Alumni News

Alumni Updates

1962
Phillip K. Tompkins, Ph.D., professor emeritus of Communication and Comparative Literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has been invited to give the keynote address at the annual convention of the Rocky Mountain Communication Association on Jan. 18, 2003. The title of the address is "The Crisis of American Organizations and Institutions."
Connie Krabbe Lux, B.A., has spent the last 13 years growing Lux Seniors' Insurance in Lafayette, Ind. She and husband David, owner of Lux-Klinker Homes in Lafayette, have five children and seven grandchildren.

1967
Harry Sharp Jr., M.S. '61, Ph.D., is a professor and dean emeritus at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Sharp retired in August 2000 after teaching 25 years at Cal Poly and a total of 37 years as an educator.

1969
Kent Hannon, B.A., is currently editor of Georgia Magazine, the University of Georgia's award-winning alumni publication. His latest book, "Damn Good Dogs," will be out this fall. He and wife Sharron Saveland Hannon have each written several books, including "Fun Family Vacations in the Southwest." Prior to his work at U.Ga., Kent Hannon spent 10 years as a writer at Sports Illustrated.

1971
Blanton Croft, Ph.D., was awarded professor emeritus status in 2002. He also moved to a new location and will be serving as an adjunct instructor in Speech Communication at Hagerstown Community College in Maryland, as well as serving as a volunteer in the Media Arts Center at the college.

1975
Alan H. Shiller, M.A., received the 2002 Excellence in Teaching Award from Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville.
Jane Shaw Russell, B.A., has been teaching English, speech and drama at Turkey Run High School in Rockville, Ind., since 1975.
Paul Krivonos, Ph.D., was appointed the director of the Public Sector Management Program at California State University, Northridge. Prior to that, he was associate dean of the College of Arts, Media and Communication, and, prior to that, chair of the Communication Studies program.
Max Armstrong, B.A., marks 25 years of broadcasting in Chicago. He has been heard daily since 1977 on legendary Chicago radio station WGN as an agriculture and business reporter. He also hosts the nationally-syndicated television show "U.S. Farm Report," seen each weekend coast-to-coast on 190 television stations.

1976
Gary Shulman, Ph.D., is a professor and interim chairman of the Department of Communication at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

1977
Jennifer Warner, B.A., has been operating First Farm Inn, a B&B outside of Cincinnati, for five years. She also wrote a 400-page book on the history of Boone County, Ky., for the county's bicentennial.
Michael J. Hyde, M.A. '75, Ph.D., received two NCA awards for his most recent book, "The Call of Conscience: Heidegger and Levinas, Rhetoric and the Euthanisia Debate." The book received the "Diamond Anniversary Book Award" for the best scholarly book published in 2000-2001 and the "Marcie Hochmuth Nichols Award" for research in public address.

1978
Karen Croake Heisler, B.A. '76, M.A., is a visiting professional specialist in the Film, Television and Theatre Department at the University of Notre Dame. Two television documentaries she wrote — "Love on the Rocks: Will Marriage Survive?" and "Kid CEOs" — recently won Gold and Silver awards at the 36th Annual Worldfest in Houston.

1981
Garold L. Markle, M.A., owns his own HR consulting practice, Energage Inc., "dedicated to energizing and engaging the human spirit at work." Much of his consulting work is centered on the materials profiled in his first book, "Catalytic Coaching: The End of the Performance Review."
Cindy Kuhn, B.A., was appointed executive vice president of marketing and communications at Smith, Bucklin & Associates, one of the largest association management firms.

1983
Mary Alice Baker, Ph.D., is serving as a trustee for the Teachers Retirement System of Texas, one of nine. She represents higher education and is in her third year of a six-year term.
John Lothian, B.A., is president of the Electronic Trading Division of The Price Futures Group Inc. He also is the editor of John Lothian Newsletter, a daily e-mail intelligence briefing about what is going on within the worldwide futures and securities communities.
Betsy Wiersma, B.A., is the proud mother of daughter Sarah Elizabeth, born July 23.

1984
Marianne Razouk Schlarbaum, B.A., graduated with an MBA in June 1992. Worked for ADP Inc., a Fortune 100 company, until August 1997 and is now a stay-at-home mother.

1985
Paris Finke Loesch, M.A., is now executive vice president of Information Resources Inc., managing the first $10 billion Wall Street sector. She joined IRI, a data and consulting firm, after a combined 16 years at Procter & Gamble, Nabisco and The Coca-Cola Co.
Patricia Geist Martin, Ph.D., is a professor in the School of Communication at San Diego State and has a new book coming out, "Communicating health: Personal, cultural, and political complexities," by Wadsworth. She also was the keynote speaker for the Org Comm mini-conference at Purdue in October.

Did you know you can now donate to the department online? Simply go to the new Purdue e-gift Web site, click on make a gift, and choose "other" from the dropdown menu. Then, type "Communication Department" in the text box and complete the transaction. It only takes a few minutes!!!

1986
John Maloney, B.A., is a freelance golf writer and was recently accepted to the Golf Writers Association of America. He has written golf equipment pieces for Shark.com (Greg Norman's Web site), golf course reviews for the Golfer's Guide and other pieces for the U.S. Golf Association.
Edward Thigpen, B.A., recently finished his MBA in marketing after a five-year stint as a marketing representative for the Xerox Corp.
Rosalind Lister, B.A., recently accepted the position of director in the Office of Career Services at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Ind.

1987
Charles Vogt, B.A., was recently named chief strategy officer for Bremner & Wiley Inc., a healthcare facility development and management firm. He also serves on the board of the Canyonville Christian Academy in Oregon and assists with The Briefing Room for the White House.
Doris Pride, M.A., watched as her husband, Dr. Kenneth Pride, received a Presidential Unity Citation for Extraordinary Heroism to the Studies and Observation Group, U.S. Military Assistant Command, Vietnam. The Presidential Unit Citation is one of the U.S. military's highest unit award for heroism on or after Dec. 7, 1941. Kenneth Pride was a member of the Mike Force units in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam conflict.

1991
Kevin Mayer, B.A., graduated from UCLA's Anderson Graduate School of Management and is currently national manager of advertising for Hyundai Motor America.
Hisham Elkhatib, B.A., is the owner of a small business in California and the father of two children.

1992
Michael Waltman, Ph.D., is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina. In spring 2002, his students enrolled in the Communicative and Social Foundations of Hate, a service-learning seminar, and worked with students and the administration of Massey Hill Classical High School in Fayetteville, N.C., to plan workshops and community responses to racist humor and hate speech. His seminar is part of the University of North Carolina's APPLES (Assisting People in Planning Learning Experiences in Service) Service Learning Program. Waltman also received a Spray-Randleigh Fellowship from UNC in 2002-2003 to support his research on hate speech and a Uelstchi Service Learning Grant from UNC to enhance the service learning experiences of students in Communicative and Social Foundations of Hate.

1993
Wendy Wolf Sauer, B.A., is the president of her new online jewelry business, BuzzingBeads.com. Her jewelry is also sold in several upscale boutiques in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area.

1994
Colleen Chosta Langevin, B.A., married Christopher Langevin on July 27 in Massachusetts.

1995
Leonard Cox, M.A., had his most recent documentary he produced, "Questioning Faith," premiere on HBO's Cinemax on June 27, 2002. The film follows a seminarian on his search for faith after he experiences the tragic death of his best friend from seminary. The Boston Globe called "Questioning Faith" a "must-see film." Entertainment Weekly gave the film an A-.
Brad Dancer, B.A., is the director of research for the new National Geographic Channel. He is currently the youngest head of research for any national cable network. His duties include all programming and analysis of the network's performance. He and his wife, Jodie Dancer, have a little girl, Madalyn, born in November 2000.

1996
Michael Smith, Ph.D., was promoted to associate professor at La Salle University, Philadelphia, and named director of La Salle's M.A. in Professional Communication and Public Relations in Prague, Czech Republic. Smith will be teaching a public relations course in Prague in October as part of the first graduate program in communication to be offered there.
Tanya N. Jordan, B.A., recently joined General Motors PACE program as Marketing & Communications Coordinator. The PACE program recently contributed more than $116 million in software to Purdue, the largest corporate contribution in the school's history. She also married Paul Ninefeldt on May 18.

1997
John Carr, B.A. '94, M.A., lives in New Orleans with his wife, Angie, and their two children, John Pierre, 2, and Eva, 5 months. He is a freelance copywriter.

1999
Jessi Lemming, B.A., is living in Broad Ripple and working in downtown Indianapolis for the brokerage firm Raymond James & Associates Inc. She also qualified for, and ran in, the 2002 Boston Marathon. She is also a volunteer for the 2002 World Basketball Championships in Indianapolis.

2002
Terri Malek-Madani, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the University of South Dakota. Malek-Madani will be doing research and teaching in the international studies program and teaching interpersonal and organizational communication classes in the Department of Communication Studies.