May 22, 2013 — The U.S. Department of Energy has recognized Allegheny College for its leadership in the first year of the Better Buildings Challenge. Launched by President Obama in December 2011, the challenge is a national leadership initiative that calls on chief executive officers, college and university presidents and state and local leaders to reduce their portfolio-wide energy use 20 percent by 2020 and then share the results of their energy reduction strategies.

On May 30 Professor of Environmental Science Eric Pallant will be a panelist at an efficiency forum sponsored by the Better Buildings Alliance. He will speak about the college’s Carr Hall renovation project, and the college will be recognized for its leadership as a partner in the Better Buildings Challenge.

Carr Hall is modeled to be 23 percent more efficient due to the renovation. Energy savings were achieved through building envelope improvements, heat recovery techniques and energy-efficient lighting. Carr Hall, which houses the Richard J. Cook Center for Environmental Science, recently achieved LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.


The renovation of Carr Hall is just one component of Allegheny College’s greater efforts to pursue building efficiency and institutional sustainability across campus. Continuing efforts, including building envelope improvements, lighting and boiler retrofits, will be funded through a commitment of $500,000 each year from now until 2020 for energy efficiency projects.

On average, Better Buildings Challenge partners reduced their energy intensity by 2.5 percent in the first year of the initiative, putting them on track to meet the President’s goal by 2020.

“Through the Better Buildings Challenge, our Partners are breaking through barriers to reducing energy intensity and achieving lasting results that save money and create jobs,” said David Danielson, assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy. “We applaud these Partners for their leadership in making their organizations more energy-efficient which keeps American businesses competitive and communities prosperous.”

To date, more than 110 organizations representing more than 2 billion square feet of space have joined the Better Buildings Challenge and made the commitment to share portfolio-wide energy consumption data, to publicize their cutting-edge projects that demonstrate significant energy savings and to share their approaches to overcoming barriers with the marketplace.

May 22, 2013 – Sue Stuebner Gaylor, who currently serves as vice president for administration and planning at Lycoming College, has been named executive vice president of Allegheny College, effective July 15, 2013.

“Her work as a senior officer at Lycoming College, among leadership roles at other liberal arts colleges, reflects a breadth and depth of experience that will serve Allegheny well as we meet the opportunities and challenges of higher education today,” said James H. Mullen Jr., president of Allegheny College. “But a person is more than the sum of her resume, impressive as it is. Dr. Gaylor’s personal qualities—her leadership style and the values she holds—demonstrate what a terrific fit she will be for Allegheny as we near our third century.”

After serving four years as institutional planning officer and executive assistant to the president at Lycoming College, Sue Gaylor was promoted to vice president for planning in 2007 and to vice president for administration and planning in 2009. In her present position, she provides oversight for business affairs and finance, human resources and risk management, physical plant, athletics, institutional research, assessment, the campus store, contracted food services and sustainability operations.

As the chief operating officer at Allegheny College, Gaylor will lead finance and administration, human resources, information technology services and institutional research, development and alumni relations, and enrollment and communications.

“I am honored and humbled to be appointed as executive vice president at Allegheny College,” Gaylor said. “Throughout the interview process, I was impressed by the rigor of the academic program, the broad and unique array of opportunities for students, and the strong sense of collegiality that permeates the campus. I thank President Mullen and the Board for this tremendous opportunity. My husband Michael and I look forward to joining the Allegheny and Meadville communities.”

Gaylor represents Lycoming College on the NCAA Division III Financial Aid Committee, the Small Institutions Council of the National Association of College and University Business Officers, and the board of directors of the Williamsport-Lycoming Chamber of Commerce. She has served as a visiting team member for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education multiple times and was an invited member of the 2012 Middle States Periodic Review Report Working Committee.

Prior to Lycoming, Gaylor served as an academic counselor at Dartmouth College, a freshman proctor and director of freshman intramurals at Harvard College, and special assistant to the president at Wheelock College. She also held the position of teaching fellow for a number of courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She began her career at Albright College, where she held concurrent roles as head women’s basketball coach, admissions counselor and special assistant to the academic dean.

She earned an A.B. in psychology from Dartmouth College and an Ed.M. in administration and an Ed.D. in higher education from Harvard University.

Sue and Michael Gaylor have two adult sons: Thane, of San Francisco, Calif., and Alex and his wife Ann, of Brandon, Vt.

Faculty members at the college grant Allegheny nonexclusive permission to make available their scholarly articles and to exercise the copyright in those articles for the purpose of open dissemination. The Provost’s Office will make the scholarly articles available to the public in an open access repository.

Allegheny is one of the earliest four-year colleges to pass an open access policy and join the Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions, the leading advocacy organization for open access among North American colleges and universities.

The open access movement in scholarly journal publishing seeks to provide unrestricted global access to peer-reviewed scholarly articles. It is a response to the accelerating cost of subscription journals, the need for financially strapped societies to have equal access to scholarly work and an increasing awareness by scholars of their stake in copyright agreements.

May 11, 2013 – Allegheny College today honored 467 students and five distinguished leaders at Commencement ceremonies in the 198th year of the college.

Historian and conservationist Douglas Brinkley, who was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters at the ceremony, delivered the commencement address.

A professor of history at Rice University, Brinkley is a bestselling author and presidential historian for CBS News. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly, Brinkley has been described as “a man who knows more about the presidency than just about any human being alive.” Eight of his books have been selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year.

Brinkley told the story of Rosa Parks, whom he profiled in a biography, and whom he described as someone who had the courage to say, again and again, “That’s not right” when she saw injustice.

“Today you have to be the new generation that calls out injustice when you see it,” he told the students gathered for graduation. “Be honest and you’ll go far. But also be brave and don’t let injustice have any role in American society.”

Eddie Taylor Jr., Allegheny Class of 1987 and chairman of the college’s board of trustees, welcomed the graduates and their families.

“We know it’s great to have passion. It is critical of course to inform that passion,” he said. “You clearly value education, as you are about to be graduates from this exceptional undergraduate institution. Don’t stop listening or learning just because class is dismissed. Continue to educate yourselves on those causes, those passions. Be wary, however, of letting those passions polarize you. It is by truly understanding the details of issues, keeping your minds open to others’ interests, others’ points of view, the positions others take on a topic, that you will be able to effect the type of positive change that can be widely embraced.”

In addition to Brinkley, honorary doctorates of humane letters were conferred on the Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, Morris P. Fiorina, James E. Nevels and David M. Shribman.

Joan Brown Campbell, the first woman director of religion at the Chautauqua Institution, has worked for peace and social justice alongside such world leaders as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and former President Bill Clinton.

Morris P. Fiorina is the Wendt Family Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution. A graduate of Allegheny College, he has written widely on American government and politics.

James E. Nevels is chairman of the Swarthmore Group, an investment advisory firm that he founded in 1991. In 2001 he was appointed chair of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission to oversee the turnaround of the financially distressed Philadelphia School System.

David M. Shribman has been executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since 2003. A Pulitzer Prize winner in 1995 for his coverage of Washington and the American political scene, he writes a nationally syndicated column, “My Point.”

Saturday’s ceremony concluded with Allegheny president James H. Mullen Jr.’s charge to the class of 2013. He called on graduates to achieve at the highest level as professionals and as citizens, to employ the full measure of their promise and potential, to live lives of courage and conviction, to see and appreciate beauty even where others may not, to find joy and laughter in the challenge of their days and to never forget what it means to be a friend.

“I charge you to love this place that has been your home for the last four years,” said Mullen. “As it approaches its third century, help it as it sets the standard of excellence for liberal arts learning in America.”

The 32nd oldest college in the nation, Allegheny College will celebrate its bicentennial in 2015.

May 9, 2013 – Allegheny College students active at the college’s Center for Political Participation and interested in pursuing graduate studies in public service will be eligible to apply for a new scholarship opportunity announced today by Harvard’s Institute of Politics (IOP). Beginning in 2014, the John C. Culver Institute of Politics Scholarship will be awarded annually and provide full tuition for two years toward a graduate degree at the John F. Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, MA.

Eligible applicants will include students active at the IOP at Harvard or in public service programming at the Center for Political Participation and other participating organizations within the IOP’s National Campaign for Political and Civic Engagement, a consortium of 24 colleges and universities around the country committed to creating more politically and civically engaged campuses. Participating schools work on their own campus and collaboratively in three key areas: establishing an ongoing relationship with electoral politics; focusing on career development in public service; and ensuring a foundation in civic education.

The scholarship is named after John C. Culver, who has served on the Harvard IOP Senior Advisory Committee since 1975 – 14 years as chairman – and now holds the committee post of chair emeritus. Culver also served as the IOP’s interim director from July 2010 until January 2011. Culver served five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democratic Representative from Iowa’s second district, winning his first election in 1964, and served one term in the U.S. Sen¬ate from 1975 until 1981. A former infantry officer in the U.S. Marine Corps, Culver is a graduate of both Harvard College and Harvard Law School. Culver was the recipient of the Lionel de Jersey Harvard post-graduate scholarship to Emmanuel College, Cambridge University. Culver was inducted into the Harvard Football Hall of Fame in 1978, and is the co-author of “American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace.”

“It has been a privilege to serve for many years on the Senior Advisory Committee of Harvard’s Institute of Politics, established in 1966 as a living memorial to President Kennedy,” said Harvard Institute of Politics Chairman Emeritus John C. Culver. “I am honored to be associated with this IOP scholarship initiative to support and encourage public service.”

“It is fitting that this scholarship at Harvard Kennedy School bears the name of Senator John Culver, whose intelligence, integrity, and outstanding service to our nation are an inspiration,” said Harvard Institute of Politics Senior Advisory Committee Chair Caroline Kennedy. “Senator Culver’s vision, passion and energy have been invaluable to my family through the years, and especially in helping to create a vibrant living memorial to President Kennedy at the Institute of Politics. He is a role model for anyone seeking public service, and we hope that Culver Scholars will be motivated by his extraordinary example in the years to come.”

“John Culver’s dedication to the Institute of Politics has helped us achieve excellence and become a model for similar institutions nationwide,” said Harvard Institute of Politics Director Trey Grayson. “John’s invaluable counsel has improved our programming, ensured we achieve our mission and inspired countless students to consider public service careers for nearly four decades. We are very proud to offer this scholarship in his name.”

The application process for the John C. Culver Institute of Politics Scholarship will open in the spring of 2014 to support graduate study at Harvard Kennedy School in the fall and cover full two-year tuition and mandatory fees. Selection for a John C. Culver Institute of Politics Scholarship is based upon the candidate’s strong record of academic achievement, demonstrated commitment to politics and public service and proven leadership ability. Strong consideration will be given to candidates who actively participated in their undergraduate organization affiliated with the National Campaign for Political and Civic Engagement.

In addition to taking action to spur student political involvement on their respective campuses, the National Campaign consortium works during the academic year to –

➢ Issue specific recommendations for government, media, campaigns, and educational institutions to promote 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.

The National Campaign’s 24 consortium schools are: Allegheny College, Birmingham Southern College, Elon University, Franklin & Marshall College, Harvard University, Louisiana State University, Ohio State University, Rutgers – The State University of New Jersey, Saint Anselm College, Simpson College, Tennessee State University, Tufts University, University of Chicago, University of Florida, University of Kansas, University of Louisville, University of Oklahoma, University of Rochester, University of Southern California, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, University of Texas, University of Utah, University of Virginia, and Vanderbilt University.

A 2010 graduate of Hopewell High School, he is the son of Brenda Kostial and Eugene Ungarean.

Allegheny was one of only 11 colleges and universities nationwide to receive a Beckman Scholars Program award last year in support of student research.

The $77,200 award supports four students during three years as they conduct research in chemistry, biochemistry and biology. Selected as sophomores or juniors, the students conduct research with faculty members full time during two summers and part time during the intervening school year.

In addition to providing student stipends, the award includes funding for related supplies and travel. The foundation hosts an annual research symposium for the program’s student scholars and their faculty mentors each summer at the Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering in Irvine, California.

The college’s first two Beckman Scholars, selected in 2012, are seniors Abigael Dishler, from Baden, Pa., who has been working with faculty mentor Marty Serra, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Michael Vlah, from Ellwood City, Pa., who has been working with faculty mentor Scott Wissinger, professor of biology and environmental science. David Statman, professor of physics and chemistry, also is serving as a Beckman Scholar mentor.

Allegheny’s Beckman Scholars join a large community of Allegheny student researchers. Nearly 100 Allegheny students conduct research with faculty each summer, presenting their work to the campus research community and other guests during a weekly research series. In addition, many students co-author papers in peer-reviewed publications with their faculty mentors and accompany them to regional and national conferences to present their work.

Colleges and universities have to be invited to apply for The Beckman Scholars Program award. Typically, about 150 institutions submit applications in response to the invitation. The program was established in 1997 by the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. Its purpose is to “stimulate, encourage and support research activities by exceptionally talented undergraduate students at our nation’s universities and colleges; young people who ultimately will become prominent leaders in their scientific and professional pursuits.”

Sale items – which include clothes, shoes, dishes, hats, books, furniture, appliances, linens, housewares, toys, games and more — are donated by students and other members of the college community. Proceeds from the sale benefit Project Chacocente, a grassroots effort outside Managua, Nicaragua, which helps families residing in the city’s municipal dump to relocate to a healthier, sustainable life within a rural farming community.

The idea for the rummage sale began with a service-learning trip taken by a student delegation from Allegheny to Project Chacocente in May 2007, as a way to continue to help the Chacocente community from a distance. Allegheny students and staff returned to Nicaragua in 2010 and 2012.

During their trips to Chacocente, students work alongside the residents to clear and plant community-cultivated fruit and vegetable fields, build and improve classroom buildings and other facilities, including the community’s first flush toilets, and play with the children in the on-site school.

Over the past five years, proceeds from the rummage sale have resulted in more than $10,000 in donations to the project. As well as providing help to the project, the sale keeps perfectly sound items from taking up space in local landfills.

Information about Project Chacocente can be found at www.outofthedump.org.

Photo: Allegheny students on a service-learning trip to Nicaragua visit with children at Project Chacocente.

May 3, 2013 – Nearly 470 students will graduate from Allegheny College at Commencement on Saturday, May 11, at 2 p.m. The ceremony takes place in the college’s 198th year.

In addition, Allegheny will award honorary degrees to five distinguished individuals: national leaders in journalism, history, political science, educational reform and social justice. Historian and conservationist Douglas Brinkley will receive an honorary degree and deliver the Commencement address.

A professor of history at Rice University, Brinkley is a bestselling author and presidential historian for CBS News. A frequent contributor to the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly, Brinkley has been described as “a man who knows more about the presidency than just about any human being alive.”

Eight of his books have been selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and his most recent publications have been New York Times bestsellers: “Voices of Valor: D-Day: June 6, 1944”; “Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War”; “The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day and the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion”; “The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast”; “The Reagan Diaries”; “The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America”; “The Quiet World: Saving Alaska’s Wilderness Kingdom, 1879-1960”; and “Cronkite.”

Honorary degrees will also be awarded to the Reverend Doctor Joan Brown Campbell, Morris P. Fiorina, James E. Nevels and David M. Shribman.

Joan Brown Campbell, the first woman director of religion at the Chautauqua Institution, has worked for peace and social justice alongside such world leaders as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and former President Bill Clinton. With Carl Sagan and others, she founded in the early 1990s what is today the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, an association of independent faith groups that works to protect humankind’s common home and well-being. She also chairs the Global Peace Initiative of Women, which mobilizes spiritual and religious communities around the world to address key global issues such as climate change while it promotes women’s leadership.

Morris P. Fiorina is the Wendt Family Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution. A graduate of Allegheny College, he has written widely on American government and politics, with special emphasis on topics in the study of representation and elections. He has published numerous articles and written or edited 11 books, including “Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America”; “Disconnect: The Breakdown of Representation in American Politics”; and, most recently, “Can We Talk: The Rise of Rude, Nasty, Stubborn Politics.”

James E. Nevels is chairman of the Swarthmore Group, an investment advisory firm that he founded in 1991, as well as the chairman of the Hershey Company board of directors. In December 2001, then governor Mark Schweiker appointed Nevels as chairman of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission to oversee the turnaround of the financially distressed Philadelphia School System, the seventh largest school district in the United States. He was appointed by President George W. Bush to the Advisory Committee to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in 2004 and served as chairman from 2005 to 2007.

David M. Shribman has been executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette since 2003. He has also worked at the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Shribman was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for his coverage of Washington and the American political scene. His column “My Point” is syndicated nationally. He was a regular panelist on the PBS show “Washington Week” and a frequent analyst for the BBC and CBC. His “I Remember My Teacher,” a tribute to the nation’s great educators, was published in 2002.

The Commencement ceremony will take place on Bentley Hall lawn, weather permitting. Tickets are required for admission only if the ceremony is held indoors in the Wise Center.

April 29, 2013 — The Allegheny Chamber Singers will present their annual recital of opera scenes on Sunday, May 5 at 3:15 p.m. in Ford Memorial Chapel on the Allegheny College campus. The recital is free and open to the public.

The program will include duets from “The Headless Horseman” with senior Danae Binder and junior Will McInally; “The Magic Flute” with senior Bob Patterson and junior Sara St. Peter; “Semele” with sophomore Rosey Sheridan and senior Nick Diana; “Don Giovanni” with senior James Baker, junior Ben Kusserow and freshman Drew Daigle; “The Marriage of Figaro” with voice instructor Carol Niblock and Danae Binder; “Il Mondo della Luna” (The World of the Moon) with sophomore Bailey Blashford and Drew Daigle; “Il Turco in Italia” (The Turk in Italy) with Nick Diana and James Baker; and “Lakme” with senior Colleen McCaughey and sophomore Breana Gallagher.

The program will open with a group number from “La Perichole” and end with a chorus from “La Sonnambula.”

Ward Jamison will accompany on piano, and voice instructor Vicki Jamison will narrate. The scenes have been staged by Professor of Communication Arts and Theatre Beth Watkins.

April 23, 2013 — Allegheny College has been recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a 2012-2013 Individual Conference Champion of the College and University Green Power Challenge for using more green power than any other school in the North Coast Athletic Conference.

Since April 2006, EPA’s Green Power Partnership has tracked and recognized the collegiate athletic conferences with the highest combined green power purchases in the nation. The Individual Conference Champion Award recognizes the school that has made the largest individual purchase of green power within a qualifying conference.

Allegheny College beat its conference rivals by using 15 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of green power, representing 100 percent of the school’s annual electricity usage. Allegheny College purchases renewable energy certificates (RECs) from Constellation, which helps to reduce the environmental impacts associated with the campus’s electricity use.

According to the U.S. EPA, Allegheny College’s green power use of 15 million kWh is equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the electricity use of nearly 2,000 American homes annually, or the CO2 emissions of more than 2,000 vehicles per year.

Thirty-two collegiate conferences and 76 schools competed in the 2012-2013 challenge, collectively purchasing more than 2.2 billion kWh of green power. In order to qualify, a collegiate athletic conference must include at least one school that qualifies as a Green Power Partner, and the conference must collectively use at least 10 million kWh of green power annually. For more information, visit: http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/initiatives/cu_challenge.htm.

Green power is electricity that is generated from environmentally preferable renewable resources, such as wind, solar, geothermal, biogas, biomass and low-impact hydropower. Purchases of green power help accelerate the development of new renewable energy capacity nationwide and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector.