Welcome
You are receiving the first of what will be many Thunderbolt E-Newsletters from Tri-State University to keep you updated on happenings at your Alma Mater. You can watch for these easy-to-read messages every other month.
If you know of other alumni who should be receiving these E-Newsletters but aren’t, please send their e-mail addresses to alumnus@tristate.edu. We hope the list will grow until everyone is receiving the Thunderbolt E-Newsletter every other month beginning with this issue.

As I write this I also am creating the job description for the next director of alumni activities. We are hoping this person will be onboard by our May 7 commencement and the spring meeting of the Alumni Board of Governors. Of course, we would love to hire an alum to handle these responsibilities, but the job comes with some steep requirements. This person not only will need to travel extensively (over 50 percent of their time) but also must demonstrate that they have some clear ideas about how to move our alumni program in new directions.

As an example, Allen Keen ‘03 and I were in Fort Wayne recently for the alumni gathering at Science Central. Eight schools in the immediate region around Fort Wayne encouraged their alumni to come out and show their colors, too. TSU was represented by some 47 individuals, many from our Fort Wayne campus, who wanted to spend a fun evening in a good environment with their family. We will need to do more of these. The outstanding response is a clear call for more family-oriented alumni activities. Our regional dinners around the United States also have been successful alumni-gathering projects. We’ve been sponsoring these since we began the “Vision for the Future” capital campaign and, so far, alumni in each case have asked for more meetings like them. The new alumni director will need to return to those locations. Likewise, our initial success with “the Executive Club”—our e-letter contact with alumni who are presidents and CFOs—has met with immediate success. If you know of someone not on our Executive Club list, please use the alumnus e-mail address listed above. As you can see, a new director of alumni activities has a big job ahead of him or her.

I want to thank you personally for responding to our fall phonathon in October and November. We ended at $160,000 in November, but so many folks responded to the voice-recorded messages on their home answering device that money continues to come in, and we soon will be over the $190,000 mark. Likewise, enrollment applications for fall are already coming in, and the numbers look promising. Again, alumni have helped us with getting the right people out to recruiting events and on-campus visits, all of which have helped tremendously.

Some upcoming events you might keep in mind are:

• “Race Day” in Indianapolis during the week of time trials before the Memorial Day Indy 500 (exact times will be announced) and
• August 5, when we will have an all-day alumni golf outing at Zollner Golf Course. We always have a big turnout at this event; it is exciting to think of that many alumni and friends gathered in one day for a game of golf.

Talk with you soon,

Scholarship Gala Successful Again

The Second Annual Scholarship Gala was a huge success. Approximately 250 TSU alumni and friends raised more than $60,000 through live and silent auctions and other contributions. The February 12 event, held in the Ketner Sports Complex, topped last year’s benefit total by at least $13,000. The event was co-hosted by TSU President Dr. Earl D. Brooks II and his wife, Melanie, and Drs. Ralph and Sheri Trine. For more, information visit our Alumni Web site.

Vision for the Future Campaign Continues Success
With more than $40 million already credited to the Vision for the Future campaign, TSU is continuing on a successful path to fulfilling its promise to give students state-of-the-art facilities and amenities along with a great education. The exterior of C.W. Sponsel Administration Building is almost complete, and Phase II of the Student Villas is under roof. On the drawing board is the Student Center and Center for Technology and Online Resources, a magnificent building of 100,000 square feet that, when completed, will serve both as a center for technology and interactive learning, as well as for dining, entertainment and shopping for both students and the community-at-large. The research center also will feature state-of-the-art digital and multiple media resources and productivity applications, all within a wireless environment.

Our Distinguished Speaker Series continues on
April 6 with author and lecturer Duane Dobbert,
a 35-year veteran of the criminal justice profession. A professor at Florida Gulf Coast University and Capella University, Dobbert is the author of "Halting the Sexual Predators Among Us: Preventing Attack, Rape, and Lust Homicide". The event is free and the public is invited. This and all the series’ presentations are funded in part by the Steuben County Community Foundation. Dobbert also will do a book-signing and will be available for class sessions and other campus activities. For more information about Dobbert, a former TSU professor, visit his Web site.

Two basketball players—Brandon O’Leary
(Fort Wayne, Ind.) and Nikki Bergman (Howard, Mich.)—joined the 1,000 Point Club this year.
Winter sports are winding down. Women’s basketball ended its regular season Wednesday. The inaugural wrestling season, supported by Fifth-Third Bank, ended Thursday. Men’s basketball closed out the regular season Saturday. Indoor track finishes Saturday. Spring teams are gearing up for the 2005 season. Baseball opens March 5 at IU Southeast. Softball opens March 15 at home against Indiana Wesleyan. Men’s tennis opens February 19 at Kalamazoo College. Women’s tennis opens February 26 at Calvin College. Track and field opens April 9 at home against Albion and Alma colleges. For more visit our Thunder Athletics Web site.

TSU Technology Center gaining partners
The TSU Technology Center was excited last month when RJG Inc. announced that the center will be RJG’s Indiana Training Partner for injection molding training. RJG is a Traverse City, Michigan, company that offers nationally recognized certified training programs. This will be a nice plus for the Tech Center, which started as the Plastics Technology Center before it was gifted to TSU in February 2004. When it acquired the center, TSU pledged to increase and enhance existing plastics training opportunities, and this partnership is part of that plan. For more information, visit www.plasticstechcenter.org.

TSU is in the News–again and again and again
BizVoice, the magazine of the Indiana Chamber, visited the TSU Technology Center in late fall and interviewed Tech Center executive director Sharon Sallot. The story about the center’s entrepreneurial and business development resources appears in the January/February 2005 issue. Check that out and click on ‘entrepreneurial efforts…”.

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette featured TSU’s Middle College on the front page of its November 21, 2004, “Perspective” section. The story focused on the program’s unique structure and the success it has achieved in less than a year—going from an initial four students last year to an enrollment of 44 students from nine different schools at the beginning of the fall term, 2004.

INside Indiana Business regularly posts our press releases and, since June, has featured us on their site more than a dozen times.

For more news, visit the TSU Web site.

Faculty Spotlight
TSU professor elected president of IAHPERD
Dr. David Anspaugh, professor and chair of the Department of Health, Physical Education & Sport Science, has been named president-elect of the Indiana Association of Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance for 2004-2005. Next year he will serve as president, and in the following year will serve on the board as past president.

Dr. Anspaugh has served as president of the Southern District Association of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation. He is a former state president of the Tennessee Association of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation. In addition he has been president of the American Association of Health Education and a board member of the National Association for the Certification of Health Education Specialist. He is currently serving as a facilitator for the Michiana Coordinated School Health Project sponsored by the American Cancer Society and the Indiana Department of Education.

Dr. Anspaugh is the author of 26 textbooks and manuals, including the No. 1 best-seller in wellness, "Concepts in Wellness". He also is published in more than a dozen professional journals and newspapers.

Among a long list of accomplishments, Dr. Anspaugh developed a prototype for fitness wellness centers that was adopted by several universities throughout the country. Besides IAHPERD, he is active in several professional organizations. He has served on IAHPERD’s advocacy committee for wellness since June 2003.

IAHPERD objectives include supporting a comprehensive school health plan, healthy choices in school lunches and/or breakfasts, healthy choices in vending machines and safe community recreation facilities. IAHPERD’s members also are active lobbyists for health and physical education issues and the organization’s objectives.

“It’s an honor to have been elected to this position,” Anspaugh said. “This professional association has been active since 1917, and many of its leaders have been from larger, major institutions. So, it’s an honor that somebody from a small institution can get elected, too.”