Changing the game: UofL honors five decades of Title IX and its impact on women’s athletics

It takes a village: A one-of-a-kind collaboration helps engineering students who have autism thrive

The Kela network: Alumnus Kela Ivonye connects dreamers with doers

A chat with the chief: President Gonzalez discusses interim position and plans for UofL’s future

Inspired by the 2002 film, “Drumline” May saw himself as a future drummer under the bright lights of a Friday night football field and wanted to pursue percussion. However, when his middle school music instructor encouraged him to try the trumpet instead, the rest was history.

May, a graduate of the School of Music, has since found a way to march to his own beat. He’s performed in jazz bands, on cruise ships and with hip-hop artists. This year, he added a new experience to his eclectic resume – composer for a national commercial.

May is the creator of the original soundtrack for UofL’s Here & Beyond advertising campaign. That his music now plays on screens across the country, repping his alma mater, is an accomplishment May is extremely proud of.

“This is huge. I saw this as a great opportunity to give back, but also show I actually put this education to use,” he said.

The path to playing

“Music is really something I just fell into,” May said. “My middle school band had a concert where they played the theme to SpongeBob and the trumpets carried the melody, which I loved. It was a childish interest in the best, most curious way that led me to it.”

Though he dabbled in piano playing and even tried out the guitar and flute briefly, May became increasingly dedicated to honing his trumpet skills throughout his middle school years. Eventually, he got a private lesson teacher who became instrumental in his musicianship and continued his private lessons 34 when he entered high school.

“When I got more serious about playing, the real lessons began,” May said. “[My teacher] showed me how you can learn lessons about life through playing music. It wasn’t just playing scales and trying to get first chair. It meant something more at that point.”

That’s when May first began to realize, “Oh, I could probably seriously pursue this.”

May auditioned for scholarships at multiple colleges, including UofL, and ultimately attended Morehead State University for his undergraduate degree. But when it came time to choose a graduate school, May had only one place in mind.

“During those four years in undergrad, I never forgot about Louisville,” May said. “My parents used to live there before I was born, and I heard so many good things about the city itself.”

May also knew the importance of finding a school with a great music program with faculty and trumpet professors he could connect with as a student. He found what he was looking for at the School of Music.

“I had a great experience during the audition process getting to learn who everyone was, especially Dr. [Michael] Tunnell,” May said. “I just remember him being the greatest guy, probably the nicest guy I’ve ever met. I will always remember Dr. Tunnell telling me, ‘You will flourish here.’”

Tunnell sadly passed away during May’s first year at UofL, but his influence still reverberates throughout May’s life.

“From a personal standpoint, it really hurt because you develop a personal connection to these people. He was more than my trumpet teacher; he was a mentor. We had similar interests and he aligned a lot with what I believe in,” May said. “I never got to play with him, but his impact on me shaped who I am away from the horn and who I am as a human.”

Though May initially felt lost after losing his mentor, he soon found his groove again and experienced a key change in his musicianship when he learned the skill of listening.

“As a musician, learning to actively listen is huge. Being able to listen to a whole ensemble, but pick out the music coming from each one, it felt like I had superpowers,” May said. “Once you can do that, you can almost reverse engineer it, mentally hear what you want to sound like and make that happen. Bridging that gap is crucial and once I found that out, my playing got crazy.”

Here & Beyond

Since he graduated with his master’s degree, May unleashed his potential as a professional musician. He played in local, concert and jazz bands, performed on cruise ships and toured with hip-hop artist Kid Quill. He works in studios as well, which is one area he wants to continue growing as an artist.

“There’s nothing like playing live and it’ll never get old. But being able to create something or be a part of something that someone has created in a studio setting is just amazing,” May said. “Writing, recording, producing, touring and performing 
 those are things I want to continue to do.”

His blend of skills as a performer and his experience behind the scenes in the studio helped him rise to the top of the list when UofL was looking for an alum to create the soundtrack for its campaign.

“When searching for a composer for the Here & Beyond campaign music, we knew we had to find someone who not only had the musical skills needed to write and produce powerful music but also someone who exemplifies what it means to beÌęa Cardinal,” UofL Director of Brand and Marketing Kim Butterweck said. “Connor’s love for his alma mater really comes through in our brand anthem and elevates the work.”

May was asked to write music that represented the university, which he knew meant diving into the city of Louisville.

“You can’t imagine the university without the city and vice versa. It’s the perfect marriage,” May said. “So, I tried to think of the most recognizable melody I could pull from Louisville, and it was ‘Call to the Post.’ It was the perfect fit to sample with me as a trumpet player and its ties to the city.”

May recruited producer Travis Moore to help write and produce the music, and they collaborated back and forth with multiple instruments to find the right sound. The duo worked together to add layers of instruments, ultimately creating a piece of music that sounds like Louisville and pulsed with energy.

“Epic, anthemic, inspirational 
 those were the descriptive words we had in our head while creating,” Moore said. “We wanted the music to evoke energy and have a modern twist, infusing genres of classical and hip-hop. Connor and I have great chemistry when it comes to making music and once we got into the studio, creativity just flowed.”

Once it came time to record, May knew he wanted UofL students to play on the track. He plotted out how many instruments and musicians he needed to record the music and reached out to his School of Music family to help him find student musicians who could lend their talents to the recording.

Returning to the School of Music also helped him overcome a barrier that nearly delayed recording. May had secured all needed musicians except one. On the day of the recording session, he was still without a drummer and decided to go straight to the source to find a percussionist. May found himself once again roaming the halls of the School of Music when he happened to pass a student drummer and asked, “Hey, are you doing anything at 2 o’clock?”

The student happened to be available and excitedly joined the group of student musicians who recorded the music under May’s leadership.

“The passion of the School of Music students who performed Connor’s piece upped the authenticity and love for UofL in our commercial,” Butterweck said. “We couldn’t have asked for a better collaboration with Connor and our student musicians.”

“I was so motivated to show how UofL produced a student who can do this professionally, and I felt so grateful they gave their students and former students a shot to write and record this music,” May said.

Coda

May, who lives in Indianapolis and works in a local music store when he isn’t touring, has no plans to slow his tempo anytime soon. He wants to continue diversifying his career to “keep moving” but his endgame is to become a professor like the ones who guided him on his path to becoming a successful musician.

“When I was in school, I was like, ‘Man, I want to be like these guys who are shaping me.’” May said. “Music got me out of a lot of trouble as a kid, was a great escape and it put me on the right path. It wasn’t academics that was doing that for me, it was my horn. So, if I can keep that energy with me, I’d love to help other kids like that.”

May is confident his diverse experiences as a professional musician will help “broaden the realm” of what he can bring to future students if he does find himself on the other side of a classroom one day. And if there’s one thing he’s learned that he would impart to other aspiring musicians, it’s that you can’t let your dreams hold you back.

“When you get out into the real world, just because you painted a picture of what you thought you wanted to do, doesn’t mean you can’t do other things,” May said. “Be open to other opportunities; don’t put yourself in a cage. You have to appreciate stubbornness to go after your goals, but don’t be afraid to branch out and mold your career on who you are and not what is expected of you. That’s the only way you’ll succeed.”Ìę

Watch a behind-the-scenes video of the Here & Beyond anthem recording.Ìę

Over the past five decades, Title IX has provided a strong foundation and commitment to gender equality, allowing UofL to develop several competitive women’s programs. The women’s volleyball the field hockey teams reached their first Final Fours in 2021. Female athletes in track and field and swimming have become national champions. There are dozens of All-Americans and conference champions across UofL’s 12 women’s sports teams.

“From the first time I stepped foot on UofL’s campus, there was messaging that our women’s teams were just as important as the men’s,” said Amy Calabrese ’07, ’09, a former Cardinal soccer player who is now UofL Athletics’ senior female administrator. “It does not matter gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, anything like that – and that’s really the beauty of sports in general.”

Leveling the playing field

Women’s basketball is no exception to UofL’s history of success. The two-time national runners-up have made an impressive 23 NCAA tournament appearances, and a total of 14 Cardinals have been drafted by the WNBA since 2000, including three first-round draft picks.

One of UofL’s oldest intercollegiate sports, the university’s first women’s basketball team was formed during the 1908-09 academic year after a handful of female students expressed interest in forming a team. Of the 15 students who attended the first practice, only two understood the rules of basketball.

The women’s program existed in a limited capacity in the decades until Title IX was passed. In 1976, Valerie Owens Combs ’81 would make UofL history as the first woman to sign a letter of intent to attend UofL on a fullride athletic scholarship for basketball.

“They had just started giving women full athletic scholarships the year I decided to go to UofL,” said Combs, now with UofL’s advancement office. “I was fortunate to get that full ride because if I had not received it, I probably would not have gone to college.”

Combs finished her Cardinal athletic career with 1,085 points, making her the first woman in UofL history to score more than 1,000 points. Although she committed to the university after Title IX was enacted, Combs recalled some of the sex-based inequities she and her teammates encountered during her collegiate career.

“I remember our practices revolving around the men’s schedule,” Combs said. “The men got first crack at the gym, so we usually had to wait to practice after the men’s team. That didn’t play in our favor because we ended up with late practices and even later training tables after that.”

UofL’s women’s basketball has flourished over the last 15 seasons. Head coach Jeff Walz, the all-time winningest coach in program history, said he has been grateful for the opportunities afforded to women’s athletics under Title IX.Ìę

“I’ve been very fortunate to have these experiences – not only for myself, but for my family. My children have these incredibly strong, powerful and successful female role models to look up to – not just my daughters, but my son as well. I think it’s truly incredible that they get to see that success comes when you put your mind to it and you put the work in,” Walz said.

A Kentucky native and former collegiate basketball player, Walz has always coached female athletes, dating back to his tenure as a middle school and high school coach in the 1990s.

“My first coaching job was seventh grade girls, and I’ve always coached women ever since because I thoroughly enjoy it,” Walz said. “I have enjoyed the relationships I’ve been able to build, the opportunity to coach and the opportunity to be a part of athletes’ lives – both on and off the court.”

Walz’s first season as head coach culminated with the program’s first NCAA Sweet 16. UofL has since won four consecutive ACC regular season titles from 2017 to 2021 and a record-setting 36 victories for the women’s team in the 2017-18 season. The UofL fanbase contributes to the program’s momentum, ranking in the top-five nationwide in attendance over the last 10 seasons with an average 9,330 attendees per game.

As a former student athlete and current L-Club president, Combs has witnessed the positive impact of Title IX on women’s athletics firsthand. She remains an active member of the university community as a courtside season ticket holder and as a member of UofL’s staff, serving as director of development for diversity initiatives and engagement with University Advancement.

“I’m at all the women’s games; it’s such a feel-good, family-friendly atmosphere. As a former player, I love that we can fill that arena; it’s so good to see so many fans for those big games,” Combs said. “I feel like I’m the person that I am because of UofL, and I don’t know if I would have some of these opportunities pre-Title IX.”

Stepping up the pace

In advance of Title IX’s 50th anniversary, UofL Athletics launched The New Standard capital campaign. Announced in September 2021 and championed by the Cardinal Athletic Fund, this campaign supports equity and increases opportunities for women’s sports at UofL.

“We want to make sure UofL Athletics continues to push the standard and to remain at the forefront,” Calabrese said. “As part of that endeavor, we launched our women’s capital campaign last fall. We have a goal of raising $10 million to make improvements across the board to our women’s facilities.”

The New Standard will provide funding for various projects across women’s sports at the university, including renovations of softball’s Koetter Center, a considerable expansion to the G. Garvin Brown III Rowing Center and many more.

Since The New Standard’s launch, three of the campaign’s projects have already been completed. Field hockey’s Trager Stadium received a new, state-of-the-art scoreboard and turf, the locker room of the Bass-Rudd Tennis Center underwent full renovations and the women’s basketball locker room at the KFC Yum! Center was completely remodeled.

Calabrese is aware of the high standard of UofL Athletics when it comes to equity in athletics.

“There is this healthy peer pressure among the athletic departments in higher education to be inclusive and equitable in our industry, which allows us to keep raising the bar,” she said. “We need to keep reevaluating ourselves, so that we can provide all our athletes with the tools they need to compete, graduate and win championships.”

This issue of UofL Magazine was in production prior to the end of the 20222 women’s NCAA tournament. Coverage of the women’s team Final Four will be in the summer edition.Ìę

To help him adjust to college life, Mitchell connected with Mike Miller, family field training coordinator for the Kentucky Autism Training Center (KATC). “We started off meeting during my freshman year one or two times per week to help me develop some social and communication strategies I could use to help advocate for myself in difficult situations,” Mitchell said.

Four years later, thanks to the unique collaboration between KATC and the J.B. Speed School of Engineering, Mitchell is a graduate student in mechanical engineering on his way to a successful future. The partnership is believed to be the only of its kind in the country to specifically pair engineering studies and students with autism.

Finding the right fit

A professional educator with expertise in autism, Miller helps UofL students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) become more self-sufficient and independent, thenÌęgraduate and find employment. Working with 12 Speed School students this year, he utilizes evidence-based strategies that accommodate the unique way that students with autism may process information.

“Engineering is a perfect fit for kids with autism,” Miller said. “Studies often involve individualized work in silos, and they don’t have to communicate with a lot of people. The main subject areas like math and science are their bailiwicks.”

Mitchell discovered that his highly analytical brain was an asset in academic studies.

“As I’ve progressed through my mechanical engineering courses at Speed School, it’s useful for me to be able to think single-mindedly, objectively, analytically about these more abstract situations – to be able to look at things like differential equations and realize that there’s usually one or two different solution methods that allow me to always get to that right answer,” he said.

Social interactions can be more challenging for students with ASD, however, so Miller has developed tools that help them have more successful interactions with instructors and peers.

For example, Miller helps the students work on communication skills by initiating a conversation with a professor. They also work on understanding sarcasm and humor, which do not come naturally for people with ASD. He also encourages them to do some things out of their comfort zone, such as joining an academic club in their major, joining a social club or volunteering in the community.

Mitchell embraced these challenges to expand his social world, recently discovering the Cardinal Marching Band.

“I wanted to see if I could play music like my parents do as my own personal hobby,” Mitchell said. “Thanks to the analytical pattern recognition skills I developed at Speed School and the advanced social skills that Mike has helped me learn, I have been given the honor of performing multiple scores from memory as a baritone player at every home game for the UofL football team (last) season.”

Removing barriers, supporting success

KATC is a university-based program with a legislative mandate to enhance outcomes for all Kentuckians with ASD. Housed at UofL’s College of łÉÈËֱȄ and Human Development, KATC delivers training for educators in the classroom, workshops for families and professional development sessions.

In addition to Miller and KATC, Speed School students benefit from support provided by the school’s academicÌęadvisers, career services and faculty.

“If we see something not student-friendly, we will speak up about it, remove unintentional barriers and make it a better experience for our students,” said Jen Zoller, an academic counselor with Speed School.

The faculty also play a role. Ibrahim Imam, associate professor for computer science and engineering who taught Mitchell, said faculty must provide certain considerations for students with autism.

“They just need a little extra. Sometimes it might be an extra 10 minutes on an exam, or they need to work in different circumstances, like maybe they like to be in a room by themselves,” Imam said. “Once the faculty becomes aware of it, it is very easy to work with the student and to facilitate their success.”

The diversity commitment

While ASD may not be top of mind when it comes to diversity, it is an important aspect of the larger diversity effort.

“It’s very important that the Speed School recognizes atypical neurodevelopment as something that makes a place diverse,” Zoller said. “We typically think of diversity as race, ethnicity, perhaps gender identity, but in the last five years, neurodivergence is being recognized as also making a place diverse and unique. It’s important to appreciate all the uniqueness of individuals and how those differences should be celebrated.”

Mary Andrade, director of co-op and career services at Speed School, supports the students as they move beyond college and into the workplace.

“Every student needs to feel comfortable in the setting, and we have a responsibility to identify how to make that happen,” Andrade said. “For some, it’s a sense of belonging – a sense of seeing people like them in the world of work, in engineering. We are creating those success stories and building this toolkit of approaches we can use with neurodivergent students. Each student we help successfully move toward that goal opens a door for the next student coming through.”

Seeing the impact

Miller said he is excited to see the positive change in students like Mitchell as he works with them through their college career.

“By his sophomore year, I had never seen such a turnaround in a student,” Miller said of Mitchell. “It just makes my day to be able to see kids go out there, not afraid to tackle the world.”

Mitchell said Miller has become a wonderful friend as well as mentor.

“Even now, I always look forward to meeting with him and sharing recent accomplishments in my life that he’s had a hand in shaping with the strategies that he’s given me,” Mitchell said.

As an international student from Nigeria, the connections he found with UofL faculty, staff and fellow students led him down a path of entrepreneurship and activism. His drive to build connections in the business world resulted in the creation of multiple successful startups.

Now, Ivonye ’12, ’15 is using his skills and success to nurture others. His latest venture is ProtĂ©gĂ©, a nonprofit to support Black entrepreneurs. The 20-week learning experience matches founders with mentors called super founders and asks those super founders to contribute at least $20,000 to their mentees’ ideas.

“I knew that in venture capital, Black founders get like 2% or 4% of ventures, and that’s just ridiculous. It’s so tiny,” he said. “So I thought, ‘wait, why don’t we have a mentorship program where we’re getting these founders and connecting them with other founders who have done this before – who can really give back to help these new founders build wealth? As we build wealth we can solve some of this problem.”

Ivonye’s first foray into entrepreneurship began with holiday gifts of gaming consoles when he was growing up in Nigeria.

“My uncles bought me Game Boys the same Christmas, and so I ended up with three Game Boys,” he said. “I was 12, so I took them to boarding school and I rented them out.”

He saw an opportunity and he took it – and that attitude has repeated throughout his entire career. While earning his master’s degree in urban planning, Ivonye worked at a local restaurant and told his manager that adding delivery would increase the customer base. From that idea grew his first successful startup, Arrow Food Couriers.

Ivonye used his undergraduate background in geographic information system (GIS) software and a connection with a UofL law student to help him map out super-localized food delivery and create a viable business plan. They also recruited eight Speed School of Engineering students to create an app for a capstone project.

Eventually, Tapingo purchased the contracts Arrow Food Couriers established with multiple local businesses. Ivonye’s next big idea was Mailhaven, a smart-mailbox company that tracked and secured packages for customers. Mailhaven was acquired by technology company Luxer One in 2019.

Through his efforts, Ivonye continued to grow his network, although it was a struggle at times.

“Even at my second company, even though I had an acquisition, it was still hard raising money,” he said. “Me being a Black guy, my network was not as big. I had to fight to get my network.”

Building that network gave him the experience he needed to help support others. Through Protégé, his connections have become the connections of other Black founders.

Ivonye’s drive to better the Black community also grew through connections he found at UofL. While he thinks the university has room to improve when it comes to diversity matters, he said UofL provided a safe space for him and others to protest after the death of Trayvon Martin. At one of those protests, he met Mordean Taylor-Archer, the former vice provost for diversity and international affairs, with whom he shared his story and goals. Taylor-Archer offered him a diversity scholarship – partially funded from her own pocket – that allowed him to continue his education. Ivonye was also inspired by a former College of Arts and Sciences dean, the late Blaine Hudson.

“UofL created an atmosphere where it allowed you to try,” he said.

Taylor-Archer was not the only one to see a spark in Ivonye.

“He’s one of the most tenacious humans I’ve ever met,” said Natalia Bishop, UofL’s director of innovation and entrepreneurship. “His mentality is always ‘how am I paving the way’ and that’s not super common sometimes.”

Bishop and Ivonye are both entrepreneurs in residence with Amplify Louisville, a state-funded organization that supports startups. With similar backgrounds – both are immigrants; Bishop is from Colombia – they found themselves with parallel goals to increase entrepreneurship opportunities in their adopted home of Louisville. While Ivonye centers on Black entrepreneurs and Bishop focuses on Latinx and female entrepreneurs, they provide their mentorship and expertise to anyone with an idea who needs help to get it off the ground.

“It’s great work that is driving real change, and the change that is happening is quantifiable,” Bishop said. “One of the things that is most difficult is how you leverage your personal resources for others and how you pull others up.”

That’s an area in which Ivonye excels, Bishop said.

“Kela brings value to all his relationships,” she said. “He’s not afraid to make that introduction for you, to make sure you’re putting yourself out there. He will make sure you’re in a position to execute what it is that you say you’re going to execute.”

Ivonye’s introductions through ProtĂ©gĂ© have been directly responsible for matching seven founders with their super founder mentors, resulting in over $1 million in direct investments so far. Additionally, those founders have used what their mentors taught them to go out and raise an additional $38.5 million in seed funding.

He has also been working his own business relationships to provide Protégé with funding to pass that support along to the entrepreneurs.

“We’re pairing these people up with good mentors, I’m meeting with them, we’re helping them out there and we’re seeing success,” he said. “My own mentor decided to anchor a $1 million fund for me so when we accept you into the program and a mentor invests, ProtĂ©gĂ© can also invest.”

Investing and connecting both lead to doing, Ivonye believes, and that’s how he plans to boost his community, city and beyond.

“I’m fortunate that I’ve had people tell me ‘You have to do something about it,’’ he said. “So that’s what I say: You cannot speak about it. You have to do something about it.”