When the dust briefly settles

Kevin Melton (’04) and General Stanley McChrystal

Few spots on earth do not have an active or brewing conflict. In some areas like Afghanistan where conflict flames up often and devastates communities. Restoring those communities is not easy, but when the dust briefly settles, there are special individuals who ply their talents to help communities rebuild.

One of those is Kevin Melton (’04).

Shortly after he arrived in Afghanistan, the armored vehicle he was riding in hit a roadside bomb and exploded. He survived though two others did not.

“An event like that changes your life,” he says.

Still, Melton stayed in the country for more than two years to work as a civilian, knowing full well the consequences of conflict. During his time there, he helped strengthen communities and governments in order to rebuild a country living with war.

The international affairs major and Rotary Peace Fellow also studied peace and conflict resolution at Australia’s University of Queensland. He understands that the old models for rebuilding and conflict resolution aren’t necessarily the most effective today. “We’ve been using the same tools for decades — post World Wars, post Cold War,” Melton says. Today, he takes a social science view, combining social science and conflict resolution.

For his work to restore areas of the world torn by war and conflict, we will soon add Kevin Melton to our growing list of individuals who are Being the Change throughout the world.

To learn more about Kevin, read Kelley Freund’s (’07) story at http://www.jmu.edu/bethechange/stories/giving_others.shtml

They are the world

Last week’s failure of the North Korean rocket launch was a stark reminder that the world has a ways to go. Seven decades after Germany began developing atomic technology and 67 years after the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb to end World War II,  international conflict is still very real. Nations, peoples, individuals, ethnic groups, indigenous populations, armies, institutions and organizations are  scrambling to find some semblance of peace in the world. It’s still elusive. We have not arrived.

But there are glimmers of hope. Among them is a new generation with a world perspective unlike any of their predecessors. This generation of 20-somethings thinks nothing of hopping a plane to Belarus or making a temporary move to Brazil, Denmark, Australia or Kenya. To paraphrase a line from the Jackson/Ritchie song, “they are the world.”

Many of these students have gained this perspective through their collegiate experiences abroad.  At JMU, a university that ranks high for students studying abroad, this world view is strong, growing and highly productive. Last year, international affairs major Adam White (’14) participated in the 2011 INU Student Seminar at Hiroshima University, a conference sponsored by the International Network of Universities. For Adam, it was an affirming experience; already he had come to understand the critical nature of cross-cultural collaborations in formulating a vision for helping individuals in oppressed nations gain freedom.

As a result of his work, Adam received the 2011 Henry Fong Award, which recognizes an INU student for contributing to the network’s theme of global citizenship. And for his work, we have added Adam to JMU’s growing list of Be the Change individuals. 

In announcing the award, the INU said about Adam:

Adam White wrote a thoughtful and inspiring essay. He reflected on the concept of Global Citizenship and the ways that the INU Student Seminar reinforced his convictions about ethical obligations in an interconnected world. He argued persuasively that “different peoples, cultures, and belief systems are equally valuable parts of a greater human community” and that “it is the duty of each person and organization, regardless of background, to make choices that promote the welfare of this collective, diverse whole.” In addition, Mr. White presented a personal plan for carrying out this duty. He outlined a project designed to increase the visibility of persecuted North Koreans and to provide English language training to North Korean refugees.

Next week, a new group of international citizens will gather in Sweden for International Staff Training Week at Malmo University. Among the participants will be Jim Heffernan (’96), JMU public affairs associate. Jim’s participation is driven by JMU’s preeminence in the international organization.  Last October, JMU assumed the leadership of the organization for a three-year term. JMU is the only U.S. college or university in INU, which includes members from Australia, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain and Sweden.

During his week in Sweden, Jim will be a guest blogger for Be the Change, giving us all a glimpse into the international world that Adam has already grasped.  Look for Jim’s posts next week.

To learn more about Adam and his work with INU, visit http://www.jmu.edu/news/2011AdamWhite.shtml

Asking the right question

Rheannon Sorrells triggered change by asking the critical question. (Photo by Norm Shafer)

Sometimes Being the Change means asking the right question.

Rheannon Sorrells (’04, ’11M), a teacher at Ressie Jeffers Elementary School in Warren Co., Va., watched as children struggled to read. At the same time, she was working on  her master’s degree in JMU’s College of Education and had discovered a new methodology for reading instruction called Response to Intervention. The RtI program recognizes that teaching methods that identify individual students’ strengths and weakness, and that are designed around the child, are highly effective.

Rheannon posed a critical question to her graduate professor: What would it take to try RtI at her elementary school? The result of Rheannon’s question was a partnership between JMU’s Allison Kretlow, professor of education, and the teachers at Ressie Jeffers.

And it  worked.

Because Rheannon asked the right question and acted on her convictions, Rheannon triggered a process that changed hundreds of young lives. Eventually the RtI reading program was adopted countywide.

For Rheannon’s work and especially for being the “spark” for change, we’re adding Rheannon Sorrells to our long list of Be the Change people.

You can read Rheannon’s full profile here: http://www.jmu.edu/bethechange/people/sorrells.shtml

And you can read the entire story of the successful Warren County reading program by visiting http://www.jmu.edu/bethechange/stories/warren_county_reading.shtml

Two who are building change

Building for a downtown Renaissance

by Tyler McAvoy (’12)

Prior to the construction of the Valley Mall in 1977, downtown Harrisonburg was the place to be. Shops and large department stores lined Main Street and Court Square. Restaurants and businesses thrived, and a theater, complete with a huge lighted marque, was always showing the latest and greatest blockbuster hits.  Yet when the mall was built, things began to change rapidly, and businesses began to migrate out of downtown. When the businesses left, the people began to leave too, and throughout the 80’s and 90’s downtown Harrisonburg was only a memory of what it once was.

Barry Kelley ('83) and Andrew Forward ('86) (photo by Mike Miriello)

Yet, things have started to change.

A slew of new restaurants have opened up in recent years, each offering a different style of food.  Coffee shops and bars now stay open late and some provide  floor space where customers can cut a rug. Three different types of museums have opened their doors, featuring the world of local artists and craftsmen. A new theater regularly shows indie and art-house films to challenge your normal film-going conventions. Yearly holiday events attract thousands to Court Square, and there’s a bigger demand for housing in Downtown than there has been in years.

This change isn’t accidental, or some matter of luck. Much comes from the hard work of an organization of local businessmen and professionals who have banded together to restore downtown to its former glory. Focusing on attracting businesses to downtown, the Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance brainstormed the idea of getting parts of downtown designated “historical districts” meaning that whoever builds or develops a property in these places can get a federal tax credit, as a means to attract developers to the area. And it has worked. Tax breaks piqued the interest of more then one developer, including Barry Kelley (’83) and Andrew Forward (’86). Both members of HDR, Kelley and Forward have utilized this to their advantage. And the result has been to downtown Harrisonburg’s advantage.

Urban Exchange, part of Harrisonburg's future

Kelley and Forward have partnered together on several high profile projects, such as City Exchange and Urban Exchange, which have fundamentally changed the culture of Harrisonburg.  City Exchange, located in an old abandoned seed mill, is now a modern complex featuring a restaurant and fashionable flats, while still retaining the history of the building. For Urban Exchange, Kelley and Forward took an empty parking lot and turned it into a huge multi-level apartment building, complete with underground parking and outlets for electric cars, adding a sense of definition to Harrisonburg’s generally vague architectural design.

Future projects are in the pipeline too, including turning an old ice factory into a multi-use building with a focus on creating space for artists and designers. Kelley and Forward have been instrumental in Harrisonburg’s revitalization and, as ideas emerge, will continue to develop Harrisonburg into a cultural and societal center.

For the contributions these two JMU alumni have made to the rebirth of downtown Harrisonburg, the late John Noftsinger nominated them last year for Be the Change. He was right; It’s a good fit. So soon we’ll be adding Barry Kelley and Andrew Forward to our Be the Change website.

We will also keep track of what’s next for these two builders of change.

To read more about Urban Exchange, visit their website at http://www.liveue.com/

Peanut butter, jelly and Bob Dylan

 Recently, freelance writer Jean Young Kilby sat down with friends, longtime faculty members and pioneers Pat Bruce and Lee Morrison who have helped change the outlook and opportunities for women in sports. Here’s what Jean learned about two of JMU’s faculty emeriti and the impact of their careers.

Peanut butter, jelly and Bob Dylan

Lee Morrison and Pat Bruce changed the world for women in athletics.

Lee and Pat, Pat and Lee. The names roll off the tongue as smoothly as those old friends “peanut butter and jelly,” not because the two retired JMU professors of physical education are anything alike, but for the simple fact that they’ve been cronies for so long. Cronies who share a common goal.

Lee Morrison has staying power, and rather like peanut butter on an empty stomach, substance.  In a manner of speaking, she sticks to your ribs. Bob Dylan should have written about her in the early 1960s when he penned “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” for it was during that epoch that Lee dipped her toes into the swirling times of war protest and Civil Rights and began to discern that, in Dylan’s words, the old road was rapidly aging, and that the time had come for women to join in competitive sports at the college level.

Lee grew up among Savannah high society, a self-described loner who preferred horseback riding to tea parties.“I was a horse nut as a kid,” she says. “Riding was my outlet.” It wasn’t until her college years that Lee began to wonder why girls were not allowed to compete in most sports. Her clarion call came loud and clear when, as a doctoral candidate at Indiana University, she was excited at the opportunity to hear a world-renowned coach give a lecture, only to be, again in Dylan’s words, “drenched to the bone” when she found out that women were not allowed to attend the lecture.“At that point,” she says, “I wouldn’t even fight it.”

Soon afterwards, Madison College’s sports roster drew her attention to Virginia, and in 1954 she began her tenure coaching field hockey, her favorite sport. Almost immediately Lee activated herself politically, eventually serving as president of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, an organization that fought to expand national championships in 18 different sports. Not surprisingly, though, Lee was never all about politics. She was about people, a fact reflected in a story she tells of two hockey players, one outstanding, the other mediocre. She recalls taking the strong player out of a game against Bridgewater College so that the other player, whose parents had come to watch her, could get in the game. This action angered the ousted play, who told Coach Morrison, “I just want you to know I never intend to put my feet on this campus again.” This to a woman who spent her weekends coaching – for free. Peanut Butter.

Pat Bruce joined the faculty at Madison College in 1961. Pat, girlish and fun-loving, a peacemaker by nature, goes down rather sweetly. Growing up in a privileged Bostonian home, Pat organized kick-the-can games among the neighborhood children before heading off to elite Wheaton College. Doors tended to open themselves to Pat, so it was somewhat of a shock to her when she was denied membership in a country club because of her single status. Pat was not an open rebel, though, and this experience primed her in a different way from Lee’s for the extraordinary contribution she was to make to women’s sports: She concentrated mostly on her teaching. Pat was a teacher’s teacher, mentoring student teachers of physical education and teaching courses such as sports psychology and swimming. She remembers her teaching days vividly.

“Bad physical habits are hard to change,” she says. “A skill gets in your brain and stays there. When you’re playing basketball, for example, you don’t think about HOW to shoot. If you start thinking, you fall apart.” She taught student teachers how to coach. “If a player makes a mistake, the coach should want that player to think about what she did right, not what she did wrong. This is called ‘mental practice.’ Imagery is important in sports.”

Though Pat immersed herself in campus politics, serving as Speaker of the Faculty Senate for two years, she still comes across as more of a spoon-full-of-sugar person.  She tells the story of a stellar student, president of the senior class at Madison College, who, though athletic on the basketball court, couldn’t quite pass her swimming test, a requirement for graduation. While the other seniors were outdoors practicing for commencement, Pat was in the pool with this student, giving desperate last-minute swimming instructions. When the student was finally able to swim unaided, Pat rushed out and told the registrar that the student was ready to graduate. “How did you do it?” the registrar asked. “I let the water out of the pool,” Pat joked. It’s a story often told, and people still laugh at it. Jelly.

On a recent trip to the NCAA Hall of Champions in Indianapolis, I stood gazing at the permanent display titled, “History of Women in Intercollegiate Athletics.” It was only a one-wall display, beginning with Vassar College’s 1866 women’s baseball team in their long flappy skirts, tacked up amidst multi-media kiosks highlighting men’s and women’s competitive sports. The air was thick with the history and grandeur of what women have accomplished in college sports. Such a modest display for such a grand theme, yet I wasn’t surprised when the words “James Madison University” popped out at me with a great deal of prominence. My only surprise was that the display wasn’t served up with peanut butter and jelly.

We will be adding Lee and Pat to our Be the Change wall soon.  Visit there regularly to keep up with some of the people of James Madison University who are changing the world.

If you bleed purple, then you…..

The Dukes take the field; photo by Ashley Grisham ('13) for The Breeze (reprinted with permission)

If you are a Duke and you bleed purple, this photo is bound to raise your heart rate.  It does mine — and I’m not even a great football fan.  There’s just something about the photo that says J-M-U- Dooooooookes.  Can you hear the crowd roar, feel the fall air? Does it take you back?

Homecoming is next week, and this one is going to be spectacular. Not only is phase two of Bridgeforth Stadium open and ready for kickoff, this year’s Homecoming theme celebrates Madison’s Alumni and their essential role in the university’s success.

For a century, Madison’s alumni have looked back, given back and come back to JMU. Their support has helped build the campus, funded scholarships, championed programs and spread the word about JMU. The Alumni Association, for instance, was first in line to contribute to the new Forbes Center for the Performing Arts.  The association’s gift of $500,000 laid the foundation.

What more evidence? Earlier this month, when the Alumni office launched JMU LOVE, alumni responded in droves. JMU LOVE — the acronym for Leaders of Volunteer Engagement — makes it even easier for Alumni to stay connected to JMU and to remain active members of the Madison community.

“JMU LOVE is another opportunity to give back to the institution that made us who we are today,” says Stephanie Marino (’08).  “JMU encourages everyone to ‘Be the Change’ and this is our chance as alumni. We have always been able to support the university, but now we can easily connect with and support specific academic departments, student organizations, and administrative functions that made Madison such an enjoyable experience.“

“We graduate with so much pride and love for our school; staying involved is a great outlet to do something with that JMU spirit,” says Kathryn Delli-Colli (’09). “Staying connected with JMU is a constant reminder of how special the Madison experience, students and alumni are in our lives. Business majors are always hearing about the importance of networking.  Who better to network and build relationships with than fellow Dukes who has shared similar experiences with you at JMU?  I can honestly say the connections I have made through volunteering and meeting fellow JMU alumni have helped to develop me both personally and professionally,” she says.

Jon McNamara (’05) agrees: “Staying involved with JMU is rewarding because not only do I get to help the community, but it also allows me to reconnect with an institution that has given me more than I ever thought was possible.”

If numbers from the rollout of JMU LOVE are any indication, JMU’s Alumni — in their customary style — responded in a big way. According to James Irwin (’06), assistant director of Alumni Relations, “during a 48-hour window on Tuesday, Sept. 6 and Wednesday, Sept. 7, we had 2,442 page views for the JMU LOVE page. The eBlast we sent that Tuesday morning introducing the program to 23,500 people garnered 813 clicks. As of Sunday evening (four days after the launch) we had 142 event sign ups — and 51 percent of those took place during the first seven hours. We had more than 70 people sign up for a JMU LOVE event in the first seven hours the site was live.”

It’s not surprising for those who bleed purple.

So in honor of this special Alumni Centennial year, we’ve added Madison Alumni from 1911 through 2011 to our Be the Change website. Together JMU’s Alumni have helped shaped a university that grows more exceptional every day, that continually inspires and that successfully grooms students to change the world.
See the Alumni Association’s profile here:  http://www.jmu.edu/bethechange/people/JMUalumni.shtml

The sound and the music

Soon Hee Newbold and Erin Rettig

Have you ever been standing in an elevator or sitting in an office when a particular song lilts through the air. Suddenly you are transported to another time and place? For me, it’s Gershwin’s Preludes or a Rachmaninoff concerto. Then there’s any Beatle tune. I’m there — back in school with my friends Myra and Beth, dreaming.

Music is a medium that fires us up or soothes us — and leaves us changed. During the Great Depression and throughout the 1930s, it was the voice of a little girl, Shirley Temple, that lifted spirits. More recently, it was the gritty soundtrack of Saving Private Ryan coupled with raw imagery that delivered a message about WWII we should never forget.

Music can make us soar, send us back in time and inspire us. Experts have their reasons as to why, but we all know it by experience. It alters our brains. It touches our senses. Music and sound change us.

Two special JMU alums — and recent additions to our Be the Change website —  use music everyday to enhance lives. Husband and wife, Erin Rettig (’96) and Soon Hee Newbold (’96) capture the impact of sound and spread it far and wide. Soon Hee is an award-winning composer who inspires student musicians all over the world. Erin, a sound-engineer working with some of Hollywood’s heavyweights, brings exciting dimension to films. They have followed their passions and changed lives along the way. One need only read the responses from Soon Hee’s young fans on her Facebook page to understand that connection. Here she generously engages with students whose lives her music has touched.

In a similar way, Erin is having an impact. Through film — a medium that unquestionably has influenced the past few generations in an mammoth way — Erin is fine tuning the experience through engineering the sound to enhance and bolster what one sees on the screen. Imagine Madascar, X-Men or Night at the Museum (a few of Erin’s many credits) without sound. It just wouldn’t be the same.

In a world where savagery, war, hate and conflict assault us all in surround sound, the music and sound that Soon Hee and Erin produce lifts us, makes us all better, and in the end, makes us more civilized.

You can read much more about the life and careers of Soon Hee and Erin in the upcoming issue of Madison magazine. Watch for it in your mailboxes in mid-August.

You can also read Soon Hee and Erin’s profile at: http://www.jmu.edu/bethechange/people/newbold_rettig.shtml

Soup or safe sleep, whatever it takes

Patrick Wiggins used soup — a soup kitchen to me more precise. He also offered a safe place to spend the night during one of Harrisonburg’s many cold snaps last winter. All this and more Patrick did to improve the lives of the area’s homeless, a population that has grown significantly over the years. He did whatever it took.

For his efforts in organizing a week long homeless shelter that required the coordination of multiple community service agencies, local churches and more than a hundred volunteers, Patrick was awarded a $10,000 Pearson Prize for community service.

When Patrick graduated in 2011, he left his mark on JMU; he also left a lasting legacy in Harrisonburg. The 2011 biology graduate spent his years at Madison not only preparing for what he hopes will be medical school and a career as a physician, he did what many JMU students, staff and faculty do. Patrick got involved. In a big way.

That’s why we will soon be adding Patrick to our Be the Change website wall.

Read more about Patrick and see his award-winning video by going to JMU writer Eric Gorton’s story: http://www.jmu.edu/bethechange/stories/patrickWiggins.shtml

A voice of reason in the tornadic health care debate

Cover via Amazon

Marcia Angell, M.D. (’60)

Few would argue that medicine is in turmoil today. At best, it is in flux. The passage and concomitant discussion of health care reform, subsequent legal challenges and the anecdotal experiences of millions of Americans have influenced the debate that often has turned rancorous.

In the midst of this health care tornado, one sane voice has often risen above the rest. Marcia Angell, M.D., who graduated from Madison College in 1960, has lifted the discussion above partisan bickering into the realms of fact, ethics and common sense. A frequent contributor to multiple prestigious news outlets, Dr. Angell has been and continues to be a voice of reason.

For this credential alone, we might add her to our website as a member of our Be the Change group. But Dr. Angell’s entire career qualifies her abundantly, thus she is our newest face for Be the Change.

Throughout a lifetime in medicine that began when she entered Boston University School of Medicine, the doctor has challenged the status quo, both as an expert in medical ethics and as a woman.

In 1988, after almost a decade on the editorial staff of the New England Journal of Medicine, she became executive editor. In 1999, she took the helm as editor-in-chief — the first woman to hold the prestigious position. She is a champion of medical ethics and has advocated change on numerous fronts, including challenging pharmaceutical companies as well as governmental agencies. This, in part, led Time magazine to name her one of the nation’s most influential people in 1997.

Of Angell, Time wrote:

It pays to listen to Dr. Marcia Angell. In 1992, as the Food and Drug Administration began banning silicone breast implants, Angell, the executive editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, argued that it wouldn’t have hurt to withhold judgment a little longer, certainly until comprehensive studies on their danger were completed. Besides, the implants had been on the market more than 30 years and had been placed in more than 1 million women.

The FDA did not wait. It enacted its ban, and as a result, thousands of women panicked, leading to a haggle of personal-injury lawsuits. By 1994, however, a series of scientific studies began showing no long-term side effects. Based on those studies, a ruling by a federal judge last year said that plaintiffs’ attorneys in a class action could not introduce evidence or testimony that said implants cause disease. Angell’s 1996 book about the implant controversy, Science on Trial, became an instant classic on junk science.

Angell is a board-certified pathologist who trained in both internal medicine and anatomic pathology. According to her bio:

Dr. Angell writes frequently in professional journals and the popular media on a wide range of topics, particularly medical ethics, health policy, the nature of medical evidence, the interface of medicine and the law, care at the end of life, and the relations between industry and academic medicine….. Her most recent book is The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It, published in August, 2004, by Random House. In addition, Dr. Angell is co-author, with Dr. Stanley Robbins and, later, Dr. Vinay Kumar, of the first three editions of the textbook, Basic Pathology. She also has written chapters in several books dealing with ethical issues.*

Today, Dr. Angell is a senior lecturer in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and in that capacity delivers her brand of ethical and thoughtful medicine to a new generation of physicians and health care providers.

You can read Dr. Angell’s profile on our Be the Change website. Here’s the link: http://www.jmu.edu/bethechange/people/angellMarcia.shtml

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,986206-15,00.html#ixzz1ICOn1r63

*http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcia-angell-md*

Where health care is more than a debate

Carrie Owen Plietz (’97) knows something that many executives never learn. She knows how to  implement change successfully — and happily.

Carrie Owen Plietz (’97) ©Paul Kitagaki Jr.

As the chief operating officer at Mills-Peninsula Health Services, a Sutter Health system affiliate, in Burlingame, Calif., Carrie has overseen the implementation of her company’s first acute care electronic health record system. She has instituted a successful patient affordability program that lowered cost, and she is leading the construction of a new $618 million hospital facility.  She did all of this while improving patient satisfaction.

According to an article by Bob Finkel in ModernHealth.com, “Patient satisfaction has bloomed even before the new facility opens, rising 40 percent …. Plietz attributes that partly to weekly ‘voice of the patient’ meetings in which departments compare notes on patient feedback to keep tabs and keep everyone on the same page. ‘It’s the one meeting that nobody misses, nobody cancels,’ she says. ‘It’s Monday, and if there’s a holiday, we move it to Tuesday…..She believes the rise in satisfaction came about because of ‘a renewed focus of the team that it’s not just a score — that it’s truly why we’re here, connecting back to the purpose of why people got into healthcare in the first place.’”

As a result of her success in a career where change is the watchword, Carrie was awarded the Robert S. Hudgens Memorial Award, which named her the top 2010 Young Healthcare Executive of the Year. The 1997 JMU health sciences graduate earned the distinction through her skill in creating change that was accepted and lauded. The award was given by the American College of Healthcare Executives, an organization she first joined as a student at JMU.

And we’ve added her to our list of JMU people who are changing the world.

“JMU was where I first learned about and joined ACHE,” she told Madison magazine earlier this year. “The professors spoke and taught real life scenarios, which is extremely important in healthcare due to its rapid change.”

Carrie was listening and continues to listen. “I needed to do something that was more than sitting in an office and helping a corporation grown profits,” she says.  “We’re given a gift as hospital administrators to be involved in such an intimate time in people’s lives….It’s not an easy job, but you’re truly making a difference in the lives of people you touch every day.”

You can see Carrie’s Be the Change profile here: http://www.jmu.edu/bethechange/people/plietz.shtml

And you can read the full text of the article in ModernHealth.com here: http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20100322/MAGAZINE/303229900