Allegheny Magazine

Following Phil from The Campus to Punxsutawney

admin — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:59:06 +0000

TOM CHAPIN ’96 Punxsutawney Phil works only one day a year, but it’s enough to put his hometown on the map. “People know where Punxsutawney is, and it’s because of Groundhog Day,” says Tom Chapin ’96, the editor of the town’s daily, the Punxsutawney Spirit. For this Pennsylvania mining and factory town, Groundhog Day is [...]

Reclaiming La Belle

admin — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:55:50 +0000

PETER FIX ’87 When a ship has lain on the ocean floor for centuries, it has much in common with a brittle eighty-year-old whose bones could snap under everyday stress. So when the seventeenth-century frigate La Belle was recovered off the Texas coast fifteen years ago, it created an enormous challenge for nautical archeologist Peter [...]

The Power of Computing-and Mentoring

admin — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:53:49 +0000

Lori Pollock ’81 Lori Pollock ’81 had no idea she would be a minority in her field when she took her first computer science class as a sophomore. Among the first three Allegheny graduates with a B.S. in computer science, she went on to earn her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. Now she’s working [...]

Shhhhhhh! Don't Tell Res Life

admin — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:47:59 +0000

I started as a timid little freshman, unsure of my major, unsure of what I was good at, homesick. I ended as someone who is majoring in environmental science, and not just majoring: I feel like I couldn’t unravel it from my fibers even if I tried. I started as someone who felt intimidated visiting [...]

Heartbreak and Hope in Haiti

admin — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:37:32 +0000

Johnny Six ’97 is no stranger to the damage that natural catastrophes can wreak on a population—or to the ongoing and insidious toll that poverty takes on children. In 2005, as a young doctor, he traveled to New Orleans to provide medical assistance shortly after Hurricane Katrina devastated the region. This January, after learning about [...]

The Teacher-Scholar

admin — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:23:32 +0000

A Glimpse into the Research and Creative Work of ALLEGHENY Serving on the faculty at a liberal arts college requires a fine balancing act: the expectations for teaching and mentoring students are the highest in higher education, and yet those same teachers are expected to maintain a rigorous program of professional development. For the five [...]

The Curtain Rises on the Vukovich Center for Communication Arts

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 21:00:25 +0000

"OK, who has the memorized?" Professor Dan Crozier asks the dozen students in his advanced acting class--all of them clutching copies of Romeo and Juliet as they shiver in the cool air of early spring outside the new Vukovich Center for Communication Arts.

Crozier moved his class from the relative privacy of the center’s rehearsal room to its courtyard, a public stage where students can practice their craft. It’s the perfect venue for students to act out the play’s famous balcony scene–the aspiring Juliets climb the courtyard’s steps and fan out along the railing above, while the Romeos remain at ground level to declare their love.

Creating Films With Positive Energy

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:17:03 +0000

Eleftherios “lefty” Fylaktos ’95 has all the makings of an award-winning documentary filmmaker. An ardent observer of the human condition, he is fascinated by people and their stories, eager to reveal and interpret their realities through his lens. In March 2008, the international film community took notice: Fylaktos’s latest documentary, the Archelon Bubble, won the [...]

Finding the Balance

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:45:30 +0000

Maribel Cruz ’87 has found a way to satisfy her left brain’s critical thinking and her right brain’s desire to create. Taking Allegheny’s interdisciplinary attitude to heart, this dancing doctor’s dual career keeps her balanced. Currently a selection analyst/ consultant with the gallup organization, Cruz works in Lincoln, Nebraska. “It’s a direct relationship between what [...]

Expressing Values Through Business

admin — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 19:31:10 +0000

When Gary Elliott ’72 departed from his home in Los Altos Hills, California, for Allegheny last fall, he forgot one important thing. An overcoat. global brand manager for Hewlett packard, Elliott arrived on campus as a guest presenter for professor Ishita Sinha Roy’s Communication Arts 260 class, having prepared what Sinha Roy called “an amazing [...]