When Pasco Rowe ('04) was teaching guitar, one of his students had trouble figuring out which guitar chords went together. So Rowe invented Chord Dice, which helps musicians come up with key chord progressions with the roll of the dice. The English major, who started playing as a child, received a patent in 2006 for the device.

"If I could whisper back at that 8 year old, I would say, 'Keep doing what you're doing. Don't give up.'  I try to do that in my teaching as well. You keep doing something long enough, eventually good things do happen."