Eyewitness to History

Presidential Debate Between Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford
Then-U.S. President Gerald Ford (right) and challenger Gov. Jimmy Carter debate in 1976.

Gail Raiman ’73 was interviewed for and appears in the documentary “Feeling Good About America: the 1976 Presidential Election.” The documentary, produced by the Center of Politics at the University of Virginia, has been airing across the country since October.

The election of 1976 was momentous in several ways. It was the first national election after the Watergate scandal. It was the national election occurring on the occasion of the country’s bicentennial celebration. Watergate had consumed the Nixon presidency (he resigned in August  1974), resulting in Gerald R. Ford becoming president. Ford had become vice president in October 1973 by congressional confirmation in the wake of Vice President Spiro Agnew’s corruption scandal and resignation.

In the 1976 election, Ford  the Republican candidate  was pitted against the relatively unknown former one-term governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter. Carter ran as a Washington outsider, a popular position in the post-Watergate era, and won a narrow victory.

Gail’s connection to Ford began before the 1976 election, going back to her sophomore year in 1971. She used that opportunity to intern on Capitol Hill for then-Congressman Ford, who at the time served as House minority leader. Gail worked in his Washington office’s constituent-relations group and made quite an impression. The Ford team suggested she continue to work in the office while finishing her undergraduate degree at a college or university in Washington, D.C.

Instead, Gail returned to K, completed her degree (philosophy) in June 1973 and took a summer job in Ford’s Grand Rapids district office. Several times that summer Ford personally asked Gail to consider taking a permanent job in his office. She declined in favor of her plan to earn a doctorate and teach. That fall she started graduate school, but she wasn’t there long.

“I suddenly realized that I wanted to ‘make a difference,’ ” Gail said, “though I didn’t know what that meant. At the time I didn’t imagine it meant returning to work for Congressman Ford.”

Gerald Ford Campaign ButtonGail came home from grad school to Grand Rapids. “My  immediate future was a complete mystery to me,” she said. “Four days later history intervened with the resignation of Vice President Agnew. President Nixon then named Gerald Ford as vice president-designate, and several phone calls later, I was on my way to Washington to work on Ford’s confirmation hearings for the vice presidency.”

Ford asked Gail to join his vice presidential staff and she did. Eight months later, when Nixon resigned and Ford became president, Ford asked Gail to be a member of his White House staff. She worked in the West Wing throughout his term. “My White House portfolio included media relations, communications, politics and continuous crisis management the perfect storm.”

In early 2016 Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics, inquired whether Gail would be interviewed for the documentary. His request made sense. “I’d had a front-row seat to the 1976 campaign while on the White House staff,” Gail explained. “I also worked as a member of the president’s staff at the 1976 Republican National Convention.”

That convention was memorable. It was the last Republican convention in which a candidate had not been chosen by the outset. Ford and former California Gov. Ronald Reagan were the front runners, with Reagan representing the conservative wing of the party. During maneuvering at the Convention, Mississippi swung from Reagan to Ford on the first ballot, pushing him just past the delegate threshold needed to win the nomination.

K Trustee Gail Raiman
K trustee Gail Raiman at the 2013 commencement

The documentary concludes that the election of 1976 was a needful tonic for the country. America felt good about Ford and Carter for good reason; they were the right people at the right time, helping us once again “feel good about America.”

That history comes alive, in part, through the film’s interviews, which include, among many others, Walter Mondale, Jack Ford, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Stuart K. Spencer and Gail Raiman ’73.

Gail’s inclusion in the film is not her only honor relative to her association with Ford. She also has been asked to serve as a judge for the 2016 Gerald R. Ford Journalism Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency. With this annual award, Ford wanted to recognize and encourage thoughtful, insightful and enterprising work by journalists covering the presidency and national defense.

As in past years, two $5,000 prizes will be awarded, one for distinguished achievement in reporting on the presidency, and another on national defense during the 2016 calendar year. The awards will be presented in Washington, D.C., in June at the annual meeting of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation.

Alumnus Will Lead Effort to Solve Flint Water Crisis

Kalamazoo College Alumnus Harvey Hollins IIIMichigan Governor Rick Snyder has chosen Harvey Hollins III ’87 to coordinate the state’s response to the Flint water crisis. Hollins directs the Office of Urban and Metropolitan Initiatives, which was formed in 2012.

The problem with the city of Flint’s water supply began when the city switched water sources to the Flint River in April 2014. The city was under state emergency management when that switch was made. After the switch complaints soon arose about the smell and taste of the water. The city and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality initially insisted the water was safe, but by September 2014, doctors had already detected a spike in the amount of lead seen in blood samples drawn from Flint children. Tests showed that water leaving Flint’s treatment plant was lead-free but picking up lead from aging pipes in the system. The city’s previous water supplier had corrected that problem by adding corrosion control chemicals, but the City of Flint wasn’t adding them.

The appointment of Hollins resulted from a task force recommendation that a single person lead the follow-up to the water crisis. Follow-up responses will come from several state departments, and Hollins will coordinate those and keep the task force up to date on progress. Responses include additional water and blood tests, expedited improvements to the city’s water system, increased education about lead and transparent reporting on goals, timelines and assignments. At K Hollins earned his bachelor’s degree in health sciences. He played basketball and football and in his senior year earned the Catherine A. Smith Award for Human Rights. He earned his master’s degree at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. He spent several years working as a fiscal analysts for the Michigan House of Representatives and then eight years as the Michigan government affairs representative for the AARP. In 2004 he was appointed vice president for government and community affairs at Wayne State University. He served in that post until Snyder tapped him to serve as director of urban initiatives.

Alumnus to be Honored With Public Service Award

Kalamazoo College Alumnus Gerald Rosen ’73The Honorable Gerald Rosen ’73, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan will receive the 11th Annual Dennis Archer Public Service Award on November 19. The Michigan Bar Association is honoring Rosen for his work mediating Detroit’s bankruptcy settlement, an effort that took months of difficult negotiation and resulted in a fund that shored up city pensions and protected artworks (from sale) at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit shed $7.3 billion of its $18 billion in debt, restructured $3.1 billion, reached five-year labor agreements with all its unions, and developed and implemented a multi-year $1.7 billion revitalization plan for city services and operations. A Detroit News article on Rosen (by David Shepardson) quoted Kevyn Orr. Detroit’s former emergency manager, who credited Rosen for the city’s quick exit from bankruptcy: “Judge Rosen’s steady leadership and practical judgment allowed the city and its creditors to achieve the impossible: they forged a consensual, comprehensive plan of adjustment in less than two years. [He created the deal that] streamlined key city operations, helped improve public safety, preserved the city’s world-class art museum in a perpetual public trust, and avoided drastic cuts to pension and related retiree benefits. It is no exaggeration to say that Judge Rosen was indispensable.” The award ceremony will take place at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Rosen was on the campus of his alma mater this past February, when he delivered the 2015 William Weber Lecture in Social Science, which was titled “Detroit Bankruptcy: Lessons Learned.”

Ebola Responders

Greg Raczniak at the Sierra Leone Kailahun District Medical Clinic
Greg Raczniak at the Sierra Leone Kailahun District Medical Clinic

Greg Raczniak ’96 is working in Sierra Leone as part of the Ebola response team of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The U.S. Navy veteran serves as a preventive medicine resident at CDC. His work in Sierra Leone involves contact tracing (finding and monitoring people who have come in contact with persons displaying symptoms) a key tactic in controlling infectious disease epidemics. An article on Greg appeared in Task & Purpose, a news site for veterans, by veterans. Greg majored in biology at K and studied abroad in Muenster, Germany. He was a standout swimmer on the Hornet Men’s swim team. After graduation her earned his medical degree at Eastern Virginia Medical School and a doctorate in molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University. He entered an internship program at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, followed by a tour at the Navy’s research station in Ghana. During his service with the Navy, Greg obtained certification in tropical disease and traveler’s health, and decided to complete training in undersea and submarine medicine. Greg is completing a master’s in public health at Tulane University as part of his medical residency in preventive medicine. Nor is he the only K graduate working in Africa to help contain the Ebola epidemic. Paloma Clohossey ’11 is in Monrovia, Liberia, part of the U.S. government’s Ebola Disaster Response Team in that country. Paloma works for the United States Agency for International Development and has lived and worked in Africa often, beginning with her study abroad experience in Nairobi, Kenya. Liberia and Sierra Leone are the two countries where the outbreak of the virus has hit the hardest.