News & Views

Spirited Alumni Association President

Well before he took office in June as the new president of the Alumni Association, Gary Kullberg ’63 was hard at work.

Whether working with alumni relations and advancement staff on a new logo and theme for the association’s 85th anniversary or developing strategies to energize alumni volunteers, the North Kingstown resident was more than ready to head the University’s 95,000 alumni. He succeeds Peter J. Miniati III ’85 and will serve a two-year term.

Kullberg’s passion for the University and its alumni is well known to members of the Alumni Association Executive Board and faculty and staff of the College of Business Administration. He served for 10 years on the college’s advisory board, the last six as vice chair, and was vice president of the Alumni Association for two years. He also serves on its finance and government relations committees.

A major supporter of the College of Business Administration, from which he graduated with a major in accounting, he was among the grassroots supporters of an effort that resulted in the $11 million transformation of the college’s home, Ballentine Hall. He joined other key supporters to raise $5.9 million in private donations for the project, which was completed in 2003.

The advertising and marketing executive brings with him years of experience gained from working with business giants such as General Foods, Ford Motor Co., and Owens Corning.

“My rallying cry with the Alumni Executive Board is ‘at least 104,’ which means I want members to contribute two hours a week for 52 weeks to accomplish our mission, and as all of the association’s committees buy into this notion, we’ll really begin to see things happen,” Kullberg said.

The CEO of the 13-year-old Kullberg Consulting Group engaged one of its services, Marketing Milestone, to help develop a strategy to celebrate the Alumni Association’s founding in 1922. He has been working with several people, including KCG member Ken Owens, who played a key role in providing strategies for the College of Nursing’s 60th Anniversary. Kullberg and his consultants are volunteering their time.

In conjunction with the Division of University Advancement, the group has come up with an anniversary theme and logo that will be on all association materials for years to come—“Together, Making a Difference,” which plays off the Making a Difference $100 million capital campaign for the University.

“This ties in benefits for the Alumni Association and the capital campaign,” Kullberg said.

A member of the Career Advisory Committee of the West Point Society of New York and recent chairman of the Salvation Army’s Manhattan Advisory Board, Kullberg has two major goals as alumni president: “I want to increase involvement of existing and future alumni, especially dues paying members. I also want to educate them about the 65 programs and initiatives that we offer. I want to champion intelligent passion.”

By Dave Lavallee ’79, M.P.A. ‘87

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Calc-Bowl Adds Up For Students

The Department of Mathematics’ first Calc-Bowl brought 14 teams of talented high school and college students to campus this spring to compete against each other in pre-calculus and calculus. Calc-Bowl, a lively competition among teams of five players in the format of a game show, was organized by math professors James Baglama, Lubos Thoma, and Li Wu. The event was designed to recognize and reward talented students and possibly recruit some of them to the University.

The team Zorn’s Lemon, above right, took first place in the competition. Its members, Elizabeth Kemp, LaSalle Academy ‘07; Mike Axiak, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ’09; Daniel Valmas, Shea High School ’07; and Kian Shenfield, Rhode Island College ’09; took home $100 gift certificates to URI’s bookstore.

Perhaps participating URI ocean engineering student Joe Hanna said it best when he sent an email thanking the organizers: “I was glad to see teachers laughing and having a good time with students. I hope you continue Calc-Bowl in the future. Who knew math could be fun?”

A Decade of Scholar Recognition

Happy 10th anniversary to the Black Scholar Awards program. The annual spring awards were created to honor students of color for their outstanding contributions in leadership, community involvement, academic achievement, and athletic achievement.

“It’s not easy for students of color to attend a predominantly white school,” explains Donald Cunnigen, associate professor of sociology, and one of the founders of the program. “The awards provide a way for black faculty members to recognize the hard work and accomplishments of graduating seniors.”

A tip of the hat to this year’s award recipients: Front from left, Frantz Medina, recipient of the Coachman Award; Jolene Octavius, a Hamilton Scholar; Lucelene Almeida, recipient of the Brady Award; Jenell Yates, recipient of the Gould Award; Ruth Laurent, a Hamilton Scholar; and Amber Wells, recipient of the Benson Award. Back from left, Emily Bibb, recipient of the Edmonds Award, Sharon Isom, recipient of the Hardge Award; Darrell Harris, recipient of the Jackie Robinson Award; Chris Washington, recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Award and the Estes Benson Award; Laejon Brooks, recipient of the Robinson Award; and James Smart, recipient of the Estes Benson Award. Missing from the photo are Kristie Correia, recipient of the Sojourner Truth Award; and Iziarh Roberts, recipient of the Harvey Robert Turner Award.

Wind at Their Backs

URI students Robbie Kane and Jesse Fielding will board a 52-foot yacht in Los Angeles this month and spend the next 8 to 10 days racing to Honolulu.

The two were among 15 students selected by Roy Disney from 500 applicants nationwide to become members of the youngest crew in the TransPac Yacht Race.

Disney, an avid yacht racer, is the nephew of the legendary Walt Disney and a longtime executive for Walt Disney Co. He is producing a feature length film of the selection process, training, and race that will be released nationwide next year.

Kane and Fielding took the spring semester off to train for the race. “This is one of the oldest running long distance ocean races in the world on the Porsche of race boats,” enthused Fielding, a 20-year-old sophomore from North Kingstown. “Our boat can exceed 25 knots while sailing with the trade winds and planing down the Pacific Ocean swells.”

Both students plan to return to the University to complete their education.

“All this sailing is really cool and an unbelievable opportunity, but it’s a short-term guarantee,” says Kane, a 21-year-old junior in landscape architecture.

Additional details about the race and Morning Light Productions can be found at pacifichighproductions.com.

Listening With Furry Ears

German Professor Doris Kirshner’s Great Dane, Sharif, is a 136-pound reading coach. “Reading researchers have found that children who are normally hesitant to read actually enjoy reading to a dog,” explains Kirchner. “While therapy dogs have long been used in hospitals, senior centers, and as service animals, the idea for using them for reading is relatively new.”

While Sharif has not been trained as a therapy dog, he has been evaluated by a professional training representative from Therapy Dogs International for his weekly stints at Barbara Montecalvo’s class at Fishing Cove School in North Kingstown. The gentle giant has nerves of steel. He doesn’t blink an eyelid when metal doors get slammed or twitch when third graders flip his ears back and forth.

Students read to Sharif one at a time and seem to enjoy it. A student who starts off hesitantly will, by the third chapter, read with more confidence. A student generally has to be told to stop because others are waiting.

“I love teaching and reading and I love animals,” Kirshner says. “This just makes sense.”

Televised Camp Cooking

Young campers at our W. Alton Jones Campus were featured on TV’s Food Network show, The Secret Life of ... this spring. Theater alumnus Jim O’Connor ’87, host of the show, and a camera crew spent a day with six campers and two counselors at Woodvale Farm Day Camp at the Jones Campus in West Greenwich in June 2006.

The children harvested strawberries and rhubarb and made cornbread, zucchini bread, and strawberry rhubarb crisp. The kids also interacted with the goats, fed and watered the sheep, visited the cows, and collected eggs from the chicken coop.

“The Food Network was attracted to our camp because we have young children harvest produce from our farm to prepare food,” says John Jacques, manager of the campus’s Environmental Education Center. “We make a direct connection between where the food originates and the final cooked product. Usually the campers cook one or two items like corn or zucchini bread during the week. They also make hand-cranked ice cream; while not technically cooking, it’s a camp favorite.”

The camp’s setting is an original 18th century farm surrounded by rocky pastures with a country barn and lush gardens. It’s home to sheep, ducks, chicken, pigs, rabbits, cows, and goats. For more information, click on uri.edu/ajc/eec/camp/summer/daycamp.html.

A Great Deal in the Big Apple, A Bigger Deal in Beantown

More than 100 URI alumni and friends joined two of today’s most dynamic business leaders in New York City to celebrate spring and the University.

In a URI version of television’s Deal or No Deal, two prominent alums, Tom Ryan ’75, Hon. ’99, president and CEO of CVS/Caremark, and Mike Fascitelli ‘78, president of Vornado Realty Trust, discussed the success and failure of their current mergers and acquisitions. Bob Beagle, vice president of University Advancement, moderated the lively discussion.

The alumni networking event, in support of the University’s Making a Difference campaign, provided time and space for our impressive alumni to interact and make professional connections.

The campaign seeks $100 million to recruit and retain outstanding faculty, enhance the student-centered campus experience, provide undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships, and fund cutting-edge academic and research initiatives.

Guests got a sneak preview of the Making a Difference campaign video and including a chance to greet members of the Campaign Leadership Committee, who had met in the hotel earlier in the day.

“What a great way to make us feel proud of URI,” exclaimed Doug Cote ’82, managing partner of Schooner Investment Management, LLC, shortly after the event.

“It was superb from top to bottom,” commented Alumni Association President Gary Kullberg ’63.

“The speakers played off each other so well,” said Gail Apkarian ’78, president of Market View Research. “The way the discussion was presented made it easy for me to imagine what it would be like to assess the risks that are associated with mergers and acquisitions.”

The event was so successful that the University is planning a Deal or No Deal, Part II and adding another dynamic panelist—Dick Harrington ‘73, who has capped his 10-year restructuring of Thomson Corp. with the $17.2 billion acquisition of Reuters. The event will be held on September 10, 2007, at the picturesque Seaport Hotel in Boston.

For more information, contact Myrna Bizer, director of donor relations, 401-874-2145 or mbizer@advance.uri.edu.