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Faculty farewells
By Emily Clifton ’08
STAFF WRITER

In the upcoming academic year, a few familiar faces will be missing from Sweet Briar College. A number of faculty members are retiring this year, while others are taking sabbaticals or moving on to other places to share their experiences.

While not all of the professors could be reached for comment, many would like to share their plans and give a few last words to the students here at Sweet Briar before they leave. Rest assured, Sweet Briar students, you will be missed, and of those leaving may return to teach or perhaps just to visit in the near future.

The Department of Modern Languages and Literature will miss Professor Dominique Leveau, as his official retirement will begin this coming fall. He has taught French language, literature and culture at every level. He plans to retire for most of the year in Vero Beach, Florida, where he and his wife have quite a few good friends. They also hope to spend every summer in Saint-Tropez, where he was born.

Professor Leveau has many plans for his time; he already has taken up riding, golf, figure drawing, and, most recently, ceramics. He intends to stay busy reading, going to the theater, concerts, movies, also playing tennis, golf, sailing, and maybe doing a little pottery. At any rate, his motto is “Carpe Diem!”

When asked if he will miss Sweet Briar, he commented, “I will miss the pleasure of teaching, say, a French poem to potential majors and seeing that they are also enjoying the moment and the text.” He will also miss the lunches with his colleagues in the cafeteria, calling it “a good place to unwind and share a few laughs.” As for visiting, he assured the Sweet Briar community that he will return from time to time to visit with old and not-so-old friends.

In 1972, Allen Huszti came to Sweet Briar as a sabbatical replacement in the Music Department. He was a widower with two children, and Sweet Briar was the best place, he says, for a single parent to raise children. Dr. Huszti lived on this campus for about 15 years. He is retiring this coming year.

If Dr. Huszti stays in the area, he plans to continue to teach private voice lessons and conduct Canticum Novum, the children’s choir of central VA. In his spare time, he has been involved extensively in the First Presbyterian Church of Lynchburg, where he is the bass section leader, soloist, and substitute organist, and has been involved in many solo vocal performances in several churches in the area.

He has plans to move at some point in the not too distant future to move to a retirement community in Northern Ohio adjacent to Oberlin College where he plans to avail himself of hearing a lot of classical, jazz, contemporary and early music at the College conservatory of music, where he conducted his undergraduate studies.

Dr. Huszti’s message to the Sweet Briar community is to support the library here; he was for many years the chair of the needs committee of the Friends of the Library. He himself has donated a thousand or so LP records to the music library, and highly recommends becoming a Friend of the Library to anyone who asks.
Dr. Huszti will miss his students, specifically how they tend to keep faculty young. He enjoys being introduced to the various forms of “our” music, including Bob Marley and alternative rock. He also enjoys NPR and other public radio, and has a huge collection of CD’s and DVD’s of opera. His favorite opera is entitled, quite aptly, “The Cunning Little Vixen” by a Czech composer, Janacek.

Susan Piepho, Professor of Chemistry, will also be leaving Sweet Briar, as she, too, is retiring this year. She began two years ago with a three-phase retirement plan, where she would teach part-time for three years and then be finished. However, because of Rob Granger’s sabbatical this year, she taught full-time, and thus after this semester will have fulfilled her three part-time years commitment.

Susan usually teaches General Chemistry, Intermediate Chemistry Lab and Physical Chemistry. The chemistry department has recently hired a new professor, Jane Owens, Ph.D., currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Carlton College in Minnesota. Dr. Owens will possibly be teaching General Chemistry and Organic next year.

While Susan will not officially retire next year, she is taking a break from teaching. She plans on using this time to learn Spanish, and perhaps take a few history courses as well.

Susan is also a master gardener whose efforts to beautify Amherst landed her and a few other gardening ladies the honor of gracing the cover of the Amherst County Guidebook for 2005-2006. She and several other master gardeners instituted a program to put gardens in at Amherst County High School, as well as several other public gardens located in Amherst. Susan also keeps a plot here at Sweet Briar in the faculty garden.

Celeste Delgado-Librero, Professor of Spanish in the Department of Modern Languages and Literature, is currently at the University of Auckland, in New Zealand. She is teaching in the School of European Languages and Literature there. Professor Delgado is not certain at this time if she will return to Sweet Briar. It is a distinct possibility, and she promises that if she returns she will have much to contribute after her stint in New Zealand.

“SBC has been very good to me in many aspects,” she said, “both personal and professional, and I will miss it a lot.” She already misses her wife, her cats, the library, the peace and quiet, and the fact that she doesn't have to lock her house or her office here.

Dr. Hank Yochum is taking a year-long sabbatical, thanks to the recent faculty research fellowship he received from Sweet Briar. He will be spending the year at VA Tech in the Center for Self-Assembled Nano Structures & Devices. The Center is an interdisciplinary research laboratory with a full time chemical engineer, chemist and physicist, and it also employs undergraduate and graduate research assistants.

Dr. Yochum will be working on projects that are on the nano scale (think smaller than microscopic), which can lead to such innovations as biosensors. One use of such biosensors is for the detection of compounds like anthrax. He will be continuing the research of the physicist at the Center, Randy Heflin, Ph.D.

While Dr. Yochum will miss teaching here, he looks forward to returning for the 2007-2008 academic year. He still plans on leading the Summer Honors Research program here at Sweet Briar for the upcoming summer.
In collaboration with Jill Granger, Professor of Chemistry and Chair of the Department of Chemistry, Dr. Yochum is also currently facilitating a teacher/professional development graduate level course with the support of one of ten grants awarded for such efforts by the state of Virginia each year. The grant brought in $142,000 for the college to use for the project, which resulted in a yearlong course taught here at Sweet Briar.
His presence will be missed, but he did admit that he might come back to Sweet Briar occasionally next year to visit.

Dr. John Beck is also taking a sabbatical for the upcoming year with the distinct possibility of leaving Sweet Briar for good. He has been offered a position with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agri-Research Service in California. If he chooses to take the job, he will be investigating issues for the USDA.

He interviewed for the position in January, and has been offered it; now he must do a case write-up (for which there is a 94-page manual) and send that to be reviewed, upon which there will be an offer extended for what GS (Government Service) level to hire him. Dr. Beck is unsure as to whether he will accept the position.

Dr. Beck’s major influence on the decision comes mainly from his family and the kind of upbringing he wants for his two children, Morgan and Tristan. He and his wife, Tina (who also teaches at Sweet Briar) would like for one of them to be home with their kids, and, depending on the flexibility of the job offer, he might decide that he needs to stay at Sweet Briar.

Dr. Beck teaches Organic Chemistry here and, while he will miss teaching, he pointed out that he would be near several colleges in CA where he could easily be an adjunct professor. However, he does admit that he enjoys influencing young women’s lives through science, and his favorite part of teaching is watching the light bulbs go off for women who finally understand the material.

He is currently undergoing two major studies here, and has a post-doctoral student working with him, Dr. Chou who hails from Taiwan. Dr. Beck is not planning on participating in the Summer Honors Research program this summer, but instead plans on playing with his kids, finishing his basement and continuing with scuba, tai chi, biking and swimming in his spare time.

He will miss seeing the enthusiasm for a subject that people often hate; this was his reason for teaching Organic Chemistry for about 11 years. If Dr. Beck stays, he will still take a sabbatical.

The Sweet Briar community hopes for all the best for each of those leaving and anticipates seeing them again in the near future!