Category Archives: Feature 2

Athletics, Feature 2, Spring 2016

A Newell Day

Roosevelt’s women’s basketball program goes forward with new head coach Keisha Newell

Roosevelt’s women’s basketball program goes forward with new head coach Keisha Newell

Unusual circumstances affected the Roosevelt women’s basketball team two weeks before the start of the 2015-16 academic year.

Robyn Scherr-Wells, the head coach of the Lakers for the previous five seasons, left to take the same position at Davenport University in Grand Rapids, Mich. That left the Lakers without a head coach for the first time since 2009 and it forced Athletic Director Mike Cassidy to quickly find a replacement.

Fortunately, he found a woman with a passion for basketball that was balanced with a life perspective molded by some time away from the game.

Just 28 years old when she was named head coach last September, Keisha Newell had established herself as a gritty leader and hard-working offensive catalyst while playing point guard for Loyola University Chicago from 2007-10. After graduating, her leadership and nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic immediately landed her a position on Loyola’s coaching staff, where she helped recruit top-tier talent locally and across the country in an effort that led the Ramblers to one of their best finishes in program history in 2013.

In 2014, Newell stepped away from the NCAA Division I coaching grind and became a student-athlete recruiter in the admissions office at North Park University on Chicago’s northwest side. While at North Park, Newell (née Collins) started a family after marrying former Simeon and Ball State standout Anthony Newell and giving birth to the couple’s first child, a son named Kamryn.

Becky Williford showed leadership on and off the court

Becky Williford showed leadership on and off the court

It was during this time away from coaching that Newell sharpened her approach to using basketball as an opportunity to teach “big picture” lessons, and it made the Roosevelt job an attractive position when she was ready to get back into coaching.

“I definitely learned a lot from my experience on the outside,” Newell said. “It’s more than just basketball. It’s about sticking to basic principles, being good women and good citizens.” Don’t get her wrong. Newell likes to win. But winning is a bit broader in her mind. Winning involves getting results and achieving them with two bedrocks on display: respect and hard work.

Fortunately for Newell, the cupboard wasn’t bare in terms of good players and good people to instill such values when she arrived on campus.

“It’s more than just basketball. It’s about sticking to basic principles, being good women and good citizens.”
Keisha Newell, Roosevelt women’s basketball coach

Roosevelt’s student-athletes had trained on their own until the hiring of Newell was made official. They played pickup ball, lifted in the weight room and stayed close during the summer to make sure they didn’t miss a beat when their new coach took over. Led by senior point guard Becky Williford, a captain who has earned many accolades for her work on and off the court, this year’s Lakers were ready to prove to Newell and themselves that last year’s rough 8-win campaign was a confluence of difficult circumstances.

“They stayed in shape and they were motivated, even with not having a coach for a few months,” Newell observed. “Becky set the tone. I thought they faced a lot of adversity, and they really bought into the culture we wanted to build.”

Paige Gallimore averaged a team-leading 16 points per game.

Paige Gallimore averaged a team-leading 16 points per game.

With that buy-in and trust in a new staff, things clicked early for the Lakers. Roosevelt won its first three games and won nine, more than last season’s total all year, before Christmas. Wins became tougher to come by near the start of a new calendar year due to a grueling schedule, as seven Top 25 opponents provided stern test after stern test.

In the end Roosevelt qualified for the eight-team CCAC Tournament with 15 victories, nearly double that of 2014-15, before bowing out to regular season champion St. Francis (Ill.). Those accomplishments were “unbelievable” in the context of how the school year began, and Newell was even prouder with how the group achieved them.

“We emphasize that the spotlight is on them, that they are not just representing themselves, but their team and University as well,” Newell said. “Body language on and off the court is a big deal. We want them to think about how they would act in a professional setting and make sure that, just because they are on the court, they don’t lose sight of that. Everyone followed that, and everyone respected each other.”

Now that Newell will have her first off-season to prepare for year two, she is focused on reinforcing the foundation set this past year while restocking the roster to help her returning players. “Roosevelt is a gold mine,” Newell proclaimed. “When people get to know the tradition, the tight-knit community, and the campus, they want to be a part of this.”

Standard
Feature 2, Feature Stories, Scholarship Spotlight, Spring 2016

Scholarship Spotlight: Vivian Rodriguez

vivian

In high school, Vivian Rodriguez was pretty sure she wanted to be an ultrasound technician.“I wanted to be able to tell the parents whether the baby was a boy or a girl!” However, when she heard that it was the doctor who generally shares this information with parents, she changed her mind. But, she knew that she wanted to be a health care practitioner and help people.

She started looking into allied health programs and decided that nuclear medicine technology was the field for her. She was fascinated by the ability of nuclear medicine to provide unique information about the structure and function of virtually every major organ system within the human body, setting it apart from other types of imaging. Today, as a Roosevelt University student, Vivian performs clinical hours at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, helping physicians characterize and quantify physiologic function at the molecular level by administering radioactive nuclides for disease diagnosis and, in some cases, therapy.

A few years ago when she and her family visited and toured Roosevelt’s Chicago Campus, she knew that this is where she wanted to be. And once her dad saw the Wabash Building and her reaction to the possibility of living and studying there, he made the decision that he would not deny her the opportunity to do so.

Rodriguez was an excellent student and talented athlete at Eisenhower High School in Blue Island, Ill.She was also an active participant in show choir, concert choir, band (she plays trumpet) and mathletes. And, she did all this while working part-time for her dad in his restaurant in Blue Island.

“I’m starting a career helping people in a profession that I love. I’m appreciative for all the help that has allowed me to achieve this goal.”
Vivian Rodriguez

When she arrived at Roosevelt, she worked as a student ambassador in the Office of Admission for her first three years. “Now as a senior, I work for the Athletics Department. With my clinical hours at the hospital, I needed evening hours,” she explained. She also has held multiple positions within her sorority, Alpha Gamma Delta. She played on the Roosevelt women’s tennis team as a sophomore and was the team captain last year.

When asked about professors who have influenced her, she instantly smiled and said: “Dr. (Cornelius) Watson and Dr. (Norbert) Cordeiro.” “Dr. Watson was the faculty member who made me want to attend Roosevelt,” she said. Watson returned the compliment, saying that Rodriguez “is a bright, conscientious and personable student who has a promising future in the health sciences.”

“Vivian is a student who has an intense curiosity for the sciences,” said Cordeiro, who impressed Rodriguez by bringing artifacts from the Field Museum for students to study in class. “Despite being heavily involved in athletics as well as a plethora of other activities, what I found exciting about Vivian is how she strove to maintain academics as her central focus — I think we all know that this is not an easy task.”

One of the things that Rodriguez has enjoyed most while studying at Roosevelt is the diversity of the student body. “I love getting to know people from all over the country.” In her studies at Northwestern Memorial, she has enjoyed learning about all of the rare diseases that are diagnosed using her discipline.

When she graduates, she hopes to find a job at a Chicago area hospital with Northwestern Memorial and Central DuPage being her top choices. She’s grateful for everyone at Roosevelt who has supported her during the last four years, especially Trustee Gerald Fogelson, who funded her scholarship. “I’m starting a career helping people in a profession that I love. I’m appreciative for all the help that has allowed me to achieve this goal,” she said.

Standard
Fall 2015, Feature 2, Issue, President's Perspective

Forward Looking

Ali_Malekzadeh Offical

MY FIRST WEEKS AND MONTHS as Roosevelt University’s sixth president have flown by in a blur of excitement, challenges and surprises. Every day brings a barrage of new information and requests for decisions and solutions to problems. I am very humbled to have been entrusted with this remarkable opportunity to lead one of America’s distinctive universities into the future.

Last spring Roosevelt University celebrated its founding in 1945 when the president and faculty of the YMCA College courageously refused to comply with the prevailing custom of racial and religious admission quotas. Now – as we enter our 70th academic year – we look forward to a new phase of our history. What should we be? What can we be? What will we be?

We know what we are. We are an urban – and suburban – university. We have an unusually racially and economically diverse population of students. We offer the opportunity to study in a variety of programs in one of the greatest cities in the world. We have a first-rate faculty who teach in beautiful and prizewinning buildings. We are the only comprehensive nonsectarian university in downtown Chicago. Our alumni have great achievements in all kinds of domains – including politics, the visual and performing arts, science, health professions, business, education and other fields. We have a long tradition of engaging with the larger community and wrestling with social issues and problems. We have a national and international reputation as an advocate of democratic values, academic freedom, equal opportunity and social justice.

As we enter our 70th academic year, we look forward to a new phase of our history.

We also know that our first step must be to increase undergraduate and graduate enrollment, which is imperative for our financial well-being. We must have the programs in place to ensure higher retention and graduation rates. We must turn to our community for help in raising the additional dollars that support scholarships, laboratories, faculty development and student life. We must carefully examine our structure and operations to make sure we are effective and fiscally responsible stewards of our educational mission. And we owe our community a clear and compelling vision of who we are today and why we are a great choice for students.

Will you help us achieve these goals? Will you participate in our future? We would value your help in many ways – by your presence at University celebrations, lectures and workshops and by your active involvement in alumni chapters and fundraising.

I hope to visit with many of you this next year at these various occasions, and to learn how Roosevelt made a difference in your life.

Looking Forward

I also hope you will consider working with me on two new ideas meant to improve Roosevelt student retention and graduation: an undergraduate mentoring program and an undergraduate professional development program. I led both activities in the business college at Kansas State University, impacting thousands of students, and would like to bring these programs to Roosevelt undergraduates to advance their confidence, skills and ability to succeed. But I will need your help. Please watch for announcements as we plan the best way to implement these programs at Roosevelt.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” I believe that Roosevelt University can become a great university for new generations of students, with a central role to play in the city of Chicago and in higher education nationally. That is my dream – and I hope your dream too – and I look forward to working together to make it happen.

Standard