Honorees of the 2017 EHE Alumni Society Hall of Fame and Alumni Awards are recognized for their esteemed research, teaching and service.
HALL OF FAME
Gladys Cooper Jennings
Mill Creek, Washington ’45 Home Economics
Related: ’45 graduate did let obstacles hold her back
Jennings has been known as a courageous innovator throughout her distinguished, 70-year career. After being one of the first African Americans to earn a degree from Ohio State in dietetics, she became the first person of color to earn a master’s degree from Washington State University (WSU). Jennings taught dietetics at Spelman College, became head of home economics, and then returned to WSU as faculty in the Foods, Nutrition and Dietetics program.
Jennings is widely recognized as a leader in human ecology, a pioneer in teaching international nutrition, an early initiator of interdisciplinary efforts and a strong voice of diversity. She presented at the 1952 First International Congress on Dietetics in Amsterdam and received a Fulbright Fellowship to the University of London from 1953-54.
In the ’70s, she was in the vanguard of designing WSU’s new Black Studies program and later developed courses such as International Nutrition, which drew students from many disciplines.
She was a 30-year leader of the National Organization of Blacks in Dietetics and Nutrition. She has taught, mentored and guided hundreds of undergraduates, graduate students and colleagues throughout WSU.
She was recognized as an outstanding alumna at Ohio State’s 1971 Diamond Anniversary of Home Economics and, in 2016, received the Medallion Award from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
David Ives
Rhinebeck, New York ’75 MA Higher Education and Student Services
Read more about Ives in our feature story, Peace of Mind.
David Ives has spent most of his career promoting peace and helping disadvantaged people lead richer, healthier lives, culminating in his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016.
After graduating in 1975 with a master’s in higher education and student services, Ives served in the Peace Corps in Costa Rica. The poverty he encountered led him to seek opportunities to help others.
He built a Rotary Foundation program to promote human rights in 1987. He was director of the Jonas Foundation, which trains teens in international leadership.
In 2002, he became executive director of Quinnipiac’s Albert Schweitzer Institute — whose mission is to promote humanitarian values, health and peace. He has coordinated seven Summits of Nobel Peace Laureates, which convene annually to tackle pressing human rights and conflict issues.
Many Nobel laureates call him friend, including President Jimmy Carter, with whom Ives has helped monitor elections in Venezuela and Nicaragua. Ives is an outspoken advocate of people with disabilities, and has helped to develop physical therapy programs in the developing world.
As an instructor at Quinnipiac, Ives has spurred many students to serve in the Peace Corps and other nonprofit organizations, and has led hundreds of students on life-altering trips abroad.
AWARD OF DISTINCTION
Susan Brown Foster
Saint Leo, Florida ’88 PhD Sport Management
A tenured professor of sport management at Saint Leo University, Foster’s career has been dedicated to ensuring colleges and universities provide valuable sport management programs to students and to the sport industry. She helped create the first expected standards for sport management programs, which led to an official accreditation sponsored by the Commission on Sport Management Accreditation. As a professor, Foster’s teaching of sports legal issues equips students to enter the industry with the most up-to-date information needed to be successful. She also developed internship standards at Saint Leo University, which are now used by most university programs. The second edition of her text, Experiential Learning in Sport Management: Internships and Beyond, was released this year.
KerryAnn O’Meara
College Park, Maryland ’95 MEd Higher Education and Student Affairs
O’Meara is a national leading voice for organizational change and equity in academia. As director of the University of Maryland’s ADVANCE program, she focuses her research on the retention, advancement and success of women professors. The program, funded by the National Science Foundation, has a suite of initiatives, including a network for faculty of color, to enhance the experiences of underrepresented faculty. In partnership with the university’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion, O’Meara has trained 40 academic search committees in recognizing and avoiding implicit bias. Her latest research has engaged 42 institutions throughout Maryland, North Carolina and Massachusetts to explore the methods used to monitor, measure, reward and, if necessary, reduce faculty workload.
Kelly R. Walsh
Evansville, Indiana ’00 Human Nutrition and Dietetics, ’06 PhD Interdisciplinary PhD Program in Nutrition
Walsh, RDN, CD, FAND, MBA, is a leader in nutrition whose work has helped infants worldwide. Currently the director of Global Clinical Research and Medical Affairs at Mead Johnson Nutrition, Walsh’s career has been marked with significant accomplishments. He and his teams are credited with creating seven distinct formulas that give premature infants the necessary nutrition to thrive. His contributions to pediatric nutrition have been recognized by the industry more than a dozen times. Walsh also has remained a dedicated EHE alumnus. He serves as an adjunct member of the Human Nutrition program and regularly visits the college to meet with students about career development, to sponsor internships and to judge presentations at the annual Russell Klein Nutrition Research Symposium.
CAREER ACHIEVEMENT
Kevin Manning
Reisterstown, Maryland ’82 PhD Higher Education Administration
Throughout his 40-year career in higher education, Manning has played a significant role in positioning institutions for success. Nowhere has his impact been greater than at Stevenson University. In his 16 years as president, Manning moved Stevenson from a local college with only 1,600 students to Maryland’s third-largest independent university. His award-winning career architecture framework positioned Stevenson as a leading university providing comprehensive career preparation for its students. The impact of his framework is evident in the 93 percent of alumni who have obtained employment, joined the military or enrolled in graduate school. By his retirement in 2017, Manning had almost tripled Stevenson’s enrollment, grown the institution to three campuses and doubled its number of undergraduate programs.
Linda Mihalick
Flower Mound, Texas ’93 Home Economics, Merchandising and Textiles concentration
As senior director of the Global Digital Retailing Research Center and digital retail lecturer at the University of North Texas, Mihalick prepares the next generation of retail professionals. She amassed nearly 30 years of expertise in merchandising, retailing, digital retailing and e-commerce at several consumer goods, retail and service-oriented companies. She gained senior-level international marketing expertise through supply-chain sourcing in Asia, Europe and the United States. Most recently, she was vice president of e-commerce and marketing for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, managing a website with $22 million in annual sales. Her numerous awards attest to her dedication, understanding and ability to articulate solutions for the challenges facing retail today.
Michelle L. Toews
Manhattan, Kansas ’98 MS, ’02 PhD, Human Development and Family Science
As associate dean for research and scholarship at the College of Human Ecology, Kansas State University, Toews is known for her research-based programs in adolescent parenting and prevention of teenage high-risk sexual behaviors. First as an administrator at Texas State University and now as faculty at Kansas State, she is respected for taking on uniquely difficult tasks with unfavorable odds. In Texas, she convinced a school district with a high teenage pregnancy rate to adopt a new prevention curriculum. She has won multimillion-dollar grants with faculty mentees to implement her adolescent parenting model in several states. She is national president of Phi Upsilon Omicron, the honor society of family and consumer sciences, and has received numerous awards for service and leadership from it, as well as from the National Council on Family Relations.
MERITORIOUS SERVICE
Patricia F. R. Cunningham, II
Posthumous Honor Columbus, Ohio ’05 MA Higher Education and Student Affairs, ’11 PhD Social and Cultural Foundations
Having “one foot in the ivory tower and one in the trenches” was Cunningham’s personal motto. She knew the pulse of the communities she served as director of social change in Ohio State’s Office of Student Life. Known affectionately as “Dr. Patty,” she touched the lives of thousands of young people as an educator, mentor and community leader. She created and implemented outreach programs that connected at-risk populations with students interested in service learning. Her Buckeye REACH project partnered students with central Ohio juvenile detainees to help them earn their GEDs. Cunningham also worked with many of her 600 minority scholars to establish campus organizations. These became the tightly knit communities that empowered underrepresented students to succeed at Ohio State.
Roberta Siedentop
Columbus, Ohio ’69 Health and Physical Education ’72 MA Physical Education
As supervisor for field experience and student teaching and a lecturer in EHE’s Physical Education Teacher Education program, Siedentop influenced students’ lives for more than 16 years. Known as “Bobbie,” she mentored undergraduate teaching candidates and trained numerous graduate students in supervision techniques. On many evenings and weekends, she helped students with lesson plans at her kitchen table, teaching content and strategies. She set up mock interviews with local physical education teachers and principals. She also coordinated seminars to inspire and inform students about real-world teaching. Her students say she held them “to the highest standards,” yet gave them the utmost support to get there. Previously, Siedentop taught physical education for 30 years at Bexley City Schools. She received numerous awards, including EHE’s Don and Gail Anderson Award.
