In Memoriam

VERMONT COLLEGE

Harry Berkowitz , Vermont College 1997, d. December 4, 2003.
Jemma Bertoli , Montpelier Seminary 1922, d. December 4, 2004
Ruth Ellis Burns , Vermont Junior College 1949, d. July 17, 2004.
Patricia Braggs Damon , Vermont Junior College 1950, d. May 2004.
Carlie May Downes , Montpelier Seminary 1933, d. August 4, 2004.
Mary Kehoe , B.A. 1988, ADP, Vermont College, d. September 2004
Mary (Canale) Martin , A.A. 1948, Vermont Junior College, d. April 27, 2005.
Alfred McKnight, A. A. 1948, Vermont Junior College, d. July 16, 2004.
Ruth Nelson, Montpelier Seminary 1931, d. February 1, 2004.
Alice Oberg, Vermont Junior College 1947, d. August 9, 2004.
Virginia Smyth Rohde, Vermont Junior College 1947, d. December 20, 2003.
Barbara A. Rookey Van Deusen, 1970, d. January 2004.

UI&U

Michael J. Hogan, B.A. d. November 25, 2004.

In Memoriam Feature

Halloway “Chuck” Sells , Graduate College Faculty, Lifelong Community Activist, Educator, and Role Model

Long-time UI&U Graduate College core faculty Halloway Charles “Chuck” Sells Jr., Ph.D., husband of UI&U Graduate College core faculty Rose Duhon-Sells, Ph.D., passed away March 24, 2005 in New Orleans, after a short illness. He leaves a legacy as a respected educator, a dedicated community activist, a steadfast leader, and a warm, sensitive, gentle man.

After earning a B.A. in sociology (1957) from the University of Toledo and M.S.W. (1959) from the University of Michigan, Sells moved to Cincinnati as director of group therapies and volunteer services at Rollman Psychiatric Hospital. He worked with Seven Hills Neighborhood Houses, where he became the youngest executive director at age 31. Sells also worked with the United Way and Community Chest of Greater Cincinnati, and served as a research associate and adjunct faculty at the University of Cincinnati, where he completed another master’s degree in community planning and public administration (1972) and his Ph.D. in organizational management (1974).

Sells joined the faculty of the Graduate College of Union Institute & University in 1974. He remained devoted to UI&U’s mission throughout his 31 years of service and, in addition to working with a full roster of doctoral learners, served as national coordinator of UI&U’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities doctoral initiative. In 1990, he was the first recipient of UI&U’s President’s Medal for Exemplary Service, reflecting outstanding service, excellent scholarship, and innovative leadership by an individual who — in the spirit of Union’s mission — has significantly improved the lives of others.

When asked about the single greatest contribution that he made to society, Sells said, “I have demonstrated to African-American males that anything is possible. I have encouraged individuals to be steadfast in overcoming all the inconsistencies of life. I have tried to make a difference, not by building a cathedral or an edifice, but by touching the hearts and minds of people who have not had a fair share in life.”

While living in Cincinnati, Sells served on many boards including the Cincinnati Speech and Hearing Center and Melrose Branch YMCA. He was active in the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce Political Action Programming Assembly, the Ohio Black Political Assembly, National Black Political Assembly, NAACP, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Avondale Community Council, West End Community Council, and Lincoln Heights Community Council. In 2000 Chuck received a Legends Award for his role in developing the YMCA of Greater Cincinnati’s Black Achievers Program and continued that work after moving with his wife Rose to Lake Charles, LA.

Sells published extensively in the areas of social psychology, community planning, human services, social work, and multiculturalism. Most recently he was co-editor of International Perspectives on Methods of Improving Education Focusing on the Quality of Diversity (Edwin Mellen Press, 2003) with his wife and their three daughters who hold Union doctorates, Alice Duhon-Ross, Ph.D. 1994, Gwendolyn Duhon Owens, Ph.D. 1995, and Glendolyn Duhon Jeanlouis, Ph.D. 2004.

In addition to Rose Duhon Sells, his wife of thirteen years, Sells is survived by six children and eleven grandchildren. Burial was in Lake Charles, LA, and a memorial celebration of his life took place at UI&U’s Conley Academic Center in Cincinnati on April 9, 2005. Contributions may be sent to the Halloway Charles Sells Scholarship Fund at Union Institute & University ( 440 East McMillan Street, Cincinnati, OH 45206), or Southern University at New Orleans School of Education.

James R. Forman , Ph.D. 1982, Leading 1960s Civil Rights Activist - PDE: “Self-Determination and the African American People”

One of the foremost black militant leaders to emerge from the Southern civil rights movement, James Forman triggered national headlines and vivid memories when he died in Washington, D.C., January 10, 2005 after battling cancer.

During the late 1950s Forman gradually became active in the expanding Southern black civil rights movement. An Air Force veteran, he enrolled at the University of Southern California in 1952, but was beaten and arrested by police in his second college semester. He transferred to Roosevelt University in Chicago and became a leader in student politics until graduating in 1957, then pursued graduate studies at Boston University. In 1961 he left his job as a substitute elementary school teacher to go to Fayette County, Tennessee, to help sharecroppers evicted for registering to vote. That summer, he was jailed with other Freedom Riders protesting segregated facilities in North Carolina.

Forman became executive secretary from 1961 to 1966 of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the organization that brought almost a thousand young volunteers, black and white, to register voters in summer of 1964. Among those volunteers were Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, the three young men murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi that June, whose case resulted in the recent trial and manslaughter conviction of a Ku Klux Klan member.

Although Forman’s militancy often placed him at odds with other Civil Rights leaders, he persevered. In 1969, he interrupted services at New York City's Riverside Church to deliver a manifesto demanding $500 million in reparations from white Protestant and Jewish churches for generations of slavery and injustices to African Americans. In Detroit, he participated in the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and he visited Africa to support several African liberation movements.

Forman eventually immersed himself in scholarship, research, and writing. He received a master's degree in African and Afro-American history from Cornell University and in 1982 his Ph.D. with concentration in political history from then Union of Experimental Colleges and Universities. A prolific writer, his numerous publications include The Making of Black Revolutionaries ( University of Washington Press, 1997), a chronicle of his contemporary leaders in of the Civil Rights Movement, and his Union doctoral dissertation, Self-Determination and the African-American People (2nd ed., Open Hand Pub., 1984) .

Forman remained politically active, and despite weakness from his long struggle with cancer, he took a train from Washington to Boston to attend the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. Graduate College core faculty member Sylvia Hill, Ph.D., who served as second core reader on Forman’s doctoral committee and knew him from the SNCC movement, says, “He was a great warrior and leaves us with a profound track work of scholarship and activism.”

Forman is survived by two sons and a granddaughter.

Clarence J. Rivers, Ph.D. 1978 - PDE: “The Spirit of Worship”

In 1956, Clarence Rivers made history as the first African-American priest ordained in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Ohio. An internationally known composer of American Catholic music, his 1963 "American Mass Program" was a radical change in the Catholic liturgy. At the 1964 annual meeting of the National Liturgical Conference, Rivers led the singing of the first English Mass after the Vatican Council, and around that time, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra performed his composition “The Brotherhood of Man” at its third ecumenical concert. Rivers later served as director of the department of culture and worship for the National Office for Black Catholics and published three books and numerous articles that focused on the African-American experience and culture in Catholic worship. The groundbreaking 1987 African-American Catholic hymnal Lead Me, Guide Me was dedicated to Rivers by the publication’s coordinator, UI&U doctoral alumnus James Patterson Lyke , Ph.D. 1981 (who at his own untimely death at age 53 in late 1992 was archbishop of Atlanta and the highest-ranking African American in the Roman Catholic hierarchy). Rivers passed away on November 21 at age 73. He is survived by his sister and two nieces.

Mary Lee Daugherty , Ph.D. 1977 - PDE: “Sacrament of Serpent Handling: Another Look at Appalachia”

Mary Lee Daugherty began her career in ministry in the early 1960s as a laywoman with the Presbyterian Church in Brazil. Upon her return to her native West Virginia, she taught at Morris Harvey College in the department of religion from 1967 to 1983. For her Union doctoral studies with concentration in women's studies and theology, Daugherty created three films and a dissertation on the Holiness/Pentecostal serpent handling churches in West Virginia. From 1977 to 1979, she was a research associate in feminist studies in the department of applied theology, Harvard Divinity School, Harvard University. She also published the West Virginia Edition of the Women's Yellow Pages, received the West Virginia Press and Media Association's Woman of the Year Award in 1979, and was listed in Ms. magazine's "Women to Watch in the 1980s." In 1983, Daugherty established the Appalachian Ministries Educational Resource Center (AMERC), an interdenominational consortium of theological institutions headquartered in Berea, Kentucky that trains clergy and lay leaders for ministry in the Appalachian region. She served as director of AMERC until 1999 and later concentrated on writing. Daugherty died December 4, 2004, at age 70 in South Charleston, West Virginia after a short illness.

James R. McKee, former director of human resources, UI&U

UI&U’s former director of human resources, James R. "Jim" McKee, passed away February 15, 2004 at his home in Enon, Ohio, after a brief battle with cancer.

Upon joining UI&U in September 1994 until his retirement in November 2004, McKee supervised all of UI&U’s human resources functions, developed related policies and procedures, maintained compliance with all federal, state and local employment regulations, and managed the Human Resources staff and departmental information system. In addition, he served enthusiastically on numerous standing and ad hoc university committees, contributing his professional expertise as well as good judgment, abundant patience, and inclusive perspective.

From his post at the university’s Cincinnati headquarters, McKee interacted with faculty, staff, and administrators from Vermont to Florida to California and all points in between. Prior to joining Union, he worked for 32 years at Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio, the final 15 years as director of university personnel with responsibility for six campuses in four states. Coincidentally, during that time McKee served the founding faculty and administration of UI&U’s present institution, while the Antioch campus housed the Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities from 1964 to 1977.

McKee attended Wittenberg University and completed his certification in business accounting and audit at Springfield ( Ohio) School of Business. He was a founding member and past president of the College and University Personnel Association (CUPA), Ohio Chapter, which serves 77 different Ohio institutions.

During his decade at UI&U, McKee commuted 140 miles daily to and from the north side of Dayton in order to maintain his residence with his wife of 36 years, Maxine, and to be in close proximity to his two sons and their families. This June, the university’s staff and faculty voted to name the Human Resources Department’ training room at the administrative headquarters “The Jim McKee Educational Center.”