Legal Consultant Chris Church Loves the Big Apple

Born in Cedar City, and a graduate of Cedar High, Chris Church completed his bachelor of science in history at SUU in 1994, then moved to Salt Lake City before taking off to New York City to attend Fordham Law School. Twenty years later, Chris now owns a condo in Manhattan and loves living and working in the Big Apple. 

Chris remembers his time at SUU as a period of tremendous growth and opportunity that prepared him for graduate school, and learned that anything was possible if he worked hard and had the courage to follow his dreams.

He also has fond memories of being in classes with great professors, completing a six-month fellowship in Moscow, Russia, and performing with the American Folk Ballet. But his interest in attending law school was always his driving force, and he had dreams of becoming a litigator.

Today, he is a legal consultant in banking regulations at Citibank where he specializes in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reforms and the Consumer Protection Act. Professionally he is most proud of being able to survive in New York City and live in a city he loves.

In his spare time, Chris loves cooking for friends and attending the theater. He also enjoys traveling and makes it back to Cedar City as often as he can to visit family and friends. He is also a first-time dog owner and enjoys having brunch with Dash on the Upper West Side of Manhattan on the weekends.

Anna Ables Searched for the Best Graduate Program and Found It at SUU

Anna Ables, a native of Midwest City, Oklahoma, and a Choctaw High School graduate, searched the nation for the best graduate program in arts administration and found it at Southern Utah University. She is now the director of marketing and public relations at the Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois.

Because arts administration was a relatively new field and at the time not many universities were offering such a program, she found SUU’s graduate program very appealing, largely due to its association with the Utah Shakespeare Festival and The American Folk Ballet.

Under the direction of SUU’s then-dean of performing and visual arts, Bill Byrnes, Anna immersed herself in the MFA arts administration program that puts theory to practice in a very real way, one that allowed her to create an actual marketing strategy plan for a dance company in Salt Lake City. She says that opportunity gave her the confidence to enter the job market fully confident with real-world experience under her belt.

Some of Anna’s fondest memories of SUU were the landscapes of southern Utah, particularly the canyons around Cedar City where she would often run and hike.

“It was a secluded space to study and learn, which allowed me to focus on my studies,” she says.

After earning her MFA from SUU in 2006, Anna moved to Chicago and began her first job as a marketing intern with the world-renowned Chicago International Film Festival, which was a quick introduction to the fast pace of marketing and promotion in a vibrant and artistic city. Her duties at the Theatre School now include overseeing and directing all marketing in print, social media, and online, as well as handling all press requests for the entire theatre department and three theatre performance spaces.

She previously held the position of director of public relations and outreach for the Oklahoma Arts Institute (OAI), a non-profit organization that provides pre-professional training for talented young artists and performers, as well as arts education training for public school teachers and university and college faculty.
Anna says that her greatest accomplishment professionally has been the 2013 opening of the new Theatre School building, which was designed by the internationally renowned architect César Pelli, and his firm Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects. The school houses two theatre spaces—a 250-seat theatre and a 100-seat flexible theatre—along with costume, makeup, prop and scene shops, rehearsal studios, lighting laboratories, movement studios, and more.

She has a background in dance performance and instruction and was a member of the American Spirit Dance Company at Oklahoma City University, where she earned a BA in 2001. ​She has since channeled that passion for dance by completing her yoga certification training and teaches regular yoga classes for students at DePaul, as well as at Bloom Yoga Studio in Chicago. 

Riding her bike to work along the lakefront in the summer, and high power spinning classes at the gym are two great enjoyments in her life, and in her spare time, Anna also loves rebuilding and refurbishing, and is currently at work restoring a wooden desk for her new home office.