Doane Commencement Spans May 14-16
Retired General John T. Chain Selected as Crete campus speaker
Doane College will mark Commencement 2010 with a weekend of activities, May 14-16.
Approximately 400 undergraduate and 300 graduate degrees will be awarded during the college's 133rd annual Commencement celebration Sunday, May 16 in Cassel Open Air Theatre.
Commencement begins at 10 a.m. for Lincoln and Grand Island campus undergraduate students and the college's graduate programs . Dr. Terese Lux, OSM, Ph.D., will be the keynote speaker. Lux is client advocate for Essential Pregnancy Services (EPS) and a former Teacher-of-the-Year for Doane's Lincoln campus.
Commencement exercises for Crete campus students follow at 2:30 p.m. General (Retired) John T. Chain Jr., former Commander-in-Chief, the Strategic Air Command, will give the keynote address and will receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Doane.
Also receiving honorary degrees at the ceremonies are: Lela Knox Shanks, Lincoln; Leola J. Bullock, Lincoln; William J Conklin, Washington, D.C.; Ardis Butler James, Stamford, Conn.; and the Rev. Dr. Otis Young (posthumously.)
Lawn receptions follow each ceremony. In the event of rain, commencement will be moved to Fuhrer Field House.
Commencement weekend activities also include:
Saturday, May 15
10:30 a.m. -- Baccalaureate service, Heckman Auditorium.
5 p.m. - Alumni banquet, Perry Campus Center. Reservations required.
8 p.m. - President's concert, Heckman Auditorium
For more information, please contact the Advancement Office at 402.826.8258 or rsvp@doane.edu.
Speakers and honorary degree recipient bios:
General John T. Chain Jr., U.S. Air Force, Edwards, Colo.
General (Retired) John T. Chain Jr., completed a highly distinguished military career that included service overseas in Europe and Asia, with two combat tours during the Vietnam War flying tactical fighters. He rose steadily through the ranks after commissioning through the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program in the late 1950s.
By the time he retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1991, he had earned more than 50 medals and decorations for his meritorious service, including the Distinguished Service Medal with oak leaf cluster, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross with oak leaf clusters, the Bronze Star and a Meritorious Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters.
General Chain was born in Wilmington, Del., in 1934, and attended high school at Fork Union (Va.) Military Academy. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history in 1956 and an honorary doctorate in humane letters in 1990, both from Denison University. In 1971, he graduated from the National War College and concurrently earned a master's degree in international affairs from The George Washington University.
He received his pilot wings in 1957 and then entered combat crew training. In the 1950s and early 60s, he was a fighter pilot based in Toul-Rosieres Air Base, France, and Ramstein Air Base, West Germany, before serving as flight examiner at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., and then as a forward air controller with the Army's 101 Airborne Division.
In 1966, Chain flew combat missions while assigned to Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Republic of Vietnam, as a member of the Air Force Advisory Group. He then transferred to Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C., as a staff officer in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, Plans and Operations. He entered the National War College in August 1970 and upon graduation was assigned to the A-7-equipped 355th Tactical Fighter Wing, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., as deputy commander for operations, and later, deputy commander for logistics.
Chain returned to combat missions in 1972-73, flying F-4s from Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. He held numerous roles upon his return to the United States, including commanding the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Va., where in 1978 he received his first star. In 1984-85, he served as the head of the Bureau of Policico Military Affairs in the State Department working for George Shultz. Subsequently, he was promoted to four stars and became chief of staff, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, Mons, Belgium.
From 1986 to 1991, he served as Commander-in-Chief, the Strategic Air Command -- the nation's major nuclear deterrent force -- and director of the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff based at Offutt Air Force Base.
When Chain retired from the U.S. Air Force he had accrued more than 5,500 flying hours, 400 combat hours, and was a master parachutist.
Chain began a second, successful career in corporate management. In 1991 he joined Burlington Northern Railroad where he served as an executive vice president. Subsequently, he served as president of Quarterdeck Equity Partners and on numerous corporate Boards of Directors, including ConAgra Foods, Northrop Grumman, Reynolds American, RJR Nabisco Inc., and Kemper Insurance. He currently is a Director of the Thomas Group and serves on five pro bono boards.
General Chain lives in Edwards, Colo., with his wife, Judie.
Terese Lux, OSM, Ph.D., Omaha
As client advocate for Essential Pregnancy Services (EPS) since 2008, Dr. Lux has gone beyond the classroom to serve the community with her counseling and human relations expertise. EPS, which provides medical and educational material as well as financial and emotional support to expectant and parenting families, is just one example of Lux's work.
Lux is a member of the Servants of Mary religious community and a former Teacher-of-the-Year for Doane's Lincoln campus. While serving as an adjunct instructor from 1987-1995, Dr. Lux taught both undergraduate and graduate courses on human relations, leadership and business and professional communication. During her time with Doane, the Lincoln campus celebrated its first graduating class of 100+ students and the addition of graduate programs.
After leaving Doane, Lux served as CEO for the International Congregation of the Servants of Mary in Omaha for five years. She also sat on the Board of Directors for Marian High School in Omaha from 1995-2000 and was reappointed to the Board in 2005 where she continues to serve. She also has served on the Board for the Black Student Catholic Scholarship Fund (BSCSF) since 2003.
Lux earned her Ph.D. in Community and Human Resources from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1983 and holds a master's degree in Guidance and Counseling from the University of Detroit and a bachelor's degree in biology from Duchesne College (Omaha). Prior to teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on Doane's Lincoln campus, Lux had stints as an adjunct professor for the University of Nebraska system, Creighton University (Omaha) and St. Mary University (Winona, MN). Earlier in her career, she taught biology at Marian High School and later served as Assistant Principal there. She also ministered at the College of Saint Mary in Omaha as Vice President for Student Affairs for six years (1974-1980) and as Assistant Dean for Adult Education.
Leola J. Bullock, Lincoln
Leola Bullock was born in Mississippi and came to Lincoln in 1950. When she found her new home in Nebraska had many of the same prejudices and problems that she had faced in the South, she became an activist for civil rights, racial equality and multicultural education.
She devoted herself to the cause -- and not just when the cause was in the spotlight. She became the spotlight and she achieved results.
In the 1950s, she joined a picket line in downtown Lincoln to protest segregated lunch counters. In the 1970s, she was a founder of the Association of Black Citizens, whose work led to the establishment of the Lincoln Police Review Board. Her concern about bias in school textbooks and unequal treatment of students led to the creation of the Lincoln Public Schools Equity Advisory Council.
Leola helped found the annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Youth Rally and March, as well as the annual celebration Juneteenth, which brings diverse groups together from across Lincoln.
She is active in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), serving as past president of the Lincoln chapter. She also volunteered with Nebraskans Against the Death Penalty, the League of Women Voters, the American Red Cross, and numerous non-profit boards, including the Malone Community Center and the YWCA.
Her numerous awards include the Nebraska African-American Woman-of-the-Year Award from the Nebraska Women of Color, the Racial Justice Award by the Nebraska Conference of the United Methodist Church, the Chancellor's Fulfilling the Dream Award from the University of Nebraska, the Nebraskan-of-the-Year Award by Lincoln Rotary Club No. 14, the Dr. King Living the Dream Award by the State of Nebraska and the Lincoln Journal-Star Community Service Award "for her work for justice and equality."
Leola and her husband, Hugh, have been married nearly 60 years. They have one daughter, Teri, and two grandchildren, Tyler and Tenia.
Lela Knox Shanks, Lincoln
Lela Knox Shanks was born in Oklahoma City and graduated from the Lincoln University School of Journalism in Jefferson City, Mo. In addition to her career as a homemaker, she worked for the Chicago Defender, St. Louis Argus and St. Louis News newspapers. In Lincoln, she worked for the U.S. Department of Soil Conservation and the Nebraska Department of Labor.
Her lifetime of civil rights activism began in Denver in 1957 when her oldest child began first grade and was restricted to attending only one-half day. Her family moved to Kansas City in the '60s. She peacefully picketed the Federal Building in Kansas City, Kan., and had to appear before a Federal Grand Jury to explain her actions. To protest racial segregation in the Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools, she and her husband, Hughes, opened a school in their home, which started with nine students who called the school "Shanks University." Because of the one-year school, she and her husband were arrested for truancy.
They moved to Lincoln 45 years ago, a move which would positively impact Lincoln and Nebraska for the next decades. Lela continued her lifelong role as a spokesperson for civil rights, human rights and the peace movement. The Lincoln Journal-Star named her one of the 100 people who helped build Nebraska in the 20th century. She served on the boards of the University of Nebraska Campus YWCA, Child Guidance Center, Malone Community Center and the Nebraska Panel of American Women and the University of Nebraska's Training Teachers of Teachers Project. Lela also traveled the state speaking on African-American history.
Among her many awards are the 2004 Defender of the Bill of Rights Award by the American Civil Liberties Union in Nebraska and the 2008 Peacemaker-of-the-Year Award by Nebraskans for Peace. She received an honorary degree from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1998.
Today, Lela is an author and national speaker on care giving for persons with Alzheimer's disease. She was the in-home caregiver for her husband, Hughes, who had Alzheimer's disease for 14 years before his death, and from that experience wrote Your Name is Hughes Hannibal Shanks: A Caregiver's Guide to Alzheimer's. She also produced two documentaries on Alzheimer's disease: Creative Survival and Care Providers: The Lives We Touch, both for Public Access Television. She was a member of the Governor's Task Force on Alzheimer's Disease and is a member of the Great Plains Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association.
Her family includes four children, nine grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren.
William J Conklin, Washington, D.C.
William J Conklin has had a long and illustrious career in architecture and urban design. He was senior principal in the firm of Conklin Rossant Architects, and currently holds the same title with Conklin Costantin Architects. His education began in his hometown of Hubbell, Neb., and continued at preparatory school in Phillips Exeter Academy and then Doane, where he was president of the student council and received a bachelor's degree cum laude in chemistry in 1944. In his junior year he led the senior graduation parade with Barbara, his wife-to-be. After serving in the Navy, Conklin went on to earn a Master of Architecture degree from Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he studied under Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus.
Conklin has served as president of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and also as vice chairman of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. One of Conklin's most prominent works is the design of the U.S. Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C., located midway between the U.S. Capitol and the White House, the area of the city where he and wife, Barbara, reside. His architectural accomplishments also include the design of numerous apartment houses, college and religious buildings. His urban planning work includes the plan for the new town of Reston, Va., that has grown to more than 60,000 residents. He also redesigned areas of lower Manhattan. One of his urban projects, the Crystal Bridge and surrounding botanical gardens in Oklahoma City, was located just 1,500 feet from the Murrah Federal Building but miraculously survived the 1995 bombing.
His architectural and planning work have earned him more than 50 awards, and national and international recognition.
Conklin's scholarly interests are broad, most of which he feels, were initiated at Doane. He passionately pursues study of a variety of topics in the arts and religion. He credits his long-time interest in historic textiles equally to his Nebraska grandmothers, to the wife of a Doane professor who taught him to weave, and to his acquaintance with Dr. Junius Bird of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Conklin has written approximately 50 papers or books on ancient Andean textiles and given numerous lectures on the subject. He now serves as a research associate at the Institute for Andean Studies in Berkeley and at the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C. A British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) documentary regarding the study of textiles found on the body of a 500-year-old Inca mummy, Juanita, features Conklin as commentator. Recently his focus has been on authoring papers on the most ancient textiles found in the Americas 5,000 years ago.
Conklin and Barbara, loyal Doane alumni, participated in Master's Week in 2001 and have also hosted Doane students, faculty, and alumni at their Pennsylvania Avenue apartment for the last few U.S. Presidential inaugurations. The Conklins have one son, Christopher J.
Ardis Butler James, Stamford, Conn.
Ardis Butler James uses quilts, not books, to teach the world about the social history of America. For her, quilting as an art medium provides an essential way to connect the past to the present and future, while allowing others to understand humanity in the broadest and most diverse sense.
In 1997, she and her husband, Robert, donated their collection of 1,000 quilts from all over the world to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and endowed the International Quilt Study Center. In 2008, the center opened in Lincoln, furthering its mission to collect, preserve, study, interpret, promote discovery, and exhibit quilts from all times and all cultures. A catalog of the collection, created by Ardis, describes each quilt's format, construction, design and condition, which is an invaluable resource for curators and scholars. Today, the collection has grown to roughly 2,500 quilts. The National Trust for Historic Preservation has designated the James' collection as an official project of the "Save America's Treasures" Program.
Her support of the art of quilt making was further demonstrated when she and her husband, both originally from Nebraska, endowed a professorship at the University of Nebraska in 2003 to reinforce quilts as a distinctive art form and to ensure that quilt/textile research would have a permanent place in academia. Ardis also has promoted scholarship through research fellowships and a biennial symposium sponsored by the International Quilt Study Center and Museum.
Her work is much broader than a quilt collection --- this art form offers insight into social, artistic, religious, economic and technological influences on society that might otherwise remain hidden. She used the quilts, time and again, to promote scholarship and research.
Her passion for quilts is equaled by her passion for philanthropy. She has shown an ongoing commitment to her native state, supporting numerous academic causes, including efforts to strategically advance the state through the "Strategic Discussions for Nebraska" program.
At Doane, she has significantly supported the life-changing experiences that come from studying and living abroad. She helped fund an endowment (now worth $500,000) that makes it possible for more Doane students to benefit from international, off-campus study.
Although she and her husband now reside in Stamford, Conn., her family's ties to Doane go back more than 100 years. Her grandfather, Guy Butler, and two great-uncles were all Doane graduates. Her great-uncle, Hugh Butler, also served as a Doane Trustee and Board Chair during World War II, and as a U.S. Senator, ensured that Doane survived the economic and recruitment pressures of WWII. Her husband attended Doane in the 1940's as part of the V5/V12 Navy Program. Today, one of the highest merit scholarship awards for academic achievement at Doane is named in honor of Sen. Butler and the Butler family.
Patricia Crews, Director of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum and a Willa Cather Professor of Textiles and Design at UNL, calls Ardis Butler James "a sophisticated student of the world - intellectually curious and well read. She is a lifelong learner in the truest liberal arts sense and has demonstrated the highest values of Doane through her contributions to many communities and her support for the profound and transformative possibilities of education."
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The Rev. Dr. Otis Young, a beloved pastor and leader, was in his 37th year of service on Doane's Board of Trustees when he died in December of 2009.
Young, 78, served as senior minister of First-Plymouth Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in Lincoln for 35 years before retiring in 2006. He remained active with the church as minister emeritus.
He joined Doane's Board of Trustees in 1972, providing years of wisdom and guidance to a college with historical ties to the UCC faith. The Otis Young Lecture Series was established in 2006 to honor his leadership.
Young grew up in Union, Mo. He attended Westminster College in Fulton, Mo., where he received a B.A. Degree with a major in philosophy. He earned his Masters of Divinity from Yale Divinity School. Before moving to Lincoln in 1972, Young was the elected general secretary of the division of church extension for the former United Church Board for Homeland Ministries, then based in New York. Prior to that, he served congregations in Illinois and his native Missouri.
In Lincoln, Young led one of UCC's largest congregations, was considered one of the denomination's leading thinkers on evangelism and was a pioneer in multimedia ministry. During his tenure at First-Plymouth, the congregation grew from 1,200 members to more than 3,200.
His numerous accomplishments and titles also included longtime radio co-cost, and author, publishing "Reach Out and Live," a book based on more than three decades of his sermons. In 2007, Young was recognized as one of 50 persons who contributed greatly to the shaping of the UCC. That same year, he was honored by Yale Divinity School for his outstanding contributions to congregational ministry. He also served for many years on the University of Nebraska President's Advisory Board.
His family includes wife, Rowena, three children and nine grandchildren. One of these grandchildren is in this year's Doane College graduating class, Robert Young Kenny.