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“Tough
Love”
Charlotte
Saxe Schreiberg '44
MSW
died
May 10, 2007, after a long illness, at 89.
She was a retired professor of the
School
of
Social Work
.
Growing up in
Pennsylvania
during the Depression, Shreiberg learned
compassion at home, watching her father give customers credit at his
department store, and her mother taking food to wanderers at the back
door.
Schreiberg worked first in city adoptions at the Richmond Welfare
Department. Then from 1965 to 1983, she was associate professor and
director of field instruction, internships for graduate students in
social work at
RPI
/VCU. After retiring in 1983, she
continued part time at VCU as a field liaison until she was 85.
"
Charlotte
was one of the first people to expand that
program,” Dr. Jaclyn Miller, VCU professor emeritus of social work,
told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Under Schreiberg’s direction, in fact, the social work
field-instruction unit gained an international reputation.
Miller commented further in the Times-Dispatch
story, that "
Charlotte
spoke her mind. She was tough, but in a
most student-centered way. She had very high standards. There was a
nurturance about her that . . . was a little like tough love."
Schreiberg had served on the boards of the Virginia
Department
on Aging,
Richmond
Community
Senior
Center
, the Capital Area Agency on Aging and
Jewish Family Services. She had been chair of the Richmond Commission on
the Elderly.
“A
Thriving Theatre Life”
Richmond
and
New York
lost one of the most electric of stage lights when playwright, producer
and director Martha Hill Newell
’50
MFA
died of lung cancer
June 6, 2007, at 85.
Newell lived in New York City for 40 years, “thriving in a vibrant
theatre life,” said her friend, actor-director Dawn
Westbrook ’85BFA. Her day jobs were planning events for the Girl
Scouts of America and editing and writing textbooks in speech and
theater for several publishers.
Newell was always a willing collaborator. She had taught in
Virginia
and she was a drama consultant to the special education division of
Richmond Public Schools. She wrote plays for Richmond Children’s
Theatre that were broadcast on television and on WRVA Radio Theatre.
When she returned to
Richmond
in 1995, Newell immediately became a life force of local theatre,
writing, producing and directing her plays into her 80s. She wrote more
than 20 plays, including Dogs and
Other Actors and Wives,
Babies, and VMI. “I write because it’s fun,” she told the Richmond
Times-Dispatch in 2002. “All my plays are comic.”
Westbrook
commented in the Times-Dispatch
June
9, 2007
,
“She was brilliant with a turn of phrase, very good at finding irony
in life.” Her cousin Anne Hill
Snyder ’92BS/B said in Newell’s obituary, “Oh, what a bright
light we have been a party to! And what a party it was!”
“Ask
Dr. Wally”
There’s
one more question that former students, colleagues, readers and friends
can “Ask Dr. Wally”—how to die well. Dr. Wallace Johnston,
associate professor emeritus in management at
Virginia
Commonwealth
University
and a well-known workplace commentator,
died May 17 from cancer. He was 69.
From 1971 to 1996,
Johnston
was on the faculty at VCU, teaching
courses in administrative theory, organizational behavior and
communications. His research focused on understanding cooperative
relationships between individuals and their relationships within
organizations.
Dr.
Glenn Gilbreath, chair of the Department of Management, observed,
“Wally had an ability to peel away superficial issues and help people
to focus on the core ideas, often using his wit and humor to put people
at ease."
Jackie
Thornton ’77BS’78MS/B was
his student assistant at VCU and knew
Johnston
through 32 years and two careers. “Wally
has always had the ability to look at something and see it so
simplistically, especially when you're in the middle and can't see your
way out," she commented in the
Richmond Times-Dispatch. Former student and close friend, Ben
Brown ’75BS’76MS/B, a retired turnaround executive, also spoke
with the Times-Dispatch.
"Wally's gift was he could tell you things you wouldn't want to
hear from anyone else and disagree with you in a way that was
comfortable, not threatening."
Johnston
gave that gift away to as many people as
he could. In “retirement,” his columns, "Speaking of Work"
and "Ask Dr. Wally," appeared in the Richmond
Times-Dispatch, the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, and 16 other newspapers. He
continued to lecture at VCU in the Executive MBA program and in the
Center for Corporate Education. He led workshops, gave lectures, and
recorded commentaries for local public radio.
Johnston
published more than 300 articles and two
books, Speaking of Work and What
Every Manager Needs to Know (coauthored), as well as recordings and
videos.
Johnston
emphasized that mutual respect and
consideration in the workplace is good management and effective
business—from the top down or the bottom up.
When his cancer was diagnosed in 2006,
Johnston
, of course, looked on it as an
opportunity; he felt lucky to have a chance to “tie up loose ends”
before it was too late. “He really faced cancer with grace and
courage,” said E.G. Miller, senior associate dean for the
School
of
Business
. “He was just an inspiration for
everyone he touched.”
Johnston let
friends know what was happening. He continued his columns as long as
possible, and he started a foundation for a Work Smart
Fund for professional development and training for employees of the
Virginia Recreation and Park Society, one of the many groups he served.
He was a man who spent his last days living, not dying. His young
grandson called him “Pow”—his grandpa was his pal—but how apt!
Besides contributing to the “Work Smart Fund”—for which
Johnston
made calls the day before he died—his
friends, colleagues and former students raised $30,000 to name a room in
Johnston
’s honor at the new
School
of
Business
. Former students Thomas
’76BS/B and Vickie Snead
’76BS/B, also members of the VCU Alumni Board and major donors to
VCU, have also contributed $120,000 to endow a scholarship in his name.
Wally was a colleague, advisor and friend to many, and they surrounded
him during his last months. “He has a million best friends,"
Thornton
commented in the Times-Dispatch.
Later, she elaborated. “Wally Johnston’s great passion was
people,” she said. “As he found each of us we became a part of his
collection….He loved what we did and what we struggled with day in and
day out. He loved the song of life and thrived on fellowship with
others.”
Gilbreath
says
Johnston
told him recently "how blessed he was
to be able to see and hear the expressions of thanks and gratitude that
so many people voiced."
One of the “loose ends” to attend to was his own memorial service.
Wally being Wally, he threw a party—and attended it, in a video,
thanking everyone for all their support in his last months. One question
you never needed to ask Dr. Wally—“Are we having fun yet?”
Memorial
contributions can be made to the Dr. Wally Work Smart Fund at the
Virginia Recreation and Park Society,
6038 Cold Harbor Road
,
Mechanicsville
,
VA
23111
, or Bon Secours Hospice,
8580 Magellan Parkway
,
Richmond
,
VA
23227
.
A
feature on Dr. Wally and a link to his obituary, can be found at http://www.news.vcu.edu/vcu_view/pages.aspx?nid=2093
Criminal
Justice
Founder
Carroll Hormachea,
professor of sociology who founded the police-education program at
RPI
,now VCU’s Department of Criminal Justice, died
June 7, 2007
When
he first came to
RPI
,
Hormachea taught urban studies and planning, and statistics. “He
started the department during the late 1960s,” his stepson John Moody
told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
“There were not many criminal justice departments in the country at
the time, fewer than a dozen.” Hormachea wrote three books: Recreation
in the Local Jail, Source
Book in Criminalistics, and Confrontation:
Violence and the Police. He
also served on the boards of the
Richmond
Community
Senior
Center
and
the VCU Library.
Creating
Art, Creating Consensus
 Bruce
Koplin ’61BFA’63MA/A chair
of VCU’s Department of Art History and a unifier in the School of the
Arts from 1990 until retiring in 2002, died January 29 in a Richmond
hospital after a two-year struggle with illnesses. He was 67.
Koplin graduated from
RPI
in 1961 with a degree in painting, earned
his master's degree in art history in 1963 and then taught at
RPI
and VCU after graduation, seeing it
through several changes. He became chair when the arts school was in
transition again, with new dean, Dr. Richard Toscan, and a new vision
for the art school.
“More than any other person, Bruce Koplin turned the Department of Art
History into a nationally important entity,” says Charles Brownell,
who succeeded Koplin as department chair. “Bruce was always available
to students and faculty till late in the day to handle any and all
problems, which, from years of experience, he knew how to solve.”
Just as important, his lack of ego and instinctive empathy gave him
“an individualistic approach to administration that made it possible
for the faculty to produce extraordinary results.” Brownell continues,
“An academic department is liable to be a real Noah's
Ark
of personality types, but Bruce kept life
strikingly peaceful and fruitful. His lack of vanity was essential to
this.”
Students benefited from his warm support and enthusiastic creativity.
VCU art history professor Dr. Fredrika Jacobs, told the Richmond
Times-Dispatch. "He was always reaching out and smiling and
encouraging. His students really loved him, and he could get them so
fired up, especially with his passion with folk art.”
Jacobs commented further in the newspaper, "If you went down the
roster of the people on the staffs of museums from the Virginia Museum
of Fine Arts to the Valentine to the Museum of the Confederacy, you
would be astonished to see how many of them have degrees from VCU. Bruce
was instrumental in making that happen."
VCU students have gone farther. Vanessa
York Piccorossi ’94BA/A worked at the Smithsonian after graduation
and is currently vice-chair of the Arlington Commission for the Arts and
chair of the commission's Public Art Committee. “Bruce Koplin was
welcoming to me as a freshman, supportive during my junior-year crisis
over a choice of major, and congratulatory upon my graduation. He was
genuinely interested in me and the path I was taking at VCU—and where
it led me afterward.”
“Everyone got along
with Mr. Koplin,” said doctoral
candidate Emily Davis
’05BA’06MA/A. “It was a testament
to how unreasonable you were if you did not. From the first day I came
to VCU and throughout my various stumblings through my undergraduate
work, Mr. Koplin was always genuine and generous, never one to give you
an ‘I told you so’ or a condescending look. It was refreshing. After
he retired I sat on an undergraduate advisory board. One of the main
comments from students was that they missed Mr. Koplin.”
A
Mainstay of Social Service in
Central
Virginia
After
a long and productive career in social work in Virginia and a rewarding
family life, Alice Loving Alrich
'35BS/H&S died at home in Spottsylvania on
January 30, 2007
, at 95.
After
graduating from
RPI
with her degree in social work, Alice
Loving was a social worker in
Charlottesville
and
Albermarle
County
. In 1937, she became the first
superintendent of Public Welfare in
Spotsylvania
County
.
After an interim working at home as a farmer’s wife and raising three
daughters, in 1964 Alrich returned to the Spotsylvania Department of
Social Services and became director from 1972-70. She also served on the
State Welfare Financial Advisory Committee, on the Board of the League
of Social Services Executives, as a member in the Social Service
Information System Work Committee, a member of the American Public
Welfare Association, and on the Virginia Board of Welfare.
En
Plein Air
Watercolorist
Emile Cahen Jr. ’59/A died
January 26, at home in
Richmond
, at 87. After receiving his arts degree
from
RPI
, Cahen studied at the
American
Academy
of Art in
Chicago
and with noted portrait painter John
Slavan.
Emile Cahen spread his love of art and the outdoors generously. He was a
retired art director for special promotions for Richmond Newspapers
Inc., and a
Richmond
art teacher for over 35 years. His
paintings of the outdoors—rural landscapes of rivers and
wildlife—were in corporate and private collections across the country.
He had exhibited at many venues locally and at
Chesapeake Bay
Maritime
Museum
in
Maryland
.
Cahen also played saxophone and clarinet, with Babe Barnes at Tantilla
Ballroom and with the Richmond Symphony.
Fiber Artist, Teacher, Volunteer
Richmond
artist and handweaver Jacqui
Jacobs Gresham Copeland ’58BFA died at home on March 13 after a
long illness. After graduating from
RPI
with a degree in interior design, she
began a creative career as a regionally acclaimed fiber artist and
teacher. She was an active volunteer for several organizations,
including Guatemala Relief and Bon Secours Hospice program.
“A
Leader and a Faithful Conscience for Public Education”
Dr.
Arnold Fleshood, first dean of VCU’s
School
of
Education
and a retired associate vice president for
academic affairs, died on Jan. 29, at 83. Fleshood joined the school in
1965 when it was the elementary education department of Richmond
Professional Institute, now VCU. He served as dean 1969-73 and then
became associate provost for academic affairs from 1974-84.
Fleshood had been assistant superintendent for instruction in the
Lynchburg
,
Virginia
schools, where he helped introduce live
television instruction in the schools and a more extensive program of
early-childhood education. While he was dean, 1969-73,
guidance-counselor education became part of the
School
of
Education
, and special education became an
emphasis. He led the committee to establish Afro-American studies at
VCU.
"We have lost a wonderful leader and a faithful conscience for
public education in
Virginia
," said Dr. William Bosher Jr., a
former dean of the School, now executive director of Commonwealth
Education Policy at VCU.
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