June 2006

Free-trade sweatshops

Getting shortchanged half your wages can hurt. Especially if you make less than $30 for an 80-hour work week in a job you cannot quit.
But such are some of the findings in "U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement Descends into Human Trafficking & Involuntary Servitude," a report that recently appeared in the mail of Ricki Huff, assistant dean, College of Arts and Sciences. Huff, who for eight years advised UD's Model U.N. club, received the publication from a former club officer, Amanda Teckman '04, who worked on the report for the National Labor Committee.
Huff isn't the only one who has noticed the report's revelations of conditions in garment factories in Jordan. Both the Jordanian and the U.S. governments have taken an interest.
In the wake of the May report, some progress has been made, as indicated in a June update, "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly," on the National Labor Committee's Web site. But evidence continues of confiscated passports, withheld wages and beatings.

by Thomas M. Columbus 06-29-06

Rubber eggs and burly rivers

How do you take your eggs? Scrambled, poached … rubberized?
"Rubber eggs" is just one activity that 111 third- through eighth-graders completed during the Summer Laureate for Promising Young Scholars this week.
Lelia Boyd, director of the Summer Laureate, has coordinated the independent program for the past 18 years.
"The program has always been held at UD, in Kennedy Union. It's the best place to have it, because it's big enough to have all the children under one roof," Boyd said.
Children selected their favorite workshops, such as "Cre-egg-tivity," which included the rubber egg experiment. Students soaked raw eggs in vinegar and watched the shell progressively dissolve, giving the egg a rubbery texture.
Another workshop was "Geology Rocks," in which students learned about earthquakes, volcanoes and shifting plates. Students sat upright, blurting out questions as the teacher spouted science. As they learned that a river and its water are powerful enough to shape cities the size of Dayton, one small boy piped up, eyes wide, "Is that possible?"

by Caroline R. Miller '07 6-29-06

How now, Brown Street?

The University of Dayton and Miller-Valentine Group have begun work on University Place, a two-story development that will include a 30,000-square-foot retail center and 30,000 square feet of graduate student housing. Located on the corner of Brown and Stewart streets adjacent to UD's main entrance, University Place will bring together living, dining and shopping. (Click photos to enlarge.)
University Place will accommodate 50 law or graduate students in apartments for one or two occupants and offer wireless Internet access, over-the-range microwaves, air conditioning, standard appliances and private parking. Miller-Valentine Group will develop, build and manage the property, and own it in partnership with the University of Dayton.
And Arby's? It will be one of the first tenants in University Place.

by Deborah McCarty Smith 06-27-06

X-ray vision

Viewing the construction site for the doctor of physical therapy program was a bit like having X-ray vision. The rooms on the second floor of College Park Center at 1529 Brown St. are currently separated only by metal rods that stretch from ceiling to ground, giving the whole floor a skeletal effect.
The Ohio Board of Regents approved UD's newest doctoral program May 18. Its first students will start classes just three months later, on Aug. 21. Workers are hustling "to take the big, wide-open space that used to belong to NCR and fit it to the needs of the program," according to Cathy Ford of facilities planning and construction management.
Major electrical and mechanical work has already been accomplished. When the first physical therapy students arrive, they will find a fully renovated floor with classrooms, labs, faculty offices, tutorial rooms, locker rooms, a conference room, a reception area, a break room and a resource room.
Future students can look forward to wireless Internet access, an anatomy lab and a fitness assessment area. With a transparent view of the sprawling physical therapy lab, it's easy to imagine it packed with walking aids and bars, patients, instructors and the future physical therapists that Dayton hospitals so desperately need.

by Caroline R. Miller '07 6-26-06

'I've got good news and bad news ... '

It was one of those situations for the Rochester alumni chapter last week.
The good news: A truck delivered tons of mulch for the playground at Corpus Christi School.
The bad news: It dumped the mulch on the wrong side of the chain link fence.
So, a dozen UD alumni and some members of the school's staff got to work. They spent the next two hours hauling the mulch in wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow around the fence to the playground, where they spread it out so the school's elementary students can have softer landings at recess.
"I used a lot of muscle groups I don't usually touch," said Bob Carlson '79, chapter president. "It was painful but enjoyable. We worked hard, and we also laughed a lot. It was a typical UD event."

by Matthew Dewald 6-22-06

Spiritual splash of color

Greg Padesky is painting his "Texture of Prayer" series in an ArtStreet studio this month.
Padesky, a campus ministry graduate assistant for the student neighborhood, first painted each panel in miniature, approximately 8 inches square, as a guide for the larger paintings, which are 4 feet square.
He is painting the 18 masonry board panels in pairs in the colors of the spectrum and coating them with epoxy gloss to promote durability. He will then mount each pair on one of the nine floors of Campus South at the elevator stops, giving students a spiritual splash of color as they head to class. (See more photos.)

by Larry Burgess 6-22-06

Reunion Weekend

We need a bigger chapel.
That was the second most common remark heard during Reunion Weekend 2006 as families squeezed in and out of the Immaculate Conception Chapel. They sat, stood three deep, filed up the staircase and packed the balcony Saturday during the Mass and wedding vow renewal ceremony celebrated by Father James L. Heft, S.M. Wives clutched red roses as nearly 300 couples professed their love and re-commitment to one another, including Fred '56 and Helen Sills (pictured).
More than 2,100 alumni and guests made this year's Reunion Weekend the largest ever, and the most successful; alumni in the 10 reunion years pledged $1,572,423 in gifts to UD. (See more photos.)
And the weekend's most common remark? It was overheard under the big tent during the Saturday night Porch Party, at the Golden Flyer induction ceremony, during RecPlex tours and throughout the campus as alumni shared stories new and old: It's great to be back at UD.

by Michelle Tedford 06-14-06

Plan for the worst

Flood, fire, bird flu and cyberterrorism are no problem for Barbara Frederiksen, who put her disaster preparation plan through the ultimate test -- the washing machine.
She can attest that a flash drive containing all the encrypted information needed to reconstitute her law office came through swimmingly.
Frederiksen, senior managing consultant with Johnson-Laird in Portland, Ore., gave the keynote talk "Hurricanes and Bird Flu: How Can You Run a Business Without Employees Coming to Work?" last Friday during the UD School of Law's 16th annual seminar of significant developments in computer and cyberspace law.
Among her disaster preparation suggestions:
-update your contingency plan and distribute it to your employees
-fill a red emergency box with plans, instructions, maps, insurance documents, flashlight and walkie talkies
-give satellite pagers to key people
-create a disaster e-mail account with a Web-based company like Hotmail, share the login and password with all employees, and use it as a central communications bulletin board during emergencies.

by Michelle Tedford 6-13-06

Power-washed pyramid

A bright, sunny Wednesday became the perfect time for eight student workers to scrub approximately 128 Marianist Hall dorm room trash cans. They organized an efficient system of handling such a large number of items to be washed by giving everyone a job: adding liquid soap to the cans, blasting away the dirt with the sprayer, rinsing or stacking to let them dry in the sun. The most efficient and visually pleasing way in which to dry them, they decided, was to form a pyramid. (See the photos.)
When school starts in the fall and students return to their dorm rooms, they'll most likely never know that their trash cans were once part of a public sculpture this day.

by Larry Burgess 6-8-06

Artistic alumni

At first glance, it looked like a fisherman's net hung from the wall and cascaded onto the floor of ArtStreet Studio D Gallery. The light-colored weaving holding glass balls and colored stones was, in fact, "Sentimentality" by Larissa Raddell '03, one of 21 alumni artists with works on display through the end of Reunion Weekend, June 9-11.
The first UD Alumni Art Exhibit features paintings, photographs, sculptures, pottery and textiles from artists representing the classes of 1950 to 2003. Featured work, on display since May 15, includes the painting "where happiness lives" by Jillian Warne Corron '02, which draws in the viewer with its contrasting green and red streaks. A closer look shows that this painting actually uses both real leaves and paint in the artwork.
Other alumni displaying their work include Ashley Cecil '03 ("UD Chapel" shown at left), David Chesar '97, Tom Connair '50, Danielle Dumont '96, Joel Michael '96, Mike Harper '92, Meg Tye Kenney '88, Janet Olney Lasley '89, Aloys B. Lochtefeld '63, Gerald J. Lochtefeld '64, Ellen Loeffler-Kalinoski '81, Julie Van Leeuwen Lonneman '76, William Ian Lorson '97, Alison Macke Siefker '03, Robert Stanley '64, Walter Strubczewski '54, Cat Scott '03, Kate Weigand Wagner '96 and Christopher T. Wood '01. Look for 2007 exhibit submission information in late winter on the alumni Web site.

by Caroline R. Miller '07 6-06-06