Rick Ill ’65

Making sure Merion Golf Club is completely up to par for the national golf championship June 13-16 is on the shoulders of Richard “Rick” Ill ’65, head of the club’s U.S. Open committee.

Ill, who previously served five years as president of Merion, began planning and preparation many months ago. Logistics include steps to manage the anticipated 25,000-plus daily spectators, road closure approvals, and medical staffing, as well as grooming and grounds work to ensure the historic 126-acre course in Ardmore, Pa., is in top order.

This year’s event marks the fifth time that the U.S. Open has been held at Merion. Ill describes his experience during the 1971 and 1981 championships and current preparations in the April 1 Philly.com article “What It Takes to Prepare Merion Golf Club for a U.S. Open.” He said that 500 volunteers assisted in 1981 and more than 5,000 are working this year.

A history graduate, Ill is chairman and founder of Triumph Group Inc., a global aerospace enterprise headquartered in Wayne with 63 companies in 73 locations worldwide. He holds an MBA from Drexel University.

“My success in business and at Merion have a lot to do with enjoying and working well with people,” says Ill. “I had the opportunity to build strong interpersonal skills through my involvement in Student Government and being president of my fraternity.” He also noted that playing on the lacrosse team developed his leadership skills.

Interaction with professors Al Gendebien, George Heath, Ed Coddington, and others in the History Department were pivotal.

“When a professor disagreed with me academically or politically on some issue, I had the opportunity to argue my point of view, learning to handle discourse and debate,” he says.

He noted that the fraternity adviser was Francis Zimmerman, professor of mechanical engineering, which gave him the benefit of interacting with someone outside the liberal arts.

Ill founded Triumph in 1993 and was chairman and chief executive officer through 2012. He is a director of P.H. Glatfelter Company and Mohawk Industries and serves on the board of Drexel University and of Baker Industries, a nonprofit work rehabilitation program employing an overlooked and underutilized workforce population. He was vice chair for the Philadelphia area United Way Campaign cabinet in 2008 and 2009.

Named Ernest & Young 2009 Philadelphia Entrepreneur of the Year, Ill was a runner-up in its national competition. In 2011, the Mustang Scholars Foundation presented him with the Man of the Year award. The nonprofit endows scholarships to economically disadvantaged young men and women of promise to attend Valley Forge Military College.

The event will feature an address by Anne-Marie Slaughter, one of the nation’s most influential commentators on international relations and global issues, and will include the awarding of five honorary degrees. The program will start at 2:30 p.m., following the academic procession, which will begin at 2:15 p.m.

The annual Baccalaureate service will be held at 10:30 a.m. the same day, featuring a sermon by the Rev. Alexandra M. Hendrickson, College chaplain and director of religious and spiritual life.

The Baccalaureate service and Commencement exercises are scheduled to be held on the Quad. In case of rain, one or both ceremonies may be held in Allan P. Kirby Sports Center. If there is a change in the location for either ceremony based on the weather, that information will be available by calling (610) 330-5809.

Read details on the Commencement website

President Daniel H. Weiss is concluding his eighth and final year as Lafayette’s 16th president and will become president of Haverford College July 1. Edward W. Ahart ’69, chair of the College’s Board of Trustees, will recognize Weiss’ service as president and award him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

Weiss will award Slaughter the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters. He also will award honorary degrees to the British author Martin Amis (Doctor of Literature), Joseph T. Cox ’68, headmaster of The Haverford School (Doctor of Humanities), and Robert A. Pastor ’69, professor of international relations and director of the Center for North American Studies and Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University (Doctor of Public Service).

Zachary A. Winthrop ’13 will deliver farewell remarks for the Class of 2013. He is the recipient of the George Wharton Pepper Prize, awarded to the senior who “most closely represents the Lafayette ideal.” Winthrop, of Philadelphia, will graduate with a bachelor of science degree, summa cum laude.

The first students to receive their diplomas will be Scott T. Albert ’13, Szu-Ying Chen ’13, and Megan E. Young ’13, who have achieved the highest cumulative grade-point average in the class. Albert, of Marlboro, N.J., and Chen, of Bangkok, Thailand, will each graduate with a bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering, summa cum laude. Young, of Manasquan, N.J., will receive a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering, summa cum laude.

Taylor B. Dougherty ’13, Caroline J. Lang ’13, and Lucas D. Simpson ’13, chairs of the Class of 2013 Gift Committee, will present the class gift. Dougherty, of Sayreville, N.J., will graduate with a bachelor of science degree in psychology and a bachelor of arts degree with a major in government and law. Lang, of Yardley, Pa., will receive a bachelor of arts degree with a major in government and law. Simpson, of South Plainfield, N.J., will graduate with a bachelor of arts degree with a major in anthropology and sociology.

Weiss will congratulate the recipients of annual Lafayette awards for distinguished teaching, scholarship, and service to the College and recognize four faculty members who are retiring and have been elected to emeritus status. They are Thomas H. Bruggink, professor of economics; James E. Lennertz, associate professor of government and law; Anthony D. Novaco, Marshall R. Metzgar Professor of Physics; and Chester John J. Salwach, associate professor of mathematics.

Weiss will confer degrees upon the graduates and deliver farewell remarks. Assisting in presenting diplomas will be Rose Marie L. Bukics, Thomas Roy and Lura Forrest Jones Professor of Economics and acting clerk of the faculty, and Hannah W. Stewart-Gambino, dean of the College.

Guy L. Hovis, John H. Markle Professor of Geology and Environmental Geosciences, will lead the academic procession as Bearer of the Mace. The mace is carried by the faculty member senior in rank of full professor. Annette Diorio, vice president for campus life and senior diversity officer, will marshal the Class of 2013.

Wendy L. Hill, provost and dean of the faculty, will march at the head of the faculty. Thomas F. McGrail ’55, trustee emeritus, will lead the trustees and the platform party.

Alexandra M. Hendrickson, chaplain of the College and director of religious and spiritual life, will deliver the invocation and give the benediction. Jennifer W. Kelly, assistant professor of music and director of choral activities, will lead the singing of “America the Beautiful.” Members of the Lafayette Choir, led by Kelly, will lead the singing of “The Alma Mater.”

Among approximately 400 applications received, English major Jasmine Jay ’14 (Allentown, Pa.) is one of 50 students nationwide to be invited to the prestigious NY State Summer Writers Institute.

Jasmine Jay ’14 puts her thoughts down on paper.

Jay, a recipient of the institute’s merit scholarship that aims at promoting access and diversity, will spend four weeks over the summer on the Skidmore College campus in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., to attend a creative writing workshop in fiction and poetry.

The summer institute is a joint effort between Skidmore College and the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany and features a distinguished staff of Pulitzer- and National Book award-winning writers.

Jay was nominated by Lee Upton, writer-in-residence and professor of English.

“I nominated Jasmine because of her obvious strengths as a writer,” she says. “It’s a privilege to work with students who are invested in their education and excited about expanding their gifts.”

Jay, for her part, pursued the application largely for the lineup of visiting authors at the institute.

“I think it will be very valuable to hear what well-established writers such as Joyce Carol Oates and Amy Hempel have to say about the creative writing process,” she says.

The close student-professor relationship that Lee and Upton share will also be reflected next year, when Lee supervises Jay’s senior thesis in creative writing.

“Jasmine is inventive, vivid, and engaging,” Upton says. “Her poetry is continually surprising and refreshing, and even at times startling for its range of references.”

Jay’s interest in poetry and short fiction runs deep.

“I think a lot of people are interested in these two forms, since they can be so confessional and self-expressive,” she says. “The creative writing tells us a lot about how humans work and interact with each other.”

Although this is the first creative writing workshop of such magnitude that Jay will attend, she believes that her experience at Lafayette and the interactive nature of the creative writing concentration itself—with in-class workshops, poetry reading events, and department initiatives to generate student writing—have given her an idea of what to expect at Skidmore College this summer.

Jay would like to return to Lafayette one day after going to graduate school for writing.

“I think there could always be more creative writing teachers in the world,” she says. “We’ll see what happens.”

View and share more images of the recital on Flickr

View and share more images of the concert on Flickr

View and share more images of the competition on Flickr

Zachary Winthrop ’13 with a few friends in Kunkle Hall

The prize was established in 1923 by George Wharton Pepper H’22, a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, attorney, and founding member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association. In his gift, Pepper noted that the “ideal” Lafayette student combines a “sound academic record” with “noteworthy participation in College activities and student life.”

A biology major with a minor in art, Winthrop was one of 10 finalists for the Pepper Prize. He was chosen through a vote of the student body and faculty, and will speak at Lafayette’s 178th Commencement Saturday, May 24.

Read details on the Commencement website

Winthrop has received an internship as a chief research assistant with the National Alliance of Research Associates Program at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he will research cervical cancer. He also is applying to medical school.

In his social, academic, and athletic life on campus, Winthrop stresses the importance of making connections among people and using synthesis to combine often disparate ideas and skills to produce unexpected results.

“In four years at Lafayette, I have discovered this notion of synthesis in some of the most unexpected and inspiring places,” he says. “I have jumped across or smudged lines that divide academic departments, social circles, student activities, experiences, and beliefs.  In the classroom, I have learned synthetic skills, exploring the interplay, for example, between developmental biology and creative writing, between sociology and art history, between drawing and botany.”

His independent research on biological art with Anna Edlund, assistant professor of biology, combines his passions and serves as a perfect example of his idea of synthesis.

Winthrop constructed scientific three-dimensional models to test how the use of models and drawings can enhance the process of learning. He also studied the scientific illustrations of Swedish scientist Gunnar Erdtman, the “founding father” of Edlund’s field of pollen biology.

As part of a research grant from Lafayette, he spent a week in London studying biological art at historic sites such as the Natural History Museum, The Botanical Library of the Natural History Museum, and The Kew Gardens Botanical Library. He coauthored a paper with Edlund on Gunnar Erdtman, which was presented at a lecture series at the Linnaean Society of London. Winthrop also spent a semester as a research assistant for Scott Poethig, Williams Professor of Biology at University of Pennsylvania, where he ran cell and developmental biology experiments on Acacia and Arabidopsis plant species.

Winthrop played on defense for four years on the College’s Division I men’s soccer team. In addition to helping the team win the Patriot League Championship this season, Winthrop has been named to the Patriot League honor roll four times. He has been selected to attend the College’s Oaks Leadership Academy for three years and attended the 2012 Naval Academy Leadership Conference: Visionary Leadership, Navigating Through Uncharted Waters.

On campus, he has served for three years as a member of the peer mentor program, which, sponsored by the Department of Athletics, provides guidance and support for first-year student-athletes. He is a peer scribe for the ATTIC (Academic Tutoring and Training Information Center), which allows students to work as scribes for fellow students who, either due to injury or disability, cannot manage to write their own notes. He has also volunteered for Lafayette’s SAAC 5K-Run fundraiser, Bone Marrow Drive, St. Baldrick’s Day pediatric cancer research fundraiser, and the Easton Area Special Olympics Soccer Event. He is also a certified emergency medical technician and volunteers for Special Olympics in Philadelphia.