2007-2008 College Advisory Board

Alumni

Mike Amyx
Tony Arnold
Stacy Cooper
Chris Courtwright
Glendon Cox
Cathy Daicoff
Randy Gordon
Tom Laming
Doug Merrill
Richard Rothfelder
Mark Rubert
Cecil Walker
Ronald Wasinger

Faculty & Staff

Chuck Berg--Theatre & Film
Linda Stone-Ferrier--History of Art
Saralyn Reece Hardy--Spencer Museum of Art
Charlie Himmelberg--Mathematics
Jim Woelfel--Humanitities and Western Civilization

Mike Amyx became the Virginia Municipal League's executive director in 1980 and is the fourth person to hold the position. He has 34 years of local government experience, including serving as a city manager, an assistant city manager and a senior staff member with a state municipal league (Kansas). In addition, he was executive director of the Kentucky Municipal League for five years prior to coming to Virginia. He holds a master's in public administration, as well as a law degree from the University of Kansas. He has served on the National League of Cities Board of Directors and is a past chair of the state league executive directors' organization.

Craig Anthony (Tony) Arnold is the Boehl Chair in Property and Land Use, professor of law, affiliated professor of urban planning, and chair of the Center for Land Use & Environmental Responsibility, all at the University of Louisville. Prior to joining the University of Louisville in 2005, he taught at four law schools (Stanford, Puerto Rico, Wyoming, and Chapman University), practiced public law in Texas, and clerked for the Honorable James K. Logan, Tenth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. He received his JD with Distinctionfrom Stanford Law School and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and earned two national honors, the Harry S. Truman Scholarship and the TIME Magazine College Achievement Award.  Scholars and professionals have selected Tony’s frequently referenced interdisciplinary scholarship on the environmental regulation of land use as among the best research published nationally in land use and environmental law.  He also has served in numerous positions of community leadership and public service, and won awards for teaching and mentoring students, which he attributes to the influence of his professors at KU.

Stacy Cooper is an administrative law judge for the State of Illinois.  She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from KU in 1981.  While at KU, she participated in a number of student activities including:  Kansas Honors Scholar, KJHK Radio, All Scholarship Hall Council, KU Professional Honor Societies, Rock Chalk, Theatre, Jayhawker Yearbook, Alpha Delta Pi Sorority, Miller Scholarship Hall and Mortar Board.

Chris Courtwright serves as the principal economist for the Kansas Legislature. He has been a member of the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group since 1986 and is the author of two state tax guides. He is also the Kansas correspondent for State Tax Notes magazine. Chris was the recipient of the 2004 President's Award from the Kansas Government Finance Officers' Association. He received both B.A. in economics and a B.S. in journalism from the KU in 1983.

Glendon Cox serves as vice dean and senior associate dean for educational and academic affairs for the University of Kansas School of Medicine. In 2005, he received the Health Care Executive of the Future Award from the department of health policy and management at the University of Kansas Medical Center and has been published extensively. He has also been listed several years in Best Doctors in America. Glendon earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and his MD from KU. In 1990, he was one of the three founding partners of a newly organized private practice of radiology in the Kansas City metropolitan area, Overland Park Radiologists, PA.. He earned his MBA from KU in 2004, along with a master’s in health services administration.

Cathy Daicoff is a managing director and the senior credit policy officer of Standard & Poor's--the world’s leading provider of objective financial information, ratings and risk analysis to the global financial community.  As a member of the firm’s Analytics Policy Board, Cathy helps establish and maintain the firm’s ratings criteria, rating methodologies, and policies. Cathy joined Standard & Poor’s Credit Market Services in 1978 and has held increasingly senior roles as well as diverse analytical and managerial positions.  She received a bachelor’s degree in political science from KU and has a master’s degree in public administration from Syracuse University. Involved in various activities with her alma maters, Cathy is also a member of the Board of Directors for Women Philanthropists for KU. Her father was a KU economics and public administration professor.

Randy Gordon is a professional development partner at Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP, where he practices antitrust and intellectual property cases.  He is an adjunct member of the faculty at Southern Methodist University, where he teaches both law and literature.  He serves as an officer for the Council of the Antitrust and Business Litigation Section of the Texas Bar and serves as a member of advisory board of the Hall Center for the Humanities at the University of Kansas.  A frequent lecturer and writer, Randy co-hosts “The Writer’s Studio,” which is broadcast nationally by NPR.  After completing his B.A. in English at the University of Kansas, Randy earned several other degrees, including a J.D. cum laude from Washburn and an LL.M. in international law from Columbia. 

Tom Laming is president and CIO of TrendStar Advisors and manager of TrendStar Funds, in Overland Park, Kansas. Prior to helping found Trendstar Advisors, he was lead manager of equity portfolios at Buffalo Mutual Funds and was a research analyst with Waddell & Reed. He has appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg, and CNN television programs and as a special guest on “Louis Rukeyser’s Wall Street.” Tom is a member of Sigma Pi Sigma, Phi Kappa Phi and Sigma Xi, and was a Draper Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Summerfield Scholar while at the University of Kansas.  In addition, Tom serves on the Reese Fund Board of Advisors at Indiana University and as a director for PPM, Inc. Tom holds an MBA from Indiana University, an M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. with highest distinction in physics from the University of Kansas.

Doug Merrill is the Medical Director and Assistant Hospital Director for Ambulatory Surgery as well as Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology at the University of Iowa Culver College of Medicine. He previously was on the faculty of the Virginia Mason Clinic, as well as a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. He earned his bachelor’s degree in English and the Humanities and also his M.D. at the University of Kansas. He completed his internship and residency training in anesthesiology at Stanford University.

Richard Rothfelder is board certified in civil trial law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. He is also a nationally recognized expert in the representation of the outdoor advertising and sign industries. Richard is currently serving his third terms as Mayor of Southside Place, Texas. He is also President of the Harris County Mayors' and Councils' Association, and the President of the West University Elementary School Foundation.  He attended the University of Kansas, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a Summerfield Scholar, and graduated with distinction in 1976.  He graduated Cum Laude in 1979 from the University of Houston Law School, where he served on the Houston Law Review and the Order of the Barons.  

Marcos Rubert currently serves as a senior vice president within the Latin Banking Division of CNL Bank. His banking career spans seventeen years and has served the Central Florida community for the past eight years. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in economics with a minor in Latin American studies from the University of Kansas. He received his Master’s of International Management and an MBA in 1984 from the American Graduate School of International Management.

Cecil Walker is the president and owner of C.W. Construction, Inc.—the largest Native-American owned construction management company. His company has participated in numerous projects including the rebuilding of Dade County Schools after Hurricane Katrina, earthquake repair at California State University at Northridge, and Universal Studios Florida Phase 1. Cecil was recognized as the SBA’s Minority Small Business Advocate of the Year for the State of Florida in 2000 and as the National Indian Business Owner of the Year in 2002.  He currently sits on the boards of the National Conference for Community and Justice, Children’s Home Society, Leadership Seminole, and is a past president of AGC Florida. He graduated from the University of Kansas in 1980 and later completed the executive corporate master’s programs at Harvard University, MIT, and Creighton University.

Ronald Wasinger currently is a Vice President with Sony Electronics Inc. in San Diego, California where he serves as managing attorney for Sony’s United States television and home products business.  Prior to joining Sony in 2000, he practiced law with firms in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Houston, Texas. Ron grew up in Russell, Kansas and attended the University of Kansas, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a Summerfield Scholar. He graduated with distinction in1990 with a bachelor’s degree in Germanic languages & literature and political science. He received his J.D. from the University of Texas in 1993.

Chuck Berg is a professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of Kansas. He specializes in the areas of American film and media history, popular culture, and jazz. He has authored numerous publications including The Encyclopedia of Orson Welles and has contributed articles to The Oxford Companion to Jazz, Jazz Times, Down Beat, and The Hollywood Reporter. He received his PhD from the University of Iowa and joined the KU faculty in 1977.

Linda Stone-Ferrier joined the University of Kansas faculty in 1980 and is completing her eleventh year as chair of the Department of Art History. Professor Stone-Ferrier studies seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art, specializing in paintings and prints of daily life and landscapes by Rembrandt and contemporaries. She received her B.A. in English and art history, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in art history from the University of California, Berkeley.

Saralyn Reece Hardy is the director of the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas. Hardy previously served as director of Museums and Visual Arts at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), where she received a distinguished service award in 2002.  Professor Hardy has served on a broad range of boards, advisory committees, and is an active juror and lecturer.  She has been engaged as faculty and an advisor to the Getty Leadership Institute since 2003.  Her primary areas of exhibition development relate to contemporary practices relating to the body, landscape, and memory.

Charlie Himmelberg has been a mathematics professor at the University of Kansas since 1968 and served as chairman of the Department of Mathematics from 1978-1999. He is a member of the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America, Sigma XI, Scientific Research Society, and the Kansas Association of Teachers of Mathematics. He has been nominated for the Hope Award three times and received the G. Baley Price Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching in 1988. He also received the Kansas Section MAA Award for Distinguished Teaching in the spring of 2001. Charlie graduated from Rockhurst College with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Notre Dame.

James Woelfel has been Director of the Humanities & Western Civilization Program since 1985 and also serves as a professor of philosophy at the University of Kansas. His teaching and research have primarily been in 19th and 20th century European philosophical and religious thought. Among the books he has authored are Bonhoeffer's Theology, Borderland Christianity, Albert Camus on the Sacred and the Secular, and Portraits in Victorian Religious Thought. Professor Woelfel was a 1997 recipient of the Kansas Humanities Council's Silver Anniversary Public Scholar Award and received a Kemper Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching in 1998. Professor Woelfel received a Ph.D. in religious studies from the University of St. Andrews and has served on the KU faculty since 1966.