Northwestern University School of Continuing Studies Continuum Magazine - 2007

Continuumt h e m a g a z i n e o f t h e n o r t h w e s t e r n u n i v e r s i t y s C h o o l o f C o n t i n u i n g s t u d i e s

s p r i n g 2 0 0 7

contentsgreen town, summer in the city 2An innovative program explores environmental sustainability in and around Chicago

going global 7Today SCS draws students not just from Chicago but also from China and the Middle East

rx for medical education 10SCS’s prehealth professional programs keep pace with changes in the health care industry — and blaze new trails as well

departmentsstudent profile: terence rau 16

faculty profile: eric fridman 18

sCs news 20Scholarships for SCS students; new programs; Wieboldt Hall renovation update

sCs people 23News from alumni, students, and faculty

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Continuum

sCsn o r t h w e s t e r n u n i v e r s i t y s C h o o l o f C o n t i n u i n g s t u d i e s

s p r i n g 2 0 0 7

Continuum is published by the Northwestern

University School of Continuing Studies

for its students, alumni, faculty, staff, and

friends.

Editors: Brad Farrar, Tom Fredrickson,

Margaret McCarthy

Designer: Vickie Lata

Writer: Leanne Star

Photos: Kevin Weinstein, Sally Ryan,

Steve Anzaldi

Photo montage of the CIty Hall roof

garden on page 4 by Dennis Light/Light

Photographic.

Back cover:

Charles Whitaker, assistant professor

of journalism and director of the Medill

School’s Academy of Alternative Journalism,

teaches Advanced Feature Writing at SCS.

The former senior editor of Ebony magazine

was the 2004 Charles Deering McCormick

Distinguished Clinical Professor.

© 2007 Northwestern University.

All rights reserved.

Produced by University Relations.

5-07/22M/TF-VL/10717

Views expressed in Continuum do not

necessarily reflect the opinions of the

editors or the University.

Dear SCS Friends,

“SCS’s pulse is a little closer to society’s.”

These words of Kimberly Gray, professor of civil and environmental engineering at

Northwestern, could well sum up this issue of Continuum and the recent SCS initiatives

highlighted within.

Our lead story (pages 2–6) describes SCS’s pioneering Green City Summer Institute,

an exploration of efforts in and around the city of Chicago to design and support environ-

mentally sound practices and communities. Drawing on the expertise of the Northwestern

faculty and local professionals, the institute addresses issues in a way that no other school

or program has.

SCS’s programs for students pursuing careers in health care professions have a long-

standing reputation for quality and rigor. And as these professions change, so does SCS — a point

demonstrated in the suite of articles on pages 10–15. Our curriculum reflects the variety of career

options available in the field today. Among the most exciting is medical informatics, a marriage of

medicine and information technology that promises to revolutionize patient care. SCS’s innovative

master’s degree program, offered in partnership with Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, is

offered both on site and online, matching course content and educational method to put students on

the cutting edge of the cutting edge.

Another new area where SCS has found success is in customized education programs for

business people — both in local institutions and from much farther afield. In one recent example

(described on pages 7–9) SCS adapted an existing English-language program to the needs of a

group of city administrators from Beijing. That the Chinese delegation chose SCS over other

programs speaks to the success of these efforts and of our increasing international reach.

The international flavor of SCS is also evident in the profile of student Terence Rau (pages 16–

17), who recounts his amazing journey from Asia to SCS. While his story is singular, Terence shares

with so many of our students a vision of the future that is best reached through SCS.

Every school is a laboratory for the future, and every dean hopes important work is being done

in his or her lab. I believe an important gauge of our success at SCS is how closely the work of our

students, faculty members, and alumni mirrors and anticipates the needs of society. And based on the

evidence in this magazine, I am proud of the progress we are making.

Sincerely,

Thomas F. Gibbons, Dean

May 2007

Spring 2007 Continuum 1

from the dean

2 Continuum Spring 2007

A collaboration between SCS’s Summer Session and the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied

Science grew into Northwestern’s inaugural Green City Summer Institute, three days of presentations and field trips highlighting the practice and promise of sustainability.

“The original seed came from Jack Clegg, who was overseeing our land-

scape design program,” says Stephanie Teterycz, director of Summer Session. “He brought the idea to the table, we began gathering information, and we found that the Chicago area offered a plethora of resources for studying environmental issues.”

One of those resources was right on the Evanston campus. The Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center, completed in October 2005 to house the McCormick School’s design-focused programs, was the first University building to gain certifica-tion from the U.S. Green Building Council under its LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Rating System. The building, which had to meet national benchmarks for environmental sustain-ability in five key areas — site development, water sav-ings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality — provided the ideal home base for the institute.

a common interest in sustainabilityThe Ford building also supplied an important link when its project manager directed Teterycz to a Northwestern faculty member, Kimberly Gray, professor of civil and environmental engineering at McCormick and a specialist on a wide array of topics ranging from alternative energy to urban redevelop-ment to natural systems such as wetlands and the Great

Lakes. Gray, who has long advocated for more environmentally based classes at Northwestern, embraced the idea of a summer institute and agreed to serve as its academic leader. “Years ago I began lobbying the University to become more interested in the area of sustainability,” says Gray, who has conducted research on how to harness light energy to catalyze reactions to attack pollutants or make chemical fuels. “Summer Session was the perfect place to nurture interest in sustainability. SCS’s pulse is a little closer to society’s.”

Gray recruited other Northwestern experts to pre-sent information on their specialties, while Teterycz contacted the city of Chicago for the names of com-munity activists, architects, and urban planners. Soon the program had an impressive roster of presenters and an inspired format for studying environmental issues in summertime Chicago: a mix of presentations in the

sCs focus

Green town, summer in the cityEnvironmental institute showcases Chicago

like most things green, it

started with a seed— actually, a few seeds and

a little cross-pollination.

don’t miss the 2007 green City summer instituteA Field Study in Chicago: Past, Present, and Future

August 2–4

For more information, see www.scs.northwestern .edu/summernu/programs /greencity.cfm.


Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center, with field trips to relevant sites in and around Chicago — all built around the theme of the past, present, and future state of the environment. “We took advantage of Chicago’s well-earned reputation as one of America’s greenest cities,” says Teterycz, noting that the city has pledged to lead the nation in the urban environmental movement. “Partnering with the city of Chicago was very gratifying.”

Teterycz took a green approach to marketing the summer institute, too, using mostly electronic media that depleted neither forests nor the program budget. The institute attracted an eager and eclectic group of 32 participants that included an educator from the Shedd Aquarium, a vice president of strategic planning, a botanist, a master gardener, professors, a real estate appraiser, architects, a rabbi, an academic program manager, a city project manager, and a graduate student in civil engineering.

Participant Keith Bodger (see accompanying article) says that the group enjoyed great camaraderie because of their common interest in green cities. Bodger adds that he had been waiting for a program like this to appear: “There wasn’t anything like this out there. I received cutting-edge information that I can use in my work.”

the ford motor Company engineering design Center was a fitting home for the green City summer institute, given its leed certification from the u.s. green Building Council.


factories and fishing, side by sideAugust 9 was Day 1 of the program, which focused on “The Big Picture and the Past.” The group hit the ground running, with several hours of presenta-tions from Gray, who spoke on “Sustainability: Fad or Necessity,” and three others. Henry Binford, associ-ate professor of history at the Judd A. and Marjorie Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and at SCS, discussed the role of nature in shaping cities. David Lentz, vice president of scientific affairs and senior scientist at the Chicago Botanic Garden, explored the effect of 12,000 years of climate change and hu-man activities on plant life in Illinois. Carla Ng, a PhD candidate in chemical and biological engineering at McCormick, spoke on “Green City, Brown Lake” — restoration strategies for sustainable ecosystems in an evolving biological landscape.

Participants then piled into a bus for a site visit to the Calumet region in far south Chicago, an area that has come almost full circle ecologically. Once one of the largest and most diverse natural wetland complexes in lower North America, the Calumet region began, with the industrial boom of the mid-1800s, to produce the building blocks of a growing nation: steel, brick, glass, paint, and petroleum products. More than a century later the result was a 15,000-acre brownfield of abandoned industrial sites and noxious landfills, intermingled with the remnants of a highly endangered ecosystem. In June 2000 the city and state partnered to launch the Calumet Initiative,


City hall’s roof garden (left) is a symbol and proof of Chicago’s place as one of america’s greenest cities.

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with the mission of rehabbing both the region’s open space parcels and its economy to demonstrate that ecological and economic restoration can occur in a complementary process. What the Green City partici-pants saw — a mix of wetlands, prairies, industrial sites, and neighborhoods — impressed them. “People were

fishing,” says Bodger, “and an auto parts fac-tory was being built next to an auto plant to minimize transport.”

picnic in the cityThe second day of the program —

“The Present” — began with a presentation by Evanston architect Nathan Kipnis on sustainable architecture and a talk by transportation expert Joseph Schofer, professor of civil and environmental engineering at McCormick, titled “Transportation, Location, and Sustainable Urban Travel.” Then it was on to downtown Chicago for a visit to City Hall’s roof-top garden, the first such green roof on a munici-pal building in the United States and one of 200 planted roofs in Chicago that help cool the city and reduce the amount of storm water entering the sewer system.

The next stop turned Chicago’s motto, Urbs in Horto (or “city in a garden”), into “garden in the city.” City Farm is a 1-1/2 acre organic farm on a once-vacant lot near Clybourn Avenue and Division Street. Because most Chicago soil con-tains lead, the ground is covered with three feet of composted soil, moved from the farm’s first lo-cation on the city’s South Side. According to City Farm founder Ken Dunn, who spoke to partici-

pants, Chicago has 90,000 vacant lots, totaling 10,000 acres. With City Farm as a model, the idea is that, as lots become developed and communities grow, the composted soil will be moved and reused. Compost for City Farm is generated by a dozen of the city’s finest restaurants (hotspots like Frontera Grill and Scoozi!), which in turn purchase the produce grown on the farm. Their chefs are thrilled with the range and quality of the produce — 30 varieties of tomatoes as well as beets, carrots, potatoes, gourmet lettuces, herbs, and melons — as were the Green City participants, who feasted on a picnic lunch that featured the farm’s offerings.

After lunch the group made its way to the West Side to visit the Center for Green Technology, a city-owned, mixed-use facility reborn from a former indus-trial building and dumping ground. When the Center for Green Technology was inaugurated in 2002, it was one of only five buildings in the country to receive the highest LEED rating of Platinum (the Ford building is Silver); currently there are 20 Platinum buildings in the United States. Kevin Pierce, then a principal architect for Farr Associates, the firm that designed the building, led participants on a tour that highlighted sustainable prac-tices: the extensive use of recycled or salvaged materials; water-storage cis-terns and a green roof to minimize run-off and irrigate native plants; and a ground-source heat/cooling pump

system that includes 28 vertical wells drilled 200 feet into the earth. “It was inspiring,” says Bodger. “It caused us to examine how we live our lives.”


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participants in sCs’s green City summer institute explored the past, present, and future of sustainability in the Chicago area:

from wetland to brownfield, the Calumet region has charted the environmental impact of industrialization. now, thanks to the Calumet initiative, the area is home to a mix of wetlands, prairies, industrial sites, neighborhoods — and even a rare yellow-winged blackbird. photos by rob Curtis.

some of Chicago’s best restaurants provide compost for the City farm and reap a harvest of high-quality produce in return. photos by Janel laban.

Built on what was once a rubble-strewn industrial site, the Center for green technology employs recycled building materials, solar panels, smart lighting, and a green roof — and is home to companies with an environmental bent. photos © farr associates architecture | planning | preservation, Chicago, illinois.

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A Green Cit y Alumnus puts new ideA s to work

Keith Bodger was not playing hooky from work when he spent three days in August picnicking, strolling through prairies, and taking in the scenery from a rooftop garden. In fact, Bodger’s employer sponsored his participation in Northwestern’s Green City Summer Institute, which included thought-provoking lectures on sustainability along with the picnicking (see accompanying article). Bodger, a senior environmental specialist at Nicor Gas, the Northern Illinois natural gas distribution company, says he is eager to implement in his workplace the ideas he picked up at the summer program.

“Seeing how rubber tires were recycled at the Chicago Center for Green Technology made me think about how we can recycle plastic pipe at Nicor,” says Bodger, who has worked at the company since 2001. “We can also do things like retrofitting lighting to be more energy efficient. Nicor’s already planting prairies — eight acres last year in Naperville and Elgin.” As pleased as he is with his company’s interest in the environment, Bodger is practical: “I have to take the emotion out of it and present sustainability to the company as a sound business move.”

Bodger has a long-standing interest in the environment and in Northwestern. In 1995, two years after moving to Chicago from his home near Ottawa, Bodger, who had earned an associate’s degree in geotechnical engineering in Canada, began taking classes at SCS while working at a consulting firm. By 2000 Bodger had earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies. “After I finished at Northwestern I couldn’t wait to go back to school,” says Bodger, but his busy work and family schedule kept him from doing so until last summer, when he heard about the Green City institute.

“My boss was very interested in what I learned at the institute, and we’ve been meeting with key personnel at Nicor to plant the seeds for new approaches to environmental issues,” says Bodger, who believes that what he learned in the program will further develop his career. At Nicor, Bodger works on maintaining environmental compliance. He leads classes for employees on topics such as spill response and is involved in committees that write regulations, including the Illinois underground storage tank regulations, which were rewritten in 2003 with the participation of stakeholders like Nicor. Bodger is also the author of a book, Fundamentals of Environmental Sampling, published in 2003.

As knowledgeable as Bodger is about environmental issues, the summer institute introduced him to several firsts. “I had read about LEED–certified buildings, but I had never been in one,” says Bodger, who noted details like minimal drywall and recycled glass steps in the Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center, where classes were held. “I had never seen a green roof before,” says Bodger, “and now we’re thinking of doing it at Nicor.” The biggest surprise for Bodger was City Farm: “I was amazed at what they’re doing in the middle of downtown Chicago. Ken Dunn [the founder of City Farm] is making a real difference.” And, says Bodger, the picnic lunch prepared from organic City Farm produce was “outstanding.”

development on the prairieOn the final day the topic was “The Future.” To catch a glimpse of what that might hold, the group traveled to far north suburban Grayslake to stroll through Prairie Crossing, a self-identified “Conservation Com-munity.” The 10-year-old development mixes 359

single-family homes and 36 condomini-ums with shared open land — in the same space that might have motivated a conven-tional developer to erect thousands of homes. Designed to combine respon-sible development, the preservation of open land, and easy commuting by rail, Prairie Crossing is now considered by

many to be a national example of how to design com-munities to support a better way of life.

“Going to Prairie Crossing opened my eyes,” says Gray, who confessed that before she visited the devel-opment she thought its status as a green community might have been hype. “Learning the history of it and understanding all the obstacles that had to be overcome to develop it, I came away with a new appreciation for what’s involved in creating and marketing a sustainable community.”

The entire program was an eye-opener for Teterycz. “The Green City Summer Institute was a tremendous learning experience for me,” says Teterycz, who in ad-dition to being an administrator is a graduate student in organizational change at the School of Education and Social Policy and was able to use her summer experi-ence for field research. “It went beyond doing my job. It stimulated my interest in the field. We talked about what we could do to make our lives more sustainable — on a personal level, a corporate level, a community level.”

For presenter Kipnis, variety was the spice of the institute. “The neat thing about it was that the partici-pants and the presenters all had varied backgrounds. The mix of lectures and field trips gave an overview of the subject, a nice snapshot of sustainable practices in the past, present, and future,” says Kipnis. “I haven’t seen another program on sustainability as comprehen-sive as the Green City Summer Institute.”

Teterycz is already gearing up for this summer, when the institute will be repeated but with new site visits and the latest information. “I’m thinking about what we can do to make the program itself greener,” says Teterycz. “Definitely less plastic with the catering.”

Keith Bodger

prairie Crossing


“dear mayor daley,” begins the letter dated May 17, 2006. “we are a group of 22

civil servants from different departments

of the Beijing municipal Government. we

are currently studying english at north

western university school of Con tinuing

studies in order to prepare for the 2008

olympic Games.” The group ends the let-ter by inviting Mayor Richard M. Daley to meet with the class, sweetening the deal by promising to supply tips on how Chicago might win its bid for the 2016 Olympic Games. On June 29 Mayor Daley welcomed the group to City Hall.

The courses taken by the Beijing municipal employees represent one of several ways SCS has expanded its out-reach far beyond the Chicago area to create global ties. “Increasingly, SCS is seeking to offer programs or courses with an international focus, reflecting the University-wide commitment to offer programs that span the globe and promote cross-cultural understanding,” says Peter Kaye, assistant dean for undergraduate and credit professional programs at SCS.

SCS expands international ties

language skills help professionals advanceSCS developed a customized program to fit the needs of the Chinese delegation based on its Professional English Communication series, formerly known as English as a Second Language for Professionals. Leading SCS’s efforts in this area is Julia Moore, who holds a three-way appoint-ment at SCS, the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and Northwestern’s Graduate School. At the Graduate School she runs the International Summer Institute, which provides intensive language instruction for international PhD students. Moore directs classes and tutoring year-round. She earned a PhD in linguistics from Northwestern in 2004 and specializes in language acquisition, pedagogy, and pragmatics.

Moore helped develop a roster of seven courses in the Professional English Communication series aimed at Chicago-area professionals in business, medicine, research, and academia who have intermediate to advanced profi-ciency in English. “Communication is important in the workplace,” says Moore. “Even small talk and socializing play a part. Our students know that refining their English skills will help them advance in their work.”

The classes, which emphasize speaking rather than reading and writing English, are a lively mix of role playing and interactive exercises designed to promote practice. “If you walk into a class you’ll hear the students speaking to one another, with the professors providing feedback,” says Moore. “Our goal is comprehensibility and effective communication. We don’t want students to get hung up on perfect pronunciation. We try to let them hear the dif-ference in intonation through repetition and correction.”

Going global

welcoming visitors with a customized curriculumIn addition to regularly scheduled courses, SCS tailors special offerings to visiting groups, like the Chinese delegation that visited last spring. SCS also developed an intensive program last summer for a group of five police officers from the United Arab Emirates. The program included special-ized vocabulary that included the nomenclature of accident investi-gation and traffic engineering. By fall the five were equipped to join native English speakers in classes at Northwestern’s Center for Public Safety, where they will complete their course work in police traffic management in June.

“Having SCS bring ESL instruction to this group made a big difference,” says Alexander Weiss, director of the Center for Public Safety. “In the future we hope to include this as part of our program for international visitors.”

Because Chinese speakers make up the largest group in the Professional English Communication series, SCS instructors already had a good grasp of the issues involved in teaching English to the municipal workers from Beijing. “Pitch is important in both Chinese and English,” says Moore. “But in Chinese pitch operates at the level of individual words — these are called tones. In English we use changes in pitch at the sentence level — intonation — to carry meaning, some of which is also conveyed in social cues. This takes some getting used to for non-English speakers.”

SCS’s experience teaching English to Chinese speakers was one of the factors that led Chinese offi-cials to select Northwestern from a group of 12 schools originally considered; the Chicago setting was another plus. Gearing up for the 2008 Olympic Games, the government of Beijing wanted to ramp up training for municipal workers who will have increased communica-tions in English with international visitors.

SCS also had the advantage of working with “a wonderful group of partners,” says Moore. Interna-tional Student Friendship Chicago provided weeklong home stays with host families for complete immer-

sion in English. Licheng Gu, chair of Chi-nese language and literature in Northwestern’s Department of African and Asian Languages, arranged for American students learning Chinese to meet with the visitors. Volunteers from the North-western chapter

of the Community Council for International Students and from SCS’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute also provided important support.

practicing english in the windy CityThe Chinese municipal workers arrived in April and spent 13 weeks in the United States. Most of their time was devoted to the SCS program, but they also fit in a 10-day tour to a few national highlights: Yellowstone National Park, New York City, and Washington, D.C.

At SCS’s new Loop space at 210 South Clark Street, they took classes in listening and translation, conversation, pronunciation, and presentations. “It’s a wonderful facility, with state-of-the-art classrooms and beautiful views of downtown Chicago,” says Moore.

left: Julia moore

Below: Joann dobbie, sCs director of corporate education (left), with students zhu linyan (center) and Xu lu (right).

Bottom right: the Beijing municipal employees visit mayor richard m. daley at City hall.

The program was customized for the specific needs of the group. Translation skills were emphasized because, says Moore, “when they return to Beijing they will be the English experts in their departments, called on to translate.” To accommodate differences in proficiency, they were divided into small groups for some subjects, like pronunciation. An extra-long break was scheduled at lunch to allow students time for the nap often built into the Chinese school day.

On Fridays the students received one-on-one tutor-ing and took a project-based learning class that included numerous field trips, like a visit to a Borders bookstore to look for nouns and verbs. The group also enjoyed a tour of Chicago’s architecture and activities organized by their instructors. Z. J. Tong, who taught their listen-ing and translation class, planned a party, and another instructor arranged for the group to attend the opera Nixon in China. “All of the instructors helped make Chicago a second home for the students,” says Moore.

It was an in-class writing exercise that spurred the students to invite Mayor Daley to meet with them. During the visit to City Hall that resulted, the mayor delivered a short address to the delegation in which he recounted a recent visit to Beijing and commented upon Chicago’s efforts to increase awareness of Chinese culture. The students discussed the city’s government with Eileen Hubbard, director of the Office of Protocol, and shared their experiences in Beijing’s government with her. A look at City Hall’s rooftop gardens provided

an opportunity for a member of Beijing’s Bureau of Environmental Services to converse with her Chicago counterpart.

“The visit with the mayor was wonderful because it came at the end of the program,” says Moore, “and the students were able to use all the skills they had developed over the past three months to speak about topics specific to their interests.”

Moore says she was very happy with the prog-ress the group made. “I saw a wonderful improve-ment in their English. They now have a broader, more international per-spective.” She adds that the experience was equally valuable for SCS. “We learned a great deal about logistics that will be helpful in hosting other groups.” Moore is exploring English tutoring options for business professionals from Argentina and continues to work with international law students from China, Israel, Latin America, and Eastern Europe.

During their months in Chicago the Chinese municipal workers formed strong bonds with their instructors and with the city, says Moore. “When they arrived they were homesick for China. When they left they were homesick for Chicago.”

“ Communication is important in the workplace. Even small talk and socializing play a part. Our students know that refining their English skills will help them advance.”


Rx for medical educationSCS offerings mirror trends in health care

Rx for medical education


T he practice of medicine in the United States has changed in many ways

over the last quarter century — an upsurge in managed care, increased use of information technology, a proliferation of high-tech diagnostic and therapeutic tools — but one thing has barely budged: the num-ber of medical school graduates. In 1980 U.S. medical schools graduated 16,935 new physicians, versus 15,925 in 2006 — a 6 percent decrease that coincided with a 32 percent increase in the U.S. population.

Does this mean that the nation is experiencing a severe shortage of doctors? Not necessarily. For one thing, graduates of foreign medical schools represent about one in four physicians practicing in the United States. For another, the responsibilities of health care professionals have shifted, with physician assistants and nurse practitioners assuming some of the duties once restricted to physicians.

Nevertheless, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) reports mounting evidence that suggests current trends will culminate in a shortage of physicians within the next few decades. The AAMC further points out existing shortages in particular specialties and underserved populations. But because enrollment numbers in medical schools are nationally regulated, an increase in the number of available slots may be years away.

What this means is that anyone hoping to gain admis-sion to medical school in the immediate future will have to vie for about the same number of openings as far fewer candidates did a generation ago. Last year approximately 39,000 applicants competed for 17,000 slots, making the odds of getting into medical school less than 1 in 2. What is a would-be doctor to do?

more paths to a career in medicineThe options for those interested in health care professions are multi-plying at SCS. Chief among these options is Northwestern’s Professional Health Careers Professional Develop-ment Program, which consists of four concentrations that prepare students to apply to schools of• medicine and related professions

— dentistry, veterinary medicine, physician assistant, pharmacy, osteopathy, and podiatry

• physical therapy• nursing• clinical psychology

Other career possibilities lie in the rapidly growing field of medi-cal informatics, a hybrid discipline

that merges information technology with the practice of medicine to improve patient care. Northwestern’s Master of Science in Medical Informatics (MMI) degree program, founded in 2006 and based on the Chicago campus, now offers an option for online study, giving students who live thousands of miles away access to this nationally recognized program (see accompanying article).

SCS’s approach to medical education dovetails with changes in medical practice and education. “Increasingly, medical schools aren’t limiting their admissions to biology majors as they had in the past,” says Peter Kaye, assistant dean for undergraduate and credit professional programs at SCS. “Now they’re drawing on a candidate pool with more diverse experience — which fits nicely with what we’re doing at SCS.” The varied backgrounds of SCS’s premedical students enrich the classes, says Kaye, citing some of their fields: law, social work, psychology, software programming, physics, finance, and microbiology.

Even with that diverse experience, these budding doc-tors must still meet the same prerequisites for admission to

adviCe for those Considering a Career in health Care

Jocelyn hirschman

“I like the idea of taking small steps. If there’s a voice in your head saying

‘Be a doctor,’ start with a class or two. That voice spoke louder to me in

my 30s than it did in my 20s.”

vu le

"If you’re thinking deep down that becoming a doctor is your

calling, give it a shot, but don’t quit your day job. One class will give you an idea of how hard it is and whether this will work in your life’s plan. Even students who took premed classes

years ago will want to retake science classes before taking the MCAT.”


medical school as the biology majors with whom they com-pete. That often entails going back to school, typically in a postbaccalaureate premedical program, to study subjects like biochemistry.

Of postbaccalaureate premedical programs listed on the AAMC web site, Northwestern’s is highlighted for its focus on career changers. (For the story of one such career changer, read the accompanying profile of student Vu Le, an experienced mechanical engineer about to enter dental school.) “For some it’s not only a career change but a life change,” says Kaye. “Their interest in medicine might be precipitated by incidents in their lives.”

These career changers also tend to be older than the freshly minted college graduates who represented most medical school enrollees in the past but who today make up only about half of entering classes. “Being older can be a plus,” says Kaye. “Life experience helps physicians relate to patients.” Almost a third of current applicants are between 24 and 27, and 16 percent are older than 27. Students in this category are sometimes referred to as “nontraditional” — a label that not so long ago referred to women and minorities applying to medical school. Jocelyn Hirschman, a veteran of SCS’s premedical program who began medical school last fall (see accompanying profile), said that at age 34 she expected to be the oldest in her medical school class — but discovered that one of her classmates was 44.

In addition to their diverse professional backgrounds, SCS premed students represent varied geographic territory. “The publicity about the program on the AAMC web site attracted national and international interest,” says Carolyn Feller, an academic counselor at SCS. Feller says that stu-dents from throughout the country, including California, Colorado, and Georgia, have relocated to the Chicago area to attend Northwestern’s program and that inquiries have come from China, India, Ireland, Korea, and Turkey.

What attracts these far-flung students to Northwestern’s premedical programs? “Northwestern’s reputation and the rigorous curriculum are primary reasons,” says Feller, “but SCS’s flexibility is equally important.” Because most classes are held at night on the Evanston campus, where lab space is available, students can keep their day jobs. A prospective student might choose to test the waters with a single course as a student at large or apply to enroll in a premed professional development program. Enrolling in the program qualifies students for federal financial aid

and allows them use of the recommendation file service when applying to medical school. Another option might be to earn a second bachelor’s degree in a subject like human biology.

a sense of communityKaye says that a big draw for premeds at SCS is their sense of community, and he believes they deserve the credit for this. “They’re very supportive of one another. One of the best aspects of the program is the student group. I applaud them for their energy and initiative.” That student group, Northwestern University Pre-health Professionals (NUPP), identifies itself as “a community dedicated to the successful admission of its members into programs that lead to careers in medical, health, and veterinary practice.” To that end, students share relevant information and meet to hear speak-ers on topics of interest.

Some of what students share might be tips on applying to medical school, suggestions for presenting themselves during the requisite interviews, and — something that looms very large — how to do well on the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). “Numbers aren’t the whole story,” says Feller, “but students who get into medical school usually score 30 or higher on the MCAT and have a GPA of 3.5 or above.”

No figures are available for how SCS premed students score on the MCAT, but Hirschman says that her score shot up by seven points after she took classes at SCS, as measured against two earlier attempts. Kaye says that the rigor of the curriculum prepares students for more than that important exam. “After taking the MCAT one student told me, ‘We were pushed so hard in organic chemistry that I knew all the material.’” Kaye says that in addition to being rigorous the SCS curriculum offers some unique opportunities, including the only undergraduate anatomy class at Northwestern. He adds that SCS pays attention to what medical schools want, such as more emphasis on biochemistry.

“The strength and rigor of our program fit into our larger mission, which is to make top-quality education available to those who might not otherwise have access to it,” says Kaye. “Our hope is that it will open doors of possibility to our students — and that the medical com-munity will benefit.”

About half of all medical students go straight

from college to medical school. For the other

half the path may be circuitous. “I thought

about medical school in college,” says Jocelyn

hirschman, who earned a bachelor’s degree in

biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-

Champaign in 1994, “but I wasn’t prepared to

go to school for another 10 years.” Apparently

timing was everything for Hirschman. Last fall,

a dozen years later — and rich with experience

— she entered Northwestern’s Feinberg School

of Medicine.

The intervening years took Hirschman around

the world, first to New Orleans for a master’s

degree in public health at Tulane University. For

her capstone project in epidemiology she served

as a Peace Corps volunteer in Burkina Faso in

West Africa, training a management committee

at a small village health center in budgeting and

program planning. Hirschman next put her public

health degree to work doing infectious disease

surveillance for the Arizona Department of Public

Health and studying how poverty influences

health outcomes at Chicago’s Sinai Urban Health

Institute.

She liked epidemiology but felt she could

do more as a doctor. To begin to realize that goal,

she took general chemistry and physics at SCS

as a student at large.

“The classes made it

clear to me that this

was what I wanted

to do,” says Hirschman, who went on to finish

the Professional Health Careers Professional

Development Program with a concentration in

premedicine in two years.

The environment at SCS enhanced her experi-

ence. “It was good to be with others who were

going through the same thing,” says Hirschman.

“I really liked my fellow students, with their

wide range of backgrounds and their maturity.”

Hirschman also praises the student group, NUPP.

“The support of the community made the deci-

sion to go to medical school much easier.”

The hardest decision for Hirschman, who

was accepted at several top medical schools,

proved to be picking which school to attend.

Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine

won out. Hirschman notes that

her friends at SCS also were

accepted into their programs of

choice in medicine, veterinary

medicine, and physical therapy.

Her first day in medical school was “exciting

and a little scary,” but she soon discovered that

her units in biochemistry and cell biology were

similar to what she had studied at SCS. “I felt

very well prepared,” says Hirschman. “I’m confi-

dent I can do this.”

pre-premed: time for experience before medical school

“ i felt very well prepared. i’m confident i can do this.”


Vu le was working 60-hour weeks as an auto-

motive engineer at a Ford assembly plant on

Chicago’s South Side when he revisited his

dream of a career in medicine. His sister, an

endodontist, had previously prodded him to

consider such a move, but at that time he lived

in Michigan and had been unable to find a pre-

medical program that would allow him to con-

tinue to work. When he moved to Chicago, he

discovered SCS. “It was exactly what I needed,”

says Le, who plans to attend dental school after

he completes a bachelor’s degree in biology at

Northwestern in June.

Le had earned bachelor’s and master’s

degrees in mechanical engineering and

amassed years of experience in the automotive

industry in Detroit when he and his wife relo-

cated to Chicago in 2004. Because Le had taken

many of the necessary premed courses as an

undergraduate, he could have applied to medi-

cal school after taking only two SCS courses,

biology and organic chemistry. But Le found

his classes so absorbing that he resigned from

his job to focus on his studies. “I thought the

upper-level biology classes

of the bachelor’s program

would help me stand out

from other applicants,”

says Le.

One valuable source

of information for Le was

NUPP, the student organiza-

tion for pre-health profes-

sionals. “NUPP showed me

how to be a more competitive applicant,”

says Le, who is now the group’s president.

“They gave me a lot of information, and I

wanted to give something back.” To that end

Le applied some of his professional skills as a

team leader, matching committee members with

specific responsibilities, clarifying accounting,

and negotiating an agreement with Kaplan Test

Prep and Admissions — SCS had an existing

relationship with the Princeton

Review — so that students could

obtain discounts at both. NUPP

also facilitates tutoring for pre-

medical students.

Le has no regrets about the

effort it takes to switch careers.

“I realized I didn’t want to do my

old job for another 30 years,” says

Le, who is 34. “If I graduate from

dental school when I’m 40, I’ll still have 25 years

to practice, and I’ll be doing work that I find

truly satisfying.”

sCs student chooses the road not taken — and it leads to dental school

“ if i graduate from dental school when i’m 40, i’ll still have 25 years to practice, and i’ll be doing work that i find truly satisfying.”



The cutting edge of the cutting edge in health care can be found

in SCS’s newest distance learning initiative, the online version of its rigorous Master of Science in Medical Informatics (MMI) program. Com-bining information technology (IT) with medicine, the MMI program now offers students the choice between the classroom and the computer — anywhere in the world.

Offered by SCS in partnership with the Feinberg School of Medicine, the 11-course MMI program received a Creative Credit Academic Program Award from the University Continu-ing Education Association in 2006. Students follow one of two entry tracks depending on whether their backgrounds are in health care or IT. Program director David Liebovitz has expertise in both areas — he majored in electrical engineering before attending medical school — and serves as chief medical informatics officer for the Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation and as medical director for clinical information systems at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Liebovitz is enthusiastic about how medical informatics can improve patient care and streamline adminis-trative practices. “Medical informatics facilitates and guides medical decision making, increasing the probability of safe and effective care — it can help save lives by preventing medi-cal errors,” says Liebovitz. “It also improves communication and acts as a bridge between patients and physicians. And it can save money — potentially billions of dollars annually.”

In Introduction to Clinical Thinking, an entry course geared to nonclinicians, Liebovitz addresses topics like the recording of medical information. “We look at how struc-tured data differs from a free text and why it’s important to strike a bal-ance between the two in presenting a patient narrative. Here’s an example: A 65-year-old woman returns from her niece’s wedding and sees that her feet are swollen; she’s also anxious and short of breath. The detail about the wedding — where she may have indulged in dietary indiscretions, such as too much salt — may provide an important direction for testing.”

In a parallel entry track, Intro-duction to Medical Informatics, students with clinical experience explore how IT applies to health care. One instructor for this course is Linda Salchenberger, associate dean of academics at SCS. Salchenberger, who earned a PhD in decision sciences, has published research on data mining and neural network applications in health care.

Salchenberger says that the MMI program lends itself perfectly to its new online learning option, which began in January: “MMI students are highly motivated and very tech savvy. They’ll find this a natural way to learn.” She adds that online learning can serve local students with demand-ing work and travel schedules as well as those thousands of miles away. “Our audience of adult learners shouldn’t be constrained by geographic bound-aries,” says Salchenberger.

To reach that audience, SCS Dean Thomas F. Gibbons has

launched several distance-learning initiatives. “We’re experimenting with three different learning-delivery methodologies,” says Salchenberger. An undergraduate major in organiza-tion behavior, designed around the theme of leadership, blends classroom and online learning to cut face-to-face class time in half by adding online work. A noncredit course, Basics of Futures and Options Trading, gives students the choice between coming to class in person or participating in classes using web conferencing — an example of synchronous learning, where students connect at the same time, wherever they may be.

The online option for the MMI program combines synchronous and asynchronous learning. Professors schedule weekly sessions with students using WebEx™ conferencing; the sessions are recorded and archived. Students can access other material and homework exercises at their con-venience via Blackboard, an online course management program. The online option remains separate from the on-campus program, although students can transfer between them.

Salchenberger says that as the technology becomes more sophisti-cated, SCS program planners hope to build more collaborative tools. “Our focus is on creating a good distance learning experience for students,” says Salchenberger. “No talking heads, no professors delivering canned lectures. We’re trying to recreate the environ-ment of a real classroom.”

medical informatics: high-tech help for healing Online option brings the classroom anywhere


student profile

What did you do before coming to SCS?

There are private security companies that support

government agencies and private corporations in

their operations overseas, and I worked for one

of these companies. These are often very volatile

regions, and people can get themselves into trouble

— sometimes through their own actions, sometimes

as targets of indigenous groups waging political

fights or simply kidnapping for money. I worked

throughout Asia: Pakistan, India, northwestern

China on the border of Tajikistan — that was my

last posting before coming to Chicago.

How did this experience lead you to SCS?

I came away not entirely convinced that these

companies are the best way to solve a lot of the

problems they are called on to solve. At best we were

bandages; we weren’t solving problems. I started

looking for more long-term solutions, and I think a

lot of it has to do with how countries are governed.

Naturally these are huge, multidimensional

challenges, but I began looking at where I could

have the most impact. I knew I needed to go to

law school — with a focus on comparative law or

comparative constitutional law — and that meant I

needed to brush up my academic credentials before

applying.

When Terence Rau speaks of the “less linear” lives of SCS students, it quickly

becomes clear his own life may be the ultimate example: Born in Singapore, Rau

spent his early years — some of them homeless — in Indonesia and Malaysia before

making a career in private security in various trouble spots throughout Asia. When

his wife started law school in Chicago, Rau followed. At SCS he is completing a

BSGS in political science this year with an eye to applying to law school. While

taking classes he works as an options trader and personal fitness trainer.

Why did you choose SCS?

I was looking for a real education. I could have done

it much quicker at other schools, but after weighing

the options and really looking at my life, I chose the

program where I would be intellectually challenged

and could get as much exposure to real academia as

I could.

Also, the value of a flexible program that allows

one to make a living while receiving the quality of

education that Northwestern provides is priceless.

For all us SCS folk who experienced a “less linear”

path in life, this program is a privilege.

What is the best thing about being a student

at Northwestern?

The professors. They not only facilitate a level of

education that promotes critical thinking but also

introduce tools for continued self-education.

What have been your favorite classes?

I took the African survey class by Jeff Rice [history]

last summer and the anthropological cultural

survey of North Africa by Katherine Hoffman

[anthropology] last spring. For a continent that

provides so much of the world’s resources, headlines,

engagement rings, and kids for celebrities, it does


What’s your favorite thing about Chicago?

Winter. (Kidding.) The opportunity to interact

with Midwesterners. I have come to realize how

different Chicagoans and Midwesterners are in

their self-view, perception, and conception of

America and its other regions as compared with

Southerners. (I used to live in Texas and traveled

extensively through the Southern states.) The

local political scene, city infrastructure, and

acquiescent class system as viewed through the

experiences of my peers are fascinating.

What book is on your nightstand?

Snow by Orhan Parmuk (translated from

Turkish). It’s a social and political commentary on

Turkey (intentionally, superficially) couched in the

style of a narrated travelogue. It reads like you’re

watching a movie. Over the years the author has

been in and out of jail for the political subtext of

his works. The book provides excellent insight into

the complexities of Turkish society and sovereign

identity in the world community through the story

of a rural community. Even if politics and social

commentary are not your cup of tea, it holds its own

as a novel.

What is your greatest achievement?

Ask me again when I’m 90.

not command a proportionate share of intellectual

attention. That we have scholars like Rice, Hoffman,

Georgi Derluguian [sociology], and Will Reno

[political science] at Northwestern with both deep

field and intellectual knowledge of Africa is a

testament to the justified national reputation of the

University.

Who are your favorite professors?

William Arndt [finance], Michelle Christensen

[political science], Liuba Kurtynova-Derluguian

[history], Georgi Derluguian, Tolga Esmer [history],

(if he visits again), Roshen Hendrickson [political

science], Katherine Hoffman, Ian Hurd [political

science], Deepasriya Sampath-Kumar [economics],

Jerome Lassa [organizational behavior], Will Reno,

Jeffery Rice, Torrey Shanks [political science], David

Tully [political science]: Their classes have been

engaging and challenging and allow you to stretch

your mind as far as you want. These professors are

also great communicators, possess interesting and

diverse worldviews, and are accessible outside class.

Their publications contain powerful ideas and offer

rich bibliographies for further research.


faculty profile

When Franz Paul walked into Eric Fridman’s class last June,

he thought he knew what to expect from Topics in Management: Leadership and Decision Making. “I thought we’d read about Patton or other military leaders,” says Paul, an options trader who earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from SCS in December. He could not have been more wrong.

Rather than study General George Patton, the class watched a routine by comedian George Carlin. Instead of PowerPoint presentations, students recited poems and belted out gospel music. “Eric approached the subject in an unexpected way,” says Paul. “When he first talked about the art of leadership and about authenticity, I had no idea how these would fit in. In the end I came away with a much deeper understanding of what leadership is. Out more than 20 classes I took at SCS, this was one of the very best.”

It should come as no surprise that Paul’s instruc-tor, a rookie at SCS but no novice in the classroom, hit one out of the park, or that his class is sure to be offered again, probably next fall. Fridman, assistant dean and director of marketing for executive education at the J. L. Kellogg School of Management, is a sea-soned teacher and student of leadership, a subject he knows firsthand from more than 20 years as an executive in the telecommunications industry.

“I think of leaders more as artists than generals or football coaches,” says Fridman. “Leaders must be creative to solve organizational issues. Like artists, they have to be able to improvise on the spot. I try to use the classroom as a studio, a creative environment where students not only learn about leadership but practice it.”

In keeping with that goal, Fridman started the first class — without introducing himself —

by asking a question: “How many of you have walked into a room where a group of people are sitting and waiting for you?” A few hands went up, and Fridman followed with another question: “OK, since you understand my situation, how should I start?” As students made suggestions — “You could tell a joke” — Fridman asked another question: “Why?” Soon the entire class was engaged in dialogue.

The questions and dialogue at the heart of Fridman’s teaching reflect his background. “Most of my schooling was in the humanities,” says Fridman, who earned a master’s degree in general studies in the humanities at the University of Chicago, where he studied Chinese philosophy — he is proficient in Mandarin — and crafted a thesis on Ezra Pound. Fridman later earned an MBA from Kellogg. “Study-ing the Greeks and Plato gave me a lifelong apprecia-tion for the Socratic method. One of the first skills I introduce to my students is how to engage in dialogue with another person.”

Students in Fridman’s class quickly learned to expect the unexpected. They read Ellen Langer’s On Becoming an Artist: Reinventing Yourself Through Mind-ful Creativity and kept personal journals to identify obstacles that kept them from fulfilling their creative

An authentic teacherEric Fridman riffs on the art of leadership


potential. Why read Langer and explore mindfulness? “Mindfulness is a personal capacity leaders must cul-tivate,” says Fridman. “Most of us spend 90 percent of our time worrying about the past or future rather than paying attention to what’s happening right now. Multi-tasking is the antithesis of mindfulness; it prevents you from becoming the leader you can become.”

Fridman led students through a series of exercises designed to help them experience the qualities of lead-ership. To learn about personal presence, Fridman asked students to select a reading of personal impor-tance and present it to the class in a way that would establish a direct, emotional connection. One student brought a guitar and sang a blues song he wrote about his wife. Another read a citation for a friend in the Marines who lost his life in the Sudan, and one read an inspirational passage from a diet book. Fridman went last, reciting a William Carlos Williams poem, “Danse Russe.”

Anyone wandering into Fridman’s classroom during moments like these might have wondered,

What does this have to do with leadership? “Leaders must be authentic,” says Fridman. “Their actions have to be consistent with their personal values. Trust has to grow between leaders and followers.” When asked why trust is essential, Fridman gives a pointed answer: “Look at Enron.”

The role of the leader, says Fridman, is to create an environment in which all factions can engage in can-did dialogue and create solutions that give everyone something of what they want. “The best metaphor I can think of for leadership is the leader as a chef and the organization he leads as a pressure cooker,” says Fridman. “That’s why the leadership classroom comes to look less like a class in chemistry or algebra or even

marketing and more like a class in cooking, painting, or sculpture, where instead of one right answer there are several.”

Fridman’s approach to teaching leadership, with its emphasis on authenticity and creativity, may be uncon-ventional, but it does not lack rigor. “Sometimes I had to remind myself that this was an undergraduate class,” says Paul. “He brought the intellectual rigor of a grad-uate business school program to the classroom.” Paul adds, “People responded eagerly to his teaching style. He truly listens and adds fresh ideas.”

Fridman would call his teaching prowess simply being a good leader. He credits his SCS students for their willingness to engage and to see things in new ways: “SCS students are really hungry to learn. They believe their education will make a profound difference in their lives — and it will.”

At home in Glenview, Fridman takes great pleasure in his family. He and his wife of 15 years are parents to an 11-year-old daughter and a 9-year-old son, both of whom are following their dad’s lead by learning Chi-

nese. Fridman’s leisure pursuits, he says, are unremark-able. When asked about a creative outlet, however, he does not hesitate: “Teaching. That’s what I do for fun.” No wonder Fridman’s students are eager to follow this leader.

“ i try to use the classroom as a studio, a creative environment where students not only learn about leadership but practice it.”


sCs news

The pharmaceutical, food, and biotechnology industries are moving at an increasingly rapid pace, with pressure to get new products to market quickly while assuring consumers and regulatory agencies that these products are effective and safe. Scientists in these fields are often forced to juggle the demands of consumers, government regulations, business, and science itself. A new SCS graduate program, the Master of Science in Quality Assurance and Regulatory Science (MQARS), aims to give these labo-ratory scientists the knowledge, expertise, and skills to create and implement efficient and effective quality systems as well as under-stand the regulatory and compli-ance environment.

lab science degree focuses on quality, regulatory standards

“Life scientists are unique in that the quality of their work, when used for the good of mankind, will be the difference between suffering or relief, life or death for many people over many, many years,” said Neal Siegel, chief scientist of Sword Diagnostic and an MQARS board member. Scientists with undergraduate and graduate degrees in fields such as biology, chemistry, bioengineer-ing, biotechnology, and chemical engineering routinely find them-selves asked to play a leadership role in quality assurance, yet they are unlikely to have any formal edu-cation in this increasingly complex field. Pharmaceutical, food, medical device, and other similarly regulated industries face many overlapping quality challenges that are better

addressed by a rigorous profes-sional master’s degree than by internal training programs. The industry-standard MQARS program is ideal for scientists and quality-affairs professionals as well as scientists with undergradu-ate or graduate degrees in the life sciences intending to pursue a career in regulatory affairs. The degree is offered in partnership with the Department of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and combines leadership and communication skills with applied science and project man-agement as well as risk assessment and risk management. A faculty consisting of University faculty and specialists from FDA-regulated companies leads students through a 10-course curriculum

designed to bridge instruction in the life sciences with the demands of industry. Highlights of the program include a leadership series and a capstone project that combine theo-retical and applied approaches in a cross-industry fashion. SCS also offers a five-course Professional Graduate Series Certificate that con-sists of core classes and electives for students seeking a more focused program of study. For more information, contact Cary Nathenson, assistant dean of graduate programs, at 847-491-4340.

Employees of Northwestern enrolled in SCS are eligible for a scholarship of up to $1,000 from the University Circle, an organization founded to provide opportunities for service, scholarship, and social activi-ties that enhance the University community. The award helps cover tuition toward a certificate or degree program at the undergraduate or graduate level.

The University Circle established the scholarship in 2004 and awarded the first one in spring 2005. In 2006 the University Circle awarded two scholarships in response to the number and quality of applications. They were presented to two Feinberg School of Medicine employees: Laura Guzman and Silvia Skripkauskas (see SCS people).

The application deadline is March 1, and the winner is announced at the May annual meeting of the Circle. The scholarship may be applied to tuition for the following summer, fall, or winter quarters.

Applicants must be in good academic standing with a minimum GPA of 3.0 and must have been employed by Northwestern for more than one year. The scholarship committee considers clarity of and dedication to stated goals, past academic record, financial need, and Northwestern University or other community involvement when assessing applications.

university Circle scholarship aids sCs students

The scholarship is funded through donations from University Circle members and friends. The Circle had its origins in 1915 when a group of Northwestern faculty wives formed the Faculty Women’s Club to help build a facility for female students. Today any person with an official relationship to Northwestern University, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, or Seabury-Western Theological Seminary is eligible to become a member of the Circle, as are spouses and parents of those persons.

Information about the scholarship and application forms are available at www.northwestern.edu/university-circle.

Spring 2007 Continuum 21Spring 2007 Continuum 21

In wake of Enron, WorldCom, and other corporate scandals, Americans are increasingly aware that crimes of the executive suite can be just as destructive as crimes of the street. To address this trend, SCS has launched Investigation and Prevention of Commercial Fraud, a new certifi-cate program designed to help professionals meet the growing challenges associated with internal fraud and white-collar crime.

The curriculum is designed for audit committee members, executive management and owners of small and mid-sized companies, accountants, internal auditors, attorneys, law enforcement and government investiga-tors, and career changers who have an interest in this growing field.

Susan Henry, program adviser and instructor, says, “Professionals re-sponsible for investigating and preventing fraud within their organizations need critical resources — beyond standard academic studies and on-the-job training — to maximize their effectiveness. This program provides a foundation for individuals to learn best practices in fraud investigation and prevention from top instructors in the industry.”

Students in the program learn about various forms of financial statement fraud (including billing schemes, cash larceny, bribery, and corruption), legal requirements for fraud prevention within an organization, data investi-gation techniques used in the course of fraud investigation, interview and interrogation techniques employed in fraud examinations, and how to utilize forensic accounting, data analysis, and computer forensics to con-duct a fraud investigation.

Students earn the certificate when they complete four six-week courses within one year. The evening courses are held at SCS’s Loop location, 210 South Clark Street. For additional information, contact Laura Salus at 312-503-4846 or visit www.scs.northwestern.edu/fraud.

The Center for Public Safety has moved to new headquarters in SCS’s main Evanston building at 1801 Maple Avenue.

The move consolidates all of the center’s programs — except for Traffic Safety School — into one facility.

The center was established in 1936 as the Traffic Institute and joined SCS in 2004. It provides con-tinuing education, consulting, and research for law enforcement agen-cies throughout the world.

In its new space on the first and third floors of 1801 Maple, the center has two 50-person “smart” conference rooms, a 60-seat multi-purpose room, a forensics room, and administrative offices. The con-ference rooms serve law enforce-ment and traffic personnel who attend the center’s professional ed-ucation and training courses. About 2,000 people attend courses each

wieboldt hall update

In late January the renovation of Wieboldt Hall shifted into high gear as contractors worked round-the-clock to overhaul the lobby and the fourth and fifth floors. To minimize disruption of SCS activi-ties, demolition was limited to a brief period ending in February and occurred entirely at night. Teams of electricians, HVAC specialists, carpenters, and other contractors worked during the day to modern-ize the SCS facilities. The recon-struction will continue through the spring and summer, with August 31 set as the target for completion.

In addition to improved electri-cal, heating, and cooling systems,

new program targets white-collar crime

year on campus and in locations in other states and foreign countries. Courses are offered on such topics as supervision of police and person-nel, crime control strategies, police ethics, and traffic accident investi-gation and reconstruction.

Center for public safety moves to 1801 maple

Wieboldt Hall will have 18 new classrooms — including one seat-ing 75 and two outfitted for video-conferencing — three group study rooms, a computer lab, and two stu-dent lounges on the fourth and fifth floors. The mechanicals and cab interiors of the two main elevators will also be updated. The new lobby will serve as an enhanced entryway to SCS, with a reception area featur-ing an online registration kiosk and new signage.

To track the progress of the proj-ect and see construction photos, visit www.scs.northwestern.edu /renovation.

state-of-the-art “smart” classrooms are key features of the wieboldt hall renovation.


sCs snapshot

the mix of

traditional and

modern architecture

on northwestern’s

evanston campus

mirrors the univer-

sity’s academic

breadth.


sCs people

Alumni and students

roy alexander (54) of

New York City heads a

consulting firm noted for

sales and communications

consultations in energy-

related fields. He recently

revised and updated Secrets

of Closing Sales (Portfolio,

2004).

harold v. anagnos

(76, Kellogg 90) of Long

Grove, Illinois, is managing

director of BXA Associates

in Palatine. He started BXA,

a technology investing and

technology marketing advi-

sory services firm, after the

merger of Lumex Inc. into

Illinois Tool Works. He re-

mains CEO of Lumex, a com-

pany that he cofounded more

than 25 years ago.

Cynthia l. Berry (98) of

Des Plaines, Illinois, is vice

president of Professional

Prodigy Inc., an organization

she cofounded to empower,

educate, and inspire women.

She cowrote When the Vow

Breaks (Professional Prodigy,

2005), an inspirational

story of triumph through

tribulation. She is an activist

against domestic violence in

Chicago and a volunteer with

a local shelter.

troy Bradford (02) of

Wilmette, Illinois, is presi-

dent and founder of Triad

Business Consulting, a

company that provides sales

training, sales management,

and marketing services.

david r. donohue (94) of

Waukegan, Illinois, is a

communication researcher

at Qualitative Technologies

Inc. at the North Chicago

Veterans Affairs Medical

Center. He produced

“Analyzing Factors Affecting

Functional Literacy in

the Context of Primary

Care Patient/Provider

Communication,” a research

study in functional health

care literacy, at the North

Chicago VA Medical Center

and the Naval Hospital at

Great Lakes.

patti solis doyle (90) is

manager of the presidential

campaign of Senator Hillary

Rodham Clinton (D–New

York). She has worked with

Clinton since 1991 and served

as a special assistant to the

president and director of

scheduling for the First Lady

during the Clinton adminis-

tration. Solis Doyle was chief

of staff on Clinton’s campaign

for the Senate in 2000 and

managed her successful

2006 reelection campaign.

Solis Doyle was also execu-

tive director of HillPAC, the

political action committee of

Senator Clinton. She is the

first Hispanic ever to manage

a presidential campaign.

Kathryn mcauliffe duda (76)

of Naperville, Illinois, worked

as a staffing coordinator in

information technology for 12

years. She also has worked in

marketing communications,

writing, and advertising. Her

twin sons graduated from

college in spring 2006.

marjorie “mar” sue

durrbeck (80) of Evanston,

a financial planner at

New England Securities in

Northbrook, Illinois, received

the registered financial

consultant designation

from the International

Association of Registered

Financial Consultants in

February. She has been a

financial planner since 1997.

mary franklin (95) of

Evanston, vice president

of administration and

publishing at Diamond

Headache Clinic, co-

wrote Headache Through

the Ages (Professional

Communications, 2005),

which describes headaches

as represented in the Bible,

literature, and art and

introduces headache suffer-

ers from throughout the

centuries.

thomas gary (99) of

Oak Park, Illinois, is on

active duty with the U.S.

Navy. He is assisting in the

training of Iraqi army units

and the preparation of civil

affairs projects. He is on

leave from his position with

the Illinois Department of

Commerce and Economic

Opportunity.

laura guzman received

a 2006 University Circle

Scholarship, available to

Northwestern University

employees enrolled in SCS

(see SCS News). Originally

from Colombia, Guzman is

a research technologist in the

Department of Dermatology

in the Feinberg School of

Medicine. She is working

toward a master of arts in

literature degree in SCS’s

MALit program, and her goal

is to teach at the college

level and edit, translate,

and write literary works.

Faculty

new director for osher lifelong learning institute

At the October 2006 annual

meeting of SCS’s Osher Lifelong

Learning Institute (OLLI), 150 life-

long learners welcomed the insti-

tute’s new director, Judy Mann.

Mann comes to OLLI after 12

years at Chicago’s Council for Jewish Elderly, where she devel-

oped educational programs for older adults and coordinated

marketing and outreach efforts. OLLI offers peer-led, noncredit

seminar-style courses to more than 500 mature learners on

both the Evanston and Chicago campuses of Northwestern

each year.

“As it prepares to celebrate its 20th anniversary, OLLI

has new leadership, new energy, and a new commitment to

lifelong learning, “ says Linda Salchenberger, associate dean

of academics at SCS. “With the hiring of Judy Mann, OLLI will

continue to seek innovative ways to best serve its members.”

Mann is excited about her new role. “This is a wonderful

opportunity for me to focus my passion for lifelong learning,”

she says. “I believe that adult development is a lifelong pro-

cess and that continued growth and learning are keys to suc-

cessful aging. OLLI members are extremely passionate about

learning and committed to the program. It is a pleasure to work

with people who are so enthusiastic.”

Mann cited the lack of classroom space on the Evanston

campus as one of the immediate challenges OLLI faces, adding

that efforts are under way to secure space for classes near the

Evanston campus by fall 2007. She also said that OLLI would

have to address the influence of external forces. “Changing

demographics, new retirement patterns, and increasing lifelong

learning alternatives are driving a strategic exploration at SCS

of how to maintain OLLI’s core program yet keep the program

fresh,” she said. “I am looking forward to exploring the oppor-

tunities that these challenges present.”


sCs people

In memoriam

edward J. adesko Jr. (76), Vancouver, Washington

peter anderson (59), Jackson, Michigan

hermine Beukema (55, C60), Chicago

edward w. Bilinski (60), Northbrook, Illinois

alexander h. Briddwell (81), Winnetka, Illinois

James f. Cooke (52), Marshall, Michigan

Charlyne macKay davie (44), Chicago

laverne decker (56), Calumet City, Illinois

samuel Curtis finley (82), Evanston

Claire rose hellstern (72), Chicago

Clarence w. hubbard (53), Hampstead, North Carolina

Jacqueline evers Kellogg (WCAS83, 87), Wilmette, Illinois

ronald a. Kober (CB71, 75, 79), Scottsdale, Arizona

mitchell h. lane (55), Park Forest, Illinois

david h. poirier (73), Geneva, Illinois

helen youngreen rapp (38), Homewood, Illinois

nino C. salerno (64), Hudson, Florida

robert J. skup (58), Wheaton, Illinois; survivors include his wife, Patricia Bragwell Skup (51)

Joseph J. sterkowicz (60), Chicago

James e. sykes (60), Portland, Oregon

Chesna Cohen weisberg (40), Pacifica, California

elsie e. wilgen (61), Ottawa, Illinois

william h. guthman (51),

81, Westport, Connecticut,

Dec. 28, 2005. Specializing

in early Americana, Guthman

became a well-respected an-

tiques dealer and appraiser.

In 1966 Guthman quit

his job as an executive at a

manufacturing company to

pursue his interest in colonial

military artifacts that ranged

from carved powder horns

to painted militia drums.

Besides establishing Guthman

Americana, he regularly ex-

hibited his collections, valued

at between $3 million and $5

million, at New York’s Winter

Antiques Show. He also ap-

peared as a guest appraiser

on Antiques Roadshow.

He is survived by his wife,

Elizabeth; his children, Scott

and Pamela; his stepchildren,

Alice and Amelia; and two

grandchildren.

Alumni and students, continued

dominic henry (96) of

Chicago was named assistant

chief engineer at O’Hare

International Airport in May.

lousanne halverson lofgren

(77, 79) of Oak Park, Illinois,

became executive director

of the American Orthopaedic

Foot and Ankle Society in

Rosemont in August 2005.

anita lynch (05) is work-

ing on an MBA at Harvard

Business School after hav-

ing been accepted to both

Harvard and Dartmouth. At

SCS she was an economics

major and a member of Alpha

Sigma Lambda, the national

honor society for adult stu-

dents in continuing higher

education.

thomas mudloff (88) of

Wheeling, Illinois, is a

lecturer and instructor of

Egyptology at the Field

Museum in Chicago and a

lecturer at SCS. He wrote

Hieroglyphs for Travelers:

What Do Those Little

Pictures Mean? (R. E. Fellows

Publishing, 1999). Mudloff

leads tours to Egypt, Syria,

Jordan, and Lebanon.

lindsey parker novak (78)

of Chicago, author of the

nationally syndicated work-

place advice column “At

Work,” opened a business-

writing consultancy. She is

also a writing instructor and

corporate writing trainer.

She received a Northwestern

Alumni Association Merit

Award in 2004.

lowell d. parker (71) of

Roseburg, Oregon, retired

in 1985 from his position

as lieutenant colonel and

deputy director of the Alaska

State Troopers. He enjoys

traveling and would enjoy

hearing from classmates.

edgar sanchez (00) of

Glendale Heights, Illinois,

accepted a senior specialist

role as infrastructure design

architect at Accenture in

Chicago.

mark schmidt (92) of

Park Ridge, Illinois, in April

2005 was named Midwest

regional manager for Daifuku

America Corp., designers and

manufacturers of materials

handling automation.

don l. scott (94) of North

Riverside, Illinois, became

proposal manager of cli-

ent services for LaSalle

Investment Management in

October 2005.

silvia skripkauskas received

a 2006 University Circle

Scholarship, available to

Northwestern University

employees enrolled in SCS

(see SCS News). She is a

health literacy research

coordinator for the Institute

for Healthcare Studies in the

Feinberg School of Medicine.

She is pursuing a master’s

degree in public health policy

in SCS’s MPPA program with

the long-term goal of becom-

ing a physician.

hunt h. unger (72) of

Evanston is an executive

career consultant and life

coach.

nancy faulkner wiersum

(82) of Naperville, Illinois,

became community develop-

ment director for Naperville

Community Television in fall

2005.


attention sCs alumni

Where have you been? What are you doing now? How has your SCS

experience prepared you for your current and future endeavors?

We want to hear from you. Contact us via e-mail at [email protected].

Blueberry Hill, Goshen, VT, by ethel peterson.

reprinted with permission from the

osher lifelong learning institute Journal.

NorthwesterN UNiversityschool of coNtiNUiNg stUdiesWieboldt Hall, SixtH Floor339 eaSt CHiCago avenueCHiCago, illinoiS 60611-3008

PHone 312-503-6950Fax [email protected]

nonProFit organizationu.S. PoStagePAidnortHWeStern univerSity

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