The following selections were compiled by Cindy Holbrook in University Communications over the past few months through the sharing of information or actual story submissions. Feel free to send your update to stories@wittenberg.edu. Correction needed? Please contact Cindy at holbrookc@wittenberg.edu. Thank you!
Faculty Corner
Standing Up to POTS®, founded in 2014 by Cathy Pederson ’91, Elizabeth “Betty” E. Powelson Endowed Chair in Biology at Wittenberg, was recently recognized as the POTS Patient Leader by the WEGO Health Awards.
WEGO Health, a mission-driven company connecting healthcare with the experience, skills and insights of patient leaders, celebrated the top five finalists in each of the 15 WEGO Health Awards categories.
Pederson has published eight papers on POTS/chronic illness and quality of life issues since 2016. Through Standing Up to POTS, more than $100,000 has been raised for POTS research. Standing Up to POTS has also been awarded grants to five POTS research teams in four different countries and hosts an annual Standing Up to POTS 5K/2K event in Springfield, Ohio.
Associate Professor of Philosophy Julius Bailey’s latest book, Racism, Hypocrisy, and Bad Faith: A Moral Challenge to the America I Love, has been released by Broadview Press. Described by Harvard professor and author Cornel West as a “powerful text,” Bailey’s book examines current public discourse and its impact on ethnic minorities and low-income groups. Recently Bailey was excited to learn that he NFL ordered two copies. Read more here.
Amy Bok McGuffey ’95, assistant professor of education, will serve as the new director of the First-Year Seminar (FYS). McGuffey has significant experience in issues related to retention and first-year student development. She has taught FYS a number of times, offering creative ideas for helping Wittenberg think through the goals of the program and how those goals can come to fruition.
Alumni Achievement
The Piqua High School Athletics Department recently inducted six new members into its Hall of Fame. Among those inducted included Bryan Magoteaux ’99, a star on Wittenberg’s football and baseball teams.
Magoteaux is a 2015 Hall of Honor inductee for repeatedly topping numerous season and career statistical categories. As a baseball player, Magoteaux continues to stand atop the lists for runs batted in (176), hits (201), doubles (46), home runs (35), and total bases (372). An outfielder by trade, Magoteaux collected three first-team All-NCAC awards and first-team All-Mideast Region honors in 1999, in addition to three team MVP awards after he gained Rookie of the Year status in 1996. He is also in the NCAA record book for hitting two grand slams in one inning and tallying 11 RBIs in the game. Also a defensive back for the Tiger football team, Magoteaux still ranks fifth in program history with 16 interceptions. He earned three first-team All-NCAC designations and the 1998 Golden Helmet award as he helped the Tigers to a four-year record of 39-4, including an NCAC mark of 28-3 and two league championships.
Martin J. Uhle ‘85, a member of Wittenberg’s Board of Directors, was recently named president and CEO of the Community West Foundation in Cleveland, Ohio. Serving on the company’s board of directors since 2009, Uhle was the superintendent and CEO of the Cleveland Lutheran High School Association from 2016-2019. Under his guidance, both Lutheran East and Lutheran West High Schools reached record enrollment in their 70-plus-year history and installed the next generation of leaders for the schools. In addition, from 2012-2019, he served as Messiah Lutheran’s Pierstorf Memorial Fund Executive Director. The fund grants interest-free loans to Lutheran students to help them go to college, and the number of loans granted tripled under Uhle’s leadership.
Installed Building Products (IBP) Inc. recently announced that WomenInc., a leading magazine dedicated to comprehensive coverage of women’s achievement in business, named current IBP Board of Directors member Janet E. Jackson ’75 as one of the magazine’s 2019 Most Influential Corporate Directors. The special issue of WomenInc. includes a comprehensive listing of women executives, influencers, and achievers contributing leadership to corporate boards.
Jackson is the former president and chief executive officer of United Way of Central Ohio, a nonprofit organization and one of the largest United Way affiliates in the U.S. She was the first woman and first African American to hold her position at the United Way, as well as her earlier elected position as Columbus city attorney. She was also the first African American female judge in Franklin County. She has significant leadership experience, as well as an extensive strategy and legal background, and serves on the boards of Wittenberg University, the Columbus Jazz Arts Group, and the United Way Retirees Association.
Former Wittenberg quarterback Jake Kennedy ’19 recently signed with the defending German champions and Europe #1, the Braunschweig New Yorker Lions, for the 2020 season. Kennedy was the second-leading passer in the Austrian Football League in 2019. Playing for the Projekt Spielberg Graz Giants, he threw for 2,581 yards and a league-best 36 touchdowns. The 23-year-old from Bellefontaine, Ohio, played four years at Wittenberg, three years as the starter, where he threw for 7,949 yards and 75 touchdowns while rushing for 687 yards and 16 scores. In his senior year, he threw for 2,827 yards and 32 touchdowns, including seven in one game. He also won 29 out of a total of 33 games in which he played as a starting quarterback and helped the Tigers to two NCAC championships.
Champaign County native Daniel L. Bey ’08 was recently named a partner with the law firm Martin, Browne, Hull & Harper, which has offices in Urbana and Springfield. Bey graduated from Graham High School and Wittenberg University, and then obtained both his J.D. and LL.M. from Ohio Northern University College of Law. He also served as a Fulbright scholar in Kosovo. His local practice areas include real property transactions, utility right-of-way negotiations, estate planning and probate, corporate and business transactions, and litigation. He is a title agent for First American Title Insurance Company through Martin Browne’s title agency, Bankers’ Title.
Jeremy Glazier ’97 received an Ohio Arts Council Award in Criticism for his essays and reviews of avant-garde music in La Tempestad, an arts and culture magazine published in Mexico City. An associate professor of English at Ohio Dominican University in Columbus, Glazier has written for La Tempestad for more than a decade. This is the third time he has received the OAC’s Individual Excellence Award.
Columbia Memorial Health announced the appointment of three new members to the organization’s board of trustees, including Carlee Rader Drummer ’72. Drummer, who earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, began her tenure as the sixth president of Columbia-Greene Community College on July 1, 2019. Prior to relocating to New York, she was the president of Quinebaug Valley Community College in Connecticut. Additionally, she served in numerous leadership posts at colleges in Wisconsin, Illinois, and New York, and on numerous boards including the Chamber of Commerce of Northeastern Connecticut, Day Kimball Hospital Woman’s Board, and the Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board. She is a commissioner for the American Association of Community Colleges and serves on the Board of the Columbia Economic Development Corporation (CEDC). Drummer also studied at the University of Exeter in Devon, England, and attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Seminar for new presidents.
Celebrating Diversity
The McClain Center for Diversity and Inclusion hosted the LGBTQAI+ Brave Space Training for faculty, staff, and students this past spring with a free three-part virtual training session centered on foundational terminology, reflection, and challenge by choice participation via Moodle. In partnership with the LGBTQAI+ Task Force, the McClain Center also celebrated the first annual Lavender Graduation ceremony this year virtually. Lavender Graduation is a pre-commencement celebration that honors the achievements of Wittenberg University LGBTQAI+ graduates.
