On the Hill

Four Alumni Join Trustee Ranks

The Allegheny College Board of Trustees welcomed four new members into its ranks at its October meeting. Joining the board were Judith Thomas Horgan '68, Herbert H. Myers '61, James C. New '67, and Eddie J. Taylor Jr. '87.

An advocate for children, Judy Horgan is the founder of Child Watch of Greater Pittsburgh, a program that works to develop collaborative solutions and bring focus to the problems of at-risk children, mobilize the community to address gaps in service, and provide a safety net for youth. For her work on behalf of children, Horgan has been recognized by the Heinz Endowments. She also received a Good Government Award from the Greater Pittsburgh League of Women Voters in 2002 and the Isabel P. Kennedy Award for volunteer leadership in 2001.

Horgan, who resides in Pittsburgh, has three children and several grandchildren. Her late husband, John, served as a trustee at the University of Pittsburgh.

In 1985 Herb Myers founded the company that later became Boxlight, which leads the presentation industry in providing computer projection systems and service to all levels of business, education, and government. He now serves as president of Boxlight, which in 1999 was inducted into Inc. magazine's Hall of Fame after appearing five consecutive years on its list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in America.

Myers, his wife, Brenda, and their two daughters and son reside in Poulsbo, Washington, where Myers is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and Rotary Club. He has served as a trustee of Olympic College and on the board of a local Lutheran home.

Jim New retired in 2004 as chairman and CEO of AmeriPath, a national provider of cancer diagnostics, genomics, and related information services. Prior to joining AmeriPath, New served as president and CEO of RehabClinics, which he founded in 1991 and which merged with NovaCare Inc. in 1994. New served as president of NovaCare's outpatient division from 1994 to 1995. Before founding RehabClinics, he served as president of Greater Atlantic Health Service and Physicians Choice of Southeastern Pennsylvania, both HMOs, and in various other executive positions.

New resides in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. He has two children, Eric and Jason '91, with his late wife, Kathleen Griffin '69.

Eddie Taylor most recently served as CEO and president of Integrated Consulting Services, a third party administrator that manages worker's compensation claims for more than 6,000 organizations, school districts, and municipalities. He founded the company in 1997 and, in less than two years, grew the company to more than $1 million in sales. In 1999 Crain's Cleveland Business recognized him as one of the top forty business people under the age of forty. In 1988 Taylor began his career as an account executive for Davis & Associates, a Columbus-based company that handled worker's compensation issues for employers.

Taylor and his wife, Kelli, reside in Hinkley, Ohio, where he serves on the boards of numerous organizations in the Cleveland area.

"The board of trustees and I are very excited to welcome Judy, Herb, Jim, and Eddie," says President Richard Cook. "Each one of these individuals brings a unique set of talents and expertise to service on the board, and each has a keen sense of the value of an Allegheny education. Our extraordinary board of passionately committed trustees becomes all the more remarkable for the addition of these four alumni."

College Teams with CMU For Accelerated Master's

Allegheny College and Carnegie Mellon University's H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management have reached an agreement to offer an accelerated master's in management program to qualified Allegheny College students.

The program, structured as three years at Allegheny College followed by three to four semesters at the Heinz School, will result in students receiving both bachelor's and master's degrees in less time than is normally required.

The specific master's programs included in the agreement are in arts management, public policy and management, health care policy and management, and information systems management. Students in all academic majors are qualified to participate in the collaboration.

"We are excited to be able to offer this program to our students," says Allegheny economics professor and coordinator of the new program Stephen Onyeiwu, "because in addition to the obvious savings provided by its accelerated structure, both in terms of time and expense, the program is an excellent complement to our popular managerial economics track."

In addition to the new accelerated master's program with the Heinz School, Allegheny College has formal agreements with several institutions to offer cooperative programs in education, allied health, engineering and nursing.

Scholarship Mentoring Program Produces Results

It was just a year ago that Allegheny established the Scholarship Mentoring Program—through which faculty members such as Jim Bulman and Glenn Holland work with students as they go through the complex process of applying for some of the country's most prestigious study-abroad scholarships—but already the results are impressive.

Kerry Ann Fraas '04 is one of approximately 2,000 U.S. recipients of a Fulbright grant for the 2004-2005 academic year. The Fulbright Program, America's flagship international education exchange program, is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Fraas is spending the year in Austria pursuing a program in Western European studies.

Other recipients of study-abroad scholarships who benefited from the Scholarship Mentoring Program are Adam Auerbach '05, who studied in Thailand and India; Allison Foote '06 and Andrea McMillan '04, who are studying in Germany; Melissa Harlan '06, who chose Ecuador for her study-abroad; and Charlie Howe '06, whose study-abroad experience in India included a home-stay with a Sikh family.

Harlan and Howe both won Gilman International Scholarships. Harlan encourages other students to be optimistic about the possibilities open to those seeking to study abroad. "Look hard for the money that you need to go on the program you want," she says. "It's definitely worth the pain to put a little more effort into getting what you really want."

Because the application process can get detailed and many of the scholarships are highly competitive, the Scholarship Mentoring Program can be a tremendous help to students who are thinking of applying to a program. A Fulbright Grant, for instance, requires a specific plan—that is, applicants must explain in detail their plan of study and show that they have done exhaustive research.

Director of International Programs and Services Danuta Majchrowicz—who is the first contact for students who want to explore their options and start the application process—is enthusiastic about the mentoring program and the results it's producing. "There's always been someone in charge of scholarship recruitment, but to have a centralized location for information and advising is pretty recent," she says. "I'm not surprised these students are being awarded these prestigious scholarships. We've never had a shortage of bright, talented, and motivated students, but the mentoring program provides them with the information and support they need to make the most of their credentials."

CPP Teams With Harvard

The College's Center for Political Participation is taking part in a new national effort at Harvard University's Institute of Politics to encourage participation and engagement in politics by America's college students, a traditionally under-represented group in national political discourse.

The group of seventeen institutions of higher education, called the National Campaign for Political and Civic Engagement, draws from its collective knowledge and experience to exchange information and ideas about how to spur greater interest and involvement in politics by young people. Institutions will also identify obstacles to political engagement by young people—as well as explore solutions.

"Engaging young people in politics is essential for the future of our democracy and an important role for every educational institution in the nation," says Institute of Politics director Dan Glickman. "Allegheny has demonstrated innovation and enthusiasm in engaging young people in politics, which every college and university should emulate."

In addition to taking action to spur student political involvement on their respective campuses, the group is working together to issue specific recommendations for government, media, campaigns, and educational institutions to promote political and civic engagement; produce a "playbook" that offers political campaigns advice on effective engagement of young voters; compile "best practices" for promoting political and civic engagement; collect and make available key research; and create new training opportunities for organizations and individuals seeking to promote youth engagement and participation.

Jump in Rankings Doesn't Change Call for Caution

Despite Allegheny College's jumping five spots in the popular U.S.News & World Report "Best Liberal Arts Colleges" ranking this year, College officials continue to urge prospective students and their families to keep the listings in proper context.

"We are pleased to see Allegheny's elevated national profile this year and that our Senior Project was recognized as one of the 'Programs to look for,'" says President Richard Cook. (Allegheny College and Swarthmore College were the only schools in Pennsylvania—of fifteen in the nation—identified as having "stellar examples" of senior capstone programs.)

"However, we are also pleased with the fact that over the past several years, the voices of leading educators at Allegheny College and across the nation, who continue to warn against reading too much into the numbers, are being heard," Cook continues. "Reducing one's evaluation of something as complex as higher education to a calculated ranking implies qualitative measures and quantitative precision that do not fully exist."