October 2007

Endure the dirt

When he’s not finishing massive amounts of homework or camping out in Kettering Labs, junior mechanical engineering major Nick Fahringer is speeding off to his passion, endurance dirt bike racing. Fahringer, a national champion competitor, tears through more than 70 miles in a single race. Forget race tracks; Fahringer speeds over mountains and deserts and naviagtes through the forest to the finish.

He has even competed in the rugged, Red Bull-sponsored competition Last Man Standing, where just finishing is admirable. The race starts with riders speeding over clay, sand and soils, through water and over steep mountains for more than 40 miles. Next challenge? Round two. The entire course repeated, in reverse, at night.

He says endurance racing isn’t just about speed. It’s about skill, mental ability and most of all a passion to ride ... and keep riding. He'll compete in the last race of the season Nov. 4 in Maplesville, Ala.

by Anna Gebrosky ’09 10-31-07

Chills in Boll

There stood Macbeth, crazed eyes, frowning and wordless, as fog seeped through the cracks of the dimly lit set at Boll Theatre. The opening tension of the UD theater program’s Macbeth gave me chills.

I’d had a preview of director Tony Dallas’ version of Shakespeare’s play the day before. I’ll admit that I wasn’t impressed. A cracked concrete wall and six chairs composed the set. The lightning was dull. The phrase “falling apart” kept creeping into my head.

Had I known anything about Macbeth and its guilt-ridden main character played by Tristan Sample, I’d have realized that my first impression was correct and intentional. The set simplicity focused my concentration on Macbeth’s raging emotions. The cold-tinted lighting, the foggy special effects and wrecked backdrop emphasized the evil of murder and guilt.

UD’s Macbeth met the goals of tragedy: I left with an overwhelming sense of pessimism from Macbeth’s self-destruction, yet I was taken aback by the beautiful way Dallas combined the elements to create a dark yet magical night at the theater.

by Rachael Bade ’10 10-31-07

My Old House: 405 College Park

Carolyn Fain ’91 wrote to us looking for 1205 Alberta St. We found five men and their potato-growing experiment in her old house with a new address.

by Jennie Szink ’09 10-26-07

Knitting quickly

With knitting or crochet needles in hand, balls of yarns in their laps and scarves stretching to the ground, faculty members get together every Wednesday at noon to craft scarves for a cause.

Crafters for a Cause is knitting and crocheting scarves to donate to the residents of Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. In the spring, members of Alpha Phi Omega, a service fraternity, will travel there on a breakout trip and distribute the scarves.

Melissa Flanagan, assistant director of student involvement and leadership, started the group when her home started to overflow with scarves. Having knitted for over 15 years, she can crochet a scarf in three hours. She already has 40 scarves and is working toward a Nov. 6 deadline, when she hopes to have 100 for an initial donation to the people of the Standing Rock Reservation, who will visit campus for Native American Awareness Week.

“I had been searching for a place to donate scarves and thought this would be a great collaboration,” she said. “It’s also a way to bring faculty, staff and students together.”

If you can’t join the group at noon Wednesdays in Kennedy Union, they are also taking donations of scarves and washable yarn.

by Rania Shakkour ’09 10-26-07

Fine work

Fresh paint, new fixtures and stylish furniture filled 10 homes in the Historic South Park Rehabarama, where students volunteered last weekend with the campus ministry Into the Streets service program.

Alongside neighborhood volunteers, students served as room hosts. In the John Ditzel House at 313 Johnson St., carefully restored trim work, crafted by German woodworkers, revealed uncommon clover leaf patterns. Over on Bonner Street, another show house had a more contemporary feel with a loft-style addition in the master suite.

Students joined the visitors in "oohing" and "ahhing" during the public's first look at these homes. It also gave students a first taste of why people are excited about this urban community next door to UD.

by Johnnie Kling ’09 10-23-07

$5,000 taste of hope

Last October, doctors diagnosed Jamie Baker, a chemical engineering major, with myelogenous leukemia. She spent nearly four months in and out of the hospital receiving chemotherapy and multiple transfusions of blood and platelets. In March, Baker began compiling a cookbook that chronicles her fight with cancer and shares more than 200 of her friends’ and family’s recipes, inspirational quotes and Bible verses. The Taste of Hope cookbook has raised more than $5,000, which Baker is donating to the American Cancer Society.

 “Writing the book was a way for me to say thank you to all the people who supported me,” she said. “It was also a way for me to help support cancer research.”

Doctors tell Baker that her cancer is in remission, but there is about a 50 percent chance that the cancer could return. If the cancer does not return by November 2009, she said her doctors will declare her cured. “I believe that God never gives you more than you can handle. I live for each day and today I feel awesome,” she said.

Baker has a landed a job with GE Aviation in Cincinnati, where she will be working as a chemical engineer following her graduation in May. Cookbooks are available for a donation of $17.50 at www.thetasteofhope.com.

By Deborah McCarty Smith 10-18-07

My Old House: 63 Chambers

"The Barn" has slanted ceilings, secret rooms and a staircase that connects four friends on each half of this Dark Side duplex.

by Rania Shakkour ’09 10-12-07

Soul speaking

Torsos line the walls of the main floor gallery of Roesch Library for the Body Image Exhibition. Artist Larry Kirkwood talked about his soul-speaking sculpture Oct. 4 as part of Love Your Body Month, sponsored by the Women’s Center and other campus groups.

“Beauty isn’t a contest. We don’t look at these and say which one’s more beautiful. They are all beautiful, and we are all beautiful,” Kirkwood said. He chooses to not use text to explain each individual’s cast because he believes it takes away from the beauty of the human form.

A variety of people — accountants, Spanish instructors, pilots and even a Chippendales dancer — have come to Kirkwood to have casts made. Women in pregnancy and after a mastectomy have also been cast to display their shapes. “What you see is not what I see at all, because I see the person I was working on,” Kirkwood said.

Casts are usually taken of the torso because Kirkwood believes this is the body area the media and advertising most abuse, diminishing positive self-images. “Underneath all this body image stuff is this boiling cauldron of sexuality,” he said.

Kirkwood has had his exhibit censored by several schools, including a medical school. He said he doesn’t understand how people ignore the importance of seeing the human form. “You have to take ownership in what you see in that form. If all you see is sexuality, you have the problem.”

The exhibit runs until Nov. 16. Other Love Your Body Month events can be found at the Women’s Center calendar

by Johnnie Kling ’09 10-12-07

Firefighter

Small fires can grow in seconds. Spectators who respond quickly can save lives and possessions.

Yesterday, I learned how to use a fire extinguisher as part of fire safety week. In past years, students fought live fires in Kennedy Union Plaza set by the department of environmental health and safety and Silco Fire Protection Co. I fought Silco’s simulated fire training system. The virtual fire appears on a large screen surrounded by sensors that detect the trainee fire extinguisher’s movements.

Putting out a fire is much harder than it looks. You must squeeze the handle and continuously move the spout from side to side in a fast, sweeping motion toward the base of the fire. The motion completely extinguishes the fire and keeps it from spreading.

Jim Ratcliff of Silco had these fire safety words of advice: “It is most important to know where the fire extinguishers are, to have a clear area in front of it and to notify authorities if one is used.”

For big fires, leave the fire fighting to the professionals.

by Liz Sidor ’08 10-10-07

The bakers' daughters

With 16 growing grandchildren among the seven Walsh siblings, coordinating vacations for the entire family every other summer became too difficult to arrange. "But we wanted to continue meeting as sisters," said Kathleen Walsh Garnica '86, and so the annual Walsh Women Weekend was born.

She and Karen Walsh Mullet '78, twins Suzanne Walsh Fullam '84 and Marianne Walsh Greene '84, Christine Walsh Makowski '92 and their mother, Anna, have gathered in Washington, D.C., and New York City. But this year, they wanted to see the Dayton campus again. Over lunch at ArtStreet Sept. 28, they shared their observations:

"The RecPlex is so much nicer than the PAC; it makes you want to work out."
"Now there's an entrance to campus where Frisch's used to be."
"The Pine Club still has a line, and Milano's has seating. We didn't eat our subs in the street."
"Tim's hasn't painted the front door in all these years."

Anna and Morris Walsh, who owned a family bakery business in Pittsburgh, sent all seven of their children to Catholic universities — six of them to UD.

A high school guidance counselor recommended Dayton to the Walshes' second son, Tom '79. "We didn't know it was Catholic," Anna said.

As Kathleen tells it, "Tom was so worked up about the campus visit, he spent his time in the health center being sick and missed the tour for prospective students." The Walsh parents, however, took the tour and quickly decided they liked what they saw — so much that Tom's five younger sisters eventually followed him to Dayton. (Click photo to enlarge. From left, Kathleen Garnica, Marianne Greene, Anna Walsh, Suzanne Fullam, Patty Walsh, Karen Mullet and Christine Makowski in Marianist Hall.)

Joining the Walsh Women Weekend this year was niece Patty Walsh, Class of 2010, the oldest child of the only Walsh sibling who did not attend UD.

by Deborah McCarty Smith 10-10-07

My Old House: 1907 Trinity

The behemoth furnance was one of the things Katie Lawrence ’05 remembered fondly about her old house. 1907 Trinity's current occupants also have a fondness for the basement, which has a bathroom less scary than the one upstairs.

by Jennie Szink ’09 10-4-07

Long live the burrito king

One year, 8 extra pounds and 1,305 burritos later, senior Joe Melendrez’s reign as the Chipotle King has ended. But his influence on the UD community and beyond is just beginning.

“The Last Supper” marked the end of three free Chipotle burritos a day for one year. Melendrez won them last fall with his original rap answering the Chipotle contest question, “How did you spend your summer vacation?” (Pictured left, Melendrez raps during the Last Supper; click to read and hear his winning lyrics.) After the contest, Melendrez’s calendar grew very full.

Students approached Melendrez about his offer to take anyone out to lunch. They expected a filling meal, not a discussion outline. As junior Jim Cosgrove explained, Melendrez used the burrito as a lure to get people to sit down and reflect on four things: Marianists, faith journey, relationships, and their future dreams and aspirations.

Melendrez also reached out to Marianists, high schoolers, UD faculty and family. During Lent he hosted a Chipotle party for 50 of Dayton's homeless. Melendrez considers it his duty to be one of God’s “facilitators.”

Now that Melendrez’s hands are free of burritos, he’ll focus on his own future dreams and aspirations. After graduation he’s touring Marianist high schools to perform his self-produced CD Rosary Rap, which includes all four mysteries of the Rosary.

by Jennie Szink ’09 10-4-07

Where they call home

SI.com, the Web site of Sports Illustrated, takes a peek this week inside the apartment of men's basketball players Brian Roberts and Andres Sandoval for the newest installment of its series "Campus Cribs." The national sports outlet got a look inside their fridge, at B-Rob's extensive ballcap collection and over Dre's shoulder at what he sees when he looks in the mirror.

It's almost like they'd checked out UDQuickly's own My Old House.

Update: Flyer News photography editor Doug Smith sent an e-mail with a key detail missing from our note: The SI.com slide show was put together by none other than himself and sports editor Will Hanlon. You can read Will's behind-the-scenes story in the Sept. 28 issue of Flyer News here.

by Matthew Dewald 10-3-07

Service with a smile

With a grinning face and glue-sticky fingers, a blond-haired girl decorated apple dolls with me at the Aullwood Audubon Apple Festival last weekend.

The fall festival, at the farm in Butler Township, featured craft vendors, tractor rides and apple-based foods aplenty. To create a child-friendly environment, the festival included a cluster of tents dedicated to children's activities, run entirely by volunteers.

Into the Streets, a nationwide service event coordinated at UD by campus ministry, sent me and other UD students to the festival to help kids cut yarn for hair, add stickers for faces, and glue cupcake wrappers or corn husks for clothing on apple-based puppets. The kids also colored paper hats and wind blowers.

Bev Holland, the festival children's activities coordinator, expressed her gratitude for the UD volunteers, who are lending their time to dozens of organizations during the next three weeks. "I honestly couldn’t do it without them," she said.

Before her thank-you, I'd forgotten that we were doing service. Seeing the kids smile proudly at their crafts kept me smiling, too. The grinning girl, with her apple doll in hand, exclaimed that the crafts were the best part of the festival. I was lucky to be part of that.

by Rachael Bade ’10 10-3-07

Unintentional happiness

“How many people here could have gone to college without a loan — or could buy a car or a house without one?” David Bornstein asked the audience of first-year students in the Frericks Center Friday, Sept. 28.

This put the importance of loans into perspective for the students required to read his book The Price of a Dream as part of UD’s summer reading program.

Bornstein has studied microcredit, the extension of small loans to the impoverished, for more than 20 years. The Price of a Dream details the story of one of the most successful microcredit endeavors to date, the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.

Bornstein also spoke about the emerging occupation of social entrepreneur. He cited Mohammed Yunus, founder and manager of the Grameen Bank and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, as the classic entrepreneur who uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create and manage a venture to make social change.

“The only way people discover happiness for themselves is unintentional,” he said. “It’s an unintentional byproduct of helping people.”

by Anna Sexton ’07 10-01-07