1970s
Raj Aggarwal, MBA ’70, DBA ’75, Chesterland, OH, was named to Notables in Finance 2022 by Crain’s Cleveland Business in April 2022. He also received the 2022 Distinguished Alumni Award, presented by the Kent State Alumni Association at a celebration on Sept. 30, 2022, at the Kent State University Hotel and Conference Center.
Aggarwal currently sits on the boards of Kent State University Foundation, ERC Inc. and Ideastream Public Media. He is also a member of the professional advisory board of the Read Center for International and Intercultural Education in the College of Education, Health and Human Services at Kent State. He has been a finance professor at John Carroll University, Kent State University and The University of Akron. His time at UA included a stint as dean of the College of Business Administration. He is a fellow and a former vice president and program chair of the Academy of International Business.
Timothy App, BFA ’70, Baltimore, MD, has a 2005 painting, “Bacchanal,” on exhibit in the Akron Art Museum’s centennial celebration Share the Past, Create the Future: Selections from the Akron Art Museum Collection, on view through April 2023. His art has been widely exhibited throughout the US and in Poland and Japan, and it appears in numerous public and corporate collections.
An Akron native, App took classes at the Akron Art Institute (now the museum) and later studied at Kent State with Leroy Flint, the institute’s former director. App received an MFA in 1974 from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University. He was an assistant professor of art at Pomona College from 1974–78 and an associate professor of art at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque from 1978–90. Since 1990, he has been a professor of art at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and was the institute’s interim director of the Hoffberger School of Painting from 2009–2010.
Michael Chanak Jr., BS ’71, Cincinnati, OH, wrote, “It’s been 30 years since the change I advocated for [to include sexual orientation] was made to P&G’s non-discrimination policy. P&G is hosting a 30th anniversary celebration on Oct. 13 for the North American GABLE (Gay Ally Bisexual Lesbian & Transgender Employees) affinity group during LGBT History Month. On June 23, I spoke on queer history at the Pride Multifaith service at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. On Dec. 1, I will be speaking at the regional World AIDs remembrance at First Christian Church in Covington, Kentucky.
Last October, I was invited to speak to a group of 16 students at Northern Kentucky University who enrolled in the course Queer Activism, hosted by the Honors College and taught by Dr. Bonnie Meyer, former director of LGBTQ Programs and Services. I also spoke at the city of Cincinnati’s LGBTQIA+ employee resource group in October 2021.
The two P&G videos on the history of inclusion at P&G that I appeared in (The Words Matter and Out of the Shadows) have been subtitled in Mandarin and 14 other languages.”
John de Lancie, BA ’71, South Pasadena, CA, appeared at Cleveland’s Huntington Convention Center for Fan Expo, a pop culture convention, on April 30 and May 1, 2022. He has once again appeared as Q, a god-like, malevolent being, in the second season of Star Trek: Picard, which streamed on Paramount+ in spring 2022. He has appeared as Q over seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, made one appearance on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and several appearances on Star Trek: Voyager.
De Lancie’s career encompasses daytime dramas (Days of Our Lives); performances with various orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and appearances on stage with the American Shakespeare Festival, The Seattle Repertory Company, The South Coast Repertory and the Cleveland Play House. At Kent State, he won a scholarship to Juilliard, where he earned a BFA.
Robert E. Falcone, BA ’71, medical doctor and chief executive officer of the Columbus Medical Association and Affiliates, has been included in Marquis Who’s Who for his expertise in the health care field. Serving as CEO since 2016, he has championed physician-led initiatives to improve the health of patients and the Columbus community.
Falcone also is an artist and recording musician who has been creating visual art and music since the 1960s. He serves as a board member of the Columbus College of Art & Design (where he earned an MFA in visual art in 2016) and for the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts.
Clare Murray Adams, BS ’72, MEd ’76, BFA ’93, Southington, OH, had a solo exhibition, A Common Thread, presented by ART26201 at M.I.B. Gallery in the Colonial Arts Center, Buckhannon, West Virginia, from July 29–Aug. 20, 2022. She is a professor emeritus of at and former chair of the visual art department at Malone University in Canton, Ohio. She maintains an active studio practice in rural Southington.
Raymond Fete, AA ’73, BA ’75, Navarre, OH, has served for five years as executive director of Hammer & Nails Inc., an ecumenical Christian nonprofit outreach organization based in Canton, Ohio, that helps struggling Stark County homeowners with maintenance and repairs.
Early in his career, he served as the director of housing rehabilitation for the Stark County Regional Planning Commission. More recently, he was the director of the Family Living Center, a homeless shelter in Massillon. Fete previously served as director of alumni relations for Kent State University (1985-1987), director of development for Timken Mercy Medical Center and vice president for marketing and fund development for Community Services of Stark County.
Berri Kramer, BFA ’73, Kennebunkport, ME, a fiber/collage artist, collaborated with printmaker Susan Wilder in a bird-themed exhibit, Capturing the Wind, at Mass Audubon’s Habitat Education Center & Wildlife Sanctuary Gallery in Belmont, Massachusetts, which ran from July 1–30, 2022.
Kramer earned a master’s degree in fiber exploration from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and worked as a designer for Better Homes and Gardens for more than 20 years. She founded Heartwood College of Art in Kennebunk, Maine, and has been its president for 25 years.
Ruth E. Ludwick, BSN ’73, MSN ’81, PhD ’93, Kent, OH, is one of three co-editors of the textbook Nurses Making Policy, Third Edition: From Bedside to Boardroom (Springer Publishing Company, February 2022). This updated edition of the American Journal of Nursing award-winning book illuminates the extensive impact of nurses on health policy. The editors are donating all book royalties to help endow the $2 million Washington Fellows program, administered by the American Nurses Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the American Nurses Association.
Ludwick is Professor Emerita of Kent State University’s College of Nursing and an adjunct graduate faculty at Northeast Ohio Medical University.
Nick Saban, BS ’73, MEd ’75, Tuscaloosa, AL, began his 16th season as head football coach at the University of Alabama in September. Alabama Crimson Tide teams have played in the national title game in six of the last seven seasons. Saban started his coaching career at Kent State in 1973 as a graduate assistant with the Golden Flashes.
On April 19, 2022, he appeared at a fundraiser for Team Focus, in Mobile, Alabama, a youth-mentoring organization founded in 2001 by former college football coach and broadcaster Mike Gottfried. Team Focus helps provide mentors for young men who grew up without a father figure, a cause near to Saban’s heart. His father, Nick Sr., died just as he was finishing college at Kent State.
Carter Strang, BS ’73, MEd ’79, Shaker Heights, OH, was named president of the Shaker Schools Foundation, Ohio’s first public school foundation, effective July 1, 2022. A recently retired founding partner of the Tucker Ellis law firm, he previously was an award-winning Shaker Heights High School teacher and coach. He is board chair of the Cleveland Council on World Affairs and a Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Leader in Residence.
Strang, who was a member of the Kent State University football and ice hockey teams, is an Honors College graduate and past chair of the college’s advisory board. He received the 2014 Kent State University Distinguished Alumni Award and the 2011 Kent State University Distinguished Honors College Alumni Award.
Ron Young, BA ’73, Mentor, OH, was selected as 2022 Lake County Fair Parade Grand Marshal. The opening day parade took place on July 26 and the fair ran through July 31. Young recently retired as a Lake County commissioner, having served since 2019. He is the president and founder of Technical Employment Services Inc., which has focused on engineering, scientific and industrial recruiting since 1981. He served in the Ohio General Assembly from 1997 to 2004 and was elected again in 2010 to another eight-year term.
John Mansfield, BA ’74, Munroe Falls, OH, recently released The Protectors and the Motorcyclists (Christian Faith Publishing, June 2022), a novel that explores supernatural occurrences in one man’s life.
L.P. Snowe II, AAS ’74, Warren, OH, had his artwork exhibited at the Thomases Family Endowment of the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation Art Gallery in the Jewish Community Center of Youngstown from June 16 through Aug. 1, 2022. Cats Infiltrate the Optic Nerve included 15 pencil-and-ink drawings.
Snowe has shown his award-winning work—influenced by artwork featuring spacecraft, alien planets and futuristic architecture, as well as cartoons in Mad Magazine—in 27 juried art shows at such venues as the Erie Art Museum, The Butler Institute of American Art, Cleveland Institute of Art and the Ohio State Fair.
Snowe received an associate degree in law enforcement from Kent State University at Trumbull. He works in private security and as a warehouse worker and is shop steward for Teamsters Local 377.
Lawrence Terkel, MA ’74, Hudson, OH, a member of the Ohio Masters Swim Club, won two gold medals, one silver and one bronze in the age 75 to 79 category at the 2022 National Senior Games, held May 13–16 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The two gold medals—in the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard freestyle—both came with record times.
Dom Capers, MEd ’75, Green Bay, WI, and his wife, Karen, donated $2 million to the University of Mount Union (his alma mater) in Alliance, Ohio, for a new football facility, which opened in 2020. The university dedicated the Dom and Karen Capers Football Coaching Center on June 11, 2022. The press box at Kehres Stadium is also named in Capers’ honor.
Capers, who was a graduate assistant for Kent State football coach Don James, is known for his work as an NFL coach for the Carolina Panthers, Houston Texans and Green Bay Packers. He currently works as a senior defensive assistant for the Denver Broncos.
Matt Likens, BBA ’75, Mesa, AZ, is president and CEO of GT Medical Technologies, which was named Company of the Year for Health Products & Services in the 2022 American Business Awards. This honor acknowledges GT Medical Technologies’ pioneering technology GammaTile® Therapy, FDA-cleared for treating newly diagnosed malignant and recurrent brain tumors. Over 60 US hospitals now offer the therapy as a radiation option for patients with operable brain tumors. Tiles are implanted during the last five minutes of brain tumor resection procedures to eliminate residual tumor cells. This therapy allows patients to resume normal activities rapidly after surgery.
Gary Pinkel, BS ’75, Columbia, MO, will be inducted into the National Football Foundation College Hall of Fame in the Class of 2022. Named Jan. 10, 2022, the class will be inducted Dec. 6 during the 64th NFF Annual Awards Dinner in Las Vegas.
Pinkel is the winningest head football coach at the University of Missouri (2001–2015) and at the University of Toledo (1991–2000). He retired from Mizzou following the 2015 season after announcing he has non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Among his previous honors are inductions into halls of fame for the State of Missouri Sports, St. Louis Sports Commission, Mid-American Conference, Toledo Athletics, Kent State Athletics and Kenmore High School. Active in the community, he created the GP Made Foundation to help youth facing difficult challenges, and he has raised more than $10 million for charitable causes.
Pinkel played football at Kent State for the late, legendary coach Don James (who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1997). James made Pinkel a graduate assistant and then hired him as position coach when James became head coach at the University of Washington (1975–1992). Pinkel was a coordinator for James’ Huskies before leaving for his own head-coaching roles.
Joseph Valencic, BA ’76, BFA ’76, Cleveland, OH, was inducted into the Cleveland International Hall of Fame on June 7, 2022. He is a founder and past president of the National Cleveland-Style Polka Hall of Fame, where he currently is vice president and director of the museum and archives. When Slovenia declared independence in 1991, he led the communications campaign of United Americans for Slovenia to lobby for US recognition and repeated the effort to encourage the White House to accept Slovenia into NATO.
Valencic is the longtime president of the Cleveland Federation of Lodges of the Slovene National Benefit Society, America’s largest Slovenian organization. Each year, he organizes Slovenian programs in the Cleveland area and emcees special events. His Saturday radio broadcast (on WINT 1330 AM and 101.5 FM) features music and news from Slovenia. He writes, lectures and produces television documentaries on Slovenian American history and culture in the United States and Europe.
Gary F. Bengier, BBA ’77, San Francisco, CA, received a 2022 Independent Press Award for his book Unfettered Journey (Chiliagon Press, Sept. 5, 2020) in the category of Visionary Fiction. The international competition is judged by experts from different aspects of the book industry, and awards are based on overall excellence.
As described in the book’s trailer, “In 2161, an AI scientist seeks to understand the conscious mind. He meets a fighter on a personal mission against unjust forces. Together they struggle to find purpose in an imperfect world.” A No. 1 bestseller on Amazon, the book has won seven awards and is available in American English, plus seven other languages.
After a career in Silicon Valley, where he worked in a variety of tech companies, Bengier pursued passion projects, studying astrophysics and philosophy. He’s spent the last two decades thinking about how to live a balanced, meaningful life in a rapidly evolving technological world. Bengier was eBay’s chief financial officer and led the company’s initial and secondary public offerings. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MA in philosophy from San Francisco State University.
Terry Calaway, BS ’77, Lenexa, KS, has been elected to serve a three-year term on the Board of Trustees of Park University, a private university in Parkville, Missouri.
Calaway, who has had a 36-year career in higher education, was named president emeritus of Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas, after serving JCCC as its president from 2007-13. He was president of Central Arizona College in Coolidge from 2003-07 after spending the previous four years as CAC’s vice president of academic and student services. He currently serves as a professor of practice in the Community College Leadership Program within Kansas State University's College of Education.
He earned a doctorate in education administration from the University of Texas and a master’s degree in public administration from Cleveland State University.
Barbara Easlick, BS ’77, Wildwood, FL, was this year’s honoree at the annual Zoar Memorial Amateur Championship, which honors those who have contributed to the game of golf. She was a three-sport star at Kent State University. Upon graduation, she worked at Bent Tree Golf and Racquet Club in Sarasota, Florida, and began her quest to join the LPGA Tour, coming close several times. A native of Dover, Ohio, she came home to become the golf instructor at Zoar Golf Club for more than 25 years.
She also served as the women’s basketball coach and started the softball program at Malone University in Canton, Ohio, before becoming a professor in the School of Business. Easlick was inducted into the Malone Hall of Fame in 2002 and retired from the university in 2015 after 30 years of service. She spends winters in Wildwood, Florida, and summers in Grand Junction, Colorado.
Anthony Schepis, MA ’77, Winter Haven, FL, had two of his paintings donated by John Nativio to the Zanesville Museum of Art. The realist artist, an Ohio native, studied at the Cooper School of Art and the Cleveland Institute of Art before earning a master’s degree in fine art from Kent State. In 1979, he became the professor of drawing and painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art, and in 1998, the institute honored him with professor emeritus status.
Albert Miller, BA ’78, Dothan, AL, left his Amish roots in Holmes County, Ohio, to become a doctor and he recently published a book about the experience with his daughter, Liz. He is an emergency room doctor at Flowers Hospital in Dothan. His self-published memoir, You Can’t Do That!, is available in area bookstores and on Amazon.
Wendy Patton, BA ’78, Columbus, OH, is the new director of the Columbus Program in State Issues. She replaced state Sen. Vernon Sykes, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Kent State, who stepped down as inaugural director in June 2020 after 19 years.
Patton has a 35-year career in state and local government—including 15 years with Policy Matters Ohio—and she has worked in and around the Ohio Statehouse since 1987. She is working with Kent State’s Department of Political Science to get the Columbus program up and running after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic.
Wayne Dawson, BA ’79, Cleveland, OH, celebrated 40 years with Fox 8 Cleveland on July 15, 2022. Roseann “Chic” Canfora, BS ’76, MA ’87, PhD ’01, professional-in-residence with Kent State’s School of Media and Journalism, appeared on the Fox 8 News broadcast to present him with a gift basket and recall his honors from the university’s Alumni Association over the past 40 years: He was Kent State’s 2018 Homecoming parade grand marshal, and has received the William D. Taylor Journalism Alumnus of the Year Award (2014), the Diversity in Media Distinguished Leadership Award (2006) and the Cultural Diversity Award (1994). “Kent State played a big role in my life,” Dawson says. “When I graduated from Kent State, I had all the skills necessary to move right here to Fox 8.”
Douglas Hanzel, BS ’79, and Andrew Hanzel, BS ’10, Savannah, GA, won their seventh championship on July 24, 2022, in the 53rd edition of the National Father-Son Invitational at the Country Club of North Carolina. The elder Hanzel is the 2013 US Senior Amateur champion and was the low amateur at the 2012 and 2013 US Senior Open. Both Hanzels played college golf at Kent State University, where Doug, a physician, endowed a golf scholarship.
Nan Jenks-Jay, BA ’79, Sudbury, VT, received an honorary degree from Middlebury College at the commencement ceremony on May 29, 2022. She served as dean of environmental affairs and taught in the Environmental Studies program at the college for 23 years before retiring in 2019. Jenks-Jay fostered an integrated institutional vision for sustainability, launching numerous successful initiatives, including achieving carbon neutrality, establishing the LEED Platinum-certified Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest, developing a school program and labs, participating in a Global Partnerships for Sustainability program in four countries and playing a key role in the conservation of 2,400 acres of Bread Loaf lands.
She also helped create the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE), which presented her with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. She received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Kent State and an MES from the Yale University School of the Environment, which honored her with its Distinguished Alumna Award during Reunion Weekend 2021.
Connie Schultz, BA ’79, Cleveland, OH, delivered the keynote address at Denison University’s 181st commencement ceremony on May 14, 2022. She also was awarded an honorary degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa. She joined Denison in Fall 2023 as Professor of Practice.
Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist for USA Today and author of the New York Times bestselling novel The Daughters of Erietown. She previously was a professional-in-residence at Kent State University’s School of Media and Journalism, where she taught opinion writing, feature writing and ethics.