Alumni Outcomes

Michael Hoffman ’65 Shortly after arriving at Bentley University in 1974, professor W. Michael Hoffman ’65 applied for a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to start a few business ethics courses. The agency’s review committee, however, dismissed the request with comments that went something like: “Never heard of business ethics,” and “Isn’t that an oxymoron?” Not to be deterred, Hoffman met with the NEH director of programs, who seemed embarrassed by his agency’s offhanded response to his application. The professor resubmitted, got the grant and not only brought business ethics to Bentley but in a way sparked the business ethics movement itself. Hoffman’s pioneering effort to bring together the unlikely domains of Plato and John D. Rockefeller has its roots in his philosophy major at Transylvania. A liberal arts education, after all, encourages students to think about issues beyond their own field of study. However, that big connection between ethics and business took a while to grow. Hoffman, who grew up in Paris, Ky., went on to pursue his Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst after graduating from Transy. While he had received a scholarship to Vanderbilt, he felt drawn to the new cultural experiences the Northeast had to offer. After graduate school, Hoffman set off to his first professorship at Hiram College in Ohio, a seemingly perfect locale for a philosopher. “I thought it was very idyllic in the middle of the woods at a very small college,” he said. “I thought, that sounds very Thoreauvian.” Or, as it turned out, isolated. It was during these years—the early ’70s—when philosophers were venturing beyond the

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Clarke Waldrop ’14 Clarke Waldrop, who graduated with a theater degree from Transylvania University in May, is proving that premise wrong in her career with the National Geographic Channel in Washington D.C. Clarke is associate producer of ad sales creative, creating on-air promos for the channel’s programming and advertisers. And she credits her Transylvania education for helping her land her first job in TV. “Transylvania opened up doors for me,” she says. “It didn’t matter that I didn’t have these classes that students at other schools may have taken—Transylvania taught me the skills that I could apply to any job. It gave me the writing skills to be able to write these scripts, and I’m learning very quickly, which I think Transylvania taught me, as well.” Clarke’s position has her integrating promotions for the shows that air on the National Geographic Channel and NatGeo Wild with specific advertisers. So she might create a spot highlighting the latest blockbuster movie and the NatGeo show “Alaska State Troopers” by figuring out how to meld the two into one 10-second piece. “I like the creativity of that,” she says. “It’s challenging me because I not only have the freedom to write creatively about the shows, but I’m challenged to put the brand in, as well. I love being able to work with editors and designers and production houses.” “Transylvania taught me the skills that I could apply to any job. It gave me

Read “A Network of Possibilities”

Stevie Morrison ’15 Connecting with the neighboring North Limestone neighborhood led Stevie Morrison to her graphic design career. Stevie Morrison ’15 refers to “random opportunities” when talking about her progression from a diffident high school senior growing up on a horse farm in Seymour, Tenn., to the confident college grad who cycled through France to make art and is now striding into a full-time job at Bullhorn Creative. But what Morrison calls “random” seems more like a combination of her motivation and a series of connecting the dots—or what she calls Transylvania’s “amazing opportunities on and off campus.”   On campus, Morrison found a curriculum that interested her and informed her art. “The general electives at Transylvania definitely influenced the things I’m making art about. That wouldn’t have happened just taking art classes.” Transylvania has shaped the way I see and analyze things. It’s made a huge impact on my life. A studio art major, she also wanted to be doing more than art. She found this possible at Transylvania. “Transylvania is in such a unique location in the city and in this neighborhood,” she explains. “There is a community of open-minded people here.” Courses like Community Engagement Through Art, taught by professors Kremena Todorova and Kurt Gohde, opened her to possibilities outside of campus. Connecting with the Lexington community and the burgeoning North Limestone neighborhood brought her new ways of thinking about her art and introductions that would lead

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Sarah Miller ’09 When Sarah Miller ’09 took an ecology class in the fall of 2007, she discovered that she was “fascinated by the study of how organisms interact within ecosystems.” The following May term, she traveled to Belize with biology professors Belinda Sly and James Wagner to study tropical marine and forest ecosystems. The course focused in part on how human activities are affecting these unique environments. “It was an amazing experience to see first-hand the fragile balance of natural ecosystems,” said Miller. “For me, the experience emphasized the importance of finding a career through which I could help create a more sustainable world.” Today, Miller works with Booz Allen Hamilton as a consultant to the Army’s Energy Initiatives Task Force, based at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Her job is to identify energy sources appropriate for each Army installation, considering local renewable energy options—such as sun, wind, and biofuels—when available. She serves as an on-site project manager and works with utility companies and developers to find the best solutions. “Our energy makeup won’t look the same everywhere. There are regions where you have large-scale solar projects going in, such as Arizona and southern California. We also have to value other resources, such as natural gas. It’s more of a holistic approach that will include leveraging traditional carbon-based fuel sources as well as renewables.” I have the opportunity to facilitate a fundamental shift in how the U.S. Army acquires electricity for its installations

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Rya Luttrell ’12 When Ryla Luttrell ’12 arrived at Transylvania, the expression “liberal arts education” meant nothing to her. After four years of study, however, she has a much better grasp of how all fields of study are interconnected. And her engagement with others on campus has helped her refine who she is and how she can express herself through her art. As part of her wide-ranging experiences on campus, Luttrell says she “had the opportunity to have tough conversations about topics that are too often taboo, such as religion, politics, and ideology.” She could safely test her own ideas and “converse with peers of different upbringings and beliefs.” As Luttrell explains, “This understanding has been incredibly beneficial to me as a person and as an artist. It has allowed me to communicate with people outside my field with confidence.” These opportunities for dialogue also helped Luttrell look beyond herself and better understand her place in a larger global community. She credits her professors for expanding her world view and teaching her how to “weigh choices based on my own needs and the needs of others in my life.”  The meaningful relationships she developed with Transylvania professors initially surprised her. Luttrell found that her professors—including writing, rhetoric, and communication professor Scott Whiddon, music professor Ben Hawkins, and art professors Kurt Gohde and Zoé Strecker—“talked to us like we were intelligent individuals with valuable ideas, and respected us as people.” It was through my study of

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