This was the scene at the Orlando Museum of Art on Sunday, March 27. More than 100 alumni came out for "Preparing for the Aging Wave: This Time It's Personal," an EAA Faculty Within Your Reach event featuring Ted Johnson, professor of medicine and epidemiology in the School of Medicine.

Johnson doubles as the division director of geriatric medicine and gerontology in the SOM, and his lecture not only included an exploration of important trends in the again of America, there was even a Wii Fit demonstration!

More photos here ...

Meet the senior members (and a few of their friends) of Emory's two-time Div. III national champion women's swimming and diving team!

From left to right, they are: Katie Mroz, Sylvie Curci, assistant coach Cindy Fontana, Liz Horvat, Swoop, Morgan Klinzing, Amy Minowitz, April Whitley, and head coach Jon Howell.

The Eagles' win marks the team's fourth national title and second back-to-back championship (Emory also claimed championships in 2005, 2006 and 2010). For the full story about the women's swimming and diving team's victory, click here.

That bell in the middle of the photo is the Victory Bell, and on Monday, March 28, all of Emory's varsity athletics teams gathered at the Miller-Ward Alumni House for the annual Victory Bell ceremony to both celebrate their accomplishments and send off Emory's senior student-athletes in style.

See Victory Bell photos of all Emory's teams.

In all, March has been a pretty good month for the Eagles. In addition to Emory's triumphs in swimming and diving (which included a national title in the 200-yard butterfly, won by junior Patrick Augustyn), the University recently won University Athletic Association (UAA) titles in baseball, golf, and softball.

Read more here.

It truly is a great day to be an Emory Eagle.

-- Eric Rangus, director of communications, EAA

J. Pollard Turman 34C 35L 73H, namesake of Emory's highest award for alumni service, believed in supporting leaders. He had a nickname for leaders, too. One that kind of sticks in your mind.

Bell cows.

Now, there aren't many cattle roaming near the Emory campus, although there used to be back in the days before paved roads (and over on Oxford campus, the occasional bovine explorer will find his way into Seney Hall), so it's understandable if the reference flies over your head.

But according to the story, Turman called men and women who were natural leaders "bell cows." The cows were so named because of the bell around their necks. Wherever the bell cow leads, the herd follows. Such as it is with leadership.

And in 2011, the Bell Cow is Walker Ray 62C 65M 68MR.

President Jim Wagner presented Ray with the J. Pollard Turman Alumni Service Award at a banquet and ceremony in the Miller-Ward Alumni House on Thursday, March 24. A pediatrician in Atlanta for more than 35 years, Ray has served in a variety of Emory roles, including a stint in 2006-07 as president of the Emory Alumni Board (EAB), which is where I met him.

I enjoyed working with Ray immensely. He was (and is) approachable, humble, intelligent but not overbearing, sincere, and funny. All great qualities in the leader (and in a doctor, for that matter). He is a leader who you want to follow. And that's probably the best kind. He's someone who will cross a room to say hello to you. And that means a lot.

The Turman award itself was created by the Frabel Glass Art Studio here in Atlanta and as you can see in the photo above, it manages to be be beautiful and whimsical. Not pictured above is the $25,000 check presented to the Turman recipient by the Tull Charitable Foundation. The recipient may direct that grant to any Emory program he chooses.

Ray chose five: the School of Medicine, the Candler School of Theology, Oxford College, the Department of Pediatrics, and the EAB Leadership Scholarship. Lots of people drove home happy.

For more about Ray, read the April 2011 edition of EmoryWire. It'll be out Tuesday, March 29.

-- Eric Rangus, director of communications, EAA

...T-shirts!

Tons and tons of Dooley's Week t-shirts.

That was the grand prize for the top-scoring teams at the end of trivia night on Tuesday. And a lucky few won a meet-and-greet with comedian Donald Glover Wednesday night and others with Wiz Kalifa at Spring Band Party next Thursday...but I think they were more excited about the t-shirts.

This year's second-annual trivia night packed Cox Hall Ballroom with brainy (and those with brainy friends) trivia junkies for a night of history, science, pop culture, and potpourri--that's the wild card category.

If you knew Beyonce performed for Muammar Gaddafi a few years ago, you would've gotten one answer right. And if you knew how to identify quotes by Gadaffi and Charlie Sheen, you would've been Winning. The kicker that got most people was that last question about the seven countries that have experienced the biggest earthquakes. I don't even remember all seven but the United States, Ecuador, Japan were all up there.

And the teams that did get all seven cheered loud enough so that all the other tables could hear them, which is exactly what I would've done.

Photo by Stacy Perlis 11B

--Lindsey Bomnin 12C, EAA communications intern

To say that Eric Teasdale 06C has been busy since his Emory graduation would undoubtedly understate all that this former two-time Residence Hall Association President, Resident Advisor, and Senior Resident Advisor has experienced and achieved.

Teasdale arrived at Emory, planning to perhaps take it easy for the first time in a while after being extremely busy in high school. However, that plan didn’t last for long.

He really enjoyed spending time with the SAs, RAs, and Residence Hall Director in Turman East and ran for a hall position with the Residence Hall Association (RHA). Ultimately, his involvement with RHA and Residence Life & Housing would come to shape his time at Emory.

Originally from New Hampshire, Teasdale graduated from Emory with a double major in political science and sociology. After graduation, he put his Res Life skills to use, working as the director of student activities at the Phillips Exeter Academy Summer School, living with a number of teenage boys for the summer. He then spent a year studying international relations at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland on the prestigious Bobby Jones Scholarship. While abroad, he traveled extensively throughout Europe, as well as to Morocco and India.

While in India, Teasdale visited and volunteered with the Ashraya Initiative for Children (AIC), an organization founded by Elizabeth Sholtys 07C that reaches out to orphaned and abandoned children living in the slums of Pune, India. Teasdale and Sholtys had not met during their time at Emory, but they quickly fell in love. They are now married with a nearly two-year-old daughter named Ariana.


Teasdale fondly remembers his time at Emory. He misses the RHA Soup Kitchen (now the RHA Sandwich Drive), and he's proud that the tradition is still going strong today. Even a number of years after graduating, he remembers his experiences from living in a residence hall.

“Every time I talk to friends from Emory, most of whom lived in a residence hall with me at least one of the four years I was at Emory, we inevitably reminisce about the fun and general ridiculousness that living in a residence hall entailed,” Teasdale said.

...that means summer is right around the corner and the weather is fine. These next two months mark the time when the dogwood trees blossom and the Quad gets a little more love. Students take to the outdoors to study, play, and get some sun in the process.

As soon as Rachel May, the artistic director of Atlanta’s Synchronicity Theatre, told me that she was going to produce my new play, Exit, Pursued By A Bear, I was alternately humbled and ecstatic (which makes for a bipolar state of mind indeed).

When May said that Emory alumna Taylor M. Dooley 00Ox 02C (seen in a promo photo, at left, with fellow cast members Nicholas Tacosky and Veronika Duerr) was auditioning for one of the roles, I said, “Put down the phone and cast her now!”

Taylor and I were both in the Rathskellar Improv Troupe as Emory undergrads. She was an incredible actor/comedienne even then. The idea of working with her on one of my new plays was too good to be true. But it was true, as a group of Emory alumni witnessed on March 3 at the first public performance of Bear, starring Taylor, in my hometown of Atlanta. (I live in Northern California now, but traveled to Atlanta to attend the premiere.)

What a powerful homecoming it was--made even more powerful by the support of the Emory Alumni Association (EAA), which hosted a preshow reception. I got to meet more than 20 fellow Emory graduates and thank them for their support of me, this play, Synchronicity Theatre, and Atlanta theater as a whole.

Exit, Pursued By A Bear is a Southern revenge comedy about a young woman’s triumph over abuse. It’s based on a famous Shakespearean stage direction, but takes its real cue from the power of friendship and self-respect to help women out of the traps of violence.

(Read Creative Loafing's feature on Gunderson and the play)

I owe much of my current career as a playwright to my time, education, mentorships, and friendships developed at Emory. Both the theater and creative writing departments (the inestimable Jim Grimsley being my guide) fed me the rich foods of literature and performance.

I experienced a similar humbled/ecstatic feeling when Theater Emory’s artistic director at the time Vinnie Murphy told me that they would produce my play Leap (about a young Isaac Newton) during my junior year.

Emory alumna Megan Monaghan 91C directed the luminous production. It was the first time they’d ever produced a current student’s work on the professional stage, and it gave me a vital and thorough education on the real work and art of making theater.

I can’t thank the EAA and my fellow Emory grads enough for coming out to the show. Quite a meaningful and theatrical homecoming!

-- Lauren Gunderson 03C, playwright, Exit, Pursued By A Bear

Visit Lauren Gunderson's official website ...

Exit, Pursued By A Bear runs through March 27 at 7Stages in Little Five Points. Visit the Synchronicity Theatre's website for ticket information.

The Caucus of Emory Black Alumni (CEBA) New York celebrated Black History Month in February with two exciting--and fun--cultural events.

On February 19 Rae Wynn-Grant 06C, led an afternoon of art and jazz at the American Museum of Natural History. It was a lovely day at the museum featuring performances from the New Amsterdam Musical Association, along with the New Orleans-infused sounds of Edward Babb and McCollough Sons of Thunder.

Later, a panel discussion about jazz was led by Robert O’Meally, founder of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University. All in all, it was a great time.

Our second event was a Soul Food Sunday potluck hosted by Erin Miles 05C in West Harlem. The fun-filled day included a delicious menu consisting of homemade fried chicken, jerk chicken, candied yams, mac ‘n cheese, sweet potato biscuits, broccoli and cornbread. (You can see some of the remains in the photo above.) Not to mention a special champagne punch and even a banana pudding for dessert!

After eating way more than we should have, we played a riveting game of black history trivia, with Barbara Bridges 06C declaring victory and taking home the Starbucks gift set. Who knew that Dr. Martin Luther King’s real name was Michael? (His parents renamed him shortly after he was born).

More CEBA-sponsored and co-sponsored events are coming up this spring and summer. Also, our Facebook page is up and running, so please add us as a friend to get up to the minute details about what’s going on with CEBA NY!

If you’d like to be added to our special listserv, please email me at medwards915@yahoo.com.

-- Montshona Edwards 07C, chair, CEBA NY

With graduation just around the corner, I know what many members of the Class of 2011 are thinking—at least I know what I was thinking when I graduated from the Emory College of Arts and Sciences last year—"If only I had time to …"

When I entered Oxford College in 2006, four years seemed a lifetime away; there was so much I had on my list of things to do. For instance, for as long as I’ve lived in Atlanta, last year was the first time I attended an Atlanta Hawks game.

But often, in between studying for major exams, writing 12-page papers, and fulfilling extracurricular responsibilities, I just wanted to catch some zzz’s. In the end, it’s clear that four years isn’t nearly enough time to take in all that Emory and the greater-Atlanta area offer.

Therefore, in celebration of our 175th anniversary, the Emory Alumni Association (EAA) would like you to compile a list of 175 things for seniors to do before graduation.

Take a moment and think about the things you wanted to cross off your bucket list before graduation. I’ll go first.

No.1: Plan a picnic at Lullwater on a beautiful spring afternoon and learn about the monkeys who used to occupy the space.

Archive your ideas on the official EAA Facebook page.

-- Tania Dowdy 08Ox 10C, online services specialist, EAA