Clark University - Clark News winter 2005
Artists and doctors and lawyers, oh my!
(winter 2005)
By Judith Jaeger
Alumni-in-Residence Day connects students and faculty with Clark's diverse and talented alumni
What do the editor of Elegant Bride magazine, a chief economist at Deutsche Bank, an attorney with the U.S. Postal Service and the director of pediatric ophthalmology at Montreal Children's Hospital have in common?
They all got their start at Clark and are among the 21 alumni who returned to campus on Nov. 11 for Alumni-in-Residence Day. This program, held for the first time this year, gives alumni the opportunity to contribute to the intellectual life of the University, and allows students and faculty to benefit from alumni expertise. Alumni working in a wide range of professions were invited to spend the day on campus attending classes, meeting with student groups and participating in panel discussions.
The following profiles provide a small snapshot of the diverse group of alumni who returned to Clark for Alumni-in-Residence Day. They and their fellow participants are a large part of the reason why Clark is known for challenging conventional wisdom and changing our world for the better.
Oh, the possibilities
Margaret Kennedy '63, editor of Elegant Bride magazine, is all about possibility. Throughout her career, Kennedy has striven to do what hasn't been done.
For example, when she became editor of House Beautiful, Kennedy worked to give faithful readers something new in each issue. This led to a series of features about the exterior architecture and interior design of homes in different parts of the world. As editor of Victoria magazine, Kennedy saw an opportunity to modernize the magazine without changing its essence—and managed to keep 1 million readers engaged. At Elegant Bride, where she has been editor for about a year, Kennedy is working to breathe new life into the luxury wedding experience. Her first issue, for instance, featured flowers and bouquets from Paris.
"I realized I had a hit when all of the florists I know were surprised by what they saw," says Kennedy, whose goal is to inspire her readers. "People get into a rut when they're not looking for inspiration from other directions."
Kennedy got her start in the magazine business at Clark. The studio-art major entered and won a contest to be a guest editor at Mademoiselle and has been working on magazines ever since. Kennedy says her art background has proven especially useful in her work with photographers, graphic designers and interior designers. As editor, she is involved with all aspects of the production of Elegant Bride—Kennedy puts her English minor to use writing articles, and as for her studio art major, she's likely the only editor in chief who paints watercolors to illustrate her editor's letter.
"The resources of a Clark education also helped me look at things in a new way," she adds.
And that's what Kennedy hoped to convey to current Clark students during Alumni-in-Residence Day—to keep an open mind to new possibilities.
"Everything is a learning experience," Kennedy says. "Keep that channel wide open, because everything you learn will fit together."
Understanding the big picture
According to economist Cary Leahey '74, economics has a lot more to do with history than money.
"You have to understand the past to see what's going to happen in the future," says Leahey, who is a senior economist at Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. He analyzes data from the U.S. government and other research sources to develop a picture of the broad business and economic landscape investors are facing. Leahey, whose father worked in economics, found the subject to be a natural fit at Clark and excelled in his courses.
"I was also part of a group of students who experienced the worst economy in decades," he adds, which also motivated him to study and understand how the economy works. He went on to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and served as chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics and as chief financial markets economist at Lehman Brothers. Leahey has also held positions at GM, Data Resources and on White House staffs. In addition, he has appeared as an expert commentator on CBS, BBC, CNBC, CNN, Fox, PBS, Bloomberg and Reuters.
Returning to campus prompted Leahey to reflect on his time at Clark. He recalled how small his world was then, with life revolving around Jonas Clark Hall, his room and the dining hall. Leahey says he was driven to excel in academics, which he believes earned him admission into a top graduate program.
"The most important dollar spent at Clark is on the quality of the teaching," Leahey says, crediting economics professor Attiat Ott with giving him "an outstanding grounding in macro economics."
Since graduating from the small world of campus life, Leahey has remained focused on the big picture—in economics and in life. During his discussions with students, he hoped to remind them that life is a marathon, not a sprint.
"Life is not a sequence of 14-week segments interrupted by mid-terms and finals," he says.
Life in the arts
Nick Capasso '81 came to Clark to study geography and become a cartographer. But technology foiled those plans, as computers took over the work of mapmaking. The void was easily filled.
"The things I liked about maps were the same things I liked about art," Capasso explains. In true Clark fashion, he double majored in two seemingly unrelated disciplines—geography and art history—earned a Ph.D. in art history from Rutgers University and is now the curator at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Mass.
The DeCordova is a contemporary art museum focused on New England artists, with a Sculpture Park that is national in scope. Capasso helps develop exhibits and helps select and site sculptures for the park. He has played a key role in securing loans of contemporary outdoor sculpture from more than 100 artists and has been instrumental in creating exhibits that have made significant contributions to contemporary art. Capasso is most proud of the exhibit "Harriet Casdin-Silver: The Art of Holography," which was the first exhibit representing the entire career of the world's foremost holographic artist. An exhibit about the history of painting in Boston, he adds, has become a leading source for the history of art in New England.
Capasso also uses his geography background in his work on monuments and public parks and as a design-selection panelist.
In his work at the DeCordova, Capasso gets to make a lot of the creative decisions about the museum, which is something he also enjoyed about his Clark education.
"Clark could let me do things like double major in geography and art history," he says. "It also instilled in me a desire to be constantly creative in my work."
Capasso has become increasingly involved with the University in recent years, helping Clark expand its connections in New England's arts community. He particularly enjoys working with Clark students and helping to prepare them for the rewards and challenges of life in the arts.
"If students are going to pursue a career in the arts, they have to have a lot of passion for it," Capasso says. "Because the rewards are for the soul, not the pocketbook."
Beyond law firms
After graduating from Clark as an economics major, Mary Ellen Krober '69 became an economist with the New York state government. Krober admits that at the time, she wasn't quite sure what lawyers did.
"But working in Albany, it became very clear that the lawyers were the ones having all the fun," she says. Krober earned a law degree from Dickinson School of Law and embarked on a career in public service. She has served as deputy attorney general for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, chief deputy city solicitor for the City of Philadephia Law Department and associate university counsel for Temple University. She is currently in-house counsel for the U.S. Postal Service Field Office in Philadelphia.
Krober credits Clark with guiding the direction of her career. During her visit to Clark, Krober attended a class taught by sociologist Robert Ross and was reminded of how the University shaped her world view.
"You're trained here to become a citizen of the world—accent on the word ‘citizen.'"
Krober also prefers the scope of representing the government. Private practice can be too narrow, she says, while representing the government involves working with the big picture. And the picture at the U.S. Postal Service is pretty big.
Krober is one of approximately 120 lawyers at the Postal Service who represent management in workplace labor disputes among the Postal Service's 800,000 employees. Krober works on cases involving sexual harassment, various types of discrimination and disputes over firing and promotion/demotion practices. In addition, Krober a nd the other lawyers counsel managers on how best to handle discipline issues, in order to avoid labor disputes.
During Alumni-in-Residence Day, Krober shared her professional experiences with Clark students as part of classroom and panel discussions.
"I'm hoping to show them that there are avenues available in law other than private practice," Krober says.
Changing transportation
If you breathed a big, fresh-air sigh of relief when smoking was banned on international flights, you can thank Arnold Konheim '63. In his work as a senior policy analyst for the Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), Konheim did the research that was largely responsible for the plan to ban smoking on international flights and negotiated with foreign governments to make the ban a reality.
In his work at the DOT, Konheim is like so many other alumni who create positive change in the world—in ways that may not immediately come to mind. For instance, Konheim has also managed programs to ensure that airports and local governments can respond to the transmission of infectious diseases by air travelers; to end the routine disinsection of flights by foreign nations; to involve the transportation community in controlling invasive species; and to develop a transportation noise strategy. He is currently researching nonchemical means of killing insects on aircraft to prevent the spread of disease. Some countries use insecticides on aircraft, Konheim explains, and he is working to convince United Nations agencies to adopt nonchemical approaches, which are safer for passengers.
Konheim majored in physics at Clark and was in the honors program, which allowed him to get involved with research.
"Clark gave me a very positive experience with scientific research," he says.
Konheim earned a master's degree in physics and went on to become a physicist at Melpar, Inc., the U.S. Coast Guard and the Office of Noise Abatement and Control at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Prior to joining the DOT, Konheim was chief of the Environmental and Energy Programs Division of the Civil Aeronautics Board, where he worked on many issues related to the airline industry. While his background is in physics and acoustics, Konheim works across disciplinary lines.
"The issues today spread across all the sciences and a number of environmental areas," he says, praising Clark for its emphasis on interdisciplinary learning.
"In life, you have to broaden your thinking," Konheim says. "You have to try to integrate all the disciplines into what you are doing."
Blending genetics and medicine
While earning his doctorate in genetics at Clark, Robert Koenekoop Ph.D. '85 began to recognize the important role genetics could play in the treatment of disease. Like so many other Clark alumni, Koenekoop sought ways to work across disciplinary boundaries to discover new knowledge. He is now one of Canada's leading experts in the treatment of retinitis pigmentosa—blindness caused by hereditary retinal degeneration.
After earning his Ph.D. at Clark, Koenekoop pursued his medical degree, searching for a field where he could use his background in genetics.
"Then, I saw the retina for the first time," he says. "You can actually see the disease."
During his residency, Koenekoop adds, the Human Genome Project began, and genes for blindness were soon discovered. Pediatrics is the ideal field to study blindness at the molecular level, he adds, and French Canada is one of the best places to study genetics because nearly all of Quebec's population can be traced back to the same 200 people, creating a limited gene pool for research.
Five million people have retinitis pigmentosa, says Koenekoop, who is the director of pediatric ophthalmology at Montreal Children's Hospital at the McGill University Health Centre. He also runs the only clinic in Canada that treats children and adults with retinitis pigmentosa, a disease caused by gene defects that was once untreatable. Now, he says, five treatments are available with human trials starting next year.
Koenekoop has successfully blended his interests in genetics and medicine, splitting his time at the Montreal Children's Hospital between treating patients and conducting research in a molecular biology lab he helped establish 10 years ago. He credits Clark with giving him the knowledge base to push medicine into new frontiers.
"I was very fortunate to work with Todd Livdahl," Koenekoop says. "Todd really stimulated me to think critically, design experiments and test hypotheses. The principles he taught still influence me today."
The value of alumni perspectives
In turn, alumni are being offered more and more opportunities to influence students. Many of the Clark professors who participated in Alumni-in-Residence Day find great value in bringing the alumni perspective into the classroom. Government Department Chair Mark Miller, who hosted several panel discussions, values the view of life after Clark that alumni offer students.
"At the panel discussion about the election, alumni were able to hear what our current students think about politics, and the students were able to hear the ways in which our alumni remain politically active," he says. "The panel on careers in law enabled our students to learn the different career paths our alumni have taken and what they are now doing with their law degrees."
Alumni not only inspire students, butalso the Clark community in general, adds Photography Program Director Stephen DiRado.
"Their teachers, including myself, are very proud of our alumni. They are, to some degree, our children," DiRado says. "When they succeed, the whole Clark community beams with pride."
Clark extends its thanks to those who participated in Alumni-in-Residence Day: Dimitry Anselme '93, Jay Ash '83, David Brenerman '73, Nick Capasso '81, Edward Werner Cook '59, Charles Cristello '75, Elyse Darefsky '79, Henry Fradella '90, Michelle Gatto M.B.A. '97, Larry Hershoff '71, Margaret Kennedy '63, Robert Koenekoop Ph.D. '85, Arnold Konheim '63, Mary Ellen Krober '69, Cary Leahey '74, Martin Mendelson '92, Lee Plave '80, Larry Roshfeld '80, Allen Segal '93, Jeffrey Steinberg '85 and Eric Vos '84.
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