ONU Feature Stories

Having worked on the most successful Broadway production of all time, the 12-time Tony Award-winning The Producers, Phil Reno knows a thing or two about getting singers to sound their best.

Singing at 11 a.m. is never easy, even for the most accomplished singer. But an early start time couldn’t deter more than 20 Ohio Northern University students from experiencing a master class with Broadway musical director Phil Reno last month at the Freed Center for the Performing Arts.

Reno’s career spans nearly 30 years in musical theatre, including the past decade on Broadway working on shows like The Producers, The Drowsy Chaperone and Promises, Promises. As a musical director, his job includes both auditioning talent and working with singers once they are cast, two very different tasks that he combined into an innovative teaching experience on the Freed Center stage.

His wealth of knowledge and energetic personality were on full display as he worked with students on singing and talked about life in New York City and what it takes to make it as a professional singer.

His advice on auditioning ranged from the practical – “Pick a song that you can relate to and do well and can form some kind of emotional connection to” – to the insightful – “Sixteen bars of a song in four-four or six-eight time gives you longer to sing than a song in two-four time” – to the cautionary – “Don’t tell a musical director you can hit a high ‘C’ and not have a song to show it.”

When it was time for students to sing, they did so like they would at an audition, singing portions of songs they had prepared with only piano for accompaniment. However, instead of saying, “Thank you very much. Next!” at the end, Reno worked with each singer on his or her selection, sometimes going word-by-word to find a deeper connection to the song.

Junior musical theatre major Mary Beth Donahoe of Lakewood, Ohio, appreciated the level of coaching Reno gave to her.

“It’s the kind of thing that you don’t necessarily get in a voice lesson because a voice lesson is a lot more focused on the technique,” she says. “He focused on the performance aspect of it and helped me connect to the characters in the story that the song is about.”

While Reno is very happy to be doing what he does for a living, he admits that working with students is one of his passions. He majored in music education at the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati and planned to become a high school band or choir director.

“Doing this is so much fun. These students are just so much fun to get to know and to work with. I just try to give them some ideas of things to keep working on. They keep getting so much better year after year, which is really a tribute to the department here,” he says.

When it comes to master classes for the arts at ONU, the “department” Reno speaks of spans the range of music, musical theatre, theatre, international theatre production and dance. Reno’s master class was the result of Kirsten Osbun-Manley, resident artist and lecturer in music and musical theatre, and Lloyd Butler, resident artist and musical director for musical theatre, reaching out to Reno.

“We are constantly out and about trying to find people to bring back for our students. We go to New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago to find current industry professionals. We really feel strongly that they need to see how the real world works,” says Osbun-Manley.

There are usually two or three master classes each year in the performing arts at ONU, and the performers run the gamut of directors, casting directors, musical directors, dancers, choreographers, singers, stage lighting technicians and set designers. According to Donahoe, ONU’s reputation for bringing in talent to work with students is well known among students looking to pursue the arts in college.

“It’s actually one of the biggest reasons why I came here,” she says. “I knew that I would have the opportunity to develop personal relationships and make personal connections with people who are actually in the business. When I graduate, hopefully I can look them up and say, ‘Remember me? Let’s work together again.’”

Apart from the professional connections the students make and the technical instruction they receive, master classes teach students another lesson that is very important to learn in a business like professional performance.

“This business is very subjective,” says Butler. “So it’s important for students to understand that one casting director’s opinion can be completely different from another. They shouldn’t get discouraged if an audition doesn’t go the way they want it to; that’s part of the game. By being exposed to many different industry professionals while they are students here, they can see that.”

Last month’s master class was Reno’s fourth at Northern, and if Osbun-Manley and Butler have anything to say about, it certainly won’t be his last.

New extra-disciplinary seminars add a global perspective to a Northern education.

Of all the words to enter into our lexicon over the past decade, none is more macro than globalization. The word is used in virtually every sphere of our society — economics, politics, consumption, human rights, the environment, war and peace, the arts, and, most certainly, education.

This year, Ohio Northern University introduced a new general education requirement to provide students with an educational experience outside their majors. The program, called the extra-disciplinary seminar, is designed so that all the courses focus on a common theme. This year’s theme is globalization, the process by which everyday life is influenced by conditions, events and ideas around the world as a result of increased interconnectivity.

An extra-disciplinary seminar offered through the Department of Communication and Theatre Arts last fall presented students with a first-hand view of globalization through an investigation of international aid projects with a special focus on the Dominican Republic.

International Projects: A Dominican Perspective, introduced students to international aid and examined the basic practices and principles used by aid organizations. It invited critical thinking into the motivations behind aid projects as well as long-term outcomes of these efforts, and asked students to consider whether “doing good” can be bad.

“Aid projects can actually teach the very people they are trying to help to become dependent on aid,” says Christine North, associate professor of communication arts. “You end up teaching them to expect the next free handout as opposed to empowering them to become more self-sufficient by providing the education and materials necessary to do other work.”

The idea that helping others can actually do harm is at the core of North’s course. It is the springboard from which students learn about the factors that cause poverty. This knowledge allows them to understand the circumstances of those in need of aid and helps students appreciate what constitutes effective aid.

“In this class, we learned about different views on aid. Government organizations tend to do aid from the top down. They decide what they think would be best for the country and their problems. They don’t really go in and ask the people what they are actually struggling with, what they actually want help with,” says Elizabeth Rogers, a second-year pharmacy major from Genoa, Ohio. “So they just put in place these programs, or do these development projects, and the people either don’t want them or are never taught how to use them and they just go to waste.”

In comparison, the class learned about bottom-up approaches like microlending popularized by the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Bottom-up approaches deliver aid as directly as possible to the people in need, and gain from the direct contact between the aid givers and receivers. However, if the aid organization fails to develop a relationship with the people it is trying to help, then even a bottom-up approach can fail.

“One of the things that I teach in this class is that aid without a relationship is wasted,” says North. “You have to build relationships. We cannot go somewhere and march in as experts. We have got to go in and learn from them and learn what they want, and not what we think they need.”

If North sounds like she’s speaking from experience, it’s because she is. For the past four years, she has organized aid trips to the Dominican Republic for various groups on campus. This fall, she made one such trip a part of her extra-disciplinary seminar course for students who wished to participate.

“One of the things that I’m really passionate about in my work in the Dominican Republic is that we don’t do what I call ‘drop-and-run’ missions where you show up, ‘do good’ for a week, and then disappear and its all over. That doesn’t make for good, sustainable, lasting change within any community,” she says.

The trip was optional for students, and, of the 14 enrolled in the course, four traveled to San Juan de la Maguana over Thanksgiving break to participate in active aid projects such as the construction of a new school, assisting at a remote health clinic and providing nutrition education. In addition, they learned about microbanking from a Peace Corps volunteer who is helping a women’s cooperative develop a business making a high-calorie peanut butter nutritional supplement.

As meaningful as their exposure to multiple aid projects was, witnessing the context in which programs were being administered was equally important. When they returned, students were able to process what they saw with the rest of the class and lead discussions on what worked, what didn’t work, and what would have to happen before the aid groups could pull out and have people remain self-sufficient.

For the students who traveled, the trip made a lasting impression and helped reinforce what they had learned in class. For one student, Onoriode Ominiabohs, a sophomore accounting major from Olanrewaju Yaba, Nigeria, the trip also solidified her personal feelings on international aid.

“More than $1 trillion has been given to Africa, and there is literally nothing to show for it,” she says. “I feel that it makes more sense to go into the villages and actually give to tiny groups of people. In the Dominican, we actually saw what we were doing. Even if it was a little group of people we helped, we saw a difference where we went.”

The lasting lessons of the class were not dependent on visiting the Dominican Republic. To help all of her students relate to people who are often on the receiving end of international aid, North developed a class project to show how a simple task like fetching water can change behaviors and perceptions.

The project was a role-play that began at the Freed Center for the Performing Arts. There, the stairwell landings became a metaphorical “mountainside” community of people living without running water. According to the narrative developed by North, every day the people collect water for their daily needs from a river on the other side of the mountain, which, in this case, was a chemistry laboratory in the Mathile Center.

To really force the students into the spirit of the role-playing, North assigned each student a character from the mountainside community. One student might be a 76-year-old grandmother, another an 18-year-old woman with a newborn child. These roles put into context the nature of the task and added a layer of contemplation to its execution. For example, the grandmother cannot walk, let alone collect water, but she also requires that someone stay with her, thereby increasing the burden on that family’s water carriers or limiting the family’s available water for that day. As the able-bodied family members carried water across campus, they experienced how difficult it could actually be.

“Dr. North told us what we were going to do, but she didn’t tell us there would be constraints. So I initially thought, ‘Okay, I can carry a bunch of water back for everybody,’” says 6-foot-5-inch, 275 pound George Hess, a sophomore engineering major from Newbury, Ohio. “But then she told me I was a 6-year-old, so I couldn’t do much. It forced me to realize what a struggle it would be for someone to have to carry water every single day.”

When they returned to their landing in the stairwell, North continued the role-playing scenario by explaining to her students why they needed the water. If there are six people in each family, that’s six people who need to bathe, she explained. That’s a gallon of water to cook enough beans and a gallon of water to cook enough rice. She reminds them that they are poor so they can’t afford to buy vegetables, but they do have a garden, which they’ll need to water because it hasn’t rained in a few days. At the end, she asks her class a question:

Now, a couple of weeks ago, we had this aid organization come through, and they were telling us about how important it is that we practice proper hygiene and how we need to wash our hands with soap and water every time we use the restroom, and every time before we prepare food. So how many of you are going to wash your hands five or six times a day?

No hands raised.

Well, why not?

Silence. Finally, a student answers.

Because the water is heavy, and I don’t want to haul it.

North smiles.

Oh, so you mean these people just aren’t stupid because they don’t want to do what we tell them to do?

“It was an a-ha moment,” says North. “It is easy to assume that people in these impoverished countries are just dumb or lazy because they don’t do what we know is best. I think that exercise taught my students that, maybe, people’s life circumstances don’t allow them to do what they know they should do.”

True to its name, North’s extra-disciplinary course was full of engineering, business, pharmacy, nursing and exercise physiology majors. A majority admitted to not knowing or even caring what the class was about. It was required, and it fit their schedules. At the beginning of the semester, that was enough. Having finished it, students like Matt Flynn, a sophomore engineering major from Lake Mary, Fla., are glad they took the course and see it benefitting them in their careers.

“For engineers, it’s easy to design something that you think will benefit others if you don’t have to take into account their perspective,” he says. “This class will help me think about how something needs to be designed to truly help others. That is going to help me be a better engineer.”

North saw attitudes change throughout her course. She had her students keep journals, and, for their last journal entry, she asked them to answer the questions: What impacted you most about this course? How has your view of poverty changed? How has your view of aid changed? Will it shape what you do in the future?

“It was interesting. Very interesting. They made comments that demonstrated an awareness they simply didn’t have before,” she says.

As college courses go, International Projects: A Dominican Perspective was rather unorthodox in its approach. Apart from its international field trip and temporary colonization of a performing arts center, there were no exams given. There were no exams, says North, because when it comes to eliminating poverty, there are no right answers to learn and write down on a test.

If there were, there’d be no class to take.
 

Of all the ways Ohio Northern University alumni give back to the University, the one most often overlooked is the giving time and expertise. This Sunday, Amanda “Mandi” Horvath, BS ’06, will give both as she speaks to students about her experiences in the Peace Corps and what it means to serve.

“I want Northern students to know that there is another opportunity after graduation. They don’t just have to go to graduate school or try to find a job,” she says. “You can serve your country in the most amazing way you possibly can by being on the ground, working hand-in-hand with people from another culture, in another country, speaking their language. There is no other service in the world like that.”

The theme of service is a very important part of ONU today. From the recently launched Ada Civic Engagement Day initiative, which sees students volunteer to help with projects to make the community a nicer place to live, to national and even international service-learning trips, Northern is no stranger to finding the time and strength to help those in need.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the driving forces behind the Ada Civic Engagement Day, ONU President Dan DiBiasio and First Lady Chris Burns-DiBiasio, are the same ones responsible for bringing Horvath to campus this weekend.

“I was thrilled to finally meet Dan and Chris in Denver. We started talking, and the conversation very quickly turned to service. I shared with them some of my experiences in the Peace Corps. They asked me right then and there if I would be willing to come back and speak about my experiences,” she says.

Horvath hopes to introduce students to the Peace Corps in a way she never was. Whereas most Peace Corps volunteers know someone who served, she didn’t know a soul. In fact, she rather serendipitously discovered the Peace Corps after her initial plans of attending her graduate school of choice fell through. As she looked for other programs, she discovered the Peace Corps’ Masters International Program offered through the University of Colorado at Denver.

The Peace Corps offers two graduate degree programs for to its volunteers. The Masters International program is for active duty volunteers, while the Paul D. Coverdell Fellows Program is for those who have completed their service and remains available to them for the rest of their lives. If not for the Masters International program, Horvath likely would have missed out on one of the most rewarding experiences of her life.

Horvath served in Ayolas, Paraguay, from 2007-10 as an environmental education volunteer. With degrees from Northern in biology and environmental studies, she was perfect for the role. She developed programs to educate her community on solid waste, recycling, composting, gardening and wildlife. She organized bird festivals for fifth- and sixth-grade students to help them learn about the local fauna and formed a community ecological group called Eco-Ayolas. She was even a weekly guest on a local radio program, during which she would talk about environmental topics and promote events the Eco-Ayolas were planning.

Today, Horvath is a fish and wildlife biologist for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in Denver, Colo. Although her service to the Peace Corps is over, she is excited to share her experiences and hopes to inspire a new class of volunteers.

“I wanted to be a Peace Corps volunteer because I wanted to serve my country and serve others,” says Horvath. “I wanted to help those that might not be as lucky as we are here in America.”

With any luck, she won’t be the last Polar Bear to do so.

Mandi Horvath will speak on Sunday, Feb. 17, at 7 p.m. in the Dicke Forum.

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A class project leaves lasting impression on the village of Ada.

As Ada’s largest resident, Ohio Northern University is working to strengthen the community through outreach efforts like last fall’s inaugural Ada Civic Engagement Day, which saw ONU students volunteer to help residents with beautification projects to homes, businesses, churches and offices in town.

Now, ONU professors are creating high-impact learning opportunities within their course curricula to focus student learning in a way that also benefits the community.

Each spring, Dr. Jimmy Wilson, visiting assistant professor of geography, asks his Applied GIS (geographic information systems) class to develop a project that will provide both practical GIS experience and a benefit to someone. Previous class projects include creating 3-D models of campus buildings for use in Google’s Google Earth mapping software, and an inventory of the trees on Ohio Northern’s Campus. The most recent class took the idea of a tree inventory and opened it up to the village of Ada.

“Trees are so important to Ada. And, while this project directly benefits our students by giving them hands-on experience at building a GIS database and the local municipality by giving them this tool, in reality, it benefits us all,” says Wilson.

Indeed, the community has long valued trees for their appearance, service as barriers, inherent cooling qualities and wind reduction. This floral fondness has resulted in Ada being officially designated as one of Ohio’s Tree Cities, meaning that the National Arbor Day Foundation, in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters, recognize Ada’s ongoing efforts to manage its public tree resources.

The class project resulted in a digital itemized tree inventory, which gives local administrators the means to catalog tree data, map tree locations and develop an automated report with information on individual trees. It is beneficial to local administrators in assessing the worth of trees in the event of disasters, helps with landscaping and assists with planning new development.

“Trees are an important resource in our village, but we don’t always have the time and resources to inventory our street trees. These students’ work will prove to be an invaluable foundation for our street tree inventory work,” says Jim Meyer, Ada village administrator.

This November, ONU students Bethany Blakely, a senior environmental studies major from Pickerington, Ohio, and Emily Nebgen, a senior biology major from Swansea, Ill., spoke about their involvement in developing the tree inventory at the 2012 Northwest Ohio Urban Forestry Seminar at Bluffton University, hosted by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry.

They explained how students gathered and recorded data from more than 200 trees over the 16-week semester. The data included the tree variety, a physical description, visible damage or obstacles present, and measurements such as circumference and height. All information gathered was entered into a database that was linked to the final report.

Given the large number of trees in the community and the small class size, the class decided to focus on the southeast portion of Ada. So, in actuality the project is more of a pilot project to show how an inventory is done and how beneficial it can be.

“I feel that goals for the project were lofty, yet attainable. However, we simply ran out of time in the semester to complete the full scope of the project and had to acknowledge the fact that we could not count and catalog all the trees that we originally wanted to do. I don't think any of us students knew just how many trees there were in Ada!” says Nebgen.

With the pilot project complete, Ada administrators can begin using the inventory and hopefully see some real benefits, particularly economic. According to Stephanie Miller, regional urban forester for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, municipal tree inventories can affect a city’s bottom line.

“A customized, quality tree inventory is an extremely valuable tool for cities and villages. It allows leaders to make informed decisions about their community forest management regarding tree planting, care and removal. This, in turn, increases efficiency, promotes the wise use of taxpayer dollars, and allows us to reap the many socio-economic and environmental benefits of a healthy tree population,” she says.

As ONU and the village of Ada continue to work together to build a better community, expect to see more examples of high-impact learning that directly benefits the area.

“This project is a great example of how students really can make a difference in their community,” says Miller.