Staff Development Day is Aug. 8

Staff Development Day, the University's unique opportunity for staff to share the breadth and wealth of knowledge within the entire Brown community, returns this year on Thursday, Aug. 8. The event offers more than 50 seminars ranging from professional growth to personal development. (You can sign up for the sessions beginning June 21.) Many stem from the off-hours pursuits of members of the Brown community. Here is a look at some of the presenters and their interests.

Greyhound rescuer Anne Cerstvik Nolan

Anne Cerstvik Nolan (left, with her two hounds) plans to dispel some myths about greyhounds at the Staff Development Day session she’ll lead about adopting former racing dogs.

One of the biggest myths she has heard is that ex-racing greyhounds require acres of property and need to be taken constantly on long walks. Her session title should set that straight: “Adopting an Ex-Racing Greyhound: Couch Potatoes in Disguise.”

Her two “couch potatoes” sleep about 19 hours a day, not at all intimidated by their glorious racing names. Ducati, named for a very fast Italian motorcycle, is 12. Ferrari is 8.

“A lot of people will say, ‘Oh, they’re so beautiful. It would be great to adopt them, but I have an apartment,’” said Cerstvik Nolan, who is assistant head of reference for the library and electronic resources manager. “They can be apartment dogs.”

Not a real animal person growing up, Cerstvik Nolan married a man who has had at least one dog since he was 5. (Scott Nolan will bring Ducati and Ferrari to Anne’s session, which she hopes to limit to 25 to 30 people so they can visit with the dogs.)

Cerstvik Nolan hopes to encourage others to adopt former racing greyhounds and to discourage people from supporting greyhound racing.

“Sometimes people will come up and pet them and say, ‘I bet on you once,’” she said.

Such comments open the opportunity to share information about the way racing dogs are abused. “Maybe they’ll think about that before they go up and bet on those poor animals,” she said. – Kate Bramson

Martial artist Renee Bolden

The gentle flow of her speech may prevent you from detecting the seriousness of her backhand punch or spinning hook kick. But like your favorite superhero in clever disguise, Renee Bolden (left), administrative assistant for Alumni Relations, will fool you if you underestimate her.

At age 49, Bolden won her first national karate championship for her age group and took home the Ocean State 2002 Dragon National award and a 6-foot-tall trophy, which stands taller than she does.

Bolden came to Brown in 1993, after serving 20 years in the Navy as yeoman petty officer first class. She stumbled into the martial arts while looking for a karate school for her daughter. “I went to one school and liked the instructor so much that I became hooked," she said.

Her daughter soon lost interest but Bolden remained steadfast and within four years, earned a black belt in kenpo karate.

Bolden’s tough attitude fueled her determination to succeed in the male-dominated Navy and karate world. "I love to compete," Bolden stated. "During my training I had to spar with the guys because few women were willing to spar. I came home with black eyes and sore muscles but I could hold my own against the guys. I think that helped me advance."

On Staff Development Day, Bolden will teach a session on self-defense for women. “It's very empowering for a woman to learn martial arts,” she said. “It instills confidence, awareness and the ability to think your way out of a confrontation. When you're walking to your car at night and someone approaches you, you don't just start throwing kicks because you can. You learn how not to be a target in the first place." – Dionne Montgomery

Bookmaker Michelle Venditelli

To reach the office of Michelle Venditelli, you must pass thousands of classics housed in level B of the Rockefeller Library and beyond tables where bookbinders repair broken spines of antique texts.

Venditelli is the bindery manager in the Preservation Department of the University library system. At home, she runs Pequeño Studio, creating handmade photo albums and boxes for professional photographers. It is a skill she developed and refined before coming to Brown by working with specialists in bookmaking, papermaking and preservation in Boston, Los Angeles and Mexico.

In her Brown office, you notice an elegant 12-inch by 16-inch black box made of binder’s board and Japanese silk – one of Venditelli’s more recent creations. There are also photo albums, folios, boxes, books and other items hand made by Venditelli, including a petite journal covered in loom-woven paper.

On Staff Development Day, she will present “Introduction to Simple Bookmaking.” Venditelli and two Brown colleagues, binders Jim Chapin and Marie Malchodi, will help each participant create a 6 1/2-inch-square accordion-folded book for use as a journal, diary or photo album.

“We want to give people a taste of regular bookbinding,” said Venditelli, “It’s a fun session – something you can do in an hour and take home.”

The next items crafted by Venditelli will be for personal use. Married May 25th, she returned recently from a two-week honeymoon in Italy. “I just got the photos back and I’m dying to make boxes and albums for them.” – Scott J. Turner

Dog trainer Diane Gregoire

As a child Diane Gregoire (left) didn’t have a pet. When her playmates collected dolls, she collected stuffed dogs.

“I loved dogs from the time I was born. My mother jokes that I’ve had a kennel since I was 5,” she says, noting she was actually 16 before she bought her first real dog.

Today Gregoire, an assistant textbook buyer in the Brown Bookstore, shares her home with two shelties, Tika and Kindle, and a daschund – “a hairy hot dog” – dubbed Relish. She also teaches dog agility classes and, for the past 20 years, has competed with her own dogs in breed, obedience and agility shows; along the way, she’s bred two champion shelties. On Staff Development Day, she’ll share her expertise with University pet owners in “Clicker Dog Training for Your Dog.”

Over the past several years, explained Gregoire, dog trainers have replaced punitive training methods with positive, motivational ones. Gone are the rolled newspapers; in are castanet-like “clickers” used to signal proper behavior, such as sitting. The clicker sound is followed with “a tiny food” or a toy until the dog learns basic – or even competition-level– commands and accepts human approval as its own reward.

“Now we’re really into dogs and how they think and what makes them tick,” she said. “The dog will understand a treat is coming, then you can begin to shape behavior. It’s a Pavlov kind of conditioning.”

Gregoire has trained her own dogs to the clicker and recommends the method regularly to other dog owners.

“Every dog should know sit, stay and come, and every dog should be trained to be comfortable in a crate,” she said. “The more people train their dogs, the more they’ll enjoy being with their dogs.” – Mary Jo Curtis

EBay fan Loren Williams

Just once Loren Williams broke his rule and bought an item he detested in a store with the sole purpose to unload it online.

Typically Williams only purchases things that catch his fancy for his hobby of selling items through the Internet auction site eBay. And that is one of the guideposts he will explain during “Ebay: How to Buy, How to Sell” on Staff Development Day.

“Buy things you like. If it catches your eye and you say ‘Oh, that’s neat,’ someone else will too,” said Williams, operations manager in the Development Office.

However, when he saw the pear-shaped cookie jar in a store in Putnam, Conn., “I thought it was just ugly enough someone would like it.” Someone did, and spent $20 on the item he had found for $3.

EBay calls itself the world’s online marketplace. An Internet user can buy and sell most anything – within limits – using an auction format. For a minor fee, the Internet site will post an item for a specific number of days and collect bids for that item.

Williams buys items as often as he sells them on eBay: For less than $10, he received an enormous box of funky, musty publications by Scholastic Books – just the type he loved as a child decades ago.

Most of the time he devotes to eBay-related activities, however, is spent packing the goods he sold to prepare them for shipment. The pear cookie jar required a lot of packing time.

Obviously items could break, said Williams. “Of course, it’s always buyer beware.” – Kristen Cole