Indiana Alumni Magazine
Making a Difference: Count to 30
How has IU changed the world in which we live? Let's begin to count the ways.
By Ryan Whirty
It's hard to quantify Indiana University's impact on the state, the nation, and the world. And the impact that really counts may well be a professor's influence on the life and work of a single student. Still, lists are fun if you don't take them too seriously. We offer the following sampler, which is by no means comprehensive or exhaustive. We hope these items will stimulate your own reflections on ways that IU has made a difference.
1. CRACKING THE GENETIC CODE
James Dewey Watson, PhD'50, loved ornithology. He enjoyed bird-watching as a kid, and he served as an associate instructor for an ornithology class while a graduate student at IU. That interest eventually developed into an insatiable curiosity about genetics. After graduating from IU, Watson teamed with fellow researcher Francis Crick, and in 1953 the pair revolutionized the study of genetics when they proposed the now-familiar double-helix model of DNA. For his work, Watson shared the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1962. Turns out his life's work was anything but for the birds.
2. HELLO CREST, GOODBYE CAVITIES
Cavities never had a chance. When IU faculty members Harry Day, William Nebergall, and Joseph Muhler, BS'47, DDS'48, realized that stannous fluoride protected against tooth decay, the teeth of the average American became a whole lot safer. With funding from Procter & Gamble, the trio conducted studies on 1,200 Bloomington schoolchildren. The result? In 1956 the company unveiled its new, cavity-fighting Crest toothpaste, featuring the famous ad slogan, "Look, Mom! No cavities!" Royalties from the product helped establish the Oral Health Research Institute at the School of Dentistry in Indianapolis. Contrary to urban legend (see No. 22), royalties did not fund construction of Ballantine Hall.
3. CINDERS, CINEMA, AND SCHOLARSHIPS
It's 200 laps on an unforgiving cinder track that will give you the worst raspberries of your life. It's been called the "World's Greatest College Weekend," two days of annual madness that descends on the Bloomington campus like a tempest. It's been the subject of the Academy Award-winning movie "Breaking Away" and has been broadcast for several years on national TV. But aside from the top-notch cycling, the 53-year-old Little 500 has another purpose: to raise money for the IU Student Foundation's scholarship fund. The event garners more than $50,000 annually for IU students.
4. THE BIRDS, THE BEES, THE BUZZ OF CONTROVERSY
For 56 years the Kinsey Institute for Sex, Gender, and Reproduction has delved into topics that make some people blush. Alfred Kinsey and his staff conducted in-depth interviews with more than 18,000 people, gleaning a multitude of fresh new insights into human sexuality. The facility's publication of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female (1953) drew lots of acclaim — and just as much controversy. Since then, the institute has remained an important research center. Various activities this year mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of the Female volume.
5. BRINGING THE WAR HOME
On April 18, 1945, Ernie Pyle, LHD'44, was killed by Japanese machine-gun fire on the Pacific island of Ie Shima. Americans mourned the death of the beloved journalist and war correspondent who, through his columns, had brought World War II home to readers by writing about the daily struggles and sacrifices of the average GI. Pyle, who studied journalism at IUB, earned a Pulitzer Prize for his efforts in 1944. Few journalists have had his emotional and literary impact. IUB's School of Journalism is housed in Ernie Pyle Hall.
6. INTEGRATING THE WORLD OF SPORTS
Preston Eagleson integrated sports at IU by playing football during the 1893, 1894, and 1895 seasons. He was also the first African American to receive a master's degree at IU. Two other athletes stood at the forefront of social change. In 1948, one year after Jackie Robinson broke the baseball color barrier, IU forward Bill Garrett, BS'51, became the first African American to play Big Ten basketball. A year later, the Chicago Bears picked IU All-American tailback George Taliaferro, BS'51, in the National Football League draft, making him the first African American to be drafted by the NFL. Taliaferro made history again when, after signing with the Los Angeles Dons of the All-America Football Conference, he became the first African American to play quarterback in pro football.
7. GIVING HOPE TO CANCER PATIENTS
In 1974 Dr. Lawrence Einhorn, BA'65, developed a course of chemotherapy against testicular cancer that increased the rate of recovery from about 50 percent to more than 90 percent. Cyclist Lance Armstrong has won the Tour de France four times (and counting) after being successfully treated by Dr. Einhorn. A world-renowned cancer authority and a Distinguished Professor in the IU School of Medicine, Einhorn was elected to the National Academy of Sciences last May and is a past president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Other researchers at the IU School of Medicine and School of Nursing join in the search for more effective treatments for cancer.
8. MEN OF SCIENCE
In the 1940s and 1950s, IU was bursting with influential and learned scientists. Hermann J. Muller joined the IU faculty in 1945 and won a Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology in 1946. During the 1920s, Muller had shown that X-rays produced gene mutations and chromosome changes, and at IU he continued to work on radiation-induced mutations. Muller's colleagues at Indiana included other distinguished geneticists, Tracy Sonneborn, Ralph Cleland, and S.E. Luria among them. Nuclear physics progressed rapidly under the leadership of Allan C.G. Mitchell, Emil Konopinski, and Lawrence Langer. Felix Haurowitz joined the chemistry faculty in 1948 and won renown for his study of blood proteins.
9. HOOSIERS IN THE BELTWAY
IU has long produced politicians who have been influential on the national level. Dan Quayle, JD'74, served as vice president from 1989 to 1993 and briefly ran for president in 2000. Wendell Willkie, BA'13, LLB'16, LLD'38, ran for president in 1940. Three-term U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh, JD'60, LHD'95, made a short run at the White House in 1976. (Bayh is the father of Evan Bayh, BS'78, LLD'96, former Indiana governor and current U.S. senator. Birch Bayh lost the 1980 senatorial race to Quayle.) Governor of Indiana from 1933 to 1937, former IU law professor Paul V. McNutt, BA'13, served as head of the War Manpower Commission during World War II and as high commissioner to the Philippines before and after the war. Indiana governor from 1973 to 1981, Otis Bowen, BA'39, MD'42, LLD'76, went on to become secretary of health and human services.
10. GAPS IN THE HEAVENS
Today the word "gap" may be best known as the name of a clothing store. But nearly 140 years ago, IU mathematics professor Daniel Kirkwood discovered gaps in space. In 1866 Kirkwood announced that gaps exist in the distances of asteroids to the sun. Jupiter's gravitational forces, he said, nudge asteroids from the gaps to adjacent orbits around the sun. Modern astronomers still refer to these phenomena as Kirkwood gaps. Kirkwood ended up writing 129 publications, including three books. IUB's Kirkwood Hall and Kirkwood Observatory are named for him, as is Bloomington's Kirkwood Avenue.
11. GIVING EMERGENCIES A NUMBER
In the mid-to-late 1960s, the concept of a single emergency phone number was still nascent as Beltway bureaucrats tossed the idea around. It took the vision and effort of former U.S. Rep. J. Edward Roush, LLB'49, to make that idea a reality. Roush attended meetings, spoke with police and fire officials, lobbied federal agencies, negotiated with companies, and sponsored legislation in an effort to create that single number. In 1968, his efforts paid off when AT&T unveiled its national 911 system. Roush's hometown of Huntington, Ind., was the first municipality to receive service.
12. THE BACKBONE OF FUTURE RESEARCH
As the Internet grew more and more crowded, many experts believed a more advanced information network was needed to continue enhancing research and education across the country. The result? Internet2 is a joint project involving government, business, and higher education. In 1999, Indiana University's IUPUI campus became home to Abilene, Internet2's network operations center. When the facility was unveiled, then President Myles Brand noted that Abilene is "another example of the university's outstanding expertise in information technology and its growing reputation as a leader in this field."
13. ONE LESS LAWYER, ONE MORE LEGEND
After graduating from IU with a law degree, Hoagy Carmichael, LLB'26, DM(Hon)'72, set up shop as a lawyer in Florida. Fortunately, his legal career didn't last long. By 1927, the Bloomington native was back in his hometown, with music on his mind. That year he wrote "Stardust," perhaps the greatest tune in American songwriting history. Carmichael went on to pen dozens of other songs, including "Georgia on My Mind," "Heart and Soul," "Rockin' Chair," and "In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening," for which he shared a 1951 Academy Award.
14. A MAN FOR THE AGES
Neither Indiana University nor the entire field of higher education will ever again see the likes of Herman B Wells, who almost single-handedly transformed IU from a small state college to a world-renowned institution of research and higher education. Wells, BS'24, MA'27, LLD'62, championed the arts, the United Nations, civil rights, and academic freedom, including "fearless inquiry." "But," said former IU President Myles Brand after Wells' death in March 2000, "what was particularly important to me was that Chancellor Wells was not just a figure in the history books. Even at age 97, he seemed to be everywhere on campus."
15. REVOLUTIONIZING HEALTH CARE
By the middle of 2000, the Human Genome Project had finished mapping the human genetic code. The next step was unraveling an understanding of the code's meaning. That work is going on as the Indiana Genomics Initiative, or INGEN, the largest research project ever undertaken by Indiana University. Funded initially by a $105 million grant from the Lilly Endowment, INGEN uses the existing strengths of the IU School of Medicine and the IU Office of Information Technology to create programs in research, education, and bioethics. INGEN leaders hope the project will revolutionize modern health care by unlocking the key to human diseases.
16. STAYING POWER
In college sports, reaching the top is tough, and staying there is even harder. But since the 1920s, such IU coaches as Billy Hayes, Bo McMillin, Everett Dean, Billy Thom, and Branch McCracken have managed to do just that. During Jerry Yeagley's 40 years at the helm, men's soccer has won five NCAA championships, earned 15 Final Four berths, and posted an overall winning percentage of .823. Yeagley says next season will be his last. In 29 seasons Bob Knight guided men's basketball to three national titles and a winning percentage of .734. And swimming coach James "Doc" Counsilman and diving coach Hobie Billingsley combined to guide their squads to six straight NCAA titles and 20 straight Big Ten crowns.
17. TAKING PICTURES, MAKING HISTORY
In 1957 Will Counts, MS'54, EdD'67, was a young photographer for the Arkansas Democrat when he took one of the most famous pictures of the civil rights movement. While covering the chaotic integration of Little Rock Central High School, Counts captured white teen-ager Hazel Bryan screaming at stoic Elizabeth Eckford, one of nine African American students chosen to desegregate the school. The Associated Press chose the photo as one of the 100 best photos of the 20th century. According to the Journalism School's Newswire, Counts went on to teach six future Pulitzer Prize-winners, including two-time photography winner Michel duCille, BA'85.
18. A COMPUTER INDUSTRY MAVERICK
Mark Cuban, BS'81, is known for two things: big words and even bigger ideas. Although in recent years he has gained fame as the flamboyant, outspoken owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, Cuban's biggest achievements have come in the world of computing. The multibillionaire founded and nurtured two companies, MicroSolutions and broadcast.com, into money-making bonanzas. The impact of broadcast.com is especially crucial to cyberindustry. With it, Cuban and fellow IU alumnus Todd Wagner, BS'83, pioneered the development of live video and audio streams over the Internet. Their motivation? They wanted to watch IU basketball games live.
19. INDUSTRY MOGULS
In 1999, IU's highly ranked Kelley School of Business was named for E.W. Kelley, BS'39, who's considered the modern-day founder of Steak 'n' Shake. Three years Kelley's senior, the late William Greenough, BA'35, LLD'66, studied economics at IU. In 1952 Greenough developed the College Retirement Equities Fund, the world's first-ever variable annuity. Greenough headed TIAA/CREF from 1957 to 1979. Among other IU graduates who have gone on to achieve success in business are Harold "Red" Poling, MBA'51, LLD'90, former CEO of Ford Motor Co.; Frank Popoff, BA/MBA'59, ScD'88, former CEO of Dow Chemical; and Paul O'Neill, MPA'66, chairman and CEO of Alcoa for 12 years.
20. THE INVENTOR OF VOICE MAIL
Scott Jones started out as a pre-med major. But when he took a computer science class, Jones, BS'84, ScD'02, changed directions and took up a career in technology. That decision also changed modern communication. After founding Boston Technology in 1986, Jones received eight patents for voice mail technologies that are currently used by more than a half-billion people worldwide, spurring some observers to call him the "inventor of voice mail" (although a few other entrepreneurs also claim that title). Jones is now co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Escient Technologies, based in Carmel, Ind.
21. SETTING A GOLD STANDARD
Before the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, Mark Spitz, '72, predicted he would win six gold medals. So when he won only two golds, a silver, and a bronze, he was disappointed. Over the next four years, Spitz trained in Bloomington as part of James "Doc" Counsilman's IU swimming dynasty in preparation for the 1972 Games in Munich. That time around, Spitz earned seven gold medals — four individual, three relay — and set or helped set world records in each event. It remains the single greatest performance in the history of the Summer Olympics.
22. PASSING DOWN TRADITION
The definition is fairly simple. "As a form of communication, folklore is created when people interact with one another," reads the Web site for the IUB Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. But the study of folklore is actually wonderfully complex and dazzlingly diverse. From professors Stith Thompson and Richard Dorson, who co-founded the ground-breaking Folklore Institute in 1962, to renowned urban-legend expert Jan Harold Brunvand, PhD'61, IU has led the way in the field. In 1953, IU became the first university in the country to award a Ph.D. in folklore. IU is home to one of the country's strongest ethnomusicology programs; alumni include Bill Ivey, MA'70, LHD'00, former director of the National Endowment for the Arts, and Joe Hickerson, MA'61, former head of the Archive of Folk Song at the Library of Congress.
23. OSCAR COMES CALLING
The Academy has been kind to IU. In 1988, Kevin Kline, BA'70, earned an Academy Award for his turn as a dangerous but dim-witted jewel thief in "A Fish Called Wanda." (Kline has also received two Tony Awards.) Lyricist Howard Ashman, MFA'74, earned two Best Song Oscars for his work on the Disney movies "The Little Mermaid" and "Beauty and the Beast." (Ashman also won two Golden Globes and four Grammys before his death in 1991.) Ironically, Kline is connected to Disney as well. He provided voices for the films "Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Road to El Dorado."
24. HITTING THE RIGHT NOTES
Simply put, IU offers one of the best music schools in the country, if not the world, and the proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Over the years, dozens of renowned musicians have graduated from the IU School of Music, from acclaimed violinist Joshua Bell, ArtD'89, bass player Edgar Meyer, BM'84, and pianist Frederic Chiu, BS/BM'85, to sopranos Elizabeth Futral, MM'88, and Sylvia McNair, MM'83, DM(Hon)'98, to Kronos Quartet members Hank Dutt, BM'75, MM'77, and Joan Dutcher Jeanrenaud, BM'77, to popular-music professionals Booker T. Jones, BME'67, and Kenny Aronoff, BM'76. The school also features a number of famed instructors, including jazz virtuoso David Baker, BME'54, MME'55, and master cellist Janos Starker.
25. FILLING A NEED IN EASTERN EUROPE
The collapse of the Communist dictatorships in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe more than a decade ago opened an enormous array of learning opportunities as well as a vast need for political and social support from the West. Helping to fill that need are the university's highly respected Slavic Languages and Literatures Department and its pioneering Russian and East European Institute. Founded in 1958 at the height of the Cold War, REEI has placed more than 100 graduates with advanced Russian or East European language skills in government service. Alumni attracted by IU's historic strength in Slavic languages include recently retired U.S. Ambassador to Russia James Collins, MA'65, LLD'99; current U.S. Ambassador to Georgia Richard Miles, MA'64; James Cox, MA'81, chief U.S. arms control delegate to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe; former U.S. Ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina Victor Jackovich, BA'70, MA'72, who just became the senior political adviser to the U.S. commander in Afghanistan; William Hopkins, BA'65, MA'67, PhD'77, who translated Clinton-Yeltsin summit meetings; and Stephen Dickey, MA'93, PhD'97, a translator during war crimes tribunals at The Hague.
26. A COMPLICATED FAMILY TREE
On the gridiron or the hardwood, Hoosiers and Boilermakers don't see eye to eye. But when it comes to extending educational opportunities for Indiana's citizens, the two universities are uniquely joined. IUPUI and IPFW may be the only campuses formed from the co-location and collaboration of a state's historic seminary (IU) with its historic land-grant college (Purdue). IPFW was born in 1964, IUPUI in 1969. Of course, IU's history has enough "begats" to gladden a genealogist's heart — the schools of law and the School of Medicine have particularly complicated bloodlines — but the two universities that battle for the Old Oaken Bucket coupled successfully to create premier urban universities in Indiana's two largest cities. And with its mastodon, IPFW may be America's only campus with a prehistoric animal for a mascot.
27. COUNTIES THAT COUNT
IU has produced two authors whose most famous works coincidentally include "County" in the title. In 1948, Ross Lockridge Jr., BA'35, MA'39, published Raintree County, a massive, provocative portrait of 19th-century Indiana life. It immediately vaulted to No. 1 best-seller status. Then, in 1992, Robert James Waller, DBA'68, issued The Bridges of Madison County, a wildly popular novel about an illicit romance between a worldly photographer and an Iowa housewife. The book differed a bit from Waller's work at IU, where his dissertation discussed the oligopoly in American guitar manufacturing.
28. WOMEN WITH EQUAL STATUS
In 1867, the trustees voted, 4 to 3, to admit Sarah Parke Morrison, the daughter of trustee John J. Morrison, of Salem, Ind., as IU's first woman student. Sarah Morrison, already a Mount Holyoke graduate, earned her bachelor's degree in 1869 and gave an address, in Latin, at the commencement ceremonies. Also in 1869, the faculty ruled that women could replace civil engineering with English synonyms, if desired. Sarah Morrison earned a master's degree from IU in 1871 and became IU's first woman faculty member in 1873. By 1871, 13 women were on the college roll, and by 1882 almost one-fourth of the students were women. By 1899, 318 women comprised 30 percent of the student body.
29. CATCHING DRUNKEN DRIVERS
IU revolutionized the battle against drunken driving. In 1938, School of Medicine professor Rolla Harger unveiled the Drunkometer, the first stable breath-testing instrument. Harger also launched the first short course on chemical tests for intoxication in 1937. Then, in 1954, Robert Borkenstein, BA'58, LLD'87, invented the Breathalyzer, a portable tool that has become perhaps the single most important tool in combating DWI. Borkenstein was chairman of the university's department of police administration, now called criminal justice. Throughout their careers, Harger and Borkenstein conducted vital studies in the field of intoxication and blood-alcohol levels.
30. AFRICAN AMERICAN BROTHERS
A century ago, African Americans were discouraged from enrolling at institutions of higher education, and those who managed to do so were often ostracized and alienated. But in 1911, 10 black IU students decided to change that by forming Kappa Alpha Psi, a fraternity that now has more than 600 undergraduate and alumni chapters across the country. The founding group was led by Elder W. Diggs, BA'16, MA'44, and Byron K. Armstrong, BA'13, who, according to the fraternity Web site, "sought a formula that would immediately raise the sights of black collegians and stimulate them to accomplishments higher than they might have imagined." Eighty years after the opening of Kappa Alpha Psi's alpha chapter, Gamma Phi Omega, a Latina sorority, organized an alpha chapter at IUB on April 17, 1991.
Yes, this list is incomplete. After all, it doesn't mention the impact of newswoman Jane Pauley, BA'72, LHD'96. Or of Michael Uslan, BA'73, MS'75, JD'76, executive producer of all four live-action "Batman" movies, who got his start teaching the world's first for-credit course on comic books at — you guessed it — IU. That's where you come in. Send us your corrections and additions so we can continue documenting how IU has made a difference. 
Ryan Whirty, BAJ'95, is a master's candidate in journalism and African American studies at IU Bloomington. Contributors include Phil Bantin, Jennifer Bosk, Jim Capshew, Brad Cook, Jim Madison, Judy Schroeder, and Mike Wright.