raiseRED has long been a signature UofL event, with more than 1,000 students raising money to fight pediatric cancer during the 18-hour dance marathon and other events during the year. Thus far, the organization has raised nearly $3 million.��

Students are passionate about the cause, often spending their entire college careers volunteering. That passion has continued for many long after graduation and, in fact, a new raiseRED Alumni Council was formally created in the fall of 2019 to connect UofL’s alumni community with current participants.

The objective: To advocate for and advance the mission and vision of raiseRED while providing volunteer mentoring, financial and community support.��

UofL News recently sat down with Alumni Council Chairman Austin Schwenker to find out more about this new group, and what makes raiseRED so special to keep people involved long after graduation.��

UofL News: How many members of the alumni council are there and what are their duties?

Schwenker: Current active membership is around 30 to 40 people who live locally in Louisville, around the commonwealth, and throughout the U.S. and Abroad. The duties may better align with the goals of our council; the most important being a connection and network for members to stay involved and advocate for the advancement of the overall RaiseRED mission and vision. By bringing together a collective group with similar collegiate experiences and passions, our thought is that we can create a greater impact in our communities.

UofL News: Who can join the council?

Schwenker:��Membership is open to anyone recognized as an alumni by the office of alumni relations whether they have direct experience with ULDM or RaiseRED — although many and most current members are prior dancers, team leaders, morale captains and eboard members.

UofL News: There are a lot of fundraisers people can choose to support. Why should they choose raiseRED?

Schwenker: First and foremost, 100% of every penny donated to raiseRED goes directly to the UofL Department of Pediatric Oncology and Hematology (“the clinic”). raiseRED […] is the University of Louisville’s largest student-run philanthropic organization, and in the past five years, their efforts have raised over $2.3 million for research and patient needs.

RaiseRED funds research and contributes towards patient needs. This year-long fundraising effort culminates in an 18-hour dance marathon every February to honor the children we fight for. Not only does the organization raise money for the hospital, they build relationships with the families. CARDINAL CREW, a unique program that matches children with our leadership and hosts events that let them just be kids, is just one way this organization makes impacts in the community outside of financial support.

UofL News: Why do you think RaiseRED continues to be so successful?

Schwenker: I think raiseRED is unique where students are actively engaged through the dance marathon where they get to meet the people being helped by their fundraising efforts. We hear over and over how motivating this has been and has pushed dancers to get even more involved in the organization because of the personal connection and impact.��

As for why raiseRED remains so successful, the impact the organization has and the connection the students are able to make with each other, the clinic, kids, patients, families, and that truly differentiates a cause from a mission. So many students year over year align themselves to raiseRED’s mission whether it be because of their personal connection to cancer through a family member, friend, or even sometimes their own experience. By aligning so many invested people to a mission instead of ‘just another cause,’ the support and commitment of those involved goes far beyond this year, this donation, hitting this contribution level. We never want another person to hear, ‘your child has cancer.’ We fight for the kids.

That is intentional. According to John Smith, assistant director of the Department of Intramural and Recreational Sports, while many universities are trimming their intramurals programs to include just traditional sports like basketball and volleyball, UofL offers 34 different leagues, tournaments and special events comprised of 26 different sports.��

“We take a lot of pride in our offerings, like sand volleyball, putt putt golf and a swim meet. Not many other intramural departments offer a track meet to their students. We are only aware of one other department in the nation that has a day similar to our Canoe Regatta. Our calendar of intramural activities is much more diverse than most other universities,” Smith said.��“We have started offering online activities like NCAA Bowl Pick ‘Em and NCAA March Madness bracket contests.”

The Department of Intramural and Recreational Sports has a long and colorful history on campus. The first homecoming event of the intramural program was a mile and a half inter-fraternity cross-country race, named by Ellis Mendelsohn after he became the head of intramural sports in 1953. Participants literally ran for birds — first, second and third place finishers won a live turkey, a goose and a chicken, respectively. The last place finisher received a goose egg.��In 1970, a women’s race, the Hen Waggle, was added.��

This race, now called the Turkey Trot, is the oldest, consecutively run road race in the state.

Although there are no longer livestock prizes for intramurals winners, the department continues to provide a fun outlet for students. According to its website, its goal is��“to improve the quality of life and sense of belonging for all members of the University of Louisville community” through community via sports and fitness activities.

Few have such a deep perspective as Smith, who has been at UofL for 32-plus years. He breaks the department down into two parts: Intramural Sports and group fitness/club sports/recreation.��

“Most people know our department as the Intramural Department but within our profession, the word Intramurals refers specifically to the structured leagues, tournaments and special events like Flag Football, Soccer, Racquetball etc.,” he said.

The Intramural Sports program included 8,140 students participating in the past year.��

The department also includes group fitness, club sports and recreation where facilities like the Student Recreation Center and HSC Fitness Center are made available for people to use on their own schedules. About 15,000 people participate in these opportunities. The SRC and HSC Fitness Center combined average around 550,000 hours of use from those participants, according to Smith.��

To meet demand, the department is one of the largest student employers on campus, something Smith takes quite a bit of pride in. Staffing levels depend on the time of year, but typically there are between 110 to 120 students employed at any time. Their roles range from checking people in to providing instruction on equipment use.��

There are also students who serve as event assistants during intramural games. EAs get teams signed in, keep score and time, and assist the supervisor on duty in any way needed. Those supervisors are also students who have typically come up through being an EA or who have been involved with the program in another way. They have the responsibility to administer the intramural activities throughout the year, Smith explains.

“Plus, we have sports officials in every sport. We provide that as well as ongoing instruction/training for anyone interested in becoming an official. Becoming involved as an official can open the doors to a considerable amount of opportunities around the city as other agencies come to us regularly for help in that area,” he said.��

Another critical component of the department is the Intramural Council, which is made up of a��representative from every team/organization in the program and acts as an advisory group or focus group. The council meets every month and makes recommendations about adding sports, or taking some sports off the calendar that aren’t popular. The list of events is continually being modified.

“We’re happy to provide so many different opportunities for our students,” Smith said. “We hope that anyone that participates in our program, whether on an intramural team or in any other program area, develops a sense of belonging between themselves and the University of Louisville. Being involved with something you enjoy is maybe the best way to cultivate that sense of belonging. We know many lifetime friendships come from being on intramural teams together.”

More information about the department and its programs is .��

A new campaign is attempting to change that statistic in the Louisville area.

“Embrace the Journey,” led by Ryan Combs, PhD, assistant professor, University of Louisville School of Public Health and Information Sciences, and Maurice Gattis, PhD, associate professor, UofL Kent School of Social Work, began with one question: “How can we make a difference in LGBTQ mental health?”

“We wanted to understand the health needs of LGBTQ adolescents in Louisville. We learned that the largest concern locally is mental health, especially depression, anxiety and suicidality,” Combs said. “We designed a campaign to target parents because they play such a key role in the mental health of LGBTQ youth.”

In 2017, UofL’s LGBTQ+ Adolescent Health Study was launched – the first of its kind in Louisville. The study found 100 percent of participants had heard homophobic or transphobic language, 61 percent felt unsafe and 27 percent had experienced physical violence at school. To combat these findings, “Embrace the Journey” was developed through the guidance of local health providers, public health professionals, LGBTQ+ youth and community members.

The campaign launched recently, as organizers spoke to participants and handed out posters at Louisville Pride. The posters read: “LGBTQ+ youth are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, and suicide – supportive parents greatly reduce this risk.”

Through the campaign’s website, , parents can find hundreds of resources, including advice from other parents, personal narratives from youth and a glossary of LGBTQ vocabulary.

The campaign was developed with grant funding from both the Cooperative Consortium Transdisciplinary Social Justice Research and JustFundKY, and operates closely with Louisville Youth Group.

“Though educating their parents can’t solve everything LGBTQ+ youth face, it’s a great place to start especially when the statistics speak so loudly for themselves,” Combs said. “When parents support their kids, youth have better mental health outcomes.”

The Center for Creative Placehealing – which operates in partnership with many outside supporters including government agencies, philanthropic foundations and healthcare providers – aims to grow businesses by bettering the well-being of employees. The first step? Changing the culture of the workplace.

“There’s a lot of businesses and corporations these days that are implementing what they call culture directors, chief culture officers, who look at the culture of a workplace. [Creative placehealing] functions like that,” said Theodore Edmonds, director of the CFCP. “What we’re interested in is how this culture – the good and the bad – impacts health and how can we engage that culture.”

For instance, if you’re an employee of a company, you’re not just an employee of a company. You could be an employee of a company who’s a woman, who’s also a member of the LGBT community, who’s also a member of the Latinx community.

“In a world of complex identity structures, all of those different identities also come with their own cultural norms, so we try to decipher those as an asset that can be built from,” Edmonds said.��

The theory is that businesses only stand to benefit by working to understand their employees, since not only does a culture of acceptance promote innovation, but also lowers healthcare costs.

“In this part of the country, nearly 80% of LGBT employees do not feel safe coming out at work,” said Edmonds. “If you look at a national number, 71% of African Americans believe they have less economic opportunity simply because they are African American. If we’re asking people to think and to innovate but we’re only allowing them to show up as a piece of themselves because you have to look this way, you have your hair this way, you can’t talk this way – that’s really an innovation problem. If you’re only bringing a piece of yourself to work, you’re not going to be able to think in ways that could lead to solutions.”

The Center For Creative Placehealing, though having only been in operation since January, is already making an impact in the world of research. In partnership with the Louisville Metro Government and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the center will lead the “Cultural WellBeing 2020 Initiative,” making Louisville the first city in the country to scientifically measure corporate inclusion using primarily health research.

“If you can measure it, you can do something about it,” Edmonds said.��

Edmonds is also an assistant professor at UofL’s School of Public Health and Information Sciences, principal investigator for UofL’s Center for Health Organization Transformation, and co-founder of Louisville’s IDEAS xLab.��Edmonds wrote a four-article series for ArtPlace America that was published online.��The ArtPlace 2019 Annual Summit took place in May 20-22.

“Our theory of change is this: in our economy, businesses and organizations and companies have a role in shaping the culture in the workplace. Culture, in turn, shapes the well-being of employees and communities, and well-being drives inclusion and innovation,” Edmonds said. “Right now, if you think about it, you hear the phrase ‘cultural competence’ thrown around a lot. Cultural competence suggests that you can go to one training and you got it – it’s a one and done thing. What we talk about is being culturally responsive. Does your organization, does your entrepreneurial network, have practices that are culturally responsive in a way that understands and engages these complex identity structures on an ongoing basis?”

More information about the .��

For one UofL medical student, this quote struck a particularly personal chord.��

“‘Home is wherever I’m with you,’ a patient wrote on a marker board to his daughter. He lay in a hospital bed thin and frail, with the sound of his ventilator whirring in the background, a wash cloth hanging in his mouth to soak up saliva, a fentanyl patch tucked behind his ear. Out of his entire body, he could only use his right hand. In a few hours he would be taken off his ventilator and placed on a morphine pump. His daughter held his hand with tears in her eyes. This is ALS.”

These are the opening words of the winning submission by April Butler, which chronicles her father’s battle with ALS – the disease commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s – from the outside in.

“I had this unique parallel in school about learning anatomy and how the body is supposed to work, and at home I was witnessing the manifestations of what happened when the body didn’t follow the rules we learned,” said Butler, who learned of her father’s diagnosis before starting medical school. “In medical school – especially the first two years – it can sometimes be hard to see in the thick of all the exams and the stress why we’re doing this. I was lucky enough to always have my ‘why’ on the forefront of my mind.”

It’s easy to understand why this perspective on medicine would be shared by the Gold Foundation, whose mission statement includes the evolution of healthcare through both compassion and “scientific excellence.” The Hope Babette Tang Humanism Contest (named for Hope Babette Tang-Goodwin, MD, who devoted her career to treating HIV-infected babies) is overseen by a panel of experts that includes various healthcare professionals, writers/journalists and educators.

There were 300 submissions this year. By winning first place, Butler’s essay will be published in two esteemed medical journals: Academic Medicine, in the October, November, and December issues, and Journal of Professional Nursing, in the September/October, November/December and January/February issues.

“A physician once told me, ‘you will not be able to cure or save every patient in your career. However, you do have the opportunity to heal every patient,’” she writes in The Healing Yellow Raincoat. “I did not truly understand what this meant until my experience with my dad. […] I am thankful for some of his final ‘words’ that I will carry with me throughout my medical career and life: ‘Because of the challenges I face, I am less than half the man I used to be on the outside, but more than twice the man on the inside.’”

Now in her fourth year of medical school, Butler will take this experience with her as she applies for Internal Medicine and Pediatrics residencies this fall.

Natalie Dupré, ScD, MS, is the recipient of a grant from the Jewish Heritage Foundation for Excellence Fund. Dupré, who currently teaches epidemiology methods courses for the Master of Public Health program at UofL’s School of Public Health and Information Sciences, has dedicated her career to understanding the ways in which environmental factors affect cancer development and progression.

Throughout the course of eight years (2006-2014), a diverse group of women consented to be a part of the study, receiving mammograms from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston as part of the process. Researchers have studied the ways in which body mass index, race and ethnicity, child-bearing, menopause, and many other factors impact the risk for developing breast cancer; now, researchers are widening the scope to include the environment.

“The environmental factor that we will focus on here is residential ‘greenness,’ which is the amount of natural vegetation that surrounds one’s home that is measured by satellites orbiting the Earth,” said Dupré. “A couple of recent studies have reported that living in greener urban areas was associated with lower breast cancer risk.”

However, Dupre adds that it is unclear how natural vegetation could influence breast tumor development.

“With this project we will begin to study whether natural vegetation influences breast biology, as measured by mammographic density, and the extent to which living in greener areas is associated with health-seeking behaviors that may need greater attention in future studies of greenness and breast cancer risk,” she said.

Dupré will be working alongside researchers in Boston at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Louisville, including a team of 10 doctors and several undergraduate and graduate students.

This is the first time Dupré has been awarded by a grant from the Jewish Heritage Foundation for Excellence.

“I am very grateful for their support of early career investigators that has enabled our research team to grow and to address these important interdisciplinary research questions on how the environment around us influences (or doesn’t) breast health,” Dupré said.

The Braden Institute’s work to preserve Kentucky’s LGBTQ history was done in association with the Fairness Campaign from 2015-2017. The project’s goal was “to produce the nation’s first statewide LGBTQ historic context report and two LBTGQ historic site designations, working with Kentucky’s State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO).”

“Widespread social hostility, including violence, has meant that the cultural contributions of LGBTQ people have long been undervalued or suppressed, resulting in invisibility of this aspect of Kentucky’s heritage,” reads the Braden Institute’s nomination letter. “Recovering those histories is a vital part of acknowledging the dignity of LGBTQ communities in order to create wider validity and acceptance.”

After vigorous research, including five statewide history gatherings or “History Harvests”, the Braden Institute’s report was published by the National Park Service as a part of its initiative to document minority communities. The project director and the report’s lead author was Institute director Catherine Fosl, who is also a Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. According to the nomination, “outcomes included new visibility, advocacy tools, and media coverage for partners; new research skills and publications for students; curricular transformation; two of the nation’s first-ever National Register historic sites with LGBTQ significance; and online public history report.”

About the university-community partnership that forms the basis for this award, Fairness Campaign Director Chris Hartman had this to say: “As we worked hand in hand with the Anne Braden Institute to complete the [project], the Fairness Campaign reconnected with many early leaders of our movement and ignited fresh interest in our work.”

The Institute hopes to expand its research in ways that may include uncovering more histories of LGBTQ Kentuckians of color and working with Kentucky school districts to include more LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum.

Henry Cunningham, UofL’s director of Community Engagement, said the university has submitted nominations for the W. Kellogg Awards and the C. Peter Magrath Award before, but has never gotten this far.

“The W. Kellogg Awards and the C. Peter Magrath Award were developed to provide national recognition for the outstanding community-university engagement work of public universities,” Cunningham said. “The purpose is to recognize the contribution universities are making to the community through joint collaboration with community partners using engaged scholarship, like teaching and research. Colleges and universities are recognized for redesigning their teaching/learning and research mission to increase the involvement of community partners.”

Applicants must demonstrate how scholarship bettered their communities, be it by teaching, research, or service. “The [application] exemplifies the role of the Office of Community Engagement working with faculty across the university to connect teaching and research to community issues in a mutually beneficial way,” said Cunningham.������������

As a recipient of the Kellogg Awards, UofL will receive $2,500 to produce a two-minute video showcasing the university’s journey with its partnerships, which will be shown at the ESC Annual Conference and will also be reviewed as a part of the review process for the Magrath Awards. If selected for the Magrath Awards, UofL will receive a sculpture and a $20,000 prize.

The Open Walls Exhibit, hosted annually by the Office of Communications and Marketing and taking place in Ekstrom Library, features works of various mediums by employees of all backgrounds. From humanities to STEM fields, from classroom to cubicle, one thing remains constant: the artists’ passion for their work, though it may not be their day job.

For this year’s show, Development Officer Shauntrice Martin paid homage to a faculty

member who inspired her — Dr. Blaine Hudson, the late Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

“This exhibit meant so much because it is the first time my art has been displayed in a major gallery,” said Martin. “It gives me hope that I can have my work featured at the Speed museum or even the Guggenheim one day. I am blessed to have known Dr. Hudson as he championed for so many meaningful milestones in the Black community.”

Zhanna Goldentul, a professor and costume designer for the Department of Theatre Arts, displayed her breathtaking design renderings for costumes in the Louisville Ballet, Kentucky Opera and Louisville Opera collaborative production of Beyond, Project Faust.

“The demon characters wore hand-painted unitards, and their makeup was designed to complete the look,” explained Goldentul, whose piece includes both costume and makeup design. “I had a small construction team to help me hand-paint unitards for 48 ballet dancers. Costume design is an important part of Scenography, the art that aids any production, no matter how intricate or simple it looks. Costumes and makeup help the audience to identify characters; it also helps the entire production to deliver the main theme of the show. This also is a very time consuming craft, which is not always given enough time.”

The work of Martin and Goldentul is just a glimpse of the talent the Open Walls exhibit highlights. Exhibit goers can see for themselves by visiting the Photographic Archives Gallery, Archives & Special Collections, in the East Wing, Lower Level of Ekstrom Library. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The exhibit runs through June 27.��

to see more photos from the opening reception.��

Joseph Hans, a student in the College of ����ֱ�� and Human Development, has plenty of first-hand experience with those challenges.

“I attended UofL for two semesters straight out of high school in the mid-1980s. The less said about that time, the better,” said Hans.

It’s a story many students know well — the temporary break made permanent as life gets in the way.

And life did get in the way. Hans got married, started a family, learned new skills on the job and took UofL classes on and off for many years.

It was a struggle. But he never gave up.

A turning point came in 2011 when Hans finished his general education requirements and turned to CEHD’s Matt Bergman for help on what to do next.

Bergman told him about CEHD’s organizational leadership and learning degree, which provides college credit for workplace experience. Hans was elated to learn that he could receive up to 45 hours towards his degree.

“I liked the overall approach. The professors were real-world practitioners, the students were all adult learners and the classes used off-campus facilities and after-work hours,” said Hans.

Now, Hans is on course to graduate cum laude in August at the age of 51. He is employed by Humana, where he says his managers have been more than willing to accommodate his busy schedule.

Hans credits his perseverance not only to his personal drive, but also to those who encouraged him.

“The standout professors, in my experience, in the program include Cathy Avdevich, Matt Bergman, Ray Klein, and Erin Mires. Amber Roberts, currently the program advisor, was also a huge help in getting me back in this past fall.”

After he earns his degree, Hans hopes to obtain a full-time marketing position with Humana.

Yet the team won a national championship this April at the Spring Premier Horse Show in Alltech Arena at Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. After winning four regular season shows, that made the team five for five in the 2018-2019 academic year.

The UofL Saddle Seat Team has been a member of the Intercollegiate Saddle Seat Riders Association (ISSRA) since 2009, and began with only three members. Now, it sports 15.

“Saddle Seat riding is unique because it is an English style of riding that has history in America,” said Coach Deveau Zubrod. “The ISSRA competitions are based on equitation, which is a rider’s body position. Good equitation riders exhibit good horsemanship, and proper body position creates a more functional rider as well. We want our riders to carry their hands high – to accommodate the long neck and carriage of our horses. Riders have good posture and secure leg position. Saddle Seat riding is a very balanced discipline.”

The riders practice at Zubrod Stables in Prospect.

“Although I am not a UofL alumna, our barn, Zubrod Stables, and myself have a rich history with UofL athletics,” said Deveau Zubrod. “My grandfather was a graduate of the engineering school at UofL and we have been financial supporters over the years. We are so honored for Zubrod Stables to be a part of the University of Louisville through the ISSRA Saddle Seat Team.”