Alma Mater

Usually, Marlborough School for girls reaches to the outside for its graduation speakers. But it has one of its own graduates at commencement exercises June 5. Donna Frame Tuttle, Class of 1965, and the undersecretary of commerce for travel and tourism, will address the white-gowned group of 86. It's Marlborough's 97th graduation. The speaker's husband, Robert H.

When Jack McDowell was a pitching standout at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame in the early 1980s, umpires frequently found themselves receiving an earful from a teenager unafraid to express his feelings, because he hated to lose. He didn't change much at Stanford or in the major leagues, where he won the American League Cy Young Award in 1993 with the Chicago White Sox. At 46 and in his second year as head coach at San Dieguito Academy in Encinitas, McDowell jokes, "That's my biggest accomplishment with umpires -- staying in games.

Somerville College, the alma mater of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the late Indian leader Indira Gandhi, is going coed. The school, one of Oxford University's two remaining women's colleges, said Tuesday it plans to begin hiring male professors toward the end of this year and admit men as students beginning in 1993.

Troy Aikman's season as Fox's lead NFL analyst closed Jan. 22 with the NFC championship game won by the New York Giants over the San Francisco 49ers in overtime. Aikman, 45, has effectively taken over John Madden's spot on the football broadcast scene, dropping the coach's sound effects and inserting smart, concise insight based on his dozen years in the league and three Super Bowl titles as a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys who pored over game plans and had unique access to owner Jerry Jones' personnel decision making.

Pomona College's much-debated alma mater, "Hail, Pomona, Hail," has been restored as the school's official song -- with restrictions. In April, the college suspended the singing of it at graduation and other official events after concerns were raised about its history. The song does not contain any racist language although its lyrics apparently were written for a 1910 blackface minstrel show that was a baseball team fundraiser. A committee of faculty, alumni and students called for it to be replaced by a new school hymn.

When Laura Lenhardt Wright recently came across her high school diploma, she saw that it had been signed by her father, a member of the district's board of education. That was a fact she had forgotten, but not surprisingly--it was more than 70 years ago. Wright will be just a few days shy of her 91st birthday when she returns to her hometown next week as the last living member of the Class of 1923, Garden Grove High School's first graduating class.

Citing the importance of education in helping rejuvenate American industry, Los Angeles businessman Eli Broad on Tuesday donated $20 million to Michigan State University's business school. Broad, a 1954 MSU business graduate, said he made the donation to his alma mater because of its location in the heart of industrial America and the Midwestern work ethic reflected in its heritage and philosophy. The donation is believed to be one of the largest gifts to a public university business school.

Just talking to Linda Brown is an exercise in exhaustion. The 22-year-old works three jobs, attends classes at two colleges, and in her spare time works out by bicycling up the coast between Ventura and Santa Barbara. And, as if that weren't enough of a challenge, next week the Ventura College graduate plans to embark on a 3,700-mile cycling trip across the United States to raise money for a scholarship program at her alma mater.

Bill Clinton of Hope, Ark., seemed right at home Wednesday as he paid a visit to his historic alma mater. Not quite an old grad, the President departed Oxford University in 1970 without earning his degree in politics. But he returned to don a scarlet gown and receive an honorary doctor of civil law degree, amid pageantry laden with Latin. The President called it a "wonderful day."

Just before school let out for the summer, I paid a visit to my alma mater, Ventura High School. This time I was there as a reporter instead of as a chronic underachiever. "Could do better" had been the story of my high school career. As I stepped onto the campus and looked toward the old "senior lawn," where no one but us seniors was allowed to sit in 1961, my throat thickened with emotion.

At a packed political forum at Morehouse College — Atlanta's storied and historically black school for men — a moderator posed a question that cut to the sensitive heart of things on a campus that has produced Martin Luther King Jr. (Class of '48) and current GOP darling Herman Cain (Class of '67). The question: "Does Cain represent the modern Renaissance man of Morehouse?" A charged murmur rippled through a crowd of about 100 undergraduates. Traditional African American notions of social justice are part of the very DNA of Morehouse, founded in 1867 to educate recently freed slaves.

To the cognoscenti, Edward H. Fickett was the award-winning architect behind the Port of Los Angeles, La Costa Resort & Spa, Edwards Air Force Base and tens of thousands of airy, affordable tract homes throughout Southern California. To Better Homes & Gardens, he was the " Frank Lloyd Wright of the '50s" -- a visionary who designed mansions for the likes of Joan Crawford and Groucho Marx, and more modest accommodations for regular folks. But to Joycie Fickett, he was simply Eddie, the handsome, life-of-the-party husband who greeted her each morning with an original love song and breakfast in bed. "We laughed every day of our lives together," she said.

Tennessee introduced Dave Hart as its new vice chancellor and athletic director Monday night. Hart has worked since August 2008 at his alma mater, Alabama, one of the Volunteers' top rival programs, where he served as executive director of athletics assisting Athletic Director Mal Moore . Previously he spent 12 years as Florida State's athletic director. Under a memorandum of understanding, Tennessee will pay Hart a base salary of $575,000 in his first year of a six-year contract and he might qualify for a 3% increase of his base salary with each passing year.

Robert and Adrienne Westerbeck were mainstays in their Pasadena neighborhood. Bob was a Pasadena City College graduate and retired engineer whose friends called him Dr. Doolittle because of his affinity for animals. Addie, who earned three degrees from USC, was a music teacher who would leave the front door open so neighbors could enjoy her playing the piano. They were an active couple who lived modestly in their El Encanto Drive home for more than 50 years, until Bob passed away at 89 in 2006 and Addie at 103 last year.

Purdue's sales pitch to Matt Painter was good enough. After talking with Missouri about its basketball coaching vacancy, Painter decided to stay at his alma mater Wednesday and has agreed to an eight-year contract through the 2018-19 season. Purdue officials spoke with Painter by telephone Monday, then he met with Missouri officials Tuesday while on vacation in Florida. The Tigers are hoping to fill a vacancy left open when Mike Anderson left for Arkansas after a similar public bidding battle just a week ago. Painter, 40, has been selected the Big Ten Conference's coach of the year three times and led the Boilermakers to Sweet 16 appearances in 2009 and 2010.

Alfonso B. Perez, a veteran administrator who helped shape special education programs in the Los Angeles Unified School District and as principal guided his alma mater, Roosevelt High, during a tense period of Chicano protest, died July 2 at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla. He was 91. The cause was a heart attack, said his grandson, Paul Aguirre. Perez joined the district as a teacher for disabled students in 1947, when few resources were available in public schools for students with physical and mental impairments.

Dereck Whittenburg has resigned as an assistant basketball coach of the Cal State Long Beach men's basketball team to return to his alma mater. Whittenburg, who was a star player at North Carolina State in the early 1980s, will become an assistant under N.C. State's head coach and athletic director, Jim Valvano. He came to Long Beach when Joe Harrington was hired as head basketball coach last spring.

Sylvia Thayer, 81, who with her late husband, financier James Thayer, was a longtime benefactor of UCLA, died Friday of cancer at her home in Beverly Hills, her son Scott Thayer said. Thayer and her husband created the James and Sylvia Thayer Endowed Fellowship for Special Collections at UCLA's library and endowed several academic and athletic scholarships at the school, the couple's alma mater.

Al Reser Donor aided Oregon State Al Reser, 74, a food company executive and Oregon State University benefactor whose name is on the school's football stadium, died Monday in his sleep at his vacation home in Sarasota, Fla., said a spokeswoman for Reser's Fine Foods. He helped to turn a family potato salad recipe into a food empire and gave millions to the school, his alma mater. Among the Resers' donations were $10.65 million to help build the Linus Pauling Science Center and more than $15 million to athletics.