A Message from Alumni Council
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Dear Denisonian,
In the age of COVID-19, our relationships with Denison and fellow alumni look much different. But relationships remain the keystone of our Denison experience, both as undergraduates and as alumni.
Students have returned to campus for the spring semester, as you’ll see in the photo montage included in this newsletter. In-person classes are being held, and students are participating safely in all sorts of co-curricular programming. We should all be proud that Denison students have reacted to the pandemic in a very responsible manner, and extensive testing indicates that new COVID cases on campus remain at a minimum.
This has been a challenging time for higher education, and our college has responded well to the challenge. Alumni support is a primary factor in allowing the college to provide students with a world-class education. Even though we as alumni will need to wait a little longer to return to campus, I am hopeful that we will continue to support Denison now when it’s needed most.
Sincerely,
Rich Seils ’67
Alumni Council Member
Varsity D Association President
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Denison has been selected as a QuestBridge partner college, becoming one of only 45 top American universities to be chosen for this distinctive program. QuestBridge connects exceptionally high-achieving students from low-income backgrounds with the nation’s best universities.
QuestBridge students typically rank among the top one percent academically of all high school students in the U.S., and at the same time, come from families with high financial need.
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In his annual address to Central Ohio business and industry leaders, President Weinberg talked about the lasting effects of COVID-19 and laid out his plan for Denison’s short- and long-term future.
He told the group, meeting virtually this year, about the many successes that Denison can claim since the pandemic hit last spring, remarking that, “Across higher education, we’ve gotten a decade’s worth of change over the past 11 months.”
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Junior Jill Reiner, a staffer with the Denison Sports Network from New York, was honored by the National Football League as one of only three college-aged students to win its Big Data Bowl.
The NFL hosts this competition in advanced sports analytics annually, and this year’s specific focus was the factors that lead to successful pass coverage in professional football.
Read more here about Jill’s fascinating achievement. And for those wanting to dive deeper, there’s even a link to her research paper filled with stats and charts and probability models.
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In Memoriam
Harold Rowe Holbrook Jr. died on January 23 at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., at the age of 95.
An acclaimed and venerated motion picture, television, and stage actor, Hal was perhaps best known for his self-developed, one-person stage production, “Mark Twain Tonight,” a show that he performed for more than 60 years and had its beginnings at Denison.
Also, you might want to look back briefly at this heartwarming conversation that took place between Hal and Michael Eisner ’64 at Hal’s California home in 2015.
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7:30 p.m., Tuesday, February 23 — The Beck Series presents a livestream conversation with renowned sportswriters David Aldridge and Dave Zirin.
Aldridge is the editor in chief of the Washington, D.C., bureau of The Athletic. A member of the Naismith Hall of Fame, he has worked for Turner Sports, ESPN, and the Washington Post. Zirin was named one of UTNE Reader’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Our World.” Learn more and register.
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8 p.m., Thursday, February 25 — Join us for a memorable Vail Series Virtual Experience titled “The Power of Spirituals” featuring the acclaimed American Spiritual Ensemble.
As a prelude to their Swasey Chapel concert in February 2022, this online event will spotlight the captivating voices of The American Spiritual Ensemble, combined with narratives from Eileen Guenther’s recently published book, “In Their Own Words: Slave Life and the Power of Spirituals.” Learn more and register.
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7:30 p.m., Monday, March 8 — A conversation with Dr. Benjamin Strauss, president and chief scientist of Climate Central, presented by the Lisska Center.
Strauss is the author of numerous scientific papers and reports on sea-level rise and is the architect of the Surging Seas suite of maps, tools, and visualizations. He has testified before the U.S. Senate and presented to state and local officials. His work has been cited by the White House and the secretary-general of the U.N. Learn more and register.
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5:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 16 — The Knowlton Center Alumni Career Program is offering this workshop illustrating how to apply design-thinking and a designer’s mindset to your job search.
The job search process can feel like you are on a never-ending wheel of scouring job boards, filling out seemingly repetitive applications, and just waiting. But what if you didn’t have to wait and could continue to move toward finding the right opportunity, regardless of how many responses you’ve gotten? Learn more and register.
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Building on a highly successful in-person fall, classes resumed on February 1 in Granville to begin the spring semester. Following an isolation period before returning to campus, students, faculty, and staff underwent exhaustive testing and screening procedures upon their return. Masking and distancing protocols remain in place across campus, and living and learning spaces have been further modified for maximum safety.
In addition, intercollegiate varsity athletics have returned to Denison, marking the first time Big Red athletes have been able to compete against opponents from other colleges since March 15, 2020.
In the photos below, catch a glimpse of how things have been going this month and read more here about what Denison is doing to maintain on-campus instruction in a safe living and working environment.
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