Along with highlighting Matthews, the showcases other Cardinal alumni who have turned UofL educations into careers that are making impacts across the globe and through eras of history.

Take Lori Stahlgren ’93 and Jay Stottman ’92, archaeologists who are uncovering silenced history in our own backyard.

Or Oscar Ronaldo Leon Oliva ’88, ’89, who built a university in Panama that connects Cardinals in two countries.

Then there’s Carrie Bohnert ’07, an award-winning medical educator who is helping future and current health care practitioners better understand and treat their patients.

The influence of our alums serves as inspiration for our students and our community. Read these stories and more in the latest issue of .

And these study-abroad participants are far from being the only ones who know how to throw the UofL “L” in the urban center and tourist mecca. Panama City is also home to Quality Leadership University, where many UofL alumni get their collegiate start.

Even the QLU founder and rector – Oscar Ronaldo Leon Oliva ’88, ’89 – is a Cardinal alumnus, among the 2023 UofL Alumni Award honorees as the Student Affairs Legacy Award winner. As a special invited guest, Leon also attended UofL President Kim Schatzel’s recent inauguration. It was a testament to the dynamic connection between two communities across the globe.

So, how did UofL and this Panamanian institution of higher learning come to have these enduring ties that further educational opportunities in both countries?

In the beginning

It all started with Leon, a Guatemala native who came to Louisville on a Fulbright junior scholarship to study business administration and stayed to earn a master’s degree in higher education administration. In an education class, the assignment was to develop a career plan.

“I wrote that I wanted to start a university,” Leon said.

So he did.

Leon and his family moved from Louisville to Panama City, where they started Quality Leadership University in 1997. He communicated with several UofL administrators and faculty members to forge agreements whereby UofL professors, who had doctoral educations that were in short supply in the Central American country, could travel to Panama to teach in various programs there, expanding QLU’s beginning scope.

“The relationship has been very productive for both universities,” Leon said.

The UofL-QLU partnership works in several main ways: undergraduate education in Panama City, with classes taught by visiting UofL professors; continuing undergraduate and graduate education in Louisville for the Latin American students; and a study-abroad option in Panama for UofL students.

The Panama undergraduate program is a nondegree curriculum that offers students from Panama the chance to complete up to 56 credits of coursework, fulfilling UofL’s general education requirements. UofL and QLU faculty credentialed to teach for UofL conduct the courses in English at the Panama City campus. That curriculum prepares them for a wide variety of UofL majors. Students who complete those hours are eligible to continue their education in Louisville as transfer students at UofL.

QLU has offered undergraduate and graduate programs in academic cooperation with UofL since 1999, and both institutions have graduated more than 2,000 Latin American professionals in Panama, according to Leon. Most do return to Panama after their U.S. experience, he said, and many become leaders in business and other pursuits.

This fall 22 new students from Panama embarked on their Louisville campus journey, enrolling as transfer students in several of UofL’s colleges and schools where their predecessors have earned their UofL diplomas. Several incoming students at the international students’ orientation spoke about taking opportunities when granted and learning about other cultures.

For Bruno Croston, who’s majoring in business management, the appeal is “mostly to get to know more people who are in my area, to create connections and go deep in my study of business.”

Riya Ahir, a finance major, traveled to Louisville with her husband, Kemish.

“You know, the experience is totally different, the college life, the culture. This way we can see each culture and how people live,” Ahir said.

Some of the newest Cardinals arrived with their parents, who also got to tour campus and check out the city where their children will earn their degrees. For Gustavo De Ycaza, part of the draw was the required co-op experience offered at UofL’s Speed School of Engineering, where son Juan Jose De Ycaza will be studying industrial engineering and gaining work experience.

“I think this could open a door in the future,” said the father, who also commented that the family was excited about the city’s cultural mix.

While QLU is also home to some other universities’ academic programming, Leon is proud indeed that his U.S. alma mater is well-represented there. And his UofL colleagues are pleased to have his students transfer to Kentucky to complete their degrees.

Ramonia Brents, a recently retired coordinator, worked with the programs’ participants and faculty, many who have taught at QLU for several years.

“(The program is) something we really want to grow,” Brents said. “This is one opportunity for the Panama students to come here to the university, enlarging our global imprint.”

“What (Leon) has consistently accomplished has been wonderful,” said Michael Mardis, UofL dean of students and vice president for student affairs. “The most enrollment (of undergraduate international students) we have at UofL is from Panama, and that’s because of him.”

Local Cardinal graduates in Panama City remain connected enough to gather and celebrate the latest students’ completion of their local studies and to host UofL faculty, staff and administrators, recently including Mardis. (There even has been talk of establishing an alumni chapter, which surely would be UofL’s southernmost such club.)

Exchange of ideas

Come May, though, there’s an influx of Kentucky-based Cardinals also in Panama to learn under a different format. Panama Scholars resumed their travel to the country this spring after a three-year hiatus of the study abroad program, which began in 2003.

This time UofL students had their choice of an intercultural communication class with Al Futrell, longtime UofL communication department chair, or a Central American politics class with Tricia Gray, UofL political science chair, as well as a required Panamanian culture class taught by a QLU professor. Students earned six credit hours for the three weeks of intensive study.

But, as with other UofL study-abroad courses, their education wasn’t restricted to campus. Students visited the famed canal, historic Casco Viejo district, Presidential Palace, an orphanage and other spots including an Embera Indigenous community in the Gamboa rain forest.

“If you talk to any professor who took students on a study-abroad trip, they will say it’s a life-changing experience for the kids,” Futrell said. “In terms of the education, you can see it on their faces.”

Frequent flyer Futrell has been to QLU about 40 times, teaching the study-abroad courses and journeying there two or three times a year to teach Panama City students enrolled there. When the Panamanians come to study further at UofL, he is a familiar, friendly face and a go-to connection.

Other UofL classmates benefit from the visiting Panama students in his estimation.

“Our students get an experience with international students. There’s no downside to this,” Futrell said. “They actually help educate us by providing a different perspective on things. As a result, our kids benefit from the education.”

Leon suggested that the same is true for professors, who may become more sensitive to the culture through their QLU work and that they bring that experience back to Louisville.

“����ֱ�� can transform lives for the better,” Leon said.

“We don’t get chased by Nazis like in the movies, but we do wear the hats,” Stahlgren said with a smile. “They actually serve a purpose — they block out the sun in the summer heat and protect us from ticks that could fall from trees when we’re working in forests.”

“And they look cool,” Stottman quipped.

But the pair didn’t get into archaeology just to look cool. They got into it to change perceptions.

Stahlgren and Stottman are part of the Kentucky Archaeological Survey (KAS) and work to uncover obscure information about the past that can expand the public’s idea of
local and statewide history. Their work is already making an impact.

While digging at the Bullitt family’s historic Oxmoor Farm in Louisville for the past few years, Stahlgren and Stottman uncovered a deeper understanding of the enslaved people who once lived there. Oxmoor, built in 1791, was home to five generations of the Bullitt family, who were influential in the formation of Kentucky and owned more than 100 slaves.

“What we learn about the past has implications for people today,” Stottman said.

PATHWAYS TO DISCOVERY

The current dig began when Oxmoor Farm decided to turn the slave dwellings into museum space and enlisted KAS. Based out of Western Kentucky University’s folk studies and anthropology department, KAS was founded in 1995 with the mission to provide a service to state and federal agencies, work with private landowners to protect archaeological sites and educate the public about Kentucky’s archaeological heritage. Stahlgren serves as a KAS project archaeologist while Stottman is assistant director of the survey.

“It’s research-driven now, but it started out as cultural resource management,” Stottman said of the dig. “We wanted to make sure we wouldn’t disturb any archaeological deposits, but the goal shifted when we started to find great artifacts.”

One of those noteworthy deposits was a machete Stahlgren found in one of the slave cabins. While the team hasn’t settled on what the machete’s purpose was, Stahlgren said it may have been kept in secret by the enslaved people living there to provide a sense of safety.

Other artifacts dug up in the slave dwellings include thimbles, crochet hooks and other sewing items, which may have been used by Louisa Taylor, a Black woman who was enslaved by the Bullitt family for most of her life.

While the digging is the most common aspect people visualize when thinking of archaeology, Stottman said there is much more behind the scenes work.

“Digging is actually a small part of what we do,” he said. “We spend most of our time washing and cataloging and analyzing artifacts, then writing about them and interpreting them.”

Stottman and Stahlgren both have a strong tenacity for discovery and spent time teaching anthropology at their shared alma mater, UofL, before finding their callings working with KAS. They did, however, take different turns to get to the survey.

Stottman went a more traditional route, earning anthropology degrees from UofL and University of Kentucky. Stahlgren’s path to archaeology was less direct. She earned a photography degree from WKU and graduated from UofL with a law degree before arriving at archaeology.

“I think my parents were shocked when I said I wanted to do archaeology, but I knew I
was passionate about this,” Stahlgren said.

HANDS-ON EDUCATION

Stottman and Stahlgren share their passion by providing on-the-ground educational experiences to students in the field, the lab and the community.

UofL students in professor Felicia Jamison’s Intro to Comparative Humanities class worked with the Filson Historical Society, UofL’s Oral History Center and KAS to participate in the excavation and research of the slave dwellings at Oxmoor Farm.

Hayley Salo, a UofL doctoral student in comparative humanities, used a trowel to dig, sorted and labeled artifacts and learned first-hand about the excavation processes, data collection methods and the meanings of what she found with guidance from Stottman and Stahlgren.

“We were looking for evidence of a pit cellar, and when we found variations in the dirt color and composition, they explained that was likely evidence of one,” Salo said. “Sometimes the differences were hard to see, but it got easier with practice. This was my first real hands-on project, and it reaffirmed my interest in public history and public-facing positions.”

Salo became fascinated by the sewing artifacts found, sparking her to investigate further by writing an article that analyzes the experiences of enslaved women who sewed clothes at Oxmoor Farm. She incorporated the archeological work done by Stahlgren and Stottman into the study.

Katie Cross Gibson, a UofL student working toward her master’s in interdisciplinary humanities, worked with the Oral History Center to interview a descendant of Louisa Taylor.

“Her oral history is part of a bigger initiative to record and amplify the lives of Louisa and other people who were enslaved by generations of Bullitts – to honor them with more than a few lines or entries in letters and ledgers,” Cross Gibson said. “We are not the main authority, but we are helping amplify Louisa’s and her family’s histories and stories.”

For Cross Gibson, participating in the oral history work was a life-changing experience she believes can empower people with the knowledge and means to support their communities.

“This kind of experiential learning is invaluable and gets at the heart of public history and humanities,” Cross Gibson said. “This is exactly the type of social justice-oriented, local history work I want to participate in over the course of my life, and collaborating on this project reinforced that goal.”

LINKING THE PAST TO THE PRESENT

While the work is helping to shed light on the shadows of our history, Stottman said there
are still people who don’t understand the significance of archaeology in today’s world.

“People ask me why we have to do archaeology of this time period if we have pictures and maps and documents already,” Stottman said. For example, the Bullitt family kept many documents, including family letters, lists, receipts and records of the enslaved people who lived at Oxmoor. But Stottman said the problem is not everyone was written about.

“The documents we have are reflective of the ones doing the documenting, and those were the people in power,” he said. “So enslaved people, immigrants, women, children, people from mental institutions … we have to work to learn about those groups because we only know about them from someone else’s perspective.”

This can create an unreliable and one-sided narrative of the past, particularly when it comes to slavery. Through their work, Stottman and Stahlgren aim to keep the past relevant to today’s issues by uncovering and expanding public understanding of the history of enslaved people.

“Our work is definitely in the realm of social justice,” Stahlgren said.

Stottman said archaeology levels the playing field of history by using artifacts enslaved people had, bought and used to give us a more direct idea of what their lives were like.

“Archaeology, in a way, democratizes the past,” Stottman said. “So even if their voices weren’t heard then, now their voices can be heard through the artifacts.”

Through her artistry, Matthews embraces grief and healing simultaneously, creating sculptures that become heartfelt tributes to the departed, inviting onlookers to reflect and find solace in the enduring power of remembering their names for years to come.

After graduating from UofL’s Hite Institute of Art and Design, Matthews used her studio painting degree at Wild Honeysuckle, a studio she owned in Louisville. When transitioning into bronze sculpting, Matthews found a bronze foundry in Lexington that would cast her work.

Almost 20 years later, Matthews and her business partner-turned husband now own that foundry and have renamed it Prometheus Art Studio. As CEO and co-founder of Prometheus Art, Matthews uses her experience and creativity to choose projects that are meaningful to her.

“I design sculptures and monuments as well as the space they inhabit – not just things or objects, but legacies and spaces that help build communities,” she said.

In memory of the fallen

Search for Matthews online and you will find a long list of meaningful projects. Many have a similar theme: The subjects’ stories deserve to be told, and their names deserve to be remembered and spoken aloud, long after they have departed.

Much of Matthews’ work is either located in Kentucky or has ties to the state. Her most recent in-state project, a COVID-19 memorial called United We Stand, Divided We Fall,
is located just outside of the state Capitol Building and was dedicated in May.

After more than 18,600 Kentucky lives were lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Andy Beshear sought artists nationwide to send in concepts for a donation-funded memorial designed for Kentuckians to visit, grieve and remember.

“There was national competition to design and build that monument, and I’m so incredibly honored that my concept was chosen,” Matthews said. “Public art is the object, where here what we were trying to convey was more of a sense of community and unity, loss and support.”

The memorial captures the widespread impact of the disease. Around a central orb with the Kentucky state motto are statues representing many genders, ages and races, all designed with a hole near their hearts to show the grief of lost loved ones. Depicted in the “column of support” below the orb are doctors, first responders, leaders and front-line service workers who dedicated their lives to serve others during the pandemic.

“Generations of Kentuckians will come to this area of the Capitol to learn about our heroes as well as reflect on the many great challenges that we face together, including the once-in-every-hundred-years pandemic,” the governor said at the dedication ceremony, also describing the memorial as “phenomenal.”

When her concept was chosen by an advisory panel, Matthews went back to the governor’s office with the suggestion of what she calls extreme accessibility, including paths for wheelchairs, Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant parking, lighting, cane rails on location, Braille and interactive narration.

“When you are trying to represent a community as large as a commonwealth, you have such a breadth of things to consider,” Matthews said. “We needed to make sure that no one in the commonwealth would lack access to this healing space.”

Sculpting the nation’s women

Steps away from the COVID-19 memorial is another completed sculpture by Matthews, the Life Size Bronze Portrait of Nettie Depp. Depp was a public education champion in the state, and her statue is the first monument of a woman in the Kentucky Capitol.

Though her work has been chiseled into Kentucky history, Matthews’ projects reach far beyond the state. Perhaps her most internationally known sculpture is The Girl Puzzle, one of the world’s largest monuments honoring diverse women and girls, located on Roosevelt Island in New York City.

The monument is in memory of Nellie Bly, an investigative journalist and a trailblazer for women. This project took an international call, and after tough competition, Matthews won the contract based on her macro perspective of Bly’s life.

“What the committee saw were a lot of proposals that represented the likeness of Nellie Bly,” Matthews said. “Instead, I put everything into it. I had nothing to lose.”

This mentality created a three-part installation, one part being five 7-foot-tall bronze faces that represent four different lived experiences from different women, as well as Nellie Bly’s portrait. Another part was three large stainless-steel spheres to represent Bly’s life and career, and the final part was the accessible walkway that allows visitors to see each piece from multiple angles.

“What I was offered to bring to this monument, through the stories that Nellie Bly told, is that 130 years later we can see that this work is still pertinent,” Matthews said. “And that Nellie Bly’s life is a wonderful example of who we need to be and how we can build up, support and advocate for others.”

Art as connection

The Girl Puzzle, the Life Size Bronze Portrait of Nettie Depp and United We Stand, Divided We Fall are only a few examples of how Matthews views the world and her art. Matthews is a driven artist, looking to connect humans with one another and to use her work as a catalyst in that pursuit.

Described in her artist statement, Matthews’ work “represents many iterations of the philosophy that we are born from our innate connection with nature and each
other.” Included in this perspective is Matthews’ focus to keep important names in history alive.

“I hope to dot the landscape with monuments, icons and symbols that help people find common ground – (pieces) that speak truth to power, that question systemsof oppression, that dare greatly and allow us to have discussions and build things that are more inclusive,” she said.

In addition to sculpting, Matthews is still a studio painter, as well as a writer, public speaker, producer and CEO of a booming business. Some of her current projects include a book titled “Messengers” and a short film, “The Last Time Your Name is Spoken.”

“During our first year when we had to do physical exam steps, (the standardized patient) said, ‘I don’t think you were in the right spot when you were trying to hit that reflex. Let me show you how to do it,’” the UofL medical student said. “It was really helpful when they would take the time to reshow you. You don’t want to hit it wrong on a patient. It’s OK to get it wrong when you’re in this safe space.”

When future physicians enter medical school, most have limited experience with patients. To help them learn interaction skills, UofL’s Standardized Patient Program provides training sessions in which individuals known as standardized patients, or SPs, role-play as patients with specific medical conditions in a simulated medical setting.

The UofL Standardized Patient Program in the School of Medicine is leading the way in such medical education. Carrie Bohnert ’07, director of the program, co-authored curriculum that established industry-standard best practices for standardized patients and was recognized nationally, and the program is responsible for educating future and current health care practitioners across the city.

Along with providing medical students with innovative SP opportunities, the university also instructs those in UofL’s dentistry and nursing schools, in Bellarmine University’s nurse practitioner program and in Sullivan University’s pharmacy and physician assistant programs, as well as medical trainees and nurses at Norton Children’s Hospital.

Why standardized patients?

Standardized patient encounters offer students the opportunity to polish their bedside manner with trained individuals who provide feedback to help them improve their communication and diagnostic skills. In SP encounters, students practice everything from greeting the patient when they enter the room to diagnosing complex neurological conditions.

Third-year medical student Shah said SPs have coached her not only to find reflex points but also to slow down and give the patients time to absorb information and formulate replies.

“When they asked me how I thought the encounter went, I’d always say I know I speak fast. They’d agree and remind me, ‘It’s OK to slow down and take pauses even if it may feel a little awkward for you. It allows the patient to process, ask questions and
remember additional details,’” Shah said.

Bohnert manages a team of 30-50 standardized patient employees from a variety of backgrounds who perform multiple scenarios with students throughout the academic year.

“It gives the students a place to explore, to make mistakes and to try out something new in an environment that is understanding of that purpose,” Bohnert said. “It also is a way for us to evaluate students more fairly. No two patients are alike, so evaluating them in the clinical environment would not be as fair. In this environment, we can make sure they have
equivalent presentations.”

Standardized patients follow a script and are trained to portray symptoms and answer questions in a way that is designed to lead the students to diagnose specific medical conditions. They then provide feedback that helps in training and assessing students’ skills.

Students have about one SP session per month through the first three years of medical school. The sessions typically echo the academic units the students are studying at the time, such as the cardiovascular or gastrointestinal system, but the scripts are not always
straightforward, requiring the students to be creative.

“They might not tell you everything,” said Michaela Carter, a second year medical student. “Some (SPs) will tell you anything and everything while some (SPs) will just give you a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ so you have to dig and try to find out what’s going on. But you also need to make sure the (SP) feels comfortable.”

School of Medicine faculty collaborate with Bohnert to design case scenarios. They then instruct the SPs in the specific condition and symptoms they will portray and how to answer the students’ questions.

In her 13 years as director of the UofL program, Bohnert has focused on innovation, a culture of patient care and educating students to be affirming providers for all people. For example, she worked to develop scenarios that familiarize students with LGBTQ patients and those with developmental disabilities and another to help students recognize patients who may be involved in human trafficking. For these sessions, she engages people from those populations to authentically guide the students in understanding their needs both as co-creators of the sessions and as SPs.

“We brought in self-advocates from Special Olympics of Kentucky and the drama group of young adults at Down Syndrome of Louisville to develop cases. Those self-advocates got to be in our space and to give a thumbs up, thumbs down to the scenarios,” Bohnert said.

The actor-educator

As assistant director of the SP program, Mimi Reddy helps the SPs remember their “lines,” portray ailments convincingly and provide positive, supportive feedback to the students. She said the SP encounters give the students an opportunity to apply what they are learning to real life.

“When you are a science student, especially a medical science student, you have the muscle memory of studying books. Standardized patients really give the students a chance to turn that learning into a practical, human skill.”

The scenarios can be challenging, requiring SPs to understand medical terminology and complex symptoms. Bohnert said a good memory, intellectual curiosity and flexibility are important traits for SPs, along with the ability to have a calming effect on nervous students.

“The students know they’re being filmed and that someone’s going to look at their performance, so we really need people who can create a welcoming, calm, peaceful
space,” Bohnert said.

Zack Kennedy ’12, a UofL School of Music alumnus, said the job of SP complemented his night work as a musician. He found learning new scenarios stimulating and enjoyed camaraderie with other SPs.

“I loved learning new things every time I received a new case to study, and I enjoyed watching students progress in their interview skills,” said Kennedy, now a coordinator for the SP program.

Reddy said the program is working to diversify its SP cohort so it better mirrors the
true patient population. SPs are paid hourly, but the hours vary from week to week.
Some people describe standardized patients as actors, but for Bohnert, they are
more than that.

“I fall more on the side of educators,” Bohnert said. “For some programs, the
ability to fool a physician into thinking that you’re actually ill would be the gold standard.
But if the SPs are not good at teaching and engaging with a student, it would not be a
worthwhile experience to me.”

A wider influence

In addition to student educational experience, Bohnert also prioritizes educating others in the field. She collaborates with School of Medicine faculty and staff to publish research on standardized patient education to help other schools improve their SP programs. She was a key co-author of the “Standards of Best Practice,” published by the Association of Standardized Patient Educators (ASPE) in 2017 as a resource for other program directors.

The ASPE recognized Bohnert’s contribution to the profession with the 2023 ASPE Outstanding Educator Award. Bohnert began with an interestin education, but the UofL public administration master’s alumna and doctoral candidate in sociology has pursued
a career outside the classroom.

“I carved out a career in nontraditional education spaces. It was always more about the application or the ability to integrate learning into a more real-world environment,” she said. “Truly, that is what keeps me here. I am so deeply committed to learning. I adore our students and there’s always a chance to innovate. It’s a place where I can apply this intellectual rigor and my passion for people.”