Photo by Peter Morenus
Lena Hiranthom ’24 (CLAS), left, and Jackson Kermode ’24 (CLAS) at Swan Lake’s new Swing Tree Garden, a tribute to the beloved Mirror Lake Swing Tree which, in failing health at age 70, was felled in 2019. The new garden has two saplings from that tree, two buddy benches that face each other to encourage conversation, and a box for journals so visitors can share reflections and encouragements.
Photo by Peter Morenus
Peter Morenus
Kerri M. Raissian, an assistant professor of public policy in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, conducts research focused on child and family policy, with an emphasis on understanding how polices affect fertility, family formation, and family violence. She previously spent 10 years working with children and families in the public and nonprofit sectors. Earlier this year, she and her colleague Lindsey Rose Bullinger of Indiana University, published their study, “Money matters: Does the minimum wage affect children maltreatment rates?” in Children and Youth Services Review. They found that a $1 increase in the minimum wage can result in a statistically significant 9.6 percent decline in child neglect reports. She spoke with UConn Today about the study.
How did you come up with the idea to examine this question?
There’s been a small but burgeoning literature about the causal effects of income on child maltreatment, which includes neglect, physical and sexual abuse, and other forms of abuse. We chose to examine this income lever because several stylized facts lead us to believe there might be an association. For example, it turns out that minimum wage earners are often family breadwinners, and notably, they are often single moms. Neglect is by far the most common type of child maltreatment ”“ nationally it’s about 70 percent to 75 percent of all child maltreatment referrals. And finally, single moms are the most likely group to actually engage in child maltreatment, usually neglect. Of course, that is not to say all single moms making minimum wage maltreat their children, but it did say to us that an increase in the minimum wage might really benefit this population. It could especially lessen neglect ”“ something often associated with material items and supervision. Our interest was piqued, and we decided to test it out empirically.
Was it evident in the literature and other materials you reviewed that this very simple solution could be significant in easing that discomfort of struggling to earn enough money just to put food on the table, put a roof over your head, and otherwise take care of yourself and your child?
Families with low incomes have a great ability to make a dollar go a long way. On average, the weekly SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) food stamp benefit for a family of three is about $30. That’s about what a $1 an hour minimum wage increase translates into for full-time workers. Other studies show that a $1,000 tax refund results in similar declines in child maltreatment ”“ neglect, specifically. So for really low-income families that probably have pretty severe material deprivation or economic hardship, that extra dollar can make a really big difference.
There was a breakdown between toddlers, school-aged children, and teenagers, where the youngest children benefited the most. Is there any indication of why there was that split?
Risk of neglect declines with age: so the very young kids (ages 0 to 5) are at the highest risk, followed by school-aged children (ages 6 to 12), and that puts teenagers (13 to 17) at the lowest risk of neglect. So, we actually expected the minimum wage to affect young kids the most ”“ just based on their risk. Young kids have the highest risk for many reasons; one being that small children are very expensive and public school, which may offer things like daytime activities and free and reduced price meals, isn’t yet available. It’s also true that the definition of neglect changes with a child’s age, and there are just more ways to neglect a young child compared to a teenager. For example, leaving a toddler home alone is considered neglect in most states, but usually leaving a 13-year-old home alone is just fine. But even with all of that, we do see an association between a rising minimum wage and a decline in all types of maltreatment for all ages, just that the results are not always statistically significant, and so our conclusions are more tentative for the older ages.
From a public policy perspective, it would seem that you would want to implement a measure than can cause an effect like this, yet there’s resistance. How can you overcome that?
From a public policy standpoint, I think we have to consider cost-effective ways of dealing with really extensive problems, and the minimum wage seems to fit that description. But whenever a policy has tradeoffs, as most do, it is important to have an informed debate. Step one is putting the information out into the public arena. Often in our conversations about the minimum wage, we just think about income and employment levels, because they are the obvious and direct outcomes. We also have to look at the indirect outcomes, like health and child maltreatment. Now we have information on things that have previously been ignored in our debates about the minimum wage, and we have to extend the work. There could also be impacts on things like maternal well-being, kids’ educational attainment, and more. It’s important to engage all along the way with policymakers about this work, so that they can feel confident in the decisions they are making and also perhaps inform the research process. Part of the value of UConn is that we can create partnerships to answer the questions to which policymakers really need to know the answers.
Business organizations say increasing the minimum wage will prevent small businesses from being able to stay open and keep their employees. Yet the other side would be to help improve people’s lives. How do you argue back against the objections?
Most policies have costs associated with them. But if we don’t have a sense of the benefits, the cost side will dominate the discussion. Ideally, we would create policies that maximize benefits and make costs equitably shared or even minimized. One cost is that what if people lose their jobs after an increase in the minimum wage? That certainly wouldn’t help people, but fortunately, when minimum wage increases are small, we really don’t see increases in unemployment as a result. I think we have to be sensible. Really large and swift increases ”“Â like going from $7 to $15 an hour ”“ could lead to unemployment, and so policymakers should think about their local labor markets and what is reasonable. It’s also probably true that certain businesses might struggle more with increases in the minimum wage than others; for example, a small business or businesses that rely a lot on people to get the job done. For these industries, I think it’s reasonable to ask, why should the cost be entirely borne by the employer? Why not have a state subsidy or tax relief for employers, at least initially? This would allow us to still reap the benefits of higher incomes, reward hard work, help businesses attract high quality workers, improve children’s outcomes, and potentially save on very expensive interventions like child protective services.
One of the things you note in your conclusion are the limitations of the data. You were looking at state level rather than local data. What do you think might happen by looking at that more local or person-level data?
I think we could get a better sense of where the minimum wage has an effect and why it has an effect. So we are currently extending this study in two ways. The first is to look at counties rather than states. This would help to answer questions like: is the effect the same in a rural county as opposed to a metro county? We also have a study where we are looking at households ”“ so if a household lives in a jurisdiction with a higher minimum wage, is that household better off? [There are] lots of questions when you get down to that level. What did families spend the money on? Do families use the extra money to make each week a little bit easier? Did they save their money and spend it on a really big item like a car that allows them to get to school, to work, and/or to medical appointments more easily? We can also look at parenting behaviors. With some extra income, are you more likely read with your child? Does the parent or caregiver feel less stressed in the home? Those kinds of things don’t get picked up when looking at child maltreatment, because maltreatment is at the extreme end. These answers can inform other public policies about how we move forward: Is an incremental increase in someone’s income the way to go? Is giving them a lump sum the way to go? We’re really excited about these next steps, and I look forward to letting you know what we find.
In the current environment, with budget issues in most states, what do you think this could mean in the overall effect on state budgets and services, even noting that we have raised the minimum wage in Connecticut?
It could certainly have an immediate, positive effect on the state budget. A referral to the Department of Children and Families kicks in a whole array of services that are costly, extensive, ongoing, and necessary. Other sectors like schools and healthcare also have higher costs if kids are maltreated. This is really an investment in families that has immediate and long-term returns; it’s something we would want to look at. Most of the states don’t have a minimum wage at or above $10; Connecticut does. It’s possible Connecticut may be at the threshold. It’s also really important to note that, while our study looks at the minimum wage, this could really be an income story ”“ remember other studies find similar results when incomes are increased in other ways. Our very low-income families might be facing other reductions in their incomes that will be costly to us as a state. We should consider that, moving forward.
You don’t have to spend hours at the gym or work up a dripping sweat to improve your mood and feel better about yourself, researchers at the University of Connecticut and Hartford Hospital say in a new study.
If you lead a sedentary lifestyle ”“ spending large parts of your day sitting at home or at work ”“ simply getting out of your chair and moving around can reduce depression and lift your spirits.
“We hope this research helps people realize the important public health message that simply going from doing no physical activity to performing some physical activity can improve their subjective well-being,” says Gregory Panza, the study’s lead author. Panza is an exercise physiologist at Hartford Hospital and a doctoral candidate in UConn’s Department of Kinesiology.
“What is even more promising for the physically inactive person is that you do not need to exercise vigorously to see these improvements,” Panza continues. “Instead, our results indicate you will get the best ”˜bang for your buck’ with light- or moderate-intensity physical activity.”
For those keeping score, light physical activity is the equivalent of taking a leisurely walk around the mall with no noticeable increase in breathing, heart rate, or sweating, says Linda Pescatello, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Kinesiology and senior researcher on the project. Moderate-intensity activity is equivalent to walking a 15- to 20-minute mile with an increase in breathing, heart rate, and sweating, yet still being able to carry on a conversation. Vigorous activity is equivalent to a very brisk walk or jogging a 13-minute mile with a very noticeable increase in breathing, heart rate, and sweating to the point of being unable to maintain a conversation.
The study looked at 419 generally healthy middle-aged adults who wore accelerometers on their hips to track physical activity over four days. Participants also completed a series of questionnaires asking them to describe their daily exercise habits, psychological well-being, depression level, pain severity, and extent to which pain interfered with their daily activities.
Here’s what the researchers learned:
The last finding is actually good news for folks who enjoy hard, calorie-burning workouts, as it doesn’t support a widely reported recent study that found high-intensity workouts significantly lowered some people’s sense of well-being.
“Recent studies had suggested a slightly unsettling link between vigorous activity and subjective well-being,” says Beth Taylor, associate professor of kinesiology and another member of the research team. “We did not find this in the current study, which is reassuring to individuals who enjoy vigorous activity and may be worried about negative effects.”
Many previous studies have attempted to identify the best exercise regimen to improve people’s sense of well-being. Yet no clear consensus has emerged. Some studies say moderate or vigorous activity is best. Others say low-intensity exercise is better. The differences, the UConn researchers say, may be due to the way the studies were designed and possible limitations in how people’s well-being and levels of physical activity were measured.
The UConn study is believed to be the first of its kind to use both objective (accelerometers) and subjective (questionnaires) measurements within a single group to examine the relationship between the intensity of physical activity and perceptions of well-being.
Yet the UConn research also has its limits, Panza says.
All of the individuals who participated in the UConn study had a generally positive sense of well-being going into the project and were generally physically active. So their answers in the questionnaires need to be framed in that context. Whether the same results would hold true for people with lower subjective well-being or lower levels of physical activity is unknown, Panza says. Also, the conclusions formed in the UConn study are based on information gathered at a single point in time. A longitudinal study that tracks people’s feelings and physical activity over time would go a long way toward helping determine what exercise regimen might be best for different populations, Panza says.
Adds Taylor: “If it doesn’t make us feel good, we don’t want to do it. Establishing the link between different types, doses, and intensities of physical activity on well-being is a very important step in encouraging more people to exercise.”
The study was published in the Journal of Health Psychology in February. Joining on the study were Dr. Paul Thompson, director of cardiology at Hartford Hospital and a professor of medicine at UConn Health, and Professor C. Michael White, head of the Department of Pharmacy Practice at UConn. ””colin poitras ’85 (CLAS)
In 1946, students and alums spent Alumni Day lounging in the sun on the hills and bleachers surrounding the UConn baseball diamond to root on their team. Today, Huskies Forever Weekend is the closest event UConn has to this old tradition. While the Homecoming football game still brings students old and new together for a day in the sun, this Husky Pride celebration is now a three-day event. Over the years, alumni have come from as far as Hawaii and Israel to reconnect with old roommates over Then and Now tours around campus and wine and beer tastings from alum-owned vineyards and breweries. There are events centered around 40th and 50th reunion celebrations, but also a number of happenings, such as a 5K race, that invite all alums to join the fun. ””Emma Casagrande ’18 (CLAS)
University of Connecticut Archives
Maggie Quackenbush ’17 (BUS) jumped at the offer of a job at Sony Music as an opportunity to leverage her degree in management information systems. And if the members of her favorite bands, Aerosmith or AC/DC, happen to walk through the doors of the Manhattan record company, that will be a bonus.
“I’m very excited to be joining Sony Music,” says Quackenbush. “I enjoy constantly learning new things, and I think that’s what is great about the music business. There are always new genres, new artists, and new ways of producing music.”
Sony Music, the world’s third-largest “record” company, just launched a two-year rotational program for recent graduates interested in information systems and technology, and Quackenbush is one of the first two accepted. She expects to be working in the Manhattan and New Jersey offices for 18 months, before spending six months abroad, most likely in Munich. ””claire hall
Photo courtesy of Maggie Quackenbush
“It showed the animals do have a voice.”
“If these rankings can get more kids home for dinner instead of to a hospital or morgue, then we have succeeded.”
“Electric light is one of the signature inventions of an inventive species. But its overuse has caused an obliteration of night in much of the modern world. The loss of night has consequences for all forms of life, including us. And the mounting evidence for a connection to breast cancer is alarming.”
“These Civil War monuments are not historical artifacts. They were primarily erected during the Jim Crow era to reestablish the historical social order in the face of Blacks attempting to gain equal rights.”
“Virtually no studies have shown benefits of sport drinks or carbohydrate-containing beverages unless you’re exercising continuously for more than 50 or 60 minutes.”
“The philosophy that emanated from the U.S. was that we needed to separate people and machines, which gives priority to vehicles and makes the environment less friendly for people.”
“I think it’s true of Connecticut that we have not always cared for our cities. Those days are over.”
“The campus is going to connect parts of Hartford that have been disconnected for many years, and I think it’s a critical piece of the puzzle to making our city the vibrant, active downtown that we all want it to be.”
At convocation, freshmen wore shirts with “#oneuconn” on the front and on the back this Nelson Mandela quote: No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Peter Morenus
Jack Templeton ’18 (CLAS)
Days before students returned to campus for the fall semester, community members flooded Horsebarn Hill and the area around the Dairy Bar to watch the solar eclipse on Aug. 21. Physics professors shared four high-powered solar telescopes, handed out safety glasses, led workshops where kids crafted cardboard box pinhole viewers, and shared knowledge in traditional lecture formats as well as with live to-scale demonstrations with local kids playing the parts of the planets.
Peter Morenus
Missed the Eclispe?
View it through the eyes of NASA
Yesenia Carrero
On Aug. 21, a solar eclipse was visible throughout North America for the first time in 38 years. UConn astronomer Cynthia Peterson explains how it happens.
August 14, 2017
A Total Eclipse of the Heart (of America)
A spectacular and likely unforgettable show will take place in the sky Aug. 21.
“Have you ever seen a total solar eclipse?” asks Cynthia Peterson, professor emerita of physics. “It’s a really, really exciting event!”
The reason she and so many others are excited for this event has a lot to do with its rarity. The last time a total solar eclipse was visible from the mainland United States was 38 years ago, in February 1979.
Very specific conditions have to be met to create an eclipse that can be viewed from Earth. The Earth and the moon must align perfectly with the sun as they speed through space, an amazing coincidence. To fully understand how this happens, Peterson says, it’s helpful to know some basic astronomy.
The Earth moves in space around the sun, completing a full orbit once every 365.25 days, she explains. As the Earth and other members of our solar system travel around the sun, they continue in essentially the same plane, on a path called the ecliptic. Some celestial bodies, such as our moon, deviate from the ecliptic slightly.
The orbit of the moon is inclined on the ecliptic plane at an inclination of 5 degrees. As the moon deviates 5 degrees above or below the ecliptic plane, it will cross the plane at points called nodes.
“That is the first essential piece of the eclipse puzzle,” says Peterson. “The moon must be at a node for an eclipse to occur. Otherwise, the moon will not align and no eclipse will be seen from Earth.”
The moon’s position in the lunar cycle is another vital eclipse component. As the Earth travels in its orbit, the moon tags along, keeping its gaze locked on Earth, always facing from the same side as it completes its own orbit around Earth once every 29.5 days. Over the course of a month, the moon’s appearance changes, from crescent to full to crescent again and finally to what appears to be its absence, when it’s called a new moon. A new moon is the other requirement for a solar eclipse.
“The basic rule for a solar eclipse is to have a new moon at a node,” Peterson points out.
But during an eclipse, how can our moon, which is relatively small, appear almost as big as the sun, which is pretty gigantic?
Peterson explains, “The sun is 400 times bigger than the moon and the sun is also 400 times farther away from the moon, so the moon appears to fit exactly during an eclipse, when they are both the same angular size.”
Holding up her fist, she demonstrates: “Find a large object ahead of you and pretend it is the sun and your fist is the moon. If you hold up your fist and look with one eye, you can’t see the object/sun.”
These are the conditions for a total solar eclipse like the one coming up. “Solar eclipses happen when the new moon obstructs the sun and the moon’s shadow falls on the earth, creating a total solar eclipse.” Peterson moves her fist slightly away from herself until the edges of the object can be seen around it. “Or, when the moon covers the Sun’s center and creates a ”˜ring of fire’ around the moon, it’s what’s called an annular eclipse.”
Yesenia Carrero
A total solar eclipse is only visible from Earth when the moon is new and at a node, meaning the sun and Earth are aligned with the moon in the middle. If the moon is above or below node, no shadow will be cast on Earth and no eclipse will be seen from Earth.
It’s those bits of the sun peeking out from behind the moon ”“ in both partial and total eclipses ”“ that everyone needs to be careful of. It’s extremely important to view the eclipse safely, Peterson stresses. “The problem with the eclipse is that every time it happens, some people are blinded [from looking at it unprotected]. The shadow goes whipping by at 1,000 miles per hour, and you never want to stare at the sun, even a sliver of it.”
So be prepared, and ensure you wear proper solar eclipse eye protection. Regular sunglasses will not help. Solar eclipse glasses can be used, welder’s goggles, or telescopes with proper lenses. Be sure the eye protection you choose is certified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Other popular viewing methods are DIY viewing boxes like these.
Peterson, like many others who wish to get the full eclipse experience, will be traveling to an area directly in the path of the eclipse’s shadow. These areas are called totality. The Aug. 21 eclipse will cover an expansive area of totality that will include 14 states and 14 major U.S. cities, stretching from Lincoln Beach, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. For a map of the path of totality, go to the NASA website. Connecticut is unfortunately hours of travel from the nearest totality. Peterson will go as far as Nebraska for the experience.
“You’ll only see a partial eclipse here in Connecticut,” she says. “It will get a little darker, like a cloud covering part of the sun, and then brighten up again.”
She encourages those who can to try to travel to a viewing point for the total eclipse, where they may see “amazing phenomena” like the diamond ring, shadowbands, crescent-shaped solar images under trees (instead of the usual ”˜coins’ which are pinhole images of the sun), and extremely sharp shadows in the final minute before totality, due to the very narrow sun at that time. “These phenomena can only be seen in totality,” she says.
The next chance to see a total solar eclipse will be in 2024, when its shadow will be cast closer to Connecticut. It will start in the U.S. in Texas, then make its way north, through northern Vermont and New Hampshire.
“That’s less than seven years from now,” Peterson points out, “but that’s the end of eclipses crossing the U.S. until the 2050s.”
For those on campus next week, you aren’t out of luck. For this eclipse there will be a viewing party on Horsebarn Hill behind the Dairy Bar, from 1 to 4 p.m., hosted by the Department of Physics. “We’ll have solar telescopes, a pinhole camera activity, and will do some short mini-lectures on astronomy at UConn and about how eclipses work,” says assistant professor of physics Jonathan Trump, one of the faculty members who will lead the viewing party.
Peterson, longtime astronomer and scientist, says witnessing an eclipse ”“ especially a total eclipse ”“  can be extremely emotional. She suggests reading Annie Dillard’s essay about solar eclipses, where the author compares the contrast between viewing a partial eclipse and viewing a total eclipse to the difference between flying in an airplane versus falling out of the airplane. “Those are very different experiences.”
But wherever you are on the afternoon of Aug. 21, Peterson says, stop and enjoy the show: “Good luck and clear skies!” ”“ Elaina Hancock ’09 MS
Much of this issue’s mail either lauded the UConn Health doctor seeking a cure for the rare GSD disease or lambasted us for the headline “In Russia, you simply couldn’t be a writer if you were Jewish.” The fact that the headline was in quotes did not make it clear to all that it was Litman’s personal point of view. See her response below, along with a sampling of the letters we received on many subjects.
Have something to tell us? We’d love to hear it! Email the editor at lisa.stiepock@uconn.edu or post something on our website.
Thank you for this article and Gayle ”” if you read this, thank you for persevering and getting Dr. Weinstein to Connecticut. My son is 6 and has GSD 1a, and this gives me so much hope that there will be a cure by the time he is a teenager.
Tara Marchetti
Deptford, New Jersey
Thank you for this great article. We have a grandson who is 1 year old and has GSD 1a. We would love to see him get in to see Dr. Weinstein at UConn; he is on a waiting list now. What can we do on the West Coast to help with the cause?
Robert Ford
Editor’s Note:Â To inquire about seeing Dr. Weinstein, call his program coordinator: Traci Resler at 860-837-7800; to donate to the cause, visit www.GlobalCenterForGSD.com or www.AlyssasAngelFund.org.
That is so biased and so not true! No one cares if you are Jewish in Russia. Actually, it is quite the opposite. There were and are so many accomplished Jewish scientists and artists in USSR and now Russia. I don’t agree with the points made on migration and the discrimination of Jewish people. No one has his/her nationality stamped into their passport.
Kirill Karpenko ’19 MBA
Hartford, Connecticut
Associate Professor of English Ellen Litman replies: Â It seems that the comments are about life/conditions in the present-day Russia, whereas my experience dates back to the eighties and early nineties. In those days, one’s nationality was absolutely recorded in one’s passport. I am glad to hear that this is no longer the practice now. On the point about discrimination of Jews, once again, I’d like to believe that the commenter is referring to the present-day conditions and that the discrimination my generation experienced is a thing of the past. While he is correct that there are and have been prominent Jewish writers, artists, and scientists, the path was by no means clear or obvious, at least in my experience.
I would like to suggest one of the books mentioned to my book group. Are they available at Barnes & Noble in Storrs or through Amazon?
Kathy Pepin (SFA)
Springfield, Massachusetts
Editor’s Note:  Litman’s books are in the Storrs Center Barnes & Noble, on BarnesandNoble.com, and on Amazon.
I read the article on “UConn Nation Gives Back” and want to be involved next year.
Rick Leino ’64 (CLAS)
Fairfax, Virginia
Congratulations to a wonderful, talented athlete and an unparalleled role model. A well-deserved honor!
David Bostic ’83 (CAHNR)
Granby, Connecticut
Great article. I hope that the author took proper care to ensure that Gibrael or his family could not be targeted from the information in this article. It was probably unnecessary to insinuate that Gibrael was doing anything other than his duty as far as his relationship with U.S. forces.
Joel Angle ’09 (CLAS)
Washington, D.C. area
U.S. Marine Lt.-Col. (ret.)Â
Michael Zacchea replies: Â The reason we included Gibrael’s picture is he was killed in combat in November 2004 on the way to Fallujah. We remain in contact with several of the other Iraqis featured and have taken great care to hide their identities.
Peter Morenus is the magazine’s photographer. But that job title doesn’t even begin to cover his secret-weapon status here. He seems to know everyone on campus, on all campuses in fact, and can tell us exactly where anything is and what it will look like before we get there. I guess that’s not surprising since he’s been University photographer for 22 years and counting, through at least four iterations of this magazine.
Sean Flynn
He’s also the soul of the place, always ready with an anecdote or a backstory that makes our work more exciting and more meaningful. We joke that “he knows where all the bodies are buried.” But, it turns out, he does not. Or did not until we sent him on assignment to the Storrs Cemetery this issue, tasked with taking a landscape shot for the Birds of Storrs piece that begins on page 34.
He went at the end of the day “when the light would be shining on the trees on the east side of the cemetery,” he told me. “I meant to start at the top and walk down looking for the right view to show bird environment.” But he quickly became distracted by the cemetery environment, starting with the Storrs family obelisk at the very top. Seeing the names “Charles” and “Augustus,” he says made him giggle a little when “Chuck and Augie” popped into his head. Then he noticed the “Augustus Brundage” stone. “The pool at the Field House is named in honor of two of his sons who were killed during WWII,” recounts Pete. “And then I saw ”˜Waugh’ like the sundial and right near ”˜Waugh’ is ”˜Gentry,’ the name of the building next to the Waugh sundial. There was Carolyn Ladd Widmer, the first dean of nursing who we just named a new nursing wing after. A few steps away is George Safford Torrey who the Life Sciences building is named after. And photographer Jerauld Manter, in many ways my predecessor. By this point I’m regretting calling the founders by nicknames they surely never were called. I realize I’m walking through the history of the university.”
As he moved downhill he found more recent stones, including “latter-day heroes” he’d photographed, like soccer coach Joe Morrone, engineering professor Marty Fox, and political science professor Howard Reiter.
“There was John Tanaka, professor of chemistry. I met his son, Peter, then a UConn police officer, on my first day of work while lost near the Gentry Building. And cloning pioneer Xiangzhong (Jerry) Yang ”” I’m here at UConn because of him.”
That story is too convoluted to relay here, but I guarantee Pete will be happy to share it if you see him around campus (he’s the one with the UConn cap and the cameras). Returning to the office from this assignment, he reminded me of the spiritual role he plays here when he talked about his walk downhill and admitted to being “misty-eyed” by the end. “I was just very much in awe to think a lot of these people are there not because of any church or religion, but because of their affinity to this place. It made me feel like I was part of something,” Pete said, then added: “I also felt like I’d been here a long time. But I’m not done yet. I still have a lot of pictures to take!”
