Front and Center, Cheri Cross

Cheri Cross, ISM '99, is the personification of what can happen when a Grad Center education is combined with talent and a positive attitude. Currently, she is both a Strategist and Project Manager for Slate Roof Studio. She and Tim Toffoli established Slate Roof Studio (www.slateroofstudio.com) in 2002. SRS develops marketing-communications solutions for their clients in all forms of media. The company specializes in developing electronic communications (CD-ROMs, DVDs, websites) for institutions to support their advancement efforts in admissions and fund raising. Recent clients include Amherst, Bates, Middlebury, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges; and Indiana University Foundation. Their commercial clients include international wine and liquor importer, Schieffelin & Somerset, and the international property-management company, GVA Grimley.

Cheri is quick to credit the Grad Center with helping her prepare for this success. "I entered the program knowing NOTHING about the Web. Nothing. Zip. My masters made it possible for me to grasp the concepts of what was emerging and, most important, to be able to talk to people who were on the front of the curve. This led to my being able to land a big corporate job in Boston at Viant, which was one of the leading companies that developed "digital businesses" for corporations. To paraphrase what a friend of mine said to me once, I got my masters at Marlboro and my doctorate at Viant. I now make my living in the Internet space, which I thoroughly enjoy. Marlboro made that possible."

"I now make my living in the Internet space, which I thoroughly enjoy. Marlboro made that possible."

This dynamic alum is a communications professional with more than 30 years' experience. She is recognized nationally for developing comprehensive integrated marketing programs. Cheri served as a client partner at the international Internet consultancy, Viant Corporation, where she managed engagements with Polaroid Corporation and International Data Corporation. Her experience includes serving as national director of publications for Price Waterhouse and as an art director for Corporate Annual Reports (now Addison) where her accounts included Texaco and Salomon Brothers. In addition, she was director of communications for Northfield Mount Hermon School (NMH) and for Mount Holyoke College. During her time at NMH Cheri's work garnered than 25 national awards, including four CASE Grand Gold awards, which recognize the highest achievement among all educational institutions nationally.

For her Capstone, Cheri worked with UNESCO at their headquarters in Paris to restructure and, with Tim, to redesign their Communications & Information Sector website. Regarding her Capstone, Cheri says: "One thing that stands out for me is the wonderful effect that I garnered from allowing myself to set my sights high. I'm a firm believer that if you put your intentions "out there," you will attract a match. Sure enough, after a couple of false leads, I got an email from this guy at UNESCO in Paris who knew someone who knew someone, etc. who had heard that I'd like to work with a humanitarian organization. Eventually, that led to a group of four of us from the Grad Center, including my fabulous Capstone partner, Reta Chaffee, going to Paris to meet with folks there, do some user research that involved UNESCO field staff in more than a dozen countries, and propose a redesign for a section on the UNESCO site. I learned the value of going after what you really want and of working collaboratively to create something bigger and better than anything I could have done on my own."

Three cheers for you, Cheri, for all you have accomplished. We are proud to call you a member of the Grad Center community.

Capstone Kickoff

John-Michael Dumais of Monadnock Institute for Community Advancement and Sustainability

The capstone season got off to an energetic start on Saturday, January 27. Following a buffet lunch, the lab section on the first floor was filled with students eager to learn about the "great adventure."

To get the future "capstoners" leading off on the right foot, Kevin Bell did an overview covering expectations as well as sharing anecdotes from both his and other students' experiences.

Following that, a series of leaders from local organizations spoke about their needs to the group with the goal of sparking potential projects. These presentations were particularly well-prepared and conducted this year and included both PowerPoint and web visuals to bring their operations and goals to life. Special thanks go to: John-Michael Dumais, Monadnock Institute for Community Advancement and Sustainability; Lynn Barrett, Vermont Ecosphere Project; Brian Smith, New England Regional Homeless Management Information Sharing; Mike Hoefer and William Therrien, Cheshire County YMCA Camp Takodah.

Ruby on Rails: Web Development That Doesn't Hurt

It hasn't been only a good "recruiting season" for the Admissions Office. We're delighted that we Be sure to plan on attending the noontime workshop on Saturday, February 18 to learn about Ruby on Rails--an open-source web framework that's optimized for programmer happiness and sustainable productivity. It lets you write beautiful code by favoring convention over configuration.

During this workshop you will learn:

1. How people are using the Rails framework for real world development.
2. About setting up and customizing a simple Rails application.
3. The philosophy of designing applications in the Rails framework.

Guiding the workshop will be members of our good neighbors at the Tech Center, The Brattleboro Tech Collective. This is a worker-owned and operated technology collective, focused on workplace democracy and promoting a democratic society while supporting like-minded businesses and organizations by providing open source website development and consulting.

Workshop leaders will be: Dave Evans, who has been doing both programming and graphic design professionally for over 10 years. His experience ranges from developing W3C standards compliant websites in CSS/XHTML to programming complex database-backed web applications in Perl and Ruby on Rails; Josh Crawford, who has 10 years of experience as a programmer and applications designer. His skills include high-level application and framework design in Ruby on Rails, Perl, and PHP; and Tony Neal. Tony's experience includes 6 years of development in custom scripting languages for NASA satellite mission operations. Tony also has a background in visual design.

Class Notes

Jean Chute, MAT '05 recently updated us: I've finished my first semester as a high school technology teacher (yikes). I passed my IT Essentials I Cisco instructor certification yesterday and will begin the second half of the course next week...Network Operations.

My year of learning at the Grad Center was instrumental (Elaine's influence and Pedagogy II) in a successful CAD class where students engaged in self-directed instruction and I provided the conditions for creative expression. Plus I went out to the community to bring in the expertise of subject matter experts. The presentations were awesome.

I totally changed the direction of a Fine Metals curriculum from a "summer camp" activity class to a challenging class with plenty of problem solving with success and failures; the greatest learning came from the failures. It was a blast but tons of work.

Other challenges include teaching Digital Photography I this upcoming semester; Network Ops, Research and Design (the RAD Lab) for which I've constructed a primarily online curriculum (Westpoint Bridge, Robotics ext).

So. I'm busy, but thanks to the Grad Center...I'm exited and confident I'll do a bang up job.

Say hello to all of my good friends!

Elaine Young, ISM '99 let us know:
Program Director for Marketing
Program Director for e-Business Management
Assistant Professor
Champlain College

Completed my comprehensive exams with Capella University so am now beginning my dissertation phase.

Kilana Butler, MSIT '04 passed along: For now I had a nice visit back home in Putney for the holidays. I'm working on my web design business called "Butler Web Design and Associates" hope to have a site up soon.

Best wishes for the new year all.

Matt Terenzio, MSIE '03 told us: Some of my work was recently featured in O'Reilly Media's "PHP Hacks. The hacks demonstrated how to send RSS feeds to your Instant Messenger and how to send cell phone SMS text messages from your Instant Messenger.

I'm currently still working for Tribune Interactive as Senior Web Producer and Blogger In Chief. I have a personal techie blog at http://everybuddy.org and am currently working on some great RSS and OPML side projects like http://skinnyfarm.com and coming very soon, http://glistn.com (with a very special partner to be announced later).

Diana Morrill, ISM '01 contributed: Working for UNFI out of Chesterfield, NH as a telecommunications analyst which involves running Avaya phone systems throughout the country as we have multiple warehouses. This work involves network, programming and customer service skills so I get a lot of technical work yet still keep my pulse on the user community which I love because I'm a people person. I am working on a big project where we're migrating from one voice mail system to another on the 28th of January and that's a big deal. Change for staff so I'm working not only technical side but getting training lined up as well as resources available on our intranet, etc.

My little side business, www.dianamorrill.com, is beginning to take off and keep me busy. I have five web clients with the most recent being a redesign and than creating templates for their use. I also am working on a lead so hope to gain another. While it doesn't pay the bills yet, it does keep me in the web world and I enjoy it as a hobby also.

Looking to take some refresher classes in some design areas to brush up my skills as well as maybe acquire some new techniques and ideas. I'm working with a professor at NHCTC who wants me to teach script programming classes next fall. I'm taking his class off line so I can learn the material. Should be interesting to say the least!

Cynthia Meunier Guerard, MAT '02 gave us some good news: I am in my 4th year as the Associate Director of Technology at the Roxbury Latin School in West Roxbury, MA. In addition to general tech support, I teach the technology portion of a 7th grade course called Trivium, an interdisciplinary course combining Technology, Science and Art. I also teach a 10th grade art elective using Rhino3D, a 3D modeling program. I was married in July 2004, and my husband and I live in Sterling, MA.

Linda Donaghue, ITC '01 responded: Boy, you guys are pushy but I must admit it's nice to be thought of!

Recently completed an online course developing math webquests. I'm desperately seeking motivation to spend time on my site, upload the webquest and a ton of other stuff but my day job (special ed) keeps getting in the way. I need the mental equivalent of a personal trainer (work those flabby brain tissues!).

I am applying to go to China this summer with the Freeman Foundation. I don't know how competitive it is but I'm sure good wishes would help.

Also, trying to interest some of my students in interviewing their elderly relatives and neighbors and I would get them assembled in some kind of publication. I love oral histories - many people do - and we lose so much personal information, community perspectives, even important historical information ( I interviewed an elderly man years ago who was the first American to interview Hitler's secretary after his death) when we just don't ask the questions. If anybody wants to help (lend a tape recorder, lend a teenager, lend a relative), let me know.

Well, I think I've asked for more than I gave! Happy winter, folks!

Mary-lynn Wright, ITC '04 brought us up-to-date: I continue to teach math in Chester, Vermont integrating technology in my classroom via 1)smartboard lessons that are on my personal website for kids to access for review or if they are absent, 2) graphing programs on the computers I refurbished (from ones that were thrown out -- I cannibalized parts from several to get 8 working eMacs) for my room for geometry classes and 3) graphing calculators and CBLs in Trig and Calculus classes.

Our school has gone to a web based information reporting system-actually it tries to do too much and has been crashing and doing weird things--but when it works students and parents can view grades and assignments as well as announcements daily. Needless to say there are some tech phobic teachers who are intimated. I have been mentoring some in the new technology.

Linda Maresca, ISM '00 informed us: I am alive and well, and living in MA. I have found my techno-niche in the world of education!

I am a library teacher in an elementary school, and am in the final semester of my 2nd graduate degree: MS in Library and Information Science at the University of Rhode Island. I plan on pursuing a doctoral degree in either educational or library and information professional leadership.

Please tell any '00ISMers they may contact me at 21grif@comcast.net I would be thrilled to reconnect.

Adam Wenger, MAT '00 offered the following: Firstly, I miss everyone and hope things are going as well for them as they are here with me. Over the summer I bought a home in Montague MA. Outside of Amherst. It's been a real blast! I have really enjoyed getting the place set up. I've changed lighting, put in dimmers, painted, installed the dishwasher and done a host of other things. In the spring, I am going to put up a fence so that the hot-tub I am putting in will have some privacy. Anya my doggy is great; she loves her new friends in town and is getting along very well. Anyway come spring I would love some help turning the sandy soil into the fertile stuff. Much love hope everyone is well.

Rod Tulonen, ISM '00 has the right idea: I decided to retire at 58. (I worked as an English teacher and Principal from 1969 to 2005. I wasn't that good at math, but I finally figured out that I had worked thirty-six years without a break.) I am finally doing what I love to do--photography. I have a wonderful Canon EOS 10D digital camera, and in the past two years shot over 30,000 photos. I'm going professional this summer. I am very happy.

Sandeep Mahale, MSIE '04 emailed us: I am still at Hertz Corporation (& don't think I will change). There's no excitement of moving from one job to another, one city to another. But my work is full of excitement - have lots of fun with OO development. We have some really bright & wonderful people here, & I am constantly learning something new from them. Currently, I am working with EJBs on a multi-tier application that is porting mainframe work to OO world. Just recently we have begun introducing Spring & Hibernate into our project & there is lot of catching up to do for me.

So, tell all my classmates that I am alive & kicking.

Warm regards.

Sara Warner-Phillips, ISM '99 gave us this: I'm working full time now in Putney VT, running the web division of Offering Jewelry. Still part owner of OriginalHome.com as well as working with a small group of long term clients. All is well. Working in an e-commerce business is much different than any other work I've been involved in. It's a growing business and we plan to launch a redesign in late winter. Very fast-paced and much more customer service oriented than I would have guessed, but fun. We have regular email newsletters that are a big part of the bottom line, which is a whole new area for me. I enjoy the work tremendously.

Bruce Luhrs, MSIE '01 shared the following: My wife, Sue, and I became grandparents for the first time on Jan. 8, 2006! Dominic James Luhrs was born to our son and daughter-in-law in Boston. Everyone's doing fine and we're learning to spoil him already. Besides being a grandfather, I've taken a few winter hikes and am waiting for warmer weather so I can continue to improve my beginner unicyclist skills.

I still work for Ajilon Consulting, still assigned to HP in Nashua where I'm part of the HP Ed. Services Virtual Labs team. We're responsible for the 1,000+ computer systems and network devices used to support HP's world-wide customer training classes. The Linux, Apache, Perl, MySQL and Internet Technology skills from my MSIE classes are being used daily. I also develop Resource Management reports in PHP, with calls to the MySQL DB. If anyone knows of a good way to generate "resource connection diagrams," I'd really like some fresh ideas. Or what about 3-D diagramming with VRML, or X3D XML schemes?

Hello to the GradCenter students, faculty and alumni. Good luck to this year's students, have fun with your Capstone Projects! Maybe I'll be able over to the Capstone Fair in June and see their results.

Career Opportunities

In-Sight Photography Project, Inc.
Brattleboro, VT

In-Sight Photography Project is seeking a creative, enthusiastic, full-time director to coordinate small, innovative non-profit that teaches photography to youth ages 11-18, regardless of their ability to pay. Candidates must have experience in traditional photography, with digital photography a plus, as well as a commitment to helping youth find their potential. Additional qualifications include maintaining good working relationships with staff, students, and external agencies; strong communication, administrative and organizational skills; and excellent attention to detail. Experience with Excel, QuickBooks, and FileMaker preferred but not required.

Review of applications begins February 15 and will continue until the position is filled. Interviews will be held in Brattleboro in early March. Position begins July 1.

Brattleboro, a lively arts community in southeastern Vermont, is located two hours from Boston and four hours from New York City.

View our website: http://www.insight-photography.org

Putnam Associates, Inc.
Putnam Associates is seeking a Corporate Marketing Communications Coordinator able to perform with a high degree of autonomy to help us build our brand. You will coordinate, administer, and expedite marketing and communications initiatives utilizing both internal and external resources. You will report to the Managing Partner and work collaboratively with other firm personnel. This is a hands-on job. The successful candidate will demonstrate a track record of direct accomplishment and the willingness to do what it takes to get the job done. If you would like to join a dynamic organization and are ready for a challenging and rewarding career, please submit your application (resume, cover letter, references and salary history and expectations) to lgarcin@putassoc.com for consideration. They offer an attractive salary and a generous benefits package including 3 weeks vacation, group insurance, tuition reimbursement and a matching 401k plan. Please visit www.putassoc.com for more information about Putnam Associates including firm environment and reresentative casework.

Java Developer
Client corporation seeks Java Developer with 3-6 years of experience in Java, EJB and J2EE. Knowledge of Databases essential. Strong communication skills essential
Full time position
Salary: $75,000-$83,000
Contact: Bob Brown
The Brown Group
Portland, ME
:browngrp@maine.rr.com

Vermont Panurgy Corporation
Vermont Panurgy Corporation, originally founded as Champlain Computer Systems, began working with Vermont businesses in 1983. The last 22 years have demonstrated a strong and steady growth encompassing all aspects of computer sales and service, including over 12 years of experience with the State of Vermont. Today, Panurgy is recognized as a premier IT services provider offering product procurement services, network design and maintenance, training, and development.

PC Application Trainers: They are currently looking for part-time and contract instructors that are experienced in Adult Education with a strong knowledge of the Microsoft Office environment. You will be required to understand all training materials, organize and deliver the curriculum using various methods to enhance the learning experience at Panurgy. Microsoft Office Certification is desired. This position will travel throughout the state of Vermont.

Web Design/Developer Trainers: They are currently looking for part-time and contract instructors that are experienced in Adult Education with a strong knowledge of Web Design and Development. You should have extensive knowledge in Macromedia, Microsoft and .Net technologies. You will be required to understand all training materials, organize and deliver the curriculum using various methods to enhance the learning experience at Panurgy. Microsoft and/or Macromedia certification desired. This position will travel throughout the state of Vermont.

Please contact Dawna Majher at dmajher@panurgyvt.com.

The Center for Teaching Excellence at Virginia Commonwealth University
The Center for Teaching Excellence at Virginia Commonwealth University is currently hiring for 2 fulltime positions. They will be accepting applications throughout the month of February. Please see the job advertisements below:

Instructional Designer/Online Learning Specialist
Reporting to the Director of the CTE, the Instructional Designer/Online Learning Specialist will have the primary responsibility of supporting the design, development and delivery of online courses at VCU. The Instructional Designer/Online Learning Specialist will join a team that works collaboratively to support a broad range of faculty needs related to the teaching and learning mission of the University. The successful candidate is expected to possess an in-depth understanding of pedagogical issues related to online teaching and learning, in addition to having a comprehensive understanding of a wide range of software and hardware tools. A minimum of a Master's degree in Instructional Technology, Education or related field, a combination of two to five years of teaching experience in traditional and online learning environments, and successful experience working in higher education supporting faculty in the use of learning technologies is required. Candidates should have excellent communication skills and experience in the development and delivery of presentations, workshops, and seminars. Salary is competitive and commensurate with qualifications and experience. For a more complete description, please visit the Academic Affairs section of the VCU Faculty Vacancies website at http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/facjobs/ Please send a resume and contact information for three references to Dr. Zachary Goodell, VCU Center for Teaching Excellence, P. O. Box 842033, Richmond , VA 23284-2033 .

Instructional Designer/Faculty Developer
Reporting to the Director of the CTE, the Instructional Designer will have the primary responsibility of consulting with faculty in gateway science and math courses to expand the integration of technology in their teaching. In addition, a key responsibility will be to assist faculty who teach in clinical settings. Preference will be given to candidates who have a comprehensive understanding of learning theory and how to apply it in clinical settings. Knowledge of active learning techniques, problem-based learning, and case-based methods are desired. A background in math, science, or health science is also preferred. A minimum of a Master's degree in instructional technology or curriculum development, with three or more years of relevant teaching experience, are required. Candidates should have excellent communication skills and experience in the development and delivery of presentations, workshops, and seminars. Salary is competitive and commensurate with qualifications and experience. For a more complete description, please visit the Academic Affairs section of the VCU Faculty Vacancies website at http://www.pubinfo.vcu.edu/facjobs/

Please send a resume and contact information for three references to Dr. Zachary Goodell, VCU Center for Teaching Excellence, P. O. Box 842033 , Richmond , VA 23284-2033 .