a specific company. Alumni and students can quickly find one another and help each other open doors. It’s what alumni have been asking for and we’re excited to see it in action.”
Through E-Connection, alumni can view customized job postings from Fortune 500 companies; browse resumes, recruit Emory talent to work or intern at a company, or forward a resume to thousands of fellow alumni; network with alumni and students who share personal and professional interests; meet new friends and business contacts and reconnect with former classmates and professors; learn about alumni-exclusive events; and much more. E-Connection opens doors to literally thousands of new Emory contacts.
Registering for E-Connection is easy. All you need is an email address (the address on file with the University—that’s one of the ways alumni membership is verified) and a little bit of personal information, also related to alumni verification. After that, you’re in!
“E-Connection is a powerful new tool for expanding your network in your industry or field and for being available to others— alumni and students—who share your passions and interests,” says Carolyn Bregman 82L, the EAA’s director of alumni career services and one of the leads in the E-Connection implementation.
One of E-Connection’s aims is to connect the Emory community socially, but perhaps even more importantly, E-Connection serves as a professional network. So many people get new jobs or switch careers with the help of personal contacts. Who better to be a personal contact than a fellow Emory graduate?
“By reaching across class years and geography, alumni can form groups with others in their professions, get advice as they contemplate career transitions, or provide advice to students who want to follow in their footsteps,” Bregman continues. “In such challenging economic times, all Emory alumni, regardless of school, can enhance a profoundly powerful network by being available to share advice, suggestions and connections with each other and with students.”
— Eric Rangus is director of communications for the Emory Alumni Association
2008 Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni and Faculty Awards
Each year, Emory College honors distinguished alumni and faculty emeriti for their outstanding service to Emory and their communities, and for their professional achievements.
In fall 2008, Mark Kasman 84C, president of the Emory College Alumni Board, presided over an evening that included a dinner, musical performance by Emory’s a cappella group No Strings Attached, and the presentation of awards to four worthy individuals.
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L–R: Robert Appleton, Richard Long, Mark Kasman, Stephen Krant, Ross Donaldson |
After remarks by Emory College Dean Robert Paul in which he acknowledged the work of the Alumni Board and the College’s Faculty Development Committee, Dana White, a professor in Emory’s Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, presented his longtime friend and the evening’s first honoree, Richard Long, with the Distinguished Faculty Emeritus Award.
White began his remarks by quoting from Maya Angelou’s essay “Loving Learning”: “There are smart alecks who feel comfortable speaking long and loudly about a multiplicity of subjects with no evidence that they know what they are talking about. Then there are those who do know a little about a lot of things and speak judiciously about what they know. And finally, that rarity, the polymath who knows a great deal about everything. I have met only three such persons in my life. One. . .is Dr. Richard Long . . . at Emory University.”
Long’s contributions are many and varied. They range over the fields of art history, biography, linguistics, theater history, museology, musical history, pedagogy, literary criticism and history, modern and traditional dance, as well as varied topics in African, Caribbean, and African American studies. Prior to joining Emory’s Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts in 1973, he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Temple University and pursued postgraduate study at the University of Pennsylvania, Oxford University and the Universities of Paris and Poitiers, where he received his doctorate. Among his notable works are Grown Deep: Essays on the Harlem Renaissance (1998), Black Tradition in American Dance (1995) and Black Americana (1985). In 2008, he was honored at Howard University for his visual arts scholarship and named an honorary fellow of the Society of Dance History Scholars for his work in dance studies.
The evening’s next presentation involved Jonathan Sandler 00C, who currently practices law in Los Angeles, as he introduced the Young Alumni Service Award honoree, Ross Donaldson 98C. In a short amount of time Donaldson has covered a great deal of ground. After leaving Emory, he attended the UCLA School of Medicine, then deferred his clinical training to pursue a public health degree at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in Britain, focusing on international health and the control of communicable diseases.
Donaldson has worked as a virus-hunter in Africa and Asia, served as the team physician on a NASA scientific expedition to one of the world’s highest lakes—Mt. Licancabur in Bolivia, at 20,000 feet—and most recently worked in Iraq to strengthen the emergency medical system. He has also written eloquently about some of his trials by fire. His forthcoming book, Lassa Ward: Life, Death, and My Time in Sierra Leone, details his time as a medical student battling the spread of a highly contagious virus against the backdrop of a civil war.
He currently works at one of Los Angeles’ main trauma centers, specializing in emergency medicine and global health and teaching UCLA medical students, interns and residents. He speaks Spanish and Mandarin Chinese and is the author of an upcoming medical translation book that helps health care workers communicate with foreign language patients in more than fifteen languages.
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No Strings Attached |
Holli A. Semetko, vice provost for International Affairs and director of the Office of International Affairs and The Claus M. Halle Institute for Global Learning, lent her international perspective as she presented the Distinguished Alumni Award to Robert Appleton 85C. In her remarks, she quoted from a recent Washington Post article that referred to Appleton as “a senior U.N. crime fighter [who] has pursued corruption from New Delhi to Manhattan’s swank W Hotel.” Head of the U.N. Procurement Task Force, Appleton oversees a twenty-seven member special anticorruption unit that has identified more than $610 million in tainted contracts and $25 million in misappropriated funds, according to the Post article. “Quite frankly, it’s just fun work,” he said at a recent news conference.
He first joined the U.N. as special counsel and then deputy chief legal counsel for the Independent Inquiry Committee Investigation into the United Nations Iraqi Oil for Food Programme. His current task force was established in the wake of the oil for food scandal and inquiry. Prior to joining the U.N., he served as a supervisory assistant U.S. attorney and as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Department of Justice in Connecticut. For thirteen years he prosecuted a wide variety of federal criminal offenses, including fraud, public corruption, and racketeering offenses. In 2003 Appleton led a highly publicized investigation of a Fortune 50 company for alleged accounting fraud. A year later he was recognized by the U.S. attorney general for distinguished and extraordinary service in connection with the prosecution of a notorious urban street gang responsible for several murders and other shootings.
Ben Shapiro 64C 67L, a partner in the Atlanta law firm of Shapiro Fussell, presented the final Distinguished Alumni Award of the evening. In his introduction of Stephen Krant 65C, he highlighted Krant’s accomplishments in the field of reconstructive surgery over the course of thirty-two years of practice and 10,000 plastic and reconstructive procedures. Specializing in breast reconstructive surgery, Krant is also devoted to breast cancer education and prevention, and has served on the boards of the American Cancer Society, Y-Me Breast Support Group, and the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center. In 2001 Krant and his wife, Lyn, formed SK Institute, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to raising awareness and funds to provide education and support to those who live with disease, as well as funding other support and research organizations focused on preventions and cures. Their SK Sanctuary closes one night a month to the public to offer cancer survivors complimentary spa treatments, food and wine as well as guest presentations and seminars. SK has treated more than 2,200 survivors of melanoma, prostate and breast cancer to date.
After graduating from Emory in 1965, Krant attended the Yale School of Medicine, then completed his general surgery residency at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago. From there he returned to Yale New Haven Hospital for a residency in reconstructive and aesthetic surgery. He has been medical director at SK Clinic in La Jolla, California, for the last thirty-two years and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
What a difference a trip makes
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L–R: John Howett, Rhoda Barnett Bernstein, Judith Rohrer |
For Rhoda Barnett Bernstein 76C, more than thirty years have passed since she ventured to New York City with about a dozen other Emory students on a trip led by art history professors John Howett and Clark Poling. The group hit museums, studios and galleries, talking with artists and curators, experiencing art in every conceivable way at a burgeoning time in New York’s modern art scene.
“That trip to New York changed so many things—how I thought about art, how I looked at art, what it meant to me, and where it led me in my life just in terms of participation,” Bernstein said during a recent visit to Emory. “That all-encompassing view of contemporary art made me think about how artists produce, how critics look at art, and the whole process. You can’t find it in a slideshow.”
On a January afternoon in the lobby of Carlos Hall, she was happily reliving memories of the trip with Howett, who retired in 1996; Judith Rohrer, chair of the Art History Department; and senior director of development Jeff Prince.
Bernstein and her former professor were reuniting to celebrate a special gift: Bernstein and her husband Howard had recently donated $50,000 to establish the John Howett Travel Fund for Advanced Undergraduate Seminars in Art History. The gift will be based within the Department of Art History and will support group travel experiences in connection with undergraduate art history courses and seminars.
“It’s humbling,” said Howett of having a gift named after him. “Teachers only live on in the memories of their students. So it’s very gratifying when someone comes back and says maybe you were worthy. That’s exciting for a teacher.”
Rohrer said the gift will provide the department with valuable, assured funding so that faculty can plan courses in advance of a major show in another city. An expert in architectural history, she looks forward to the day when she can take a group of Emory students to Chicago for a weekend to see early skyscrapers.
Bernstein hopes the travel fund will help lead other students to realize how important art is in their lives. Over the years, her New York experience has served her well as a member of museum boards in Fort Worth, Texas, and as an art collector with her husband. “We don’t agree about movies or music, but when it comes to aesthetics we can walk into a gallery and go to the same piece of art. It’s the only thing we ever agree on,” she said with a laugh.
She believes that in the current economic climate, more than ever, success for students means finding an outlet or interest—perhaps art or music—outside their main academic concentrations. “For me, art became a lifelong enrichment. It started right here at Emory and it continued.”
| Editor’s Note—John Howett passed away on April 8th, just as Quadrangle was going to press. Inquiries and donations to the Howett Travel Fund may be directed to Jeff Prince at (404) 727-4494 or jprince@emory.edu. |