Retirees Spring 2022

The Spring 2022 issue of Scene Magazine also featured our retirees. Read "Reflections on 289 Years of Shaping Lives and Careers."

Don "Duke" Schneider, MA

Department: Communication and Digital Media
Years at St. Ambrose: 43
Where next: Hope to continue to do freelance TV work. I often get to work with former students, which is great!
Personal question: There weren't many campus events you weren't present for with your camera? Were you ever in two places at the same time?? Ha! Not telling

Alan Sivell, MA

Department: Communication
Years at St. Ambrose: 37
Where next: I will read what I want to read and write what I want to write (plug: alansivell.com). I have an extensive vinyl collection that I want to listen to again. And I will visit the grandchildren ... So there is a new audience for my stories.
Personal question: Your office walls? Discuss. My office walls are filled with pictures from my wanderings as a young man, my degrees and some awards, pictures of my kids and my grandkids, and a bulletin board filled with lanyards mostly from my days as a reporter and a few from academic conferences. And there are pictures of and postcards and thank you notes from former students.

Corinne (Cory) Johnson, PhD

Department: Theatre
Years at St. Ambrose: 34
Where next: I hope to keep teaching theatre somewhere and I look forward to continuing to freelance as a professional actor/director.
Personal question: Can you share an on-stage oops you'll still be talking about at parties deep into your retirement? In our 2018 production of Neil Simon's farce, Rumors, a student actor made his entrance in the second act by bursting through the upstairs door, running down the steps and down into the set's "living room." The entrance went like clockwork every night until the closing performance. Wear and tear on a costume can be rough. This particular actor must have been especially hard on shoes as halfway down the steps on final descent on the closing performance of the show, the ENTIRE sole of his shoe came free from the shoe and catapulted off his foot. The separated leather sole shot, end over end, into the front row of the audience. Many in the audience later said that was one of the funniest bits in the show. I thanked them for their kind review and never let it be known that it was costume malfunction.

Carl Herzig, PhD

Department: English
Years at St. Ambrose: 32
Where next: Remaining in area.
Personal question: Is there a room in your house filled with Quercuses? Through the years, the print edition of Quercus became so popular among students, faculty, staff, and alumni that there aren't any copies left – just a set in my office and one in University Archives. I hope that it might once again return to print form but have no expectation of that happening in the near future.

Kristofer Eitrheim, MFA

Department: Theatre
Years at St. Ambrose: 32
Where next: I'm not sure – except I'm headed to Minnesota to take care of family.
Personal question: What is the one set build that still haunts you in your dreams? I will always remember the 70-foot bridge we built for A View from the Bridge, a student that volunteered to be under a bed and roll it back and forth all across the stage for A Christmas Carol, and the turntable from Sweeney Todd that lost its pivot point and started rotating closer and closer toward the audience.

C. Gregory Bereskin, PhD

Department: Economics
Years at St. Ambrose: 31
Where Next: Retirement including travel and perhaps a bit of research.

Kevin Farrell, PhD

Department: Physical Therapy
Years at St. Ambrose: 29+
Where/what next: Working on that. Not sure. Teach/consult /clinic work.
Personal question: How many miles will you bike per year now? 10K? 1 million?
Just under 5K now, so try to double that (or climb a lot of new mountains).

Rev. Brian Miclot, PhD

Department: Philosophy
Years at Ambrose: 29 1/2 years (ret. Dec. 2021)
Personal question: You have always been an avid golfer. Will you continue to play and do you have a bucket-list golf course? Awful golfer.

Ron Wastyn, PhD

Department: Marketing/MOL
Years at St. Ambrose: 25
Where next: Work with [wife] Linda at Wastyn & Associates, Inc.
Personal question: Did you ever win a debate with Randy Richards? Or vice-versa?
Did anyone???

Carol DeVolder, PhD

Department: Psychology
Years at St. Ambrose: 23
Where Next: I'm not sure where next yet – my first plan is to catch my breath.
Personal question: Glass blowing is a hobby? How did that happen and what's the next level?
I plan on taking up glass blowing as a step up from making glass beads and small glass objects in my basement with a torch and a kiln. I also want to dust off my photography ambitions and rebuild my darkroom.

Barb Ehrmann, DPT

Department: Doctor of Physical Therapy
Years at St. Ambrose: 18
Where next: More time traveling, visiting granddaughters, golfing, and quilting.
Personal question: You are a member of the Handbell Musicians of America. Can you play "Freebird?"
I probably could if I had the music. I was a member of a group of handbell ringers at the Mall of America that set the Guinness World Record for the largest handbell ensemble. I also participated in ringing the National Anthem at a Cincinnati Reds baseball game.

Juleann H. Miller, PhD

Department: Nursing
Years at Ambrose: 14
Where next: Wayne, Penn., where my husband has been for two years serving as Executive Associate Pastor at Wayne Presbyterian Church
Personal question: How many pairs of socks have you knitted? What small nation do you intend to "sock" in retirement?
I think I knit about 35 pairs of socks a year. It is my relaxation time and I enjoy creating either 'crazy socks' (with all the leftover yarn which makes for some pretty interesting patterns) or traditional socks. I find great joy in gifting socks to friends and even folks I do not know. I really enjoy the quiet steady process of knitting a pair of socks.

Kerry Humes, MD

Department: Master of Physician Assistant Studies
Years at Ambrose: 8½ years
Where next: For the next year or two, I will be spending my time visiting our children who are scattered around the country (Chicago, Boston, Southern California) and traveling.
Personal question: You and your husband love to travel. Where will you go that you've never been before and why? We are thinking about doing a biking tour in either Southern France or Italy. We feel that this would be a great way to see the country, explore smaller towns, and get a better idea of the culture while still being active.