Alumni Outcomes

Lesley Goodaker ’17 Lesley Goodaker interned in marketing at Spring & Sprout dental network. She based her senior seminar project on the work she’d done there. She invited the vice president of marketing and communications to be on her review panel. But she still wasn’t prepared for what happened during her presentation… …a job offer on the spot. “To say that was a surprise would be an understatement,” she says, “but it was incredibly exciting.” Lesley’s study in her writing, rhetoric and communication major centered on rhetorical practices, but she was especially interested in incorporating digital technologies into her projects. So she worked with WRC professor Kerri Hauman to craft her curriculum to give her as much time in the Digital Arts Technology Lab (dArt lab) as possible, learning video and audio editing softwares and taking courses in digital rhetoric. To have faculty and staff that recognized the growth potential I had and pushed me toward that was indescribable. “In my program, you could really pick and choose what you want to focus on,” she says. “I had done several videos with Dr. Hauman in our Digital Rhetoric class, and it laid the foundation for technical skills. She made sure we were getting exposure to a lot of different tools.” She used her newfound expertise in her internship—which Hauman recommended to her—where she worked with a creative agency to gather all of the video and audio footage they had compiled

Read “Offer of a Lifetime”

Bill McCann ’79 We talk a lot about the Pioneer network, lifelong connections and how Transy has your back long after graduation. Ask Bill McCann, Class of 1979, and you’ll find a specific example of how that generous faculty-student connection works even decades after graduation. In Bill’s case, it’s with a faculty member he didn’t even know as a student. But that didn’t stop him from asking for help. McCann has always loved the theater and held a deep interest in playwriting. “Theater is another way of looking at the world,” he says. “It’s a way of getting people to think about things they might not otherwise think about, in ways they wouldn’t have thought of before.” He began his career at Transy as a theater major, but, at his father’s urging, changed his academic focus to history.  After Transy, he worked for a defense contractor in D.C. and earned a degree in education. He returned to Kentucky to work for the Department of Education as a financial management consultant for school districts, helping with everything from budgets to bidding practices. He was always observing and sharing best practices. Then, as he was passing through mid-life, he asked himself what he really wanted to be doing—“and it was to write plays and do theater.” He decided to earn a master’s in theater at the University of Kentucky. “I’d always been involved with theater,” he adds, “I’d tried and struggled to

Read “There for the Asking”

Jane Grand-Allen ’91 Jane Grande-Allen ’91, who graduated from Transylvania with majors in biology and mathematics, began studying heart valves when she started her Ph.D. research at the University of Washington in Seattle. At the time, the majority of the research being done was focused on improving replacement heart valves instead of the disease itself and possible treatments or cures. “That kind of stifled study into what causes valve disease because the (replacement valve) surgeons are excellent, and the replacements are awfully good,” Grande-Allen said. “So they weren’t really asking, ‘How can we prevent this disease in the first place?’” But Grande-Allen did ask that question. Even though replacement heart valves have become so effective, the surgery is still invasive—although work is being done to begin widely implanting them in a non surgical manner with a stent—and finding treatments for valve diseases remains an appealing goal. That’s why she has spent all this time on just that problem. “We’re trying to improve the range of options for treating people with heart valve disease,” she said. “Some of my work is targeted to helping find new medications so people could just take some pills instead of having to have surgery.” She credits her Transylvania professors for steering her in this direction, like former mathematics professor David Shannon. “He was my mentor when I was at Transylvania, and he really impressed upon me that I should continue doing something that had a

Read “The Heart of the Matter”

Shericka Smith ’05 As a young teen, Shericka Smith ’05 watched her mother at work as the director of the Salvation Army’s homeless shelter. She absorbed the many gestures of kindness and the trauma of families being separated. “Since then,” she says, “I’ve had this passion for helping families and helping kids, and helping parents stay on track so they can do what’s best for their kids.” Smith excelled as a student at Tates Creek High School and followed her sister, Shawnetta, to Transylvania, where she was able to thrive, she says, and “prove that no matter where you come from you can succeed.” In 2014, she returned to her alma mater, Tates Creek High, where she was named Kentucky’s 2016 School Social Worker of the Year. “I’ve been blessed by having opportunities,” she says. “I just felt it made sense to come back and help the same folks in the same neighborhood I grew up in and left to make a better life.” Every day is different for Smith, because, as she explains, students who experience trauma manifest it in ways that can’t be anticipated. “For the kids who act out, once we dig deeper and find out it’s because of a traumatic event, then we can work with them.” And listen. I just felt it made sense to come back and help the same folks in the same neighborhood I grew up in and left to make a

Read “Full Circle”