Tag: Fall 2002

When it comes to his archeology project in Greece, George Harrison is sitting pretty—pretty in pink that is. Officially known as the Roman Crete Waterworks Project, the undertaking has unofficially been dubbed “Pretty in Pink” for the telltale signs of the ancient Greek waterworks.

“Nowadays pools look blue because of the color of their liners,” says Harrison, an associate professor in the department of classics. “Well, waterproof plaster in Roman times was pink. It’s a dead giveaway.”

These pink pools of water are what started Harrison’s Greek odyssey. In search of cisterns that the early Greeks used as a water source, Harrison devised this project, sought out funding for it and spent this past summer working on it in Crete with his co-director, Jane Francis, an assistant professor of classics at Concordia University in Montreal.

“We’re collecting and analyzing Roman water storage units called cisterns to get a sense of the population size and amount of irrigation,” Harrison says. “Everybody needs water. If we can estimate the amount of water used we can estimate the number of people.”

These population numbers can help the project team figure out additional information about Crete’s history. “We’re trying to discover how many people there were and where they were living,” says Harrison. “We know that to support bigger populations, they needed more irrigation. We’re looking for evidence of irrigation to support crops.”

This summer they spent time just taking photos and identifying the locations of the cisterns. Next summer they hope to start an excavation and at some point bring students over from Concordia and Xavier to work at the sites. Harrison planned the project to last 15 summers—right up to his retirement.

One early coup for the project was receiving a dig site at Mochlos, a small island off the coast of Crete, which includes a cistern with the roof still intact. Harrison is grateful at the opportunity to study a complete cistern. “We know of only six cisterns in the Mediterranean with their roofs intact. There are so few of them we don’t know how they made their roofs.”

According to Harrison, cisterns are found in the slope of a hill. They’re built partially underground to act as a natural form of air conditioning in keeping the water cool, important if you want to avoid typhus. The cisterns also had roofs to avoid mosquitoes and the malaria they carried. Larger cisterns, or more of them, indicate a larger population—such as a city—was once located there.

Harrison first fell in love with archeology—and Crete—as a graduate student studying history and art at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.

“What I like about archeology is that you can look in the ground and take a bunch of distinct pieces and figure out the overall picture. When you recreate a home, a temple, it’s easier to imagine the people who lived there more than just from literature. I like the idea that we’re in a position to fill in a part of the human story. We know everything about emperors and gladiators. Now we’re looking at everyday people. We know very little about people in the community. We’re going to learn how they lived and what was important to them.”

In many ways, business careers resemble amusement park rides. Some are like a roller coaster, with lots of ups and downs, twists and turns. Some are like a merry-go-round, just spinning in circles until the music stops. Some are like the towers that pull riders up and then drop them into a free fall.

For Al Weber, his career’s been like a ride on a sky tram—nice and smooth, the view’s great and it’s above the crowd. And that’s where he’s at now. In May, Weber was named president and CEO of Paramount Parks, which owns five of the most popular theme parks in North America, including Kings Island in Cincinnati.

“My favorite part about the job is creating an escape for people,” says Weber. “It’s great to see people walk away invigorated by a day spent with their family and friends. That says a lot about the business.”

Weber began in the business 34 years ago as a ride operator at Cincinnati’s Coney Island, trying to earn money to go to college. He was promoted to supervisor after a year, and rather than quitting to go to school, he kept working. As he made his way up the ladder, he returned to school and earned a bachelor’s degree in the weekend degree program in 1996 and an M.B.A. in 1997.

“The nice thing about being in the business back then was it was growing,” he says, “so there was a lot of opportunity to advance your career.”

He became general manager of Paramount’s Kings Island, then executive vice president and chief operating officer at Paramount Parks in Charlotte, N.C. As president, he plans on the company continuing to focus on customer service and satisfaction.

“Our relationship with people in the park is really important to us,” he says. “It’s been the hallmark of our success.”

Students have a new place to study—or toss a Frisbee, or sunbathe, or sleep. During the summer, the five houses in front of Husman Hall were torn down and a 1.2-acre campus green was built in their place. The green includes an outdoor stage, a sculpture, and a lot of trees and wide, grassy lawns.

The sculpture is a 10-foot high working scale that students can balance using metal stones engraved with ethics-related words.

The green also includes two memorials to people who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. One memorial is for Helen Crossin-Kittle, a 1989 graduate who was a senior computer analyst for Cantor Fitzgerald and pregnant with her first child at the time.

Her friends and classmates chipped in to purchase the memorial.

“The significance is totally emotional for me, that she’s going to be remembered forever,” says Kristin Kucia-Stauder, who coordinated the effort. She and Crossin-Kittle traveled to Spain together for a six-week study abroad trip. “She was just a wonderful, giving, kind person, just a crack-up kind of person who touched the lives of many people.”

The plaque is being placed at the base of a new sunburst maple tree near the entrance to the Gallagher Student Center. Another plaque, this one from the student government association, is being installed nearby in memory of all victims of Sept. 11.

For every 2,000 people living in Ashland, Wis., a tiny coastal city on chilly Lake Superior, there is a Xavier student. Why the direct link? The ROTC program and a guy named Jim Evans.

Evans, the former activities director at Ashland High School, discovered Xavier when his daughter, Jocelyn, received an ROTC scholarship five years ago. Since then, Evans has encouraged other top students to take the ROTC route, and most have chosen Xavier.

“We have an interesting little anomaly, and we are succeeding phenomenally in the ROTC program,” says Bill Leakey, father of 2002 graduate Sara Leakey. “What sold me on Xavier was [director of student retention services] Adrian Shiess. Unlike any other school we talked to, I was convinced that Xavier gave a damn about my kid.”

The legacy of Leakey, Evans and 2002 graduate Luke Fischer is continuing. Fischer’s sister, Lindsey, is a freshman this year. Leakey’s sister, Christy, is a high school sophomore and is considering Xavier as well.

“I was in the M.B.A. program that met every Saturday,” says Ed Fink, a 1958 M.B.A. graduate. “At the time, I was traveling a lot on business, and getting to class was tough. I was always getting there at the last minute, and by the time I pulled in, all of the parking spots were gone except this one. It said, ‘Reserved for the President.’ Well, I never saw him, and I didn’t think he would be working on a Saturday, so I just pulled in. Every Saturday it was the same way. Eventually I started getting tickets, which I just stuck in my glove compartment.

“Well, as you’re getting ready to graduate, you get a letter saying ‘You have to pay any debts or you won’t get your sheepskin.’ I thought it was just a general notice. The next thing I know, I get a call from the president’s office: ‘Father O’Connor wants to speak to you.’ I show up and he says, ‘Edward, come in. I want to talk to you.’ I thought, ‘Uh-oh.’ Father O’Connor was this big Irish man and your first impression of him is, ‘This guy’s John Wayne. Hello, pilgrim.’ Very intimidating. Anyway, he says, ‘Edward, one of the benefits of this job is you get your own parking space, and you’ve been parking in it. Do you know how much time I’ve spent driving around trying to find another spot?’ I said, ‘You work on Saturdays?’ He said, ‘Yes, I do. Now we’ve got to come to grips with it. You’re a businessman. Well, this is a business decision.’

“He starts adding up what the tickets were worth and says, ‘I’m going to forget about this, but you’re going to be the first one from your class to make a donation to Xavier. Does that meet with your approval?’ I was scared out of my wits. I came back and paid in cash. Put it right in the good father’s hands.”

Bob Herring and three friends spent the month of July reliving the lives of the early river travelers. The gang rode a retrofitted pontoon boat down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers from Cincinnati to New Orleans in search of a little history, a little adventure and their own solitude, peace and companionship.

“At first, I thought we didn’t have the right equipment and experience to do this,” Herring says. “I found out we could do it, and we did. It was wonderful. We were just four guys looking for a good time on the river and seeing what’s there. I really believe we’re connected to those who have gone before us, and I wondered, ‘What was that like for them?’ ”

Granted, they had luxuries like a gas-powered motor, river maps and binoculars for navigation. Their laptop computer, digital phone and camera for filing daily web dispatches—as well as a refrigerated cooler—were all fueled by a solar-powered generator on the roof of their hand-made hutch. Such modern conveniences made the trip a lot easier than what the early flatboat settlers experienced.

Still, says Herring, they got a taste of exploration navigating through swift currents and around giant barges, running aground once and befriending river town strangers, some of whom helped in the search for gasoline. They finished the trip on July 18, 10 days earlier than planned.

The idea began when Herring, a 1973 and 1977 graduate and principal of Nativity School in Cincinnati, and the school’s artist-in-residence were teaching students what happens to rainfall. A simple conversation became a plan to ride the rivers to the Gulf of Mexico.

The men prepared for the trip by talking to the U.S. Coast Guard, who warned them to be wary of bugs, snakes and country boys who like to shoot at buoy lights at night. They tied up often to refuel the boat and replenish food supplies. Herring filed daily briefings at www.nativity-cincinnati.org/river/river_trip.htm.

It was a perfect winter day in New Haven, Conn., on Jan. 15—sunny skies, 20 degrees, crisp and clear—the kind of day that made David Benfer happy to go to work. But by 11:00 a.m., it quickly dissolved into the worst day of his life.

Benfer, a 1970 M.B.A graduate and chief executive officer of the St. Raphael Healthcare System, found himself at ground zero of a swirling crisis. Two elderly patients in one of his hospitals were dead because of a faulty gas valve and human error. They, essentially, were gassed to death.

“When you have something like this occur on your watch, it’s like your worst nightmare,” Benfer says.

The hospital went into crisis mode for weeks—police investigations, lawsuits, state and federal probes, daily newspaper headlines. And Benfer is still living the nightmare, which he shared with a health services administration class in July, telling the students they should study and learn from such costly cases.

Benfer is one of more than 80 health care presidents and CEOs nationwide who visit campus to share their wisdom and experiences with each class of students.

“Before our students begin their residencies,” says department chair Ida Schick, “they need to know not only what the current issues are, but how they are being handled in the real world.”

Including deadly mistakes. One lesson Benfer imparted: Don’t place blame where there is no obvious intent. Benfer practices what he preaches. After extensive investigations, no one was fired for the incident.

Whenever a T-shirt was for sale on campus, Rachael Schlichte was there with money in hand. Homecoming, Manresa, the AIDS walk, X-Treme sports—she got them all. It wasn’t that she was a clotheshorse, but rather she had a very special project planned: a quilt made of Xavier T-shirts.

“When my boyfriend and his brother graduated from high school, their mother had quilts made for them from shirts they had as kids,” says the 2002 graduate. “So when I went to Xavier, I started saving shirts. It’s the neatest idea to preserve memories. It’s something tangible you’ll have for the rest of your life. And what else can you do with a bunch of old T-shirts?”