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War & Peace

January 2012 By Leave a Comment

An IT specialist escapes a strife-torn land an becomes a part of the MTSU family

by Drew Ruble

In the mid-1990s, Franck Mukendi was an IT specialist traveling in his home country—the Democratic Republic of Congo—setting up satellite offices for the insurance company that employed him. Mukendi was working in a city on the Rwandan border when rebels overtook it. He spent the next six months sequestered in that city, unable to leave and unable to contact his family—even to tell them that he was still alive—after the rebels cut off all communication to other parts of the country.

As time passed, the rebels increasingly allowed business travel in and out of the occupied city. Mukendi and his colleagues forged business documents and made their way out of the city, across the border and into Rwanda, where they attempted to board an airplane. Suspicious Rwandan officials, though, took Mukendi and his group back to the occupied city and turned them over to Congo rebels, charging that they were spies, which led to a week of incarceration in a rebel-controlled prison.

Once the rebels determined that Mukendi and his troupe weren’t spies, they were released. A rebel commander, upon hearing Mukendi’s story, even made arrangements for the businessman and his colleagues to return home. That’s when he found out that his wife had been notified months before that Mukendi had died in a rebel raid.

“It was a joy to see my family,” Mukendi says. “But this joy was just for a short period of time.”

Within months of returning home, rebels overtook Mukendi’s home city as well. Concerned for the safety of his wife and children, Mukendi took his family and fled the Congo with the help of a Red Cross program. While stationed at a refugee camp in West Africa, the family was granted transport to begin a new life in the United States.

Why Murfreesboro? The First Presbyterian Church agreed to sponsor the family, giving them a place to stay and startup assistance for a few months. One member of the church, MTSU Chemistry professor Preston MacDougall, along with his wife, Tara, helped Mukendi find a job at the University at which he could use his prodigious IT skills. He joined MTSU’s Information Technology team almost a decade ago.

These days, Mukendi can be seen all over campus fixing computer problems experienced by senior VPs and rank-and-file workers alike. Ongoing instability in the Congo has kept him from ever returning.

“I have become an American citizen,” Mukendi says. “This is home.”

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With a Bullet

December 2011 By Leave a Comment

Alicja Kutyla Lanfear takes a winding path to success in the forensics field

by Allison Gorman

 

After earning a bachelor’s degree in biology, Alicja Kutyla Lanfear set her sights on a new goal: a Ph.D. in the competitive field of forensic anthropology. In 2006, she landed at the office of Dr. Hugh Berryman, MTSU’s world-recognized forensic anthropologist. Impressed by Lanfear’s drive, Berryman accepted her as a master’s student, setting her on an intensive, two-year path to the top of her chosen field.

That path took her to morgues and crime scenes across middle Tennessee, forensic collections at the Smithsonian, and the American Academy of Forensic Science meeting in Washington, D.C., where she and Berryman won the prestigious Ellis R. Kerley Award for their collaborative research on the detection of gunshot residue on bone and the potential for bullet direction and range estimation. In 2008, Lanfear enrolled in UT–Knoxville’s highly selective doctoral program in anthropology, Berryman’s old stomping grounds.

With her Ph.D. now in hand, Lanfear is still going places. Last summer, she traveled back to our nation’s capital, where the National Holocaust Museum granted her access to rare anthropological data from Nazi-occupied Poland. (Lanfear holds Polish citizenship.) Meanwhile, she began a new job teaching anatomy and conducting research at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tenn. Lanfear and Berryman continue their collaborative research.

With her hard work and Berryman’s good guidance, it turns out Lanfear can go anywhere she wants.

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Staying in Focus

November 2011 By Leave a Comment

The airline industry is like an orchestra, says Dr. Paul Craig. “When all the instruments are on the same beat and into it, it sounds great. But if one section gets off, it all falls apart.”

It seems intuitive, then, that in aviation, all those “instruments” should practice together before they perform on stage. But at universities across the country, full rehearsal is not part of the aerospace curriculum—except at MTSU.

Yet another first for the University’s aerospace program is its Flight Operations Center–Unified Simulation (FOCUS) Lab, which Craig launched in January with NASA grant funding. In the lab, students majoring in all areas of aerospace, from piloting to dispatch to maintenance, spend a weekly three-hour shift working together in real-time scenarios.

The lab teaches time and stress management—skills that can’t be taught in the classroom, where problems are theoretical and students don’t have to resolve them under pressure or in an interdisciplinary way. “And if you can’t manage it well,” Craig says, “it’s just a train wreck.”

He developed the lab with input from his former students and their employers. “The feedback we got was that this was a missing piece from our curriculum,” he says. “The 20 or so best aviation programs across the United States, including MTSU, . . . all have one thing in common: we do a pretty good job of training our students in their specialty areas. But we never really showed them how all those pieces fit together.”

The Flight Operations Center includes control stations for plane maintenance, crews and flight scheduling as well as a simulator of the Nashville airport ramp tower, which oversees plane traffic at gates and on the concourse. Craig says the lab will connect to the department’s new jet flight simulator and, eventually, to the air traffic control simulator, located a floor below in the Business and Aerospace Building.

Now a required seminar for all aerospace majors, the FOCUS Lab gives “a big leg up” to MTSU grads, Craig says.

It also gives Craig the opportunity to extend his study of scenario-based training, which he began with previous NASA-funded projects in 2003. The Federal Aviation Administration used his research to develop new standards for pilot training that emphasize proficiency rather than an arbitrary number of flight hours.

“I wanted to bring scenario-based training across the entire curriculum,” says Craig. “An airline’s operation center is a place where all the aerospace disciplines intersect.” By building a replica of such a center, MTSU offers all its aerospace students the scenario-based teaching the University pioneered with its pilots.

Although the FOCUS Lab is unique among aerospace programs right now, Craig says that the FAA has indicated it will mandate just this sort of interdisciplinary training in the future. That’s good news for the U.S. economy, for which the cost of flight delays alone is $33 billion a year.

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Standing Out Among the Masses

November 2011 By Leave a Comment

by Tom Tozer

Recent MTSU graduate Jeannie Stubblefield garners national attention for her research

In the wake of natural catastrophes like the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, one of the unhappy tasks first responders face is finding, identifying, and properly handling large numbers of the deceased.

Given that grim reality, it’s no wonder recent MTSU graduate Jeannie Stubblefield’s undergraduate research on alternatives for managing deceased human and animal remains in mass fatalities has piqued the interest of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Earlier this year, Stubblefield won first place for her poster research at the Fifth Annual U.S. Department of Homeland Security University Network Summit, held in Washington, D.C.

Her research was conducted under an MTSU FIRE grant of $161,000 (principal investigator, Hugh Berryman), funded by DHS and managed through Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Southeast Region Research Initiative. The official title of Stubblefield’s research was “Potential Use of Chlorine Dioxide to Decontaminate Skin Surfaces in an Animal Mass Casualty Response.”

Stubblefield recently enrolled in MTSU’s new Ph.D. program in Molecular Biosciences, but she also has an appointment to keep. Officials at Homeland Security were so impressed with Stubblefield’s presentation that they have asked to meet with her privately.

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Sister Act

August 2011 By Leave a Comment
The Roach sisters log several lifetimes of service to MTSU

By Drew Ruble

One hundred and thirty-eight and counting. That’s how many combined years the Roach sisters of Woodbury have worked at MTSU.

Youngest sister Betty Roach Smithson (middle) is the only sister still working on campus. Entering her 46th year in the Student Affairs Office, Betty has worked closely since 1965 with student groups, fraternities, cheerleaders, and student government workers. Odds are good she’s met as many MTSU alums as any other administrator on campus. “I’ve worked with a lot of students hands on,” she admits.

So will she end the Roach sisters’ 138-year streak any time soon?  “I’m not going anywhere,” she promises.

Eldest sister Martha Roach Turner (right) began the sisters’ streak in 1958, taking a secretarial position in the Field Services Department. She’d later become director of placement for the University, growing the office to a staff of 10 before retiring after 45 years of service. When Martha took a brief sabbatical from MTSU in 1960, she referred her sister Frances Roach Rich (left) to be her replacement. That began Frances’ 48-year run at MTSU, mostly spent in Student Affairs, but ending in MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee’s office last year.

When Betty graduated high school, it was obvious where she would go to work. “I came here because they were here and I didn’t think there was anywhere else to go to work,” Betty says. “Plus, it’s what our mother wanted—all three daughters working together at MTSU.”

That motherly instinct for togetherness might stem from the fact that all three Roach sisters started out working in the family’s dry goods store, standing on boxes to pull items down from high shelves for customers and working behind the cash register. While at MTSU, the sisters had a reputation for being seen together, whether at lunch or carpooling to and from work. Then vice president Dr. Bob Glenn once remarked that the Roach sisters’ maiden name was appropriate given that you’d “never see just one of them” out and about on campus.

Asked what’s changed about MTSU over the past half century, the sisters point to the University’s growth in physical size and academic offerings.

What hasn’t changed? “Us,” Martha says. MTSU

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Home Grown

April 2011 By Leave a Comment
Larry Sizemore has been finding green solutions on the MTSU campus for decades

by Drew Ruble

MTSU Grounds Supervisor Larry Sizemore has watched MTSU grow -literally- for more than 40 years.

Until last spring, when budget cutbacks froze the program, Sizemore was the man who grew and supervised planting of more than 10,000 flowers that dot MTSU’s 500-acre campus each spring.  He still grows and furnishes that ornate greenery that decorates University events like Commencement.  He also keeps beds mulched, cares for shrubbery, and consults on University building projects to ensure the MTSU campus regains some of the tree species it has lost over the years.

During his time at and around MTSU, Sizemore has been a friend to campus presidents and rank-and-file workers alike.  He shows no interest in retiring anytime soon.

“I’m having too much fun,” he chuckles.

A 1971 alum and a biology major, Sizemore was initially hired as MTSU’s greenhouse supervisor, growing snapdragons and mums and anything else horticulture students needed to complete their studies.  He’s still doing it, boasting a collection of more than 100 exotic flowers and plants that he’s collected and maintained over the years (for example, a 35-year-old banana plant that remains in its original pot).

Sizemore has witnessed firsthand many of the changes at MTSU since his arrival. In the mid-1970s, the greenhouse area was “nothing but cornfields and cows,” he says.  Sizemore stands on the front porch of his office -a converted tool shed- and has a good view of the new College of Education and student union buildings under construction.  But of cows and cornfields? “Not anymore,” he says with a smile. MTSU

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Créme of the Class of 2011

April 2011 By Leave a Comment
Every year, MTSU yields another strong crop of graduates.  We couldn’t possibly tell the story of every single achiever, but we can tell a few.  Here is a brief look at five members of the Class of 2011 who have made the most of their experience at MTSU.

by Laura Wilbanks (’11)

The Write Stuff

Not many graduating seniors can say they are published novelists, but English major Taffeta O’Neal has already written and released two books of fiction.

Her first novel, Stoodie, written during her high school career and published in 2007 under the pen name Taffeta Chime, allowed her to realize a new dream.  Her newest work, The Last, which she wrote as her Honors Thesis Creative Project, was published in March.

O’Neal is an inaugural member of the MTSU Honors College Buchanan Fellowship program.  She says she can’t imagine what her MTSU experience would have been like without that “gigantic blessing,” which provides a full tuition waiver for four years and is the top scholarship at MTSU.  She also receives the HOPE Lottery Scholarship, which she uses to pay rent, and she has accumulated several other smaller scholarships during her time at MTSU.

O’Neal plans to attend graduate school to pursue a Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) degree in creative writing.  She recently finished applying to eight different schools and is awaiting acceptance.  (Among those schools is the University of Iowa, long considered the premier M.F.A. creative writing program in the nation.)

She jokingly admits when she tells people about her future plans, she often gets a “get-ready-to-live-in-a-cardboard-box stare” in return.  But O’Neal is hopeful, and with two published novels under her belt, she feels confident about what the future holds for her.

She leaves incoming freshman at MTSU with this advice: “Dream big, and quit pretending that your life is scripted!”

To O’Neal’s way of thinking, you write your own story.

Financially Sound

Graduating debt-free sounds like the kind of advice middle Tennessee-based personal finance guru Dave Ramsey might dispense on his national radio program.  In reality, though, accomplishing such a feat is an improbable dream for most college students.  But don’t tell that to Finance major Billy Champa.  For him, it’s about to become a reality.  Adopted as an infant from South Korea, Champa moved from New Jersey to middle Tennessee as a teenager when his adoptive parents separated.  In order to ease the burden on his single mother, he pursued financial assistance to further his education.  He credits the Tennessee HOPE Lottery Scholarship for saving him from relying on student loans to fund his education.  In addition, Champa earned several other scholarships during his time at MTSU, including the Aaron’s Inc. Scholarship and the 2009-2010 Professor Emeritus Scholarship.

“There’s a lot of money out there.  People just don’t realize,” Champa says, referring to the scholarships he has earned.

Those scholarship dollars kept Champa on track to attain a degree in business.  Now, as he approaches graduation in May, he looks back at his years at MTSU and believes it is a place unlike any other.  A minority student, Champa praises MTSU as “one of the most accepting schools, especially if you’re a minority” because of its size and diverse student population.

Champa currently interns at Neace Lukens, an insurance company, at its Franklin location.  After graduation in May, he plans to pursue employment in the insurance field using the knowledge he gained from both his internship and classes at MTSU.

Champa observes that many times college students “allow their possessions to own them, instead of the other way around,” which he describes as a trend he refuses to follow.  Perhaps channeling his inner Dave Ramsey, he challenges incoming freshman to “live within their means.”

If they listen, they might, like Champa, start their professional careers debt-free.

Traveler’s Rest

International Relations and Global Studies major Sonia Qureshi traveled across the globe before coming to MTSU.  She’s thankful for the journey.  Her family (including her father, Dr. Wasimuddin Qureshi, assistant director and fiscal compliance officer of MTSU’s Office of Research Services) left Karachi, Pakistan, early in Sonia’s life to come to America.  “If it weren’t for God’s help and my parent’s determination to give their children a better future and more opportunities than they had, I wouldn’t be here,” she says.

Qureshi has a host of scholarships under her belt, including the Raider Scholarship, the Michael Martinelli Memorial Scholarship, and Academic Achievement Scholarship, and the Tennessee HOPE Lottery Scholarship.

Her future plans include traveling to Japan under a research grant from the Fulbright Association.  At press time, she was awaiting confirmation on the grant, which will most likely be completed by July.  Qureshi is considering a five-year Ph.D. degree program at a the University of Chicago’s political science department for the 2011-2012 school year.

Since as far back as 2007, Qureshi has been making her mark as a student-thinker.  During the annual Tennessee Undergraduate Social Science Symposium that year, Qureshi presented a paper titled “Muslim Women Adjusting to a Westernized World.”  Such scholarship has continued across her years at MTSU.

She leaves incoming freshman of MTSU with this advice: “The departments that you choose will become your home away from home, and the professors will help you achieve your goals.  It is up to you to make something of yourself, and at MTSU you will find all the support you need and more to become a better you.”

First, America.  Then, MTSU.  And along the way, Sonia Qureshi has made the most of her opportunities.

Taking Center Stage

For theater student Meghan Davis, college presented the opportunity to step out of her comfort zone.  Davis, who says she spent much of her youth doubting her future, was inspired by her passion for the arts to pursue her studies in MTSU’s Speech and Theatre Department.  “Every day for a whole semester, I looked in the mirror and said to myself before leaving the house, ‘Be bold, Meg.  Be bold,’” she says.  Her endeavors were eventually rewarded when her play, Zest, was performed by MTSU’s Speech and Theatre Department last November. “My department supports me so fiercely,” she says.  “The students in the theatre department have dedicated so much time to my project.”

Davis is an inaugural member of the MTSU Honors College Buchanan Fellowship program, a scholarship she believes she would be “completely lost without.”  Davis credits the Buchanan Fellowships, which connected her to other Buchanan Fellows through joint classes, with establishing a “built-in” family at MTSU.

After graduating later this year, Davis plans to attend graduate school to study playwrighting.  During her final semester, she plans to intern and devote much of her time to the MTSU Theatre program.

Davis challenges incoming freshman at MTSU to never settle for less than they deserve.  “With so many major at MTSU and so many people willing to invest time into the students here, there should be no excuse for not finding your bliss here.”

All the world’s a state.  And Meg Davis is a player on it.

More Than a Number

For students, part of the experience of attending college is discovering their own niche.  Accounting major Michelle Ebel has done just that.

Ebel is an inaugural member of the MTSU Honors College Buchanan Fellowship program, which drew her to MTSU over other colleges that didn’t offer her the same assistance she required.  AS a member of the distinguished Fellows, Ebel took lower-division classes with other members of the group.  “We were together from day one,” she says.  We were all going through the same thing.”

Ebel further secured her personal niche while putting her accounting skills to use outside the classroom by joining Beta Alpha Psi, an accounting fraternity she began attending her sophomore year.  By the time she became a senior, her fellow club members elected Ebel president of the organization, which she credits as both “a resume builder and an experience builder.”

Even amid difficult times, that resume has already landed Ebel a job.  After graduation in May, Ebel plans to accept a standing job offer at regional accounting firm Lattimore, Black, Morgan, & Cain, commonly referred to as LMBC.  Ebel began pursuing the job in the fall of last year.

She had this advice for incoming freshman: “Get involved, join a group, and find a group of friends.”

After all, the college experience is more than just a numbers game.

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