Deb Aronson's RSS feed. http://www.debaronson.com/ Janice Harrington’s recent success as a poet, author and college professor is deeply rooted in her more than two decades as children’s librarian and storyteller, where her work fostered a powerful ear for vivid rhythm and imagery. You could say Harrington’s latest incarnation as a professor in the University’s creative writing program started more than a decade ago when she invited Michael Madonick to give a poetry-writing workshop at the Champaign Public Library. When Madonick asked the children to write a poem about something important to them he urged Harrington, head of the children’s department, to participate as well. “Then he did a very bad thing,” joked Harrington. “He looked at my poem and said it was good.” Harrington went home, started writing and didn’t stop. “I had a full-time job but luckily I also had insomnia,” she says. “I could sit for four hours moving words around. It felt like playing. I love how you move one word and it’s exactly RIGHT.” The resulting poetry collection, “Even the Hollow My Body Made is Gone (2007),” won the A. Poulin, Jr., Poetry contest, designated for a first book of poetry. Most recently, Harrington was one of six writers to win the 2009 Rona Jaffe award, one of the only literary honors in the country devoted exclusively to women. Each recipient receives $25,000. Harrington will use that award to complete Nightshift, a collection of poems about her experiences working in nursing homes, during both high school and college. “I need to do something with all those lives, and people and faces that have stayed with me all those years,” she says. Harrington, who grew up in rural Alabama and Nebraska, weaves her life experiences into not just her poetry but also her picture books. Her first such project, “Going North” was based on her own family’s journey and started, not surprisingly, as a poem. She showed it to her friend and colleague, Janice Del Negro,a children’s author and former director of the Center for Children’s Books at Illinois, who liked it so much she asked permission to show it to her editor. That book subsequently won, among other awards, the 2004 Ezra Jack Keats Award from the New York Public Library. Since then Harrington has published “The Chicken-Chasing Queen of Lamar County” and “Roberto Walks Home.” Her next children’s book is based on an African folktale about a procrastinating chicken. Though Harrington was hired a mere two years ago, she is, by many accounts, an inspired and inspiring teacher. “[Harrington] is so passionate and knows so much about her subject,” says Jeremiah Childers, a creative writing major who settled on poetry after taking a class with her. “She has a compassion and genuine interest in people in that community of poets. And as an aspiring poet you are immediately thrust into that community.” “I’m not in the class by myself; I’ve got my crew with me,” she demurs, meaning fellow poets Williams Butler Yeats, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks, to name a few. Harrington includes her students in that crew, as well. The students “are fascinating to me,” she says. “I admire their enthusiasm, their bravery and daring. We face the same difficulties getting what we want to say on the page. I feel as if I’m among peers.” Meanwhile Madonick and other faculty members in the creative writing program who had been wooing Harrington for years, are ecstatic that she has joined them. “For us, the biggest problem was that [Harrington] is ridiculously humble and self-effacing about her abilities as a writer,” he says. “We had to convince her that she not only belonged but would probably outshine most of us.” http://www.debaronson.com/profiles/a_community_of_poets/ 2010-01-20 If Michael B. Johnson ‘88 ENG were a Pixar movie character he would be Sully, the large, furry, green-with-blue-spots star of Monsters, Inc. Like Sully (voiced by actor John Goodman), Johnson’s voice is deep and resonant; he is a hail-fellow-well-met; modest in an “aw-shucks-just-doing-my-job” way; and he is all about giving credit to others. For 16 years, the Chicago native has worked at Pixar Animation Studios, an entity synonymous with exquisitely rendered computer animation combined with heart-warming characters and imaginative stories. Since its first movie, Toy Story, hit the screen in 1995, Pixar has subsequently released A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters,Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Wall-E, and Up. The first six Pixar movies alone have generated $3.2 billion worldwide and won numerous Academy Awards. At Pixar computer software is critical, not just in making movies but also in managing the workflow. This is where Johnson comes in. As head of the studio’s acclaimed Moving Pictures Group, he writes computer software (or code) that helps make the jobs of the writers, artists, animators and other “Pixarians” easier and more productive. As such Johnson functions like the best of wedding planners — unobtrusive but essential to a successful enterprise. Want to make sure Editorial knows what Animation is doing? Johnson can write software code for that. How about being able to mark up drawings and then refer back to and manipulate those markings? Johnson has written code for that. Or, boy, wouldn’t it be great to see your drawings as a movie much sooner, rather than just a pinned-up collection of sketches? Johnson and his team have solved that with custom computer software that enables artists to make storyboards on the computer. Johnson’s adult career path began at the University of Illinois, which he chose over Princeton, and in electrical engineering, which he chose over theater. The National Merit Scholar packed numerous experiences into his college career, including working for IBM as part of the engineering co-op program; studying in Swansea, Wales; and learning from Nancy St. John, who had been hired from the Los Angeles computer graphics business world to start the Scientific Visualization Program at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) on campus. “The NCSA experience was the first chance I had to work on campus with faculty and staff and see them as humans,” says Johnson. “Otherwise [for me], as an undergraduate, professors and TAs and the like were very mysterious.” (Perhaps to demystify himself, Johnson made a point of replying first to questions from numerous pre-teens who helped fill the Wohlers Hall auditorium at a talk he gave on campus last fall.) By the time he was a junior, Johnson realized his passion and skill lay in writing computer code, and switched to computer science engineering. After graduating, he studied at the MIT and its Media Lab, and joined Pixar as an intern via Ed Catmull, a member of his dissertation committee and a co-founder of Pixar. In the intense, creative and occasionally chaotic atmosphere of Pixar, Johnson has found a perfect fit for what he loves to do. “Our craft is coding,” Johnson says of his team, “And we have to code fast.” Part of that quick coding reflects the point of creating custom software — to overcome a frustration by improving a particular problem. For example, sometimes in the midst of a review, a person will have an idea that is most easily communicated by scribbling something on the existing image. “Lots of creative people finish their sentences with a drawing,” explains Johnson.) Thus “Review Sketch” came into being. The software records those drawings (done on a computer screen or tablet), which users can later edit or simply review. Creating “Review Sketch” meant “a lot of tension went out of the room,” says Johnson. “Beautiful, well-crafted user interfaces and work flows make people happy,” http://www.debaronson.com/profiles/what_lies_beneath/ 2010-01-15 http://www.debaronson.com/features/online_writing_instruction_no_longer_a_novelty/ 2009-11-01 The way Laurie Halse (rhymes with waltz) Anderson sees it, her main job is to tell stories that young people will read. “More than anything that’s my job, to tell stories so that kids will keep reading and developing their literacy skills. If I can do that then I can sleep well at night.” Anderson’s first book, Ndito Runs, was published in 1996, but she had been writing stories for many years before that. “I believe human beings need stories,” says Anderson. “Stories give kids insight into themselves or into somebody who’s different from them. Stories become our common language when we don’t have much in common.” Anderson is perhaps best known for her book Speak, which was published 10 years ago and has received numerous awards. But in addition to YA novels, including Twisted, and her latest, Wintergirls, Anderson also writes historical fiction (Fever 1793 and Chains) and picture books, as well as a very popular series called Vet Volunteers (formerly Wild At Heart), about a group of middle school students who volunteer at a veterinary clinic. Anderson describes it as “Babysitters Club meets Animal ER.” Now that Wintergirls is published, Anderson is working on Forge, an historical novel set during the American Revolution that is a sequel to Chains. Anderson sees this wide range of audiences and topics as a real advantage. “I have a very short attention span and in children’s literature we’re given this freedom to go where the muse takes us,” says Anderson. “I think it is very good for my writing to have different kinds of projects that pull from different skill sets and keep me fresh.” Anderson had written several books before Speak, but the reception of that book changed the direction of her writing life. That book is about a girl who is raped by a classmate and can’t bring herself to tell anyone. She becomes so depressed she stops speaking. Speak grew from a bad dream Anderson had of a girl sobbing, though she had no idea who the character was or why she was sad. Everybody was surprised at the book’s success: Anderson was surprised it was published; the publisher was surprised when it sold so well. “I really never thought anybody would publish it,” says Anderson. “It was a strange little book about a girl who doesn’t talk.” “Kids write to me about Speak, and say, either ‘I am Melinda because that happened to me’ or ‘that didn’t happen to me and my life is completely different, but I know exactly how she feels,’” says Anderson. “And when you’re a kid and you feel like nobody knows what goes on inside you it is so incredibly affirming to read a story and to see your thoughts on the page and then to see somebody struggle with and ultimately conquer whatever demon it is you are fighting.” Schools over the country teach Speak, though at differing grade levels in different regions. Anderson has several theories for the book’s success, but one of them is that around the time Speak was published there was a new generation of English teachers coming in who “are committed to literacy for their kids and who recognize that the canon, the old traditional books, aren’t reaching all of our children, so they are more open to putting books in kids’ hands that kids will read.” Before she wrote her YA novels, Anderson had written seven books for younger readers and had been visiting schools for many years. With the publication of Speak, her audience changed, but her visits continued. “I love teenagers,” says Anderson, who has four children: Stephanie, 24; Jessica, 23; Meredith, 21; and Christian, 17. “I was in some ways more comfortable in a high school classroom than a gym full of second graders.” On her visits, Anderson talks a little bit about what she was like as a teenager, but says he likes to get quickly to students’ questions “because then I can answer what they really want to know about instead of going on and on and on in my pontificating way.” In the course of her school visits, Anderson began to realize teen boys were a mystery to her. When she visited schools and discussed Speak, for example, boys frequently seemed confused about why the main character would be so upset that it would put her in a depression. Some boys’ perspective was, it wasn’t stranger in the bushes with a gun who raped her, so why was it a big deal? “Their confusion made it clear to me that I didn’t understand teen boys,” says Anderson. That set her to writing Twisted, a book in which the protagonist is a teen boy with a fraught relationship with his father. She researched the book by going to schools, throwing out questions to teen boys and paying attention to the answers. “It both saddened and surprised me how many boys didn’t have a relationship with their dad,” she says. “My theory is that teen boys want to grow up to be good men and they need and are looking for good men to show them the way.” The heroine in Anderson’s latest YA novel, Wintergirls, also has lost her way and struggles with the demon of anorexia. The book, which was published last March, has received much acclaim, including starred reviews in Booklist, Kirkus Reviews and School Library Journal , which wrote, “The intensity of emotion and vivid language here are more reminiscent of Anderson’s Speak than any of her other works.” Many of Anderson’s YA characters confront sticky, complex and emotional issues that resonate deeply with adolescents who are struggling. Her gift is the ability to tell these stories in a deeply authentic voice. Where does that voice come from? Anderson, who sounds bright and cheery on the phone, laughs when she tells of a school visit where a student said, “Ma’am I’m confused. You’re a very happy person, how can you write these depressing books?” She points to her own adolescence, during which her family moved frequently and her father lost his job, for some of her ability to write her so-called “depressing books.” “We were a nuclear family in nuclear meltdown,” she says. Anderson had “packaged up and put away” those difficult memories until her oldest daughter became an adolescent. “Watching my daughter get to that age brought all that up to the surface for me,” she says. “I pull from those feelings of misery for every book.” http://www.debaronson.com/profiles/laurie_halse_andersonhuman_beings_need_stories/ 2009-11-01 Civil engineering is not the most traditional route to tissue regeneration research, but that is how chemical and biomolecular engineering professor and IGB researcher Hyun Joon Kong began his journey. Kong’s original interest was colloidal rheology, the study of the effect of colloidal interaction on the deformation and flow of colloidal suspension. As a University of Michigan doctoral student in the interdisciplinary program Macromolecular Science and Engineering, Kong studied the colloidal properties of cement particles and their roles in both the flow properties of cement paste and the mechanical properties of the cured cement. However, in the course of this research, Kong began to realize that many of the processes he studied, including fluid flow and material mechanics, also occur in the human body. “I thought if I studied biological systems, eventually I might find a good idea that would help me create a novel material that could have a wide range of applications,” Kong says. Instead Kong began to appreciate how his expertise in rheology and material chemistry could help with many biological problems. Kong, who is a member of the Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering Research Theme, became so interested in biomaterials and biotherapies that he now applies what he learned in industrial systems to biomedical challenges, especially issues related to structure, transport phenomena and tissue regeneration. He has become particularly interested in ways to promote revascularization of tissue with constricted vascular systems, ischemic tissue, using bioactive molecules and cells. Any time tissue, be it heart or bone, needs to be repaired, revascularization is critical. Ischemic disease is a major cause of heart failure and limb amputation. But there are difficulties: Cells to help regeneration that are placed at the site, for example, the heart, disperse instead of staying where they are put. If cells do stay put, they are attacked by enzymes and by the body’s immune system. Little is known about how to stimulate activities of these new cells to create new vascular networks Kong’s approach has been to create a provisional matrix, “a kind of factory to stimulate cells to make new tissue.” The coagulation of blood is a good model of a provisional matrix. That plaque of coagulated blood works as a temporary matrix or scaffold to help stem cells and protein molecules develop new tissues and capillaries. Once the work is done, the matrix disperses. Kong’s work would likewise create a provisional matrix, but one that has greater mechanical strength and biotransport abilities than the natural matrix, which would be particularly useful in cases of an especially large wound or defect. Kong has focused on developing a class of biomaterial called hydrogels, which are formed from the cross-linking of water-soluble polymers. Hydrogels, which serve as a “nano- or microporous scaffold,” mimic and further improve the physical properties and permeability of the provisional matrix naturally formed at the injury. Hydrogels are composed of varying blends of water and bioactive polymers, which promote cell growth, migration, and differentiation essential to develop new vasculature. “We are interested in designing and characterizing hydrogels and determining how cells interact with those hydrogels, so together they can ultimately develop a nicely interconnected vascular system,” Kong says. Making a hydrogel is a bit like baking a cake; varying the percentage of each ingredient gives different results. Different recipes result in differing mechanical properties like stiffness, toughness and degradability, as well as differing abilities to deliver chemical cues and perform other transport functions. These properties influence how well cells will function in the hydrogel. That, ultimately, is the challenge: to make hydrogels sturdy and yet hospitable to regenerative cells. If a hydrogel is to be implanted in a limb for revascularization, for example, it should be fairly stiff and should gradually degrade to provide space for new blood vessel formation. Stiffening the hydrogel means reducing the amount of water in the environment. Less water, however, means less water transport and cell viability declines. Less water also slows the degradation rate, limiting vasculature development. Adding water to make the cells happier and boosting vasculature development decreases the hydrogel’s durability. “How can we de-couple structure, transport and degradation rate?” asks Kong. In a recent paper, published in Advanced Functional Materials, Kong demonstrates success with a polymer that can crosslink parts of the hydrogel, making it stiff while being able to control the degradation rate of the hydrogel and allow or help regulate the protein release rate and subsequent revascularization without altering desired mechanical properties. Moving from in vitro to in vivo is another very big hurdle. “That’s a significant challenge,” says Kong. “If we can’t do that, these hydrogels won’t be helpful.” Kong runs two labs, one in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) and one in the IGB. “The ChBE lab is the source to create new materials and IGB is where we launch the translational work,” says Kong. Theme members Larry Schook, Marie-Claude Hofmann and Matthew Wheeler are experts at isolating cells, analyzing cell activity and testing the hydrogels in various animal models. This IGB collaboration is an enormous boost for Kong’s work: with a short walk he can meet with colleagues who help determine whether the hydrogels are viable for key cells and then test them in vivo. While Kong is focusing on this revascularization project, he also has several other ongoing projects, including a US Army-funded project with Rashid Bashir in the College of Engineering to facilitate the regeneration of heart tissue, and an NSF-funded CAREER project looking to control stem cell differentiation in a 3D matrix. A third, small project, funded by a cosmetic company, looks at wrinkle formation, again using hydrogels. So engineering’s loss is biology’s gain: Kong’s hydrogel expertise will improve the quality of people’s lives, from their hearts to their faces. http://www.debaronson.com/profiles/a_civil_engineer_takes_on_biological_systems/ 2009-10-16 A high school boy teaching computer skills in Africa. An inner city administrator fulfilling her vision of a playground. A rural chemistry teacher linking to a professional community. What is the connection of these people - and hundreds of others - to the University of Illinois? Retooling its land-grant mission They are all part of what the University offers as public service - one of the four legs in its mission, which also includes teaching, research and economic development. Service is something that Illinois has been engaged in almost since its inception as a land-grant university in 1867. For scores of years, that mainly took the form of sending University people out into the community to share skills and information and then return to their colleges and Extension offices. But in the 21st century, the University has taken the public service aspect of its land-grant purpose - to offer higher education to all -and turned it on its head. Instead of being a top-down dispenser of information to the community, the University has come to realize that, in fact, things turn out much better for all involved when top-down meets bottom-up. That is, when members of the UI community work in concert with members of other communities, such involvement pays dividends both in the world and back on campus. Those partnerships range from urban nutrition and rural medicine to the arts, architecture and science. They also involve a wide range of participants and partners, including school-age children, women with small children, college students, K-12 teachers and low-income communities. While some programs have been around for decades, like the East St. Louis Action Research Project, others are only a few years old, like the Institute for Chemistry Literacy Through Computational Sciences, or brand-new, like the Education Justice Project, which has just begun offering college classes to inmates at the Danville Correctional Center. “When our faculty, staff or students become involved in a public engagement project,” says Chancellor Richard Herman, “they are entering into a contract in which both they and those they engage with have much to gain through the sharing of and creating new knowledge.” “We have gradually developed a wider recognition of the legitimacy of local or indigenous knowledge,” says Ann Bishop, an associate professor at the UI Graduate School of Library and Information Science. “It is part of this movement - and it really is a movement - away from the idea that the only people with viable knowledge come from the University.” Carnegie recognition And so it is that Joseph Hines, the high school student mentioned above, signed up for the University’s Teen Tech team and ended up traveling to the African island nation of São Tomé/Principe. Once there, he shared his computer knowledge with local high school students and helped install a computer lab. The experience, he says, “sparked my drive and passion again to accomplish lots of things.” Today he’s studying chemistry in college. Hines’ story is just one of many that illustrate how, like a pebble dropped into a pond, the benefits of University of Illinois public engagement projects ripple out to touch an astonishing array of individuals and communities. It’s an approach that works. Recently, that panoply of programs caught the attention of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which awarded Illinois a Community Engagement Classification for both curricular engagement, and outreach and partnerships. The University was one of 112 U.S. colleges and universities that received the certification in late 2008 from the foundation, a highly respected and independent policy and research center founded in 1905 to “do and perform all things necessary to encourage, uphold and dignify the profession of the teacher.” “We are developing a richer, more sophisticated notion of what it means to be civically engaged, that service is not its own separate thing,” says Bishop, who headed the civic commitment task force that helped write the Carnegie application. “Such efforts across our campus combine to define who we are as a land-grant university in 2009,” says Steve Sonka, interim vice chancellor of the UI Office of Public Engagement. “The efforts recognized within the Carnegie Report, plus many, many more at our University, determine how the University of Illinois is viewed and is valued by our peers and by the public.” That perception is important. “When the Carnegie Foundation speaks,” says Kris Campbell, an assistant vice chancellor for public engagement who spearheaded the application submission, “people listen.” Pick a partnership The seemingly countless number and range of community partnerships in which the University is involved are changing and improving the lives of community members, faculty and students in myriad ways. Some partnerships have a relatively tight focus, like Art- Speak, a program in which Rantoul Township High School students come to the Krannert Art Museum to explore and learn about its resources, create art and then pass that knowledge on to younger children. “It is a change that the students go through that is the most important aspect of the program,” says Rantoul art teacher Laura Billimack. “The students arrive shy and uncertain, but they leave with a confidence in creative writing and creative thinking. “They realize that what they are thinking about has validity and worth.” Other engagement projects target a more diffuse audience, like the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, which reaches out to all of Illinois in a variety of ways - through the schools, through special events and through the RiverWatch program. There, “citizen scientists” learn to collect data from their local creeks and streams and report the information as part of a nationwide effort to study and monitor water quality and the environment. The center, which offers students water-related internships in government, education or research settings, is a partnership with the University of Illinois, the Nature Conservancy, Lewis and Clark Community College in Alton, the Natural History Survey and the U.S. Geological Survey. ‘These projects make people more optimistic’ As the perception of service has evolved, so has the concept of how outreach is conducted. Engagement is now far more collaborative, with the recognition that knowledge in these kinds of interactions flows, in fact, in both directions. The East St. Louis Action Research Project (ESLARP) has been a leader in this more collaborative approach, having been established 22 years ago when faculty in the UI School of Fine and Applied Arts and community leaders in East St. Louis began working together. The goal from the beginning was to encourage a mutually beneficial partnership between students and community groups. Irma Golliday, director of the East St. Louis Park District, had a vision of revitalizing communities through improved city parks. One of many projects that grew from that vision was led by Bruce Wicks, MS ‘81 AHS, a UI associate professor of recreation and sports tourism. He and his students helped the neighborhood secure a $50,000 grant from the Snapple drink company by way of KaBOOM, a nonprofit organization, for playground equipment at Virginia Park. The students also collaborated with neighborhood people to plan the playground that now seemed possible. This past spring, more than 300 friends of the park came from far and wide to help build the equipment, says Errol Allen, president of the Friends of Virginia Park Association. They poured in from the neighborhood, from Snapple and from the University. “I’ve been living in the area for 55 years, an I have never seen that many people in the park, except back in the 1960s when we had an intraschool picnic,” he says. Allen sees the park project as a small but important part of the very big puzzle of how to restore East St. Louis. “Virginia Park was the first park to get new equipment, and it was a success,” he says. “We’ll do the same [sort of ] thing in Lincoln Park. … A lot of the project also comes afterwards, with things like drum circles and ice cream socials to bring the community together. These projects make people more optimistic. “It’s not about playground equipment but about bringing people together.” Trust + respect = art + science Building the kind of trust and mutual respect among students, faculty and community members that can result in success is somewhat of an art. But hard-core science takes part as well, as the research involved in many engagement projects informs UI professors and measures results so that they may be reproduced elsewhere. The Institute for Chemistry Literacy Through Computational Sciences (ICLCS), for example, was created three years ago with a grant from the Math-Science Partnership of the National Science Foundation. The collaboration between the UI Department of Chemistry, the UI School of Medicine and NCSA teaches high school chemistry teachers how to use computation and visualization tools to build a molecule, rotate it, view it in 3-D and even see how it behaves when joined with other molecules - a far cry from the balls and sticks models of the traditional chemistry classroom. The program targets rural high schools that often have only one chemistry teacher or just one science teacher on staff. Teachers come to campus for two weeks every summer to train intensely and meet colleagues, who then correspond throughout the year using Moodle, a social networking tool. Thanks to Moodle, participants go from being the sole science teacher in their school to, in the words of Carterville chemistry teacher Mary Jo Osborne, “a member of a department with 50 chemistry teachers.” Project coordinator Dave Mattson ‘97 LAS believes that the program “could go a long way in improving understanding and confidence in chemistry.” And that does appear to be the case. After Osborne learned how to make a small molecule on the computer at NCSA, her students did likewise back in the classroom. “The next day a student came and said, ‘I went home and made ATP,’ which is a big molecule,” says Osborne, sounding thrilled. “My students could learn something in class, then sign on to the NCSA computers and build a much bigger molecule because NCSA gives them access. I think that’s huge.” Rodger Baldwin, who teaches at Clinton High School, credits the program for broadening his insulated environment and improving his professional growth - he’s the next president of the Illinois Association of Chemistry Teachers. The trickle-down effect continued as students benefited from Baldwin’s growing confidence. Not only are they doing better in class, they also attended the University’s annual Engineering Open House for the first time. “Because I knew people, I felt comfortable taking my class to campus,” says Baldwin. Tests administered to both students and teachers show improved test scores. Like ripples in a pond, the ICLCS experience will expand outward from teachers to students and even beyond. Estimates are that 15,000 students will benefit from the first five years of the program, with plans to expand to other schools as well. From the Mississippi to the Atlantic Ripples happen in other ways, too, as one outreach program might spawn another or join forces with an existing one. That’s what happened with UI graduate student Jorge Coelho, MS ‘97 BUS, MS ‘02 LIS, who had participated in a computer-networking project in the East St. Louis program. He and Paul Adams, Coelho’s adviser and director of community networking with the UI Graduate School of Library and Information Science, then took that same model to Coelho’s native São Tomé, where they installed computer labs and access points for several years. Meanwhile, Adams had additional plans for the Teen Tech Team, a program which teaches hardware skills and software applications to young people and had been used in East St. Louis. “Since setting up computer labs in East St. Louis also worked in São Tomé,” he said, “it was time to take Teen Tech on the road, too.” Of the three students chosen for that journey, one was Hines. “The whole idea was the Teen Tech kids were going to teach what they knew about computers to kids at the high school and together set up a computer lab,” says Adams. And so a pebble, dropped in the “pond” of East St. Louis, created ripples that lapped the shores of Africa. http://www.debaronson.com/features/collaboration_imagination/ 2009-08-01 From Horatio Hornblower to Pirates of the Caribbean, sailing has always held a certain romance; with no engine, the sailor becomes adept at sailing in every kind of condition, from light to heavy wind, from smooth to choppy water, and, ultimately, to master or harness Mother Nature in all her moods. To the landlubber this might be an unrequited romance; sailing looks complex and mysterious, something they cannot master. But in reality, the fundamentals are fairly simple. To turn the boat to the right, push the tiller to the left; to turn the boat to the left, push the tiller to the right. To stop, turn the boat directly into the wind and let the sails go. An adult can learn the basics in a single lesson, but to improve after that it’s like the punch line to the Carnegie Hall joke: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.” The best way to get that practice is to join a sailing club and take part in the informal races that are held weekly. There are many active sailing clubs in Illinois beyond Lake Michigan. For example, there are clubs on Carlyle, Clinton and Springfield lakes, as well as on a bend of the Mississippi River known as Alton Lake. Many local clubs run their races either on Wednesday nights or Saturday mornings. This is not high-pressure or high-stakes racing: in this setting racing simply means — in the beginning anyway — sailing around a specific course marked by brightly colored buoys. By going around the course, novice sailors improve their steering and learn the racing rules; by sailing in all kinds of conditions they learn how to handle their boats; by doing it in a club racing setting, there are more experienced sailors right there to both teach them and to bail them out (pun intended) if the need should arise. “There is a lot of collegiality in racing,” says Mike Pick, of the Island Bay Yacht Club on Lake Springfield. “Everyone wants everyone else to improve. They all want to help you out and are more than happy to answer any questions.” At most clubs sailors get together informally before and after racing to talk about what worked well out on the racecourse and what they learned. “Why would a non-competitive person race?” says Nelson Laffey, who learned to sail in his 50s. “First of all, you are more likely to spend time learning on purpose than if you are just sailing around. For example, if you have two identical boats of the same one-design class and the other is passing you by, then you look at your sails and adjust them, you can even ask the other guy where his centerboard is. You try different things. On the other hand, if you are passing the other boat, then you know you are doing some things right!” Pick learned how to sail as a child, but it was only in the last six or seven years that he began racing. “People who know how to sail are intimidated by racing,” he says. “But competing added a lot more fun to the sport for me. It’s so much more fun than cruising around and letting the wind take you. In racing, the boat becomes part of you and sailing it is automatic. That means you can then pay attention to tactics and the wind conditions.” As Laffey explained, the best kind of racing is one-design, which simply means everyone uses an identical kind of sailboat, as opposed to having many types of boats and using a handicapping system. This head-to-head competition is the best way for sailors to learn what techniques help them go the fastest in which conditions. There is a boat for every age and activity level. Some take just one person to sail, like the Sunfish and the Laser. Some take as many as four or five. Some have spinnakers, those enormous, colorful parachute-like sails that are so photogenic. There are larger boats that take two or three people, like the Lightning and the Flying Scot, both of which have spinnakers. There are other boats that are the same size but that don’t have spinnakers, such as the JY 15 and the C Scow. Then there are boats that need even more crew, such as the E Scow, which is 28 feet long and has three or four sailors on board. One of the best places to race sailboats in Illinois is at Carlyle Lake, in Carlyle, Ill. The club there, which was established in 1971, is a nationally renowned facility with a very active racing program. At Carlyle there are one-design fleets of Lightnings, Y Flyers, E Scows, and Flying Scots. Races for these boats are held every Sunday. While Carlyle is the largest, most organized sailing program outside of Chicago and Lake Michigan, there are other sailing clubs scattered throughout the state. For example, in Springfield, the Island Bay Yacht Club was established in 1935. Island Bay has a fleet of C Scows, JY15s, Lasers and Star boats. This club has more than 500 members. On the other end of the spectrum, the Prestbury Yacht Club is a community sailing club located on a small, neighborhood lake, west of Naperville. Their racing program includes lasers and JY15s. In the east-central part of the state, the Clinton Lake Sailing Association has had an active racing program for 25 years. The club holds races every weekend; Flying Scots, which are the only active one-design fleet at the club, also race on Wednesday evenings, and there are several Laser regattas scattered throughout the summer. Valley Sailing Association was founded in 1954 on a mile-wide stretch of the Mississippi River called Alton Lake. With active fleets of Comets, Lasers, Lightnings and Mutineers, the club holds races on Wednesday evenings and Sunday afternoons. Sailing often becomes a passion for those who try it and it is not uncommon for people to own more than one kind of boat: one for sailing alone; one for racing with their family or other crew; a third to teach their children; and a fourth because it was so pretty they could not resist. It’s like some women and their shoes. For example, Laffey, who is the true commodore of the Valley Sailing Association, owns a whopping 14 boats, including one Comet, one Sunfish and six wooden Lightnings. In some clubs, if you have one boat, you are a mere skipper, but once you have more than three, your fellow club members might start calling you commodore, with tongue pressed firmly in cheek. In Laffey’s case, his friends jokingly call him Lord Admiral (as in Admiral Nelson of the British Navy). http://www.debaronson.com/features/sailing_another_way_to_enjoy_illinois_lakes/ 2009-07-11 Lhea Randle dreamed since she was 8 years old that she would go to college, but when her mom died, it looked like her plans might go up in smoke. Mauriell Amechi, commuting one hour each way to high school and being raised by his grandmother, felt that college was his “destiny.” Silvia Gonzalez, for whom English was her second language, was determined as a child to graduate from college, better herself and help her family in the process. These students are among the more than 500 being helped by the Illinois Promise scholarship program, first announced by Chancellor Richard Herman in 2004. This spring, the first cohort of students with Illinois Promise support will graduate. Illinois Promise, or I-Promise as it is known, makes up the difference between what these students receive in aid from federal and state programs and what their University of Illinois education will cost - including tuition, fees, books, and room and board - throughout their four years on the Urbana campus. Many of these students are first-generation college students, a characteristic they share with Herman. Overcoming obstacles “I think it is completely underestimated how hard it is to be a first-generation college student,” says Gonzalez, who, like more than three-quarters of the students in the I-Promise group, is the first in her family to attend a university. The stories of Gonzalez, Randle and Amechi are just a few examples of the kinds of challenges I-Promise students face, often with a potent mix of faith, humor and fortitude. Randle, for example, who is graduating with a degree in both political science and communications, grew up in the Park Forest suburb of Chicago. “I was researching Harvard when I was 8,” she says. But her mother died when Randle was 16, and her father, an alcoholic, became verbally abusive. First the electricity, then the water were turned off. Eventually he lost the family home, and Randle moved in with her older sister. She’s been on her own financially from the time her mother died. “When I decided to apply to college on my own, it was a blessing to have the University understand that I really didn’t have parents. I had a father, but he wasn’t really a father,” says Randle, whose smooth, dark skin seems to glow with energy and whose lively eyes shine from behind stylish eyeglasses. A James Scholar, Randle is also very active in student government and in I-Promise outreach (when she first saw some students helping at an I-Promise event, she thought, “Wait, I want to get involved, too!”). In addition, she has a part-time job at the Institute of Government and Public Affairs on campus. “I’m about giving support rather than getting support,” says Randle. “Even at my mom’s funeral, my friends were crying, and I was comforting them.” Randle plans to find an internship in the state legislature next year and then get a doctorate in political science and a master’s degree in public policy. Gonzalez, whose hair feathers her round face, is a sophomore double-majoring in photography and art education. A pair of dangling earrings emphasizes her exotic eyes and bronze skin. She does not pretend that her journey has been easy, but she embraces the challenges. “One of the biggest things I have come to appreciate is that it’s OK to struggle and even to fail, because we grow and it is a process,” says Gonzalez. She is determined to graduate from college in order to help her mother and sister have a better life. She is equally determined to help her fellow students. “When you are given a lot, you should give back,” she said. “Part of I-Promise is that I really feel connected to Illinois because of it and because I can help out other students. There are lots of students like me, first generation. I want to be able to reach out, make it easier for them.” Amechi, a sophomore in communications, commuted one hour each way to Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center on the north side of Chicago. “It was a sacrifice I had to make if I wanted to go to college,” says the lanky, 6-foot-tall African-American with high cheekbones, a small beard, ready smile and the collected demeanor of a full-grown man. Amechi, like other I-Promise students, does not take much for granted. One month before he graduated from high school, his grandmother died. The same day his family got an eviction notice. The next summer he was robbed at gunpoint. “I was just happy to survive,” he says. His struggles do not make him waver. “I remind myself that God will never put me in a situation I cannot overcome, ” he says. “I view every challenge in my life as a test from God, who strengthens me. In the end, I’m extremely thankful for all the doors he has opened for me.” Having opened those doors, Amechi feels it is important to hold them open for those behind him. “I have been placed in a situation to help others,” he says. “I will be able to make an impact on their lives like he has made on my life.” Helping beyond the classroom walls One reason behind the success that Randle, Gonzalez and Amechi have achieved is the set-up of the I-Promise program itself. Realization has been growing that in such programs, mentoring is at least as important as financial aid. Statistics show that first-generation college students drop out at a higher rate than does the general population, and not just for financial reasons. For these students particularly, the campus environment can be bewildering, intimidating and overwhelming. This is where Illinois Promise director Susan Gershenfeld comes in. For her, the program is not just about money - it is also about homemade cookies. Gershenfeld, who joined the University in 2008, saw that for Illinois Promise to successfully attract and retain low-income, high-achieving students, she had to help create a nurturing environment. So as the newest Illinois Promise students were arriving on campus last August, Gershenfeld’s husband, Dean Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld of the Institute for Labor and Industrial Relations, baked 25 dozen chocolate-chip and peanut-butter cookies, which current I-Promise students delivered to the incoming ones. With the cookies came a “care package” of information on campus resources, such as McKinley Health Center, as well as tutoring and leadership opportunities. “All these different resources that exist on campus, which are fabulous, it’s all right there in the packet,” says Gershenfeld. Gershenfeld, who has both an MBA and a master’s degree in social work, has organized sessions on financial literacy and sponsored social events, like a group ice skating outing followed by hot chocolate. She meets regularly with a variety of I-Promise students, individually and in groups, but “always over food,” she says. Subsequently, several students have made it a habit to just drop by and let her know how things are going. All in all, she has her finger on the pulse of what these students need to succeed. What’s more, Gershenfeld also has created a campus advisory group whose members are involved in everything from housing and financial aid to alumni affairs. The members of this group are in a position to be involved in planning and policies that can further help these students. And her efforts are paying off: The retention rate of students in the program is 82 percent, as compared to 83 percent campuswide. In addition, 43 percent of I-Promise students plan to go to graduate school, as compared to 34 percent across the campus. “I-Promise is much less about the money and much more about the mentoring and the community,” says Gershenfeld of her efforts. And the I-Promise students adore her. “Susan stands for I-Promise, for community, support and encouragement. It’s nice to see that manifested in a person,” says Gonzalez. “She’s just so loving. I’m so glad I met her.” The admiration is mutual. Gershenfeld is humbled by the stories of perseverance in the face of enormous challenges many I-Promise students have. “I love these students. They are remarkable,” she says. “They have overcome so many challenges, and they still are [doing so]. Everyone has a story. They don’t take things for granted.” Paying it forward I-Promise students believe their stories can help inspire others to pursue their dreams of higher education. Last year, for example, Gonzalez traveled with Gershenfeld to Chicago to share her story with an audience of people involved in the Brilliant Futures fundraising campaign. “I talked about my experiences, what it means to me,” said Gonzalez. “And all the waiters came up to me afterward and said in Spanish, ‘We are so proud of you. When I saw you, I imagined my daughter doing the same thing. This is why we work so hard for our children.’ “‘Si, se puede,’ they said. It’s Spanish for ‘Yes, we can.’” “Brilliant Futures and I-Promise, that’s great,” says Gonzalez of both the campaign and the program. “That’s a promise that I’m assured a brilliant future. If that’s cheesy, I don’t care, because that’s how I feel,” she says. http://www.debaronson.com/features/promises_to_keep/ 2009-04-18 Bryan Endres’s exploration of the legal issues surrounding biofuels and genetically modified plants is tightly integrated with the efforts of IGB scientists to unlock the key to commercial production of cellulosic ethanol. “They are working on the science while we’re working on the law at the very same time,” says Endres, assistant professor of agricultural law and a faculty member in both the BioBEL and EBI themes. “They look at a technological breakthrough and we’re looking at what are the legal and regulatory implications of this breakthrough before they’ve even thought about commercializing.” The legal complexities of biofuels and genetically modified crops are myriad. But Endres is excited about this field because he believes that Illinois is positioned to become a real leader in biofuel production. “Illinois can be a hub of celullosic biofuels production for the US just like Silicon Valley is for computers and the two coasts are for medical technology,” he says. “We have the land, the infrastructure and the science.” To promote this idea of Illinois as the Silicon Valley of cellulosic ethanol production, Endres and others within IGB organized and held a conference here in April on the legal aspects of biofuels production. Experts from around the world, including real leaders like Brazil, the United Kingdom and the European Union, shared ideas on how to create a legal and regulatory structure that makes producing biofuels an appealing and economically feasible undertaking. The regulatory framework of biofuels “is such a large project that we’ve had to prioritize what we look at first over this large scope of issues,” says Endres. “It is also a very fast moving project in which everyone is involved: at the state level, trying to incentivize production for rural development purposes; at a national level, especially with the change in administration, where renewable energy is a cornerstone of the administration’s goals; and at an international level where the questions center on climate change and how cellulosic ethanol affects the carbon footprint.” “It’s moving so fast that we’re always behind,” he says, smiling. And Endres does not expect the pace of technology advancement to slow down any time soon. However, through his efforts and the efforts of others, particularly within the BioBEL and EBI themes, there is the hope that regulations and laws will follow closely behind the technological breakthroughs that are coming ever more quickly. Endres first became interested in genetically modified crops in the late 1990s when he was in law school. “Genetically modified plants were new and not a lot of people were growing them. There were a lot of questions and it was a great legal topic because the law was so unsettled,” says Endres. Given the potential for environmental impact, Endres felt that it was an area that was both complex and urgently needed a functioning legal regime, not only for health and safety reasons, but to stabilize the legal environment and encourage further private-sector investment. Oftentimes a new technology moves faster than the law that can regulate it and the law has to play catch up. This is the case to some degree within genetically modified crops and biofuels: case law is still being built. Nevertheless, legal experts, Endres included, are already addressing and even anticipating legal and regulatory issues arising from new plant technologies. And the field is ripe for legal experts and others interested in policy and regulation. For example, in the case of land property rights, an essential question is, if you grow genetically modified plants “do you have to fence them in like a dog or if you don’t want them do you have to fence them out?” says Endres. Case law is only slowly being established on this issue, because disputes are most often settled out of court. “The person damaged is made whole outside of the court process, so there is no judgment, which means no legal precedent is created,” says Endres. “With no precedent, the law remains unsettled.” It takes a catastrophic, large-scale situation, like the Starlink biotech corn case, where genetically modified corn co-mingled with non-Starlink corn. A class action suit resulted and the reported damages were $110 million. “Scientists talk about data points, this case is a data point for law,” he says. But land use issues, including co-mingling of crops, is just one of many arenas in which legal issues arise. There are, for example, also international issues since crops are commodities that are traded around the world and regulations vary from country to country. Yet another issue revolves around access to modified seeds. Seeds used to be given away. Farm associations would give money to land grant institutions to develop these seeds as a public service. With genetic engineering, the cost is so high and technology is so advanced that in order for private firms to earn their return on investment they have to protect their intellectual property. That means finding ways to eliminate the saving and sharing of seeds. “Some farmers feel like they have helped develop these new varieties that are now being genetically engineered, but only the last step in technology development gets the intellectual property rights,” says Endres. “You then have farmers who are saving seed, and seed companies, like Monsanto, then litigate against farmers.” In another layer to this problem, American farmers compete in a world market and if Brazilian farmers, for example, can save seed they have lower production costs. American farmers, who are already battling higher costs like land and labor, now have higher seed costs, too. “All this creates conflict. As a lawyer you always look for conflict to identify issues for further investigation,” Endres says. http://www.debaronson.com/features/myriad_rules_and_regulations_challenge_emergent_biofuels_industry/ 2009-04-16 How do you tell the story of a man whose career with the CIA is classified information? A man who subsequently suffered from locked-in syndrome, a condition in which the patient retains all cognitive function but cannot move most of his muscles, not even to speak? You tell the story of his friends. Because this is not really a story about Dick Russell ‘60 LAS and his career as an operative for the Central Intelligence Agency. It is, rather, a story about friendship - in this case, the bond between Russell and his Kappa Sigma fraternity brothers, particularly Don Boodel ‘58, the ringleader, but also Charlie Coane ‘62 MEDIA (“the ad man”), Al Carlson ‘60 (“the tight-fisted Swede”) and others. These friendships might appear deceptively casual - the occasional phone call or a shared meal when work brought one to the other’s territory. But many years later, when Russell was brought low, these are the friends who rallied around him, the friends who are forever changed by his experience. A ‘character’ on campus For the most part, the men in this story were typical Midwestern, suburban, teenage boys of the late 1950s. They met on the cusp of adulthood as pledges of the Kappa Sigma social fraternity on the University of Illinois campus. Although Boodel (pronounced “boo-DEL”) left the University before graduating, he was and still is the glue that joins them (as well as nearly 100 other friends). “I have this motivation to keep people together,” he says. As a student, Russell’s thick black hair, perpetually flushed face and Paul Newman-blue eyes were not enough to make him stand out in the crowd. But soon, the fraternity brothers realized Russell was a certifiable “character.” “Sometimes we’d hear a ‘flip-flop’ in the hall; he’d be in swim fins with a face mask and snorkel, walking to the shower,” says Coane (pronounced “co-AYNE”) of Russell, “a towel around his waist at best. And we thought, ‘Why not?’ “Keep in mind, we were 20 years old.” A little aloof, a little wacky perhaps, but in retrospect, Russell’s friends also recall his fascination with war. He analyzed battle formations of the Greeks and Romans; he studied the Civil War; he was a World War II buff. The undercover work of war intrigued him even more. Well, if Russell liked spies and espionage, what of it? thought his friends. What mattered to them at the time was that he was always game for a party. “I don’t remember him ever going out with the same girl twice, but he joined right in,” says Boodel. “We had a running joke with him. After every party we’d ask, ‘How was your date last night?’ And he’d always answer, ‘That’s it for me; I’m in love. I’m gonna get married.’” (Despite the bluster, Russell never appeared to have dated seriously or married.) After graduation, he joined the Navy,becoming a member of the crew on an A3D Skywarrior nuclear bomber. Over beers, Russell regaled his buddies with these stories (mixed in with lots of profanity). He liked to joke about how A3D stood for “All Three Dead” and how the tail of the plane slapped the waves on the landing approach. Russell laughed in the face of death. And over the years, after his buddies learned more about his work, they knew it was, really, no joking matter. “He had his finger on the atomic bomb,” says Coane of Russell. All in a day’s work Twenty years after having lost track of one another, Boodel got the itch to find out what Russell was up to. Bear in mind, this was around 1980 - no Internet, no Google - but Boodel ran Russell down like a hound dog. When Boodel called his friend’s home one evening and Russell realized who it was, his first response was, “[Expletive], Boodel, how did you find me?” Boodel explained he had gotten the phone number from Russell’s mother. Russell replied, “What … is she doing, trying to get me killed?” And with that, their friendship was renewed. “Dick never spoke about going to movies or on a date or to a tavern. We talked about books, news, politics, what was going on in the world,” says Boodel. “Once Dick said, ‘I think you realize, Don, I’m not allowed to talk about my work.’” Only once, during the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings, in which Congress investigated the secret funneling of funds to support rebels in Nicaragua, did Russell let anything slip. “He said, ‘I hope Oliver [North] gives them what they want; otherwise, I’m on the stand next,’” remembers Boodel. Despite their regular phone contact, the friends met rarely. Once, when Boodel was in Washington, D.C., they arranged to meet for lunch in Georgetown. “It was summer; everyone was wearing shorts,” remembers Boodel. “And here comes a guy walking down the street wearing a trench coat, fedora, sunglasses, with his hands in his pockets.” He nudged his wife, Nancy. “‘Look what’s coming down the street,’ I said. ‘That’s either Humphrey Bogart doing his … Sam Spade impression or it’s Russell.’” In San Francisco in the 1990s, Coane had a similar visit with Russell, who showed up with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. Coane and “four, five or six other frat brothers” who were there ribbed Russell about what was in the case. “Dick just would smile, but he wouldn’t rise to the bait,” says Coane. That’s because Dick Russell was an operative. A letter written to Russell in 2002 from George Tenet, then head of the CIA, confirms Russell’s long career with the intelligence agency. “For nearly two decades as an officer of the CIA,” the letter reads, “you advanced the cause of American liberty and global security. Your service, marked by skill and by honor, is a long and distinguished chapter in a career of duty to country and colleagues.” If there were ever any doubt about Russell’s job, those were put to rest after his stroke, when Russell’s health-care advocate, Laurie Duncan, went to his home to retrieve some personal items for him. She found no photographs of friends and family. She did find a loaded 9 mm Beretta semiautomatic pistol in the couch cushions. “I loved that gun,” Dick later told her. She also found a machine gun and a pistol by his computer. ‘Emotionally draining’ experiences None of those weapons could protect Russell when, in 2000 at the age of 62, he suffered a stroke in his brain stem, leaving him trapped in his own body, unable to move anything but his eyes. He went from being a lone wolf, independent and private, to being more helpless than a baby; he couldn’t even cry out for help. Duncan, who ran a business helping older people with money management, had been hired by Russell to be his financial power of attorney. Never did she dream that she would become so close to him. “The first six months Dick could barely connect or speak,” says Duncan, though it was clear he was cognitively intact. “[The syndrome] is everyone’s worst nightmare.” While small improvements are possible to achieve, no treatment or cure exists for the condition. When Duncan heard that Boodel was trying to reach Russell, she called with news of the stroke. When can I see him, was Boodel’s response. To him, the idea that someone might not want to face a friend in that state does not fit the definition of friend. Still, those first encounters were hard. What do you say, what do you talk about when you visit a former intelligence operative relegated to living silent and incapacitated in a nursing home? At first it didn’t matter what Boodel, Coane and Carlson said; there was no visible response from Russell whatsoever. “It was absolutely emotionally draining and awful to see a person in that position,” says Boodel. “It wasn’t real pleasant,” agrees Coane. “I know I thought afterward, ‘I don’t know if I could go through that, if I’d want to go through that.’” “Dick was both embarrassed and thrilled to see them,” says Duncan of those visits. “When they promised to return, Dick indicated that he had ‘something to live for.’” Sometimes, when the brothers visited Russell, they’d reminisce over Kappa Sig shenanigans, like the times Russell - just to annoy people - would play German marching music so loud it made the walls shake. Russell remembered with them. “He [Dick] could do very little,” says Coane. “He could turn his head; he could smile. But he had all his mental faculties. We’d bring up stuff. We could tell he could remember all those things. He’d have a little smile, a little expression.” Living with locked-in syndrome Russell sought ways to make his life bearable and, with Duncan’s help, marshaled a battalion of daily readers. Everyone read a different book, selected from the hundreds in his room, with Russell favoring historical works like “The Art of War in the Middle Ages” by Sir Charles Oman, first published in 1885. Other times, Russell listened to the radio (Rush Limbaugh) or watched television (Fox News). He hated being fed intravenously and made it his goal to be able to eat and enjoy food. And Russell did make gradual, small improvements. Sometimes he could move his lips and even occasionally make a sound. The friends learned to celebrate these gains. Duncan would call Boodel with regular updates, who would broadcast them to the Kappa Sig brothers. Big news included the time he was able to say, “Please close the door,” as a nurse left his room. And, as much as his life had changed, post-stroke, much of what made Russell Russell was still there. He still had his trademark dry sense of humor; he was still intellectually curious. He still loved to raise people’s hackles, as evidenced by the group’s favorite story involving a discussion of a possible visit to the American Indian museum in D.C. “No,” Russell said, clear as day. “Why not?” they all asked, taken aback. “They killed Custer,” he said. “He said that just to get my liberal juices flowing,” says Duncan. “He could be irascible and a pain in the butt.” Windows to a soul What is it about an extremely private, cantankerous guy that made so many people stand by him? Was it his courage? Was it his humor? Was it, in fact, the very fact of his private nature that drew people to him? When she considers how little they had in common, Duncan is still amazed at how close they became. “If we’d met in the real world, we probably would not have liked each other,” says Duncan. “We couldn’t be more different. To say he was a conservative doesn’t even come close. I, on the other hand, came out of the ’60s movement. But he had an intelligence and determination that were uncanny.” Ellen Schott, one of Russell’s readers, wrote this about him: “If eyes are windows to a soul, then Dick’s eyes are picture windows. His enormous blue eyes can smile at you with brilliance, turn dark and squinty with anger or frustration, or bring tears to your eyes when they get that Basset Hound look. In a situation most of us would find intolerable, Dick continues to plow through. His intelligence has not disappeared, nor has his sense of humor. This tells you much about his spirit.” Duncan came to understand the irony of Russell’s situation: Without his stroke, he may have retained his successful but solitary professional life; with it, he formed fast and deep connections with many people. Those connections were a two-way street. “I gained a heck of a lot more than I gave Dick,” says Carlson. “Dick gave me inspiration.” And Boodel, upon suffering a crushing depression in 2007, thought of Russell and “couldn’t think of one good reason for my not fighting back.” As Russell’s condition stabilized, his Kappa Sig brothers took him on outings to local museums and monuments. In 2005 came the most glorious venture of all - to a Chicago Bears-Washington Redskins football game in the D.C. area. “It was September 11,” remembers Boodel, who attended along with his wife, Russell, Duncan, Carlson and a health-care worker. “We came up through the porthole that overlooked the stadium just as they were playing the last eight bars of the National Anthem, and there was a three-jet flyover. “The timing could not have been better. It’s one of the high points of my life.” That was the brothers’ last group outing. Dick Russell died two years later on July 31, 2007. “Thank God you [didn’t cut off your life support early on] and showed all of us what tenacity, patience, toughness and courage are all about,” Boodel said aloud to Russell at an emotion-filled farewell at his gravesite. “Laurie … knows that you taught her to be a stronger, more understanding and better person. … Those around you - your caretakers, nurses, doctors and all your readers - were attracted to you and learned to accept one’s fate. Your constant drive to improve your mind was a magnet of admiration. “You humbled me.” http://www.debaronson.com/profiles/the_friends_of_dick_russell_club/ 2009-03-18