SEPTEMBER 2002

Features

De p a r t m e n t s

A re Yo u a
Renaissance
Soul?

Letters

Swarthmoreans find a way to
juggle many interests.

14

Swarthmore’s open forum

Collection

Commencement and more

Profiles
3
4

Raised to
Vo l u n t e e r

The Sonneborn sisters are
still going strong.

42

By Carol Brévart-Demm

By A l i C r o l i u s ’ 8 4

Notes for Life

The Chester Children’s Chorus
comes of age.

20

Class of 2001 graduates
venture into the “real world.”

Reveling in reunions

Class Notes
Living our lives

By S a s h a I s s e n b e r g ’ 0 2

Spreading
Their Wings

Alumni Digest

24

Deaths

Swarthmore remembers

B o o ks & A r t s

By A n d r e a H a m m e r

The world of ideas

A Wo r l d T h a t I s
Not Just Ours
30

In My Life

Bill ’72 and Amy Vedder Weber ’73
challenge us to preserve wildlife.
By W. D . E h r h a r t ’ 7 3

Letters From the Front

O u r B a c k Pa g e s
B y A rlie Russell Hochschild ’62

KEEPING SEVERAL BALLS
IN THE AIR IS THE TASK
OF THE RENAISSANCE SOUL.
ILLUSTRATION BY PAINE
PROFITT. STORY ON PAGE 14.

40

Lure of
Many Sirens

Chris King ’68 weaves the
tapestry of his own life.

62

By Andrea Hammer

47
54

Te a c h i n g fo r
Change

Kevin Huffman ’92 has returned
to Teach for America
By Jeremy Schifeling ’03

72

B y Aviva Kushner Yoselis ’96

Why We Need Dreams

ON THE COVER:

36

80

70

SEPTEMBER 2002

GOLF CART DRIVER ANNA
STRATTON ’04 CATCHES UP
ON HER READING DURING
ALUMNI WEEKEND.
PHOTOGRAPH BY
STEVEN GOLDBLATT ’67

PA R L O R TA L K
S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

2

I

can’t remember the first time someone asked me, “What do you want to be
when you grow up?" For a child, it’s a pretty daunting question. Although
well-meaning grown-ups who pose it are usually just trying to make conversation, children soon learn the subtext: What’s important to you? Who might you
emulate? What are your dreams? How competent are you? Of course, the underlying
question is: “Who are you?” You don’t have to be a child to worry about that.
One way to define yourself is through your work, which makes me a magazine
editor and college administrator. But that definition also presents a problem. I
haven’t always been an editor—I’ve also earned my keep as an art teacher, carpenter, and graphic designer. I’ve driven a tractor. I was a cashier in a restaurant. As
much as our society would have us believe it, a job—even a long career—is not an
identity. If I want a better idea of who I am, I have to look deeper.
I look to my relationships with others. I am a son, brother, husband, father,
cousin, and uncle. I’m a friend, volunteer, coach, committee member, leader, and follower. I am also an employee, colleague, and boss. Most of these relationships are
lasting, engaging, and satisfying—but is this
If “growing up” means
who I am?
In basic biological terms, I am an animal.
I have to choose
I move and breathe and eat and reproduce.
I’m one link in a genetic chain that reaches
just one thing to “be,”
back millions of years, and that now, because
I have children, has a chance at reaching forforget it. I don’t
ward. And because I am a human being, I
want to grow up.
have the chance to do more than just live,
reproduce, and die; I have the opportunity to
think about it, to decide how I feel, to listen to others, to wonder, to speculate, to
learn.
The best part of living is learning. Learning brings change—new truths new
ideas, new skills. Whether I learn to knit or read a novel or contemplate new information about the origin of the universe, when I learn something, it changes me.
The best way for me to answer the who am I question may be to quote Descartes: “I
think, therefore I am.”
On the cover of this issue, we pose a similar question: “Are you a Renaissance
soul?” In the accompanying article (page 14), we meet six Swarthmore alumni,
including Margaret Lobenstine ’65, who coined the term and fits her own description of a Renaissance soul. They are restless people with diverse passions, the
square pegs that don’t fit round holes. Yet, most of the liberally educated readers of
this magazine can truthfully say about themselves, “I’m one, too.”
So, what do I want to be when I grow up? If “growing up” means I have to
choose just one thing to “be,” forget it. I don’t want to grow up.
—Jeffrey Lott

Swarthmore
COLLEGE BULLETIN

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The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN
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number 2, is published in August,
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©2002 Swarthmore College
Printed in U.S.A.

In the dozen years that Maurice Eldridge
’61 has been an administrator at Swarthmore, one of his greatest contributions has
been the simple fact that, after what he
experienced as an undergraduate, he
returned. No alumni can appreciate this
more than those of us who were undergraduates with him in the late 1950s.
In “Diversity: Then and Now” (June
Bulletin), Eldridge writes of anonymous
hate mail he received one spring, reporting
that the student who wrote it was discovered and expelled.
I never knew who the writer was, nor
the punishment. But from the other side,
the side of white students who somehow
came to know of the letter(s), I remember
the incident vividly.
What I remember, however, is not merely my deep disgust with my own community—one community whose intellectual and
cultural intensity had become the passion
of my life. I remember even more the lesson in political dynamics that the hate mail
incident taught.
For several days and into the nights, a
number of students debated what, if any,
action we might take. The debate eventually
centered on whether or not to prepare an
open letter, which we would sign—and for
which we would attempt to secure the signatures of as many students (and faculty?)
as possible.
The letter would state our beliefs about
racial integration. (Remember this was only
a few years after Brown v. Board of Education.) Maybe we also discussed mentioning
the Quaker tradition in race relations or at
least the tradition of tolerance. (I think
none of us knew that Swarthmore had
enrolled its first African-American students
less than 20 years earlier.)
But practical questions immediately
arose: How many people were likely to sign,
and what difference would the number of
signatures make? We tried out two possible
answers: that a huge percentage of students would sign or that an unimpressive
or even insignificant percentage would.
The first of these answers would be
ideal but, for several reasons, seemed
improbable. With term papers, finals, and
honors exams pending, who among us
would actually throw ourselves into the
needed effort? What if the student body

“PROXY FIGHT” MISSES THE POINT

Although ending discrimination against
sexual orientation is a worthy goal, I was
disappointed to read “Proxy Fight,” in the
June Bulletin (“Collection”) about the College’s shareowner proposal for a policy that
would protect homosexual employees from
discrimination at Lockheed Martin.
How can Swarthmore speak of a Quaker heritage and Quaker principles and, at
the same time, invest in arms manufacture?
The College seems to be ignoring the overriding issue of supporting and profiting
from weapons of war and destruction.
Broadcasting uncritically Swarthmore’s
ownership of Lockheed Martin stock
appears to condone investment in such
militaristic activities.

This spring, College Treasurer Suzanne
Welsh told The Phoenix that Swarthmore’s
purchase of stock is based on economic
return. I cringe to think that this might be
the only criterion. Claiming now to be
involved in socially responsible investing
rings hollow when that investment is in
arms manufacture.
ELIZABETH MYERS (P’03)
Scottsville, N.Y.
AN ASSAULT ON MARRIAGE

I was shocked and dismayed by the article
“Proxy Fight.” Never would I have thought
that my alma mater would take the lead in
assaulting the institution of marriage. It is
a sad day now that equal employment
opportunity is construed to demand not
just equal rights but equal outcomes. To
me, Swarthmore emphasized the need to
discriminate between truth and falsehood.
My understanding of the Quaker tradition
is that one must discriminate between
good and evil.
To the Committee for Socially Responsible Investing (CSRI), the Board of Managers, and the executives of the more than
half of the Fortune 500 companies [that
have adopted policies prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals], I commend a
most enlightening book by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray: The Bell Curve:
Intelligence and Class Structure in American
Life. Let us be thankful for the 95 percent
of the [Lockheed-Martin] proxy vote.
THOMAS SPENCER ’37
Orlando, Fla.

P l e a s e t u r n to page 76

SEPTEMBER 2002

GREAT GIFTS TO SWARTHMORE

Some letters are on one’s mind for a long
time, but somehow, the time to write them
is never to be found. For many years, I
have wanted to write a thank you note to
Swarthmore.
I came to the College almost by accident. Having escaped Nazi Germany, I was
making my living as a very untrained
housekeeper. After I burned the potatoes
and nearly set the house on fire doing
some ironing, the man of the house
thought I might do better using my brains.
He was a wonderful Swarthmore-connected Quaker, and he got me an interview
with Dean Brand Blanshard. I was accepted as a junior. The young Jewish woman
who wanted to fight for a better world—
who, having survived the Holocaust, wanted to prove that her survival was worth it—
was on her way.
Swarthmore helped me to pull together
my ideals. Starting in displaced persons
camps in Europe after the war, I spent 46
years as a social worker, helping displaced
people. I was young then, and I grew old
with them. I am now 87.
The little light of life kindled by Swarthmore has kept on burning, literally through
hell and high water. I have had a full life—
a colorful and fulfilling one—and, in no
small way, my thanks go to my alma mater
for my two years at Swarthmore College.
May your light continue to shine
through the present gray days toward a
better future.
GABI DERENBERG SCHIFF ’41
Forest Hills, N.Y.

LETTERS

A LITTLE LIGHT

3

COLLECTION

Commencement 2002

AA

M E TA M O R P H O S I S

t 9:15 a.m., the front porch of Parrish Hall is nearly empty,
but this Sunday is not a sleepy one in Swarthmore. In less
than an hour, the Clothier Hall bells will peal, and the procession will begin. The Class of 2002 is about to graduate.
Inside Parrish, gowned faculty members begin to gather in the
parlors. Some changed into their colorful garb at home, walking
borough streets to the College like medieval dons. Professor of
Mathematics Don Shimamoto, in his first year as faculty marshal, is
there early. Wielding the College’s silver mace, his job is to herd the
faculty into line, two by two.
Under the trees outside, seniors adjust their mortarboards. Most
wear roses from the Dean Bond Rose Garden, where the subtraction
of 336 perfect blossoms hardly diminishes the glorious display. The
Scott Arboretum staff, wearing pruning clippers like badges, pinned
on the flowers.
A few minutes before 10, President Alfred H. Bloom comes down
from his office, smiling and resplendent in crimson. With him are
diplomat Denis Halliday and journalist Josef Joffe ’65, who will
receive honorary degrees. Bloom chats with Board Chairman Larry
Shane ’56 as the procession takes shape behind them.
The seniors form an alphabetical line, also two by two. Registrar
Martin Warner fusses over them, addressing most by name. In his
head, no doubt, are their majors, grades, and credit hours. If this
were sixth grade, he would be telling them not to shove and push,
but we’re over that now. One young woman sobs onto the shoulder
of a friend—a private sadness amid the general joy.
Near the head of the line, Stu Hain, associate vice president for
facilities, speaks quietly by radio to an unseen person controlling
Clothier’s bells. The chimes begin, and Shimamoto raises the mace.
Perched above the Scott Amphitheater, a brass ensemble begins a
sonata by Johann Cristoph Pezel. Swarthmore’s 130th Commencement has begun.

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

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4

he faculty, now miraculously organized and appointed in a rainbow of robes, streams out of Parrish toward the shady woods.
The seniors follow, picking up the pace when they hear the music.
Along the way, scores of housekeepers, food service staff, and secretaries applaud and call to their favorite students. A few break ranks
for a quick hug or handshake.
As the head of the procession reaches the amphitheater and its
tail begins to move near the library, it looks like a colorful blackrobed caterpillar with a thousand different shoes peeking out from
PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS DON SHIMAMOTO (TOP), FACULTY MARSHAL,
LEADS THE COMMENCEMENT PROCESSION. SENIOR SPEAKER DAVID KAMIN
(CENTER)TOLD HIS CLASSMATES: “WE ARE ABOUT TO VENTURE OUT INTO A
WORLD THAT SEEMS SADLY SINISTER.” ALIKI BONAROU (BOTTOM), WITH
SWARTHMORE DIPLOMA IN HAND, RECEIVED CONGRATULATIONS FROM HER
COUSIN, BILL DEMAKAKOS.

PHOTOGRA P HS BY S T E V E N G O L D B L ATT ’ 6 7

The ceremony seems to
gather meaning—a symbolic
moment at the heart
of what a college does.
under its collective gown, moving as a single organism toward its
graduation metamorphosis.
In the breezy shade of the amphitheater, parents and grandparents—some of whom claimed their seats quite early—stand to welcome the procession. Conductor John Alston, associate professor of
music, glances over his shoulder to see how many more measures
will be needed as the caterpillar inches down the stone steps and
seats itself on waiting white chairs.
It’s difficult to say why Swarthmore’s Commencement seems so
special. As with every such ceremony, there are invocations and
admonitions and last bits of advice. There are traditions, like the
engineering students’ final gimmick. (This year, each carried a light
bulb to be screwed into a giant E they had constructed, and somehow, they made the Clothier bell ring 22 times—once for each B.S.
diploma.) There are the usual awards and speeches and honorary
degrees.
Yet, rather than becoming a cliché, the ceremony seems to gather
meaning—a symbolic moment at the heart of what a college does.
After the calls and waves of friends, after the thousands of photographs and miles of videotape, after the traditional moment of
Quaker silence, the Class of 2002 is the palpable product of everyone’s labor here.

L

arry Shane welcomes the throng and asks the class to face their
parents, guardians, and friends—to say thank you. The gesture
is sustained and genuine. It is followed by a scripture reading by
Marc Sonnenfeld ’68, who quotes from Proverbs: “Happy is he who
has found wisdom.”
Class speaker David Kamin then compares Swarthmore students
to Smurfs—“McCabe Library Smurfs, Paces Café Smurfs, Activist
Smurfs, Interpretation Theory Smurfs, and the soon-to-be-extinct
Football Smurf.”
“The point is,” he explains, “there are real differences among us.
We are a truly diverse community, and, as I grew in my ‘Smurfiness’
here at Swarthmore, I became less wrapped up in my own need to
JOSEF JOFFE ’65 (TOP), PUBLISHER AND EDITOR OF DIE ZEIT, TELLS THE
GRADUATES THAT HIS SWARTHMORE EDUCATION “WAS THE ASSET OF

RIGHT) ENGINEERING GRADS MICHELLE LOWRY, PUKAR MALLA, LINDA
M C LAREN, AND MARC RICHARDS. RICHTER PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
RAYMOND HOPKINS (BOTTOM, LEFT) ESCORTS HONORARY–DEGREE–RECIPIENT
DENIS HALLIDAY, A CAREER DIPLOMAT WHO RESIGNED AFTER 34 YEARS WITH
THE UNITED NATIONS IN PROTEST OF SANCTIONS AGAINST IRAQ.

SEPTEMBER 2002

ALL ASSETS THAT KEPT MULTIPLYING.” APPLAUDING ARE (CENTER, LEFT TO

5

COLLECTION

Commencement 2002
prove myself—less intimidated by the uniqueness of those around
me—and I was able to learn from instead of compete with the ideas
and experiences of my fellow Swatties.”
Kamin shares his thoughts about what he calls “the greatest
philosophical and artistic work of the 20th century,” Steven Spielberg’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. “Arriving at Swarthmore was like
being left behind on a foreign world,” he says. “Now, Swarthmore
has become our ‘mother ship,’ so to speak. We have been empowered with an education that few can receive. We are, whether we like
it or not, an intellectual elite, and we are about to venture out into a
world that seems sadly sinister. It is a world in which despair has
won the day and in which the future seems only to promise further
bloodshed.
“We enter this world with a special power. Do you remember
how E.T. could heal things? He would stick out his finger; light
would shine; a dead pot of flowers, without hope, without a future,
would be resurrected—and, most important, Drew Barrymore
would smile.
“I wish I could say that we’re just like E.T.—that at the moment
we graduate, we could open our mouths, and the world would
understand the futility of today’s violence. But although we may not
be magical, we are powerful. We are powerful because of the hope
that the years here at Swarthmore give us—the hope of seeing students from different cultures and backgrounds coming together to
build one peaceful intellectual community. We are powerful because
we have been given the tools of this elite institution. The tasks
before us are vast. Our efforts may fail, but, in one way or another, it
is our duty to try to heal this world.”

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

A

6

s if he and Kamin had coordinated their talks for maximum
effect, President Bloom then takes the podium and challenges
the class to change the world. “Your senior year began with Sept. 11,
a stark reminder of how few individuals it takes to have a devastating impact on the world,” he says. “Let June 2 be a powerful
reminder of the magnitude of the positive impact that 336 extraordinary individuals can have. Do not sell yourselves, or the world,
short.”
Their Swarthmore experience, he says, “will enable you to thrive
in whatever careers you choose and will all but assure a future of
economic security and societal respect….
“However, in light of how much there is to do to secure our
nation and ensure a peaceful world; in light of how much there is
to do to create the productivity and the patterns of distribution
required to provide adequate nutrition, health care, and education
to our own and the world’s population; … in light of how very much
there is to do, I ask you to set your ambitions beyond personal and
professional success to have the broader impact for which you are
also so very well prepared….
“If you devote yourself to research, be the one who refines or
redefines the current paradigm in ways you believe will guide the
discipline onto a more productive or significant path. If you devote
yourself to education, be the model teacher, principal, and educational leader who offers a vision of finer education and who leads

At the top of the steps,
the procession breaks up.
The cocoon is cracked; wings
unfurl; the metamorphosis
is complete.
the system, or the nation,
to deliver on that vision.
“If you choose medicine, law, or business, be
the one who introduces
treatments, professional
directions, or strategies
more responsive to the
needs of the broader society and the world. If you
choose the nonprofit or
public sector, be the individual who imagines directions your institution or
society might take toward
your vision of the good and
who, by articulate, persuasive, and public example,
galvanizes broader commitment and action to that end.”

A

fter Bloom’s remarks, it is time to award honorary degrees.
Denis Halliday, former U.N. assistant secretary-general, dons
his Swarthmore hood and speaks humbly of the rewards and disappointments of his 34-year career at the United Nations, where he
served primarily in humanitarian assistance posts.
In 1997, Secretary-General Kofi Annan had named Halliday, who
is an Irish national, as U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq. He
served in this position until September 1998, when he resigned to
protest the U.N. sanctions against that country. His public resignation ended his U.N. career but freed him to speak out against the
effects of the sanctions. As Swarthmore’s Lang Professor of Social
Change during the fall semesters of 1999 and 2000, he taught
classes in the Peace and Conflict Studies Program.
In an intensely personal five-minute talk, Halliday candidly tells
the graduating class of his regrets about his career, especially the
times when he remained silent in the face of injustice: “Looking
back over those many years, I realize now more than ever that I
compromised my own integrity by silence, by nonparticipation in
important issues before the world during those years. I was an
international civil servant—always living overseas as a guest in
another country—not free to vote, not free to speak out on matters
of peace, justice, and social equality. In my desire to serve the Unit-

Joffe jokes that, by being honored by Swarthmore, he has finally
surpassed his “old friend and teacher” Henry Kissinger, who has
never received an honorary degree from his alma mater, Harvard.
“[This] proves that Swarthmore is a lot smarter than Harvard,” he
says, “but we knew that all along.”
Praising his Swarthmore education, he says it “never became
obsolete. What I learned here in philosophy, economics, and political science, in psychology and art history, was money in the piggy
bank of the mind that was never depleted. It was the asset of all
assets that kept multiplying. Because liberal arts, unlike all those
‘relevant’ subjects from management studies to computer science,
never turns obsolete. Liberal arts is the tool of all tools that will
accompany you all your life and make you not only a bit smarter but
also a bit wiser.”
Referring to the contemporary film Spider-Man, Joffe says, “Look
at him. In school, he was put down as a bookworm and ignored by
the girl he adored. He has to navigate the shoals of self-doubt and
desperation, as we did when we could not finish that seminar paper
due in six hours…. But then he was bitten by the spider, and he
turned into a superhero. That’s you: You, the graduates, have been
bitten by the spider that is Swarthmore.”

F
ACCOMPANIED BY HER GUIDE DOG, TARA. PRESIDENT BLOOM (TOP RIGHT)
URGES THE CLASS OF 2002 TO “SET YOUR AMBITIONS BEYOND PERSONAL
AND PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS TO HAVE THE BROADER IMPACT FOR WHICH YOU
ARE ALSO SO VERY WELL PREPARED.” MEMBERS OF THE GRADUATING CLASS
(BOTTOM RIGHT) TURN TO THANK FAMILY AND FRIENDS.

ed Nations, I set aside for more then 30 years my commitment to
such issues—ones that preoccupied me during my own student years.”
“Happily,” he notes, “we have among Swarthmore graduates
young men and women who want it all—a brilliant, exciting career
in a chosen field but yet the ability to be themselves. Freedom to
continue good works, the courage to speak out, even when socially
embarrassing—or possibly career threatening. To be able to stand
up when driven by outrage, by a sense of unacceptable injustice, by
witnessing wrong yet knowing the capacity for right exists in abundance.”
Next, President Bloom introduces alumnus Josef Joffe, publisher
and editor of the influential German weekly Die Zeit. A double major
in economics and political science at Swarthmore, Joffe holds a
Ph.D. in government from Harvard and has taught at Harvard,
Johns Hopkins, and Stanford universities. Bloom describes him as a
“public intellectual whose interpretations of current political, economic, and social issues consistently offer your global audience new
levels of understanding and greater ethical clarity.”

The complete texts of all Commencement speeches—including the baccalaureate speech by Samantha Power, executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy
School of Government, and the Last Collection speech by Associate Professor of History Tim Burke—are available at www.swarthmore.edu/news/commencement/index2.html.

SEPTEMBER 2002

KARLA GILBRIDE (LEFT), A M C CABE SCHOLAR FROM SYOSSET, N.Y., WAS

ollowing the speeches, Shimamoto steps forward with the mace.
He instructs the class to rise and wear their mortarboards. President Bloom steps to the microphone and intones: “By the power
vested in me by the Board of Managers of Swarthmore College and
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.…” The tassels are moved en
masse, and suddenly it’s official.
Provost Constance Cain Hungerford (who just a year ago was
herself carrying the mace) reads each name as the 336 members of
the Class of 2002 come forward to receive rolled-up, garnet-ribboned diplomas from a beaming President Bloom. Hoots of joy fill
the air from family and friends in the audience.
It takes more than an hour to get from Prince Chuks Achime, a
political science major from Duncanville, Texas, to Johanna Moran
Yoon, an engineering and art double major from Toledo, Ohio. But
then the caterpillar, suitably inoculated by its Swarthmore spider
bite, stirs itself to climb out of the amphitheater. The music turns
celebratory, as Alston conducts his own arrangement of “Sir Duke”
by Stevie Wonder. At the top of the steps, the procession breaks up.
The cocoon is cracked; wings unfurl; the metamorphosis is complete.
In the shade of a sour gum tree on Parrish lawn, the arboretum
folks hand out souvenir pots of Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica,
Henry’s Garnet). Plant it carefully, I think. Feed and water it well.
—Jeffrey Lott

7

@ S WA R T H M O R E

I

n a rare U.S. appearance, acclaimed
Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish
read his poetry in April to a capacity
crowd in the Lang Peforming Arts Center. His reading followed a concert by
Lebanese musician Marcel Khalife, who
canceled dates of his North American
tour to attend the event. Both men were
introduced as “iconic figures of the Arab
world” by Columbia University Professor
Edward Said, himself a renowned scholar of modern literature and an expert on
Middle Eastern politics.
Although billed as a cultural event stemming from Swarthmore’s interest in promoting Islamic studies, the current political
situation in the Middle East was never too
far from the surface. In his introduction of
Said, Professor of English Literature Peter
Schmidt posed questions about U.S. foreign
policy in the region and denounced the
“deliberate obliterat[ion]” of the “cultural
and social infrastructure of Palestine.” Said
echoed those sentiments and decried what
he called the denigration of Arab culture in
the United States, describing it as “pathetically undertaught and unknown.”
Their remarks helped make clear the significance of the headliners’ joint appearance
on an American stage. “This event brought
a very special part of Arab and Palestinian
culture to the United States,” said Assistant
Professor of Anthropology Farha Ghannam,
a Palestinian who grew up in Jordan. “It
also brought together not only one of my
favorite poets, an intellectual whom I
respect highly, but a singer whom I adored
as a teenager. It was wonderful and
extremely important to see Palestinian heritage presented and celebrated outside the
usual stereotypes.”
Khalife, hailed for composing songs in
Arabic using contemporary Arabic poetry,
performed musical arrangements based on
Darwish’s work. Darwish, the author of
more than two dozen books of poetry and
prose, read in Arabic from his recent work,
while well-known poets Carolyn Forché and
Naomi Shihab Nye read different selections
from his poems in English. Although his
work has been translated into more than 20
languages, very few of his poetry collections
are available in English.
Darwish is the recipient of numerous

JIM GRAHAM

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S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

8

Palestinian Poet

MAHMOUD DARWISH

international literary awards, including the
$350,000 Lannan Foundation Prize for
Cultural Freedom, announced in November.
The foundation, which helped arrange his
visit, had originally planned to present the
award during the program. Instead, according to Vice President for College and Community Relations Maurice Eldridge ’61 in
the April 25 issue of The Phoenix, the ceremony was moved to Philadelphia to avoid
giving the appearance that the award was
coming from the College.
Following the reading, students Amalle
Dublon ’04, an Israeli citizen, and Selma
Hassan ’02, from Sudan, presented Darwish
with a Lebanese cedar that will be planted
on campus in his honor along with a plaque
inscribed with a stanza from his poem
“Ruba’iyat”: “I have seen all I want to see of
war / A spring of water / Our forefathers
squeezed / From a green stone. / Our
fathers inherited the water / But they do not
give it to us. / I close my eyes: / What is left
of the land / I make with my own hands.”
—Alisa Giardinelli

CLASS OF 2006 ADMITTED

Associate Professor of History Timothy
Burke, a specialist in African history and
American pop culture, was chosen by
members of the Class of 2002 to be their
Last Collection speaker—a singular honor.
One reason for Burke’s popularity
among students might be his Web site. On
it, he has the usual syllabi for courses
and synopses of his scholarly work. He is
author of Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women, a
study of how “inhabitants of colonial Zimbabwe developed deeply felt needs and
desires for the products of capitalist manufacturing.” And with his brother, Kevin,
he wrote Saturday Morning Fever, an
admiring look at television’s cartoon culture.
But Burke leaps beyond scholarship to
offer such Web goodies as: “Professor
Burke Explains It All to You”(an advice
column for students); “Boiling Oil: Messages from the Ivory Tower” (essays on
academe); and the “Geek Chronicles”
(commentaries on geek culture).
Then there are his “Cranky Restaurant
Reviews,” which tell you everything you
need to know—and a few things you
might prefer you didn’t—about Swarthmore-area and Philadelphia restaurants.
For a taste of Burke, click that browser
over to http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/tburke1.
—Jeffrey Lott

ʼ06

A total of 892 students, including 154 notified during early-decision period, were offered
admission to the Class of 2006, which by midsummer was expected to number 375 students. The College accepted 23 percent of the more than 3,900 who applied.
Of the admitted students from high schools that report class rank, 35 percent were valedictorians or salutatorians, 53 percent were in the top 2 percent of their high school class,
and 93 percent ranked in the top 10 percent. The admitted students came from five continents, 39 nations, and all 50 U.S. states.
Fifty-seven percent of the admitted students come from public high schools, 29 percent
from private independent schools, 6 percent from parochial schools, and 7 percent from
schools overseas.
Continuing the trend of recent years, more of the admitted students declare “undecided”
as their intended major than any other. Next, in order, are biology, engineering, political science, English, mathematics, economics, and history.
—Alisa Giardinelli

WALK TO FREEDOM

Game Time

I

n May, the faculty voted to adopt a set of guidelines aimed
at reducing scheduling conflicts for student athletes.
Although the guidelines reaffirm several existing policies,
they go beyond any previous faculty action in seeking to provide
a framework for the resolution of conflicts between academic
commitments and participation in intercollegiate sports.
The guidelines were developed by the Curriculum Committee in close collaboration with the Athletics Review Committee
(ARC). They emphasize communication among students,
coaches, and faculty members, encouraging all parties “to work
out mutually acceptable solutions” where potential conflicts
arise. The document acknowledges that “when a mutually
agreeable understanding is not reached, students should be
mindful of the primacy of academics at Swarthmore.”
In adopting the guidelines, the faculty made a key distinction between athletic practices and contests. They say, “Students who are participating in intercollegiate athletics should
not miss classes, seminars, or labs for practice.” But those who
anticipate missing an academic appointment for a scheduled
athletic contest should “try to come to an understanding
regarding the conflict with their coach and their professor as
soon as possible, preferably during the first week of the semester.”
The guidelines restate a long-standing practice of ending
most regular classes by 4 p.m. on Monday to Thursday and 5
p.m. on Fridays, reminding the faculty to “recognize that the
time from 4:15 to 7 p.m. is heavily used by students for extracur-

ricular activities and dinner.” The document asks students to
consider the times of athletic contests as they plan their schedules but also urges faculty members and coaches to schedule
both academic and athletic commitments well in advance and
to avoid last-minute changes that create conflicts.
Professor of Economics Stephen O’Connell, who chaired the
ARC, called the faculty’s action “a major accomplishment for the
College.” He emphasized that the guidelines are “not rules” and
observed that “many are
already routinely obThe faculty adopts
served by faculty and
coaches.”
new guidelines
The new guidelines are
appended to the ARC’s
to address
final report, which can be
viewed at www.swarthscheduling conflicts
more.edu/news/athletics.
In its report, the ARC—
for athletes.
which has consisted of
faculty members, members of the Board of Managers, coaches,
students, and administrators—notes a broad range of improvements to the athletics program. Among the ARC’s recommendations are that its own three-year existence be concluded, with
its oversight role passed to the standing Physical Education and
Athletics Advisory Committee. A separate committee of the
Board of Managers, which includes two members of the Alumni
Council, will continue to evaluate progress in strengthening the
College’s intercollegiate athletics program.
—Jeffrey Lott

SEPTEMBER 2002

AP PHOTO/GENE HERRICK

The Swarthmore College Peace Collection has
received a grant from the National Film
Preservation Foundation (NFPF) to repair an
original 16-mm print of the film Walk to Freedom. The Peace Collection’s copy of the film
is one of only two remaining originals produced in the 1950s by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the oldest U.S. religious peace
group. Though Wendy Chmielewski, Cooley
Curator of the Peace Collection, submitted a
proposal to restore nine films, the NFPF
chose to subsidize only the repair of Walk to
Freedom because it contains unique footage
of the 1956 Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott.
(In the still photo at left, boycott leader
Rosa Parks arrives at the Montgomery courthouse for her trial in March 1956.) In addition to the repaired original print, the
Peace Collection will receive a 16-mm copy,
a broadcast-quality beta videotape, and a
VHS viewing copy for the McCabe Library
collection.
—Benjamin Galynker ’03

9

wo new members of the dean’s staff
will concentrate on developing programs for minority students and on creating a broader, more inclusive campus
community.
Darryl Smaw began work in February
as the College’s new associate dean for
multicultural affairs. Rafael Zapata
became assistant dean and director of
the College’s Intercultural Center in July.
Previously associate dean for program
development at Harvard’s Graduate
School of Education, Smaw graduated
from Colgate Rochester Divinity School
and received a Ph.D. in education from
Harvard.
Since arriving at Swarthmore, Smaw
has conducted meetings with students
and faculty members to “learn more
about the Swarthmore community, their
expectations for this position, and [ways]

PART OF THE COLLEGE’S NEW SCIENCE CENTER WILL BE READY FOR USE IN
DECEMBER. THE ENTIRE PROJECT WILL BE COMPLETED IN 2004.

to the Martin Biology Building and to the remaining portion of
DuPont, which will be home to the departments of computer science,
mathematics and statistics, and the rest of physics and astronomy.
Nearby, the outlines of a new 200-seat lecture hall are already
framed in steel like a miniature amphitheater. Standing on a wood
platform adjacent to the future coffee bar, one cannot help but be
awed by the huge columns supporting an inverted roof that will
channel rainwater to a water stair and eventually to an underground
stormwater collector that will slow runoff into Crum Creek. Just as
awe-inspiring is the three-story skeleton that will become the future
chemistry wing, to be finished in July of next year.
The science center project, which has an estimated construction
cost of $59 million and will require $18 million in additional operating endowment, is part of The Meaning of Swarthmore, a $232 million campaign for the future of the College. By June 30, the campaign had nearly reached its halfway mark with $113 million in gifts
and pledges received.
—Benjamin Galynker ’03

Diversity
Deans

ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS DARRYL
SMAW (LEFT) IS THE FIRST PERSON TO HOLD THAT POSITION AT THE COLLEGE. ASSISTANT DEAN AND DIRECTOR
OF THE INTERCULTURAL CENTER RAFAEL ZAPATA (RIGHT)
JOINED THE STAFF IN JULY.

BENJAMIN GALYNKER ʼ03

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

T

10

BENJAMIN GALYNKER ʼ03

E

very week this summer—even every
day—the intricate maze of construction
that has swallowed up the old DuPont
Science Building progresses and changes
shape. Charles Ricciardi, senior project manager for Barclay White Skanska, the construction management firm, and Janet Semler, director of planning and
construction from the College’s facilities management group, gave me
a tour of the full site on July 3. Coincidentally, the day marked a
milestone in the construction—“topping off,” the completion of
structural steel erection. Semler declared that the project is 15 percent built. Occupancy will be phased in as sections of the building
are completed between December 2002 and spring 2004.
One part of the project is farther along. Tucked beneath the College’s water tower is a “chiller plant.” This box-like building will generate antifreeze-treated 45-degree water to be pumped to rooftop air
handlers and connected through climate-control units throughout the
140,000-square-foot science center. According to Ricciardi, the heat
that is generated by chilling the water will be used to preheat the
hot water in the building—an energy-saving concept that is typical
of the “green” design of the building.
Another structure taking shape is an addition, part of which covers the now-demolished facade and roof of the Cornell Science
Library. When completed this winter, it will house biology and
physics teaching labs, temporary offices for physics and astronomy
faculty, and two classrooms. A glass-enclosed commons space will
rise where the old DuPont lecture hall stood. All of this will be linked

JIM GRAHAM

COLLECTION

SCIENCE
CENTER
GROWS

I might assist them in the development of
a multicultural community.”
Smaw stressed that he hopes to reach
out to athletes, international students,
religious groups, and students with disabilities. “These and other groups,”
Smaw says, “characterize who we are and
what Swarthmore is as a living, learning
community.”
Zapata came to the College from New
York University, where he was assistant
director of the Office for African American, Latino, and Asian American Student
Services.
A 1993 graduate of Iona College,
he earned a master’s degree from Arizona
State University and is working toward a
doctorate in sociology at the University
of Pennsylvania.
—Elizabeth Redden ’05

The subject of the annual lecture alternates
between French and Francophone studies
and Russian and Eastern European studies.
In 1990, the History Department established the Paul H. Beik Prize in History in
his honor, to be awarded annually in May,
for the best thesis or extended paper by a
graduating history major.
—Carol Brévart-Demm

BEIT MIDRASH ESTABLISHED
Jewish students and others with an interest
in Jewish texts have a new place to study
them on campus. The 2001–2002 academic
year was the first for Swarthmore’s new Beit
Midrash, a joint project of the College
library and the Department of Religion.
Located in one of the lodges near
Sharples Dining Hall, the Beit Midrash
(which in Hebrew means “house of study”)
offers volumes of the Bible, Talmud, Mishna,
Tosefta, mystical texts, and codes of Jewish
law. The Bible collection, with books in both
Hebrew and English, is named for the
Claude S. Smith Professor of Political Science James Kurth, a generous supporter of
the project.
Weekly study sessions and occasional
visiting speakers attract students, faculty
members, and others from the Swarthmore
community. The center is also expected to be
an important resource for students taking
religion courses such as Hebrew Bible and
the Ancient Near East and Jewish Bible
Interpretation.
—Jeffrey Lott

COMMUNITY ENERGY INC.

AIR POWER

T

he College has committed to meeting 2.5
percent of its energy needs through the
purchase of wind power. And thanks to a
conservation effort by students, it won’t
have to expend additional dollars to achieve
a more environmentally friendly energy mix.
Although its cost has fallen dramatically
in recent years, wind-generated power still
costs more than conventional electricity. To

help cover the cost difference, Swarthmore
students have agreed to reduce their energy
consumption by turning off lights and taking
similar measures. The wind power comes
from newly developed wind farms—such as
the one shown above, near Somerset, Pa.—
operated by Community Energy and Exelon
Corp.
—Jeffrey Lott

TOTA L LY S WAT
In lieu of a portion of their final exam,
students in the political science course
Socialism in Europe, taught by Assistant
Professor Jeffrey Murer, opted to be evaluated through a more direct demonstration of what they had learned. They drafted a manifesto of principles and built and
lived in a tent commune on Parrish lawn—
complete with Soviet martial anthems and
red flags—for three days and two nights.
The students, who dubbed themselves
Trabajadores Unidos para la Revolución,
plastered campus bathrooms and lounges
with 10-point critiques of capitalism and
copies of old
Soviet propaganda posters,
generating
publicity for
a culminating
rally on International
Workers Day,
May 1.
On that
FASCIST RAID
historic day,
members of Associate Professor of History
Pieter Judson’s Fascist Europe seminar
unexpectedly upstaged the Socialists at
their lunch-hour rally. Wearing black and
wielding water balloons and large water
guns, the Fascist counterrevolutionaries
wreaked havoc in the commune and
ascended the Socialists’ Parrish podium in
line formation. To the audience’s delight,
the Socialists sportingly handed over the
microphone to Danny Fink ’03 and
Matthew Rubin ’03, representatives of the
Fascist Europe seminar, who delivered a
hot-blooded ideological attack on the
grounds that the Socialists had violated
their own precept of equal distribution of
wealth by hoarding the College’s Adirondack chairs inside the commune.
After accusing the Socialists of sullying the virtues of the idyllic Swarthmore
nation, the Fascists relinquished the
stage. The Socialists resumed their program, declaring solidarity with other students rallying in Europe against the rise
of Jean-Marie Le Pen and right-wing politics there.
—Benjamin Galynker ’03

SEPTEMBER 2002

O

n June 8, Centennial Professor of History Emeritus Paul Beik died at the age
of 87 in Winter Park, Fla. After graduating
from Union College in 1935, obtaining a
doctorate from Columbia University in 1943,
teaching courses at Columbia, and participating in the V-12 Naval Officers Training
Program, he
joined the
Swarthmore faculty in 1945. He
retired in 1980.
An expert on
the French Revolution and
modern European history,
Beik was the
author of five
PAUL BEIK
books on French
history, including, in 1956, The French Revolution Seen From the Right, a study of conservative thought about the revolution, which
was reprinted in 1970; and, in 1959, the
textbook Modern Europe: A History Since
1500, in collaboration with Lawrence Lafore.
He also introduced the study of Russian history to the campus.
Beik is remembered by his students and
acquaintances for his geniality, generosity
with his time, and the encouragement and
rigor with which he prepared students for
careers as historians.
On his retirement, many of Beik’s former
students endowed a lectureship in his name.

CLAIRE WEISS ʼ03/THE PHOENIX

REMEMBERING PAUL BEIK

11

LOOKING AT THE STATS

ONE OF THE CLASSICS

rofessor of Statistics Gudmund Iversen
retires this year after 30 years at the
College, during which he has expanded the
formerly one-teacher, one-course Statistics
Program to become a popular elective today.
One of the highlights of Iversen’s career
at Swarthmore was when, 10 years ago, the
name of the Mathematics Department was
changed to the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, reflecting the growing
importance and popularity of Iversen’s
work. Although he claims that study of statistics traditionally has a bad reputation,
50 to 60 percent of Swarthmore graduates
regularly have taken statistics courses voluntarily. During Iversen’s tenure, more
than 2,000 students have taken his courses. Six years ago, the growing workload
necessitated
the hiring of a
second statistician, Philip
Everson, who
received tenure this year.
Iversen,
who is also in
his second
three-year
term as direcGUDMUND IVERSEN
tor of the
Center for Social and Policy Studies, says
that Swarthmore was just the right place
for him.
An impressive list of publications
notwithstanding, research has not been his
first priority. “The emphasis on teaching
[at Swarthmore] appealed to me,” he says.
“Teaching is what it’s all about.”
Of his departmental colleagues and
administrators, Iversen says, “I couldn’t
have asked for a better group of people to
be together with. They’ve been a great
inspiration.”
Iversen’s retirement plans include reading statistics books, reviving his highschool interest in photography, and driving
the winding U.S. Route 2 cross-country
from western Washington state to Northern Maine. At the end of his drive, two
small grandchildren await, “as precious as
can be.”

hirty-five years after coming to Swarthmore in 1967 as an assistant professor,
Susan Lippincott Professor of Modern and
Classical Languages Gilbert Rose retires this
year. Arriving at the College shortly before
jobs in academe became scarce, Rose says:
“It turned out that I spent my whole career
in one place, and I’m lucky that it turned
out to be Swarthmore. It’s a great fit for my
commitments and interests and values.”
Rose, who has served as chair of the
Classics Department and the Humanities
Division, is grateful for the College’s unwavering support of his area of scholarship in
a culture and society where, these days, the
humanities are “at the bottom of the totem
pole.” As a teacher of Greek and Latin at all
levels, he has welcomed the College’s commitment to language as the essence of
studying Classics. “We require that all Classics majors have a high level of understanding of at least one ancient language,” he
says. Most majors take at least three Honors
seminars taught in the language itself.
Rose has taught language courses and
seminars on Greek and Latin epic, drama,
and philosophy. He sees Swarthmore as the
kind of environment where a teacher easily
develops a close relationship with students.
Most of his Honors seminars have taken
place in the living room of his home. “The
students have
remained close
friends in many
cases,” he says.
In 1983, Rose
was honored
with the American Philological
Association
Award for
Excellence in
Teaching, and,
GIL ROSE
in 2000, he
received the Flack Teaching Award.
Recently, Rose founded the new Lifelong
Learning Program for adults interested in
continuing education classes, which debuted successfully in 2002 and which he
hopes will become a regular feature of both
his own and the College’s life.
—Carol Brévart-Demm

JANET AND TIM WILLIAMS ’64

WORKING TOGETHER

P

rofessor of Biology Timothy Williams
retires this year after a 42-year–long
association with the College, where he began
as a member of the Class of 1964. He
returned in 1976, accompanied by his wife,
Janet Williams, who has worked as a research associate alongside her husband.
“We’ve always worked together,” he says, “so
when we look at what I have done, it’s really
what we have done.” The Williamses specialize in tracking the migratory patterns of
birds and other flying animals.
They have taken students on research
voyages to Hawaii and Guam and around
the world on the Semester at Sea Program.
They observed birds migrating over the
Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans, estimated the density of migrants, and measured
their orientation, which, Williams says, had
never before been done systematically.
“The students have been our best
friends,” Williams says. “We often get closest to students on our field trips, where they
appreciate that we not only studied animal
behaviors in class—we looked at real animals in the field.” He received a Flack Teaching Award from the College in 1987.
Author and co-author of hundreds of
wildlife-related publications, Williams is
also the inventor of several pieces of radar
equipment, including an ornithological
radar on top of the Martin Building.
On retirement, the Williamses will head
for northern New Hampshire, where they
have been doing research since 1992. Williams will retain strong links to Swarthmore,
where his departmental colleagues have
been “marvelous and so cooperative.” As
an alumnus, emeritus faculty member, and
Swarthmore parent, how could he not?

JIM GRAHAM

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

12

T
BENNETT LORBER ʼ64

P

CAROL BREVART-DEMM

COLLECTION

We Bid Them Adieu

C a s t r o , C a r t e r,
and Khawja

COURTESY OF YASMIN KHAWJA

Y

FIDEL CASTRO AND YASMIN KHAWJA ’03 CHAT FOR A WHILE AT THE
FAREWELL DINNER FOR FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER. KHAWJA WAS
CHOSEN TO SPEAK FOR STUDENTS FROM 36 AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES WHO
WERE STUDYING IN CUBA LAST SPRING.

with the Consejo de Estado (national council) in the Palacio de la
Revolucion. “It was like a dream,” she recalls. Castro and Carter
“remembered me from my speech, and I got to talk to them.”
They asked her about her plans for medical school. Castro said he
enjoyed her speech and offered her admission to the Latin American School of Medicine he founded two years ago, which gives
full scholarships to all its students.
She adds: “I definitely saw the bad sides [of Cuba] and things
that I would change, like the restrictions on the Cuban people. I
think I got a clearer, less idealistic view of both the good aspects
of Cuban society and government and those that still need to be
worked on.”
Cubans and Americans have much to learn from each other,
says Khawja. The Cuban people, whom she found to be warm,
lively, and very creative with their limited resources, were as curious to know more about American culture as she and her fellowstudents were to explore Cuba. She believes that with mutual
respect and a willingness to communicate—such as the Cuban
and COPA students had shared—both countries would benefit
from reconciliation. But this effort, she adds, has to begin with
the heads of their national governments.
—Carol Brévart-Demm

SEPTEMBER 2002

Yasmin Khawja never aspired to be an ambassador. Actually, she
wants to be a doctor. Nonetheless, in May, with very little time
for preparation and no prior experience, she succeeded in grabbing the attention of two heads of state.
Khawja, born and raised in Boston as the daughter of a Pakistani father and a Colombian mother, is a premed medical
anthropology special major. She spent the spring semester at the
Universidad de la Habana in Havana, sponsored by Butler University’s Cooperating Programs in the Americas (COPA). The
program is part of former President Bill Clinton’s People to People Act, which now permits American students to study in Cuba.
Khawja was there when former U.S. President Jimmy Carter
arrived in Cuba on his mission to improve relations between that
country and the United States after 43 years of hostility.
The week before she was due to leave Cuba, Khawja was
informed that she had been selected to represent the 49 COPA
participants from 36 American universities, speaking at the event
surrounding Carter’s address to the Cuban people. Broadcast on
television from the grand hall of the university, the event was
attended by Cuban President Fidel Castro and other Cuban dignitaries as well as Cuban and American students and members of
the American delegation accompanying Carter. “This was an
absolute surprise,” Khawja says. “I found out on a Thursday that
I was to speak the next Tuesday, and we were going on a trip for
the weekend.”
As part of an evening program that included speeches by the
director of the university, the president of the University Student
Federation, and Carter, Khawja spoke in Spanish for six minutes,
summarizing the impressions that she and her group, whose
members came from varied ethnic backgrounds, had gathered
during their stay. Her role, she said, was not to relay their political views but rather their experiences of everyday life among the
Cuban students and people. In her speech, she spoke of positive
and valuable interactions between program participants and
Cubans of all ages and from all sectors of society—whether while
singing; worshiping; learning to play the bongos; or making presentations in class, which they attended with Cuban students.
Although she mentioned problems the COPA students had
observed in the Cuban economy and transportation system, she
said they had been im-pressed by the fact that the country has no
organized crime and that it is safe to walk the Cuban streets at all
times of the day and night as well as to hitchhike—the preferred
mode of travel because public transport is so unreliable. She
hoped that her remarks, al-though not offering actual solutions,
might illustrate the capability of Cubans and Americans to coexist peacefully and thereby contribute to eventual solutions.
At the end of the evening, Castro and Carter had to hurry
away to throw ceremonial pitches at a baseball game, leaving a
hall full of disappointed students, who had hoped to at least
shake the dignitaries’ hands.
For Khawja, however, the experience continued. The next
morning, she received an invitation to Carter’s farewell dinner

13

1
3
3
M
Are You a
Renaissance Soul?
S WA R T H M O R E A N S F I N D A WAY T O J U G G L E M A N Y I N T E R E S T S .

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

B y A l i C r o l i u s ’84

14

Illustrations by Paine Proffitt

argaret Neisser Lobenstine ’65 divides the world into
two categories. One includes those highly focused, decisive individuals
who come into the world knowing exactly what they want to do when
they grow up. These souls she compares to Mozart, whose intelligence and inspiration went wholly into his music. These are the
freshmen who know what their major will be, who graduate four years
later with a degree in that subject, get advanced degrees in the
same, and then go on to make a name for themselves in that field.
This article is not about those people.
Instead, it is about those in the other category, the one comprising people Lobenstine calls “Ben Franklins.” Inventor, publisher,
writer, philosopher, public citizen, statesman, Francophile, founder of
a university and a post office, and all-around Promethean thinker,
Franklin was what Lobenstine calls a “Renaissance soul.”
Lobenstine pays tribute to people of diverse passions in her
unpublished book manuscript, “Secrets of the Renaissance Soul:
Making ‘Too Many Interests’ Work for You.” A career and “life design”
counselor in the Amherst, Mass.,
area, Lobenstine wrote the book
after realizing that many seeking
her help were the proverbial
round pegs trying to force themselves into square holes.
They worried that there was
something wrong with them.
They labeled themselves as
hopelessly indecisive, vacillating, restless. They started a million projects but completed few;
no sooner did they master a subject than they moved on to
something new. When attentiondeficit disorder came into vogue,
these people were sure they had
it. Their friends described them
as dilettantes and jacks-of-alltrades, and their families wished
they’d “find themselves and settle down.”
At midlife and beyond, many
of Lobenstine’s clients were still
casting about for the one thing
that would bring all their areas
of passion together.
Lobenstine says she’s had

clients collapse in tears of relief when she assures them there’s nothing wrong with them.
Drinking tea in her living room, where a small sunlit corner doubles as her office and a constant flutter of birds at her feeder provides background entertainment, she runs through a list of her own
Renaissance endeavors. At Swarthmore, she had a difficult time picking a major, of course. She settled on political science but backed it
up with minors in economics and history. Did she use these directly
in her life? No—she worked with blind children at a camp one summer and decided to drop a political science seminar to take two education courses. She writes, “My request was considered so out of the
ordinary that it had to be taken up by the entire faculty.”
Lobenstine continued the pattern after graduation. Her resumé
reads something like this: obtained a master’s from Bank Street
Teacher’s College; worked at the New York University Reading Institute as well as in one of the original Head Start programs. Subsequently, Margaret did political work with the Black Panthers, worked
for an alternative press, worked
at an eyeglasses factory and at
the post office, and started her
own errand business. She ran a
bed-and-breakfast; coordinated
labor groups for First Harvest
Brigade for Nicaragua; taught
others how to run inns; was
regional master trainer for the
Massachusetts Literacy Corps;
and started her current business,
Alternative Approaches.
Now, she responds to questions through her Web site www.ToGetUnstuck.com, leads career
and Renaissance Soul workshops,
is a guest expert for the Staples
Inc. small business Web site,
does family business consulting
at the University of Massachusetts, writes both fiction and
newspaper articles, and does professional photography.
Much of this overlapped with
raising twin daughters Lori and
Heather, now grown and showing
their own signs of Lobenstine’s
Renaissance nature.

Lobenstine believes the pendulum is swinging in favor of Renaissance souls. Hard economic times and destabilizing political forces
are forcing people to become more adaptable, more adept at having
more than one skill to offer in the job market. “The cradle-to-grave
security simply isn’t there,” neither as a mind-set nor as a reality,
she said. “People are re-examining their priorities.”
As for myself, I have an interest in pretty much every subject
academic, abstract, and practical. I left Swarthmore with a B.A. in

religion and a minor in studio art. My first business card read, “Ali
Crolius: Generalist.” Later, I became a journalist—a career that
enabled me to follow my curiosities to my heart’s content. I continued to write fiction and letters to the editor, sell my paintings, and
be an outspoken citizen of the republic. Now, I am a teacher as well
as a writer, a field that enables—and demands—that my multiple
interests find expression. Like the other Renaissance souls, my life
would feel diminished if I eliminated any of these joys.

7
W

hen Mark Schwartz was doing
Chekhov scene studies in his junior
year, he never imagined he’d have an encore.
“I didn’t think acting was the responsible adult
thing to do,” he said. He majored in political
science instead.
To be sure, years in the courtroom as an
attorney provided him with ample opportunities for theatrics. The Pittsburgh native’s early
career choice, law, looked rather “duckish,” to
use Margaret Lobenstine’s language. Schwartz
took the drive he’d put to good use in the Honors Program and went to work. Law segued
into investment banking, in which he became
first vice president of Prudential-Bache Securities’ Public Finance Department in Philadelphia.
Schwartz’s first brush with drama was self-imposed and unofficial: He became a corporate whistle-blower. As manager of the midAtlantic region of Prudential’s tax-exempt division, he said he
became aware of pressure on employees to contribute to political
campaigns. After objecting to the practice and getting fired, he spent
two “unpleasant” years pursuing a case against Prudential’s practices with the National Association of Securities Dealers. As a result,
the Securities and Exchange Commission banned political contributions by underwriters and began keeping a closer eye on political
gifts by brokerage firms. Some major houses agreed to curtail political contributions, but an industry panel reviewing the Prudential
case threw out a claim that Schwartz had been wrongfully dismissed. He felt only somewhat vindicated by the fact that Prudential
was heavily fined by the Federal Elections Commission.
The experience left Schwartz “flat, I mean flat, on my back.”
Unable to interest other Wall Street firms in hiring him, he set up a
private law practice from his Bryn Mawr, Pa., home; burned through
his savings, trying to support his wife and two young sons; and
came to the edge of bankruptcy. “It’s very nice to be outspoken,” he
reflected, “but it’s also nice to pay the mortgage.”
The breaking point came when a former investment banking
partner died of cancer at age 40. Schwartz says he spiraled into a
serious depression but was thrown a lifeline by a generous fellow
Swarthmorean who retained him to do some legal work for his family. “He admired my whistle-blowing,” said Schwartz, “and he gave

me work at a critical time, which gave me the opportunity to re-evaluate my life.” The verdict: Schwartz came to view his years in high
finance as an empty, if educational, interlude: “It wasn’t allowing me
to use my brain the way Swarthmore developed it.”
It was after Schwartz had regained traction in his law practice
that his early love of theater re-emerged. Representing a literary
agent and a filmmaker gave him the urge to try some acting classes.
He began auditioning and found himself cast as Truman Capote in
Cruelties, a play about the writer that won Best New Play for the
New York Drama League. To prepare for his role, he dived with characteristic intensity into “reading everything (of Capote’s) I could get
my hands on,” digging up old recordings to get the literary legend’s
pouting drawl and ordering first editions of his books on eBay. For
his six performances in a tiny theater at New York City’s Pace University, he was paid a grand total of $65.
Schwartz concluded that acting, far from not being very adult,
demands everything a person’s got. “Acting’s the hardest profession
I’ve ever seen. If investment bankers are brain dead, and lawyers are
a small step up, then acting is the hardest as far as what it takes to
be successful.”
With a few parts in independent films now on his resumé,
Schwartz is casting around for a new role. In the meantime, he
hopes his next gig will be as mentor of a new generation of
lawyers—starting with Swarthmore’s current crop of Renaissance
souls, including son Benjamin ’06.

SEPTEMBER 2002

Whistleblower,
Lawyer, and Actor:
Mark Schwartz '75

15

Doctor, Gun Collector,
Inventor, and Jeweler:
Paul Kopsch ’46

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

7
F

16

irearms enthusiasts at a Quaker college are as
rare as pacifists at West Point. But as a student, Paul
Kopsch, fascinated with guns from childhood, would go down to
the Crum with his Civil War–era muzzle loader and shoot away to
his heart’s content with fellow gun aficionado Fred Richards ’45.
“We did all right until some old man came running down and
hollered that we were putting bullets in his prize trees,” he chuckled from his home in Lorain, Ohio.
It might seem paradoxical that both men went on to medical
professions. Kopsch, an anesthesiologist for 35 years until he
retired, would tell his fellow physicians that he saw no contradiction. “I told them the best way to keep the good guys well is to make
the bad ones real sick,” said the lifetime National Rifle Association
member.
Originally a member of the Class of 1944, Kopsch, a reservist
called to active duty during World War II, was eager to put his
marksmanship to practical use. “They kicked me out after a month,
when they found out I’d been accepted to medical school,” he said.
Initially drawn to obstetrics, Kopsch found that the only residencies open to him at the time were in anesthesiology. He liked
the work right away and became the first board-eligible practitioner
of it between Cleveland and Toledo. Later, he became county coroner as well. But “a few years after all this, I realized I’d gotten off
easy and owed my country.” He enrolled in the National Guard as a
medical officer, where, in addition to taking care of soldiers, he got
to “use all those guns.” When partners in his office would come
spend Mondays talking about adventures on the links, Kopsch came
back with stories of drills with anti-aircraft guns called Vulcans,
which would fire 100 rounds per second.
In the mid-1960s, Kopsch the coroner teamed up with a couple
of police officers who had been involved in gunfights. They were
tired of shooting their .38 Specials at speeding cars, only to see the
crooks escape while bullets bounced off. The three of them put their
heads together to design a Teflon-coated bullet that increased penetration of metal and glass by 20 percent.
For a while, the KTW round (an acronym for the names of Kopsch and his two partners) was employed by police and the military.
He claimed it was the literal “magic bullet” that killed the hijackers
of a passenger train in Holland in the 1970s. Kopsch’s voice grew
bitter as he recalled how critics began dubbing his invention the
“cop killer bullet,” although it was only sold to police and the military. After acrimonious public debate and congressional hearings, in
which Kopsch testified, manufacture of the KTW was suspended.
Despite that disappointment, Kopsch kept returning to his workbench on his 5-acre farm—a former peach orchard that he’s deeded
to Swarthmore after his death. (He’s also set up premed scholarships
in his and his wife’s name and another in memory of Swarthmore
roommate Bill Inouye ’44, the late professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania.) Kopsch invented and patented an anti-tank
rocket he thought would be useful against Soviet tanks but found no

takers among the munitions makers. And he continued to add to his
firearms collection, which includes such rarities as a Colt percussion
revolver whose cylinder is decorated with portraits of Buffalo Bill,
Chief Sitting Bull, and Annie Oakley. It’s both the craftsmanship
and the pleasure of shooting that continue to fascinate him.
As a man of many talents, Kopsch found it relatively easy to balance his dual interests in medicine and firearms. “I’d just tell my
partners in my practice, ‘I’m going off to camp,’” he said. In a profession that kept him at the end of a pager and exacted 60-hour
weeks, he found the variety lifesaving. “Having different interests is
an aid to sanity,” he noted, “because if I’d stayed glued to anesthesiology all the time, with the phone ringing and those hours in the
delivery room and in surgery—this drives you quietly nuts. Getting
out and doing something different balanced all that.”
These days, it’s retirement that needs its own counterbalance,
and Kopsch found it in jewelry making. “A guy showed up a couple
of years ago with a busted computer. I cut it up and found this beautiful patterning on the circuit board.” He took the board to his shop
and began tinkering; this led to the creation of necklaces, brooches,
and key rings fashioned out of the innards of the computer. He soon
foresaw the ready, cheap, and endless supply of raw materials, given
the rapid obsolescence of computer hardware. He now makes several hundred pieces of jewelry a year, selling it to a company that gives
them away as promotional gifts. With a lifetime of achievement
behind him, why does he bother? “I get bored with the status quo,”
he said.

R

7

obinwyn Dietrich Lewis was raised as a Quaker.
It would never have occurred to her that some day she would work
for the U.S. Navy.
And if you told the Navy lawyer she is now that she would eventually turn to painting portraits of private homes on commission,
she would have been very surprised. The life of the Renaissance soul
is full of unexpected twists of fate.
“I could never figure out what to do,” she said. “As a kid, I wanted to read everything. In college, I did folk dance. Later, I did tap
dancing. It would always be, well, I did that, now I want to try something else.”
In high school and at Swarthmore, Lewis studied languages—
French, German, and Russian—in which she declared a major and
eventually got a master’s. Her first job upon graduation was as a
maid in Chicago, where “I learned how to clean bathrooms and
make Old Fashioneds, while I waited for my job with the United
States Information Agency (USIA) to start.” The USIA, Uncle Sam’s
public relations arm, sent Lewis to the Soviet Union to answer questions for Russians about an expo of American architecture.
Eventually, Lewis went to New York to work for Harper’s Bazaar,
where she worked as the second secretary to the editor in chief. “I
had absolutely no interest in fashion,” she laughed. She did, however, “drink up the city,” enrolling in a painting class at the Museum
of Modern Art. “Margaret’s [Lobenstine] idea of nurturing your
interests was very real to me even then,” she said, referring to her
Swarthmore roommate.
Lewis then took a job writing press releases and articles for the
American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia. The work
plunged her among the most ardent
voices for peace in Vietnam and justice
at home, and it was during this time that
she first observed lawyers up close and
came to admire them.
By 1970, Lewis thought she needed
to make up her mind about settling on a
career. “I reached a point where I
thought I really had to make a decision,”
she said. All her Renaissance fascinations vied to be taken seriously—languages, writing, social action, and the
law. She entered George Washington
University Law School in 1971, only to be
surprised by how attractive contracts law
appeared to her. “I think it has something to do with my interest in linguistics, with what something actually
means. In this case, it was interpreting
statutes and contracts,” she mused.
Following law school, she taught in
and later managed a legal clinic. “I
burned out after five years and started
looking around. In 1981, I went to the

Navy because some friends liked the work there, and it had a good
reputation.”
It’s work she loves, involving acquisitions of ships; environmental, labor, and personnel law; and managing 120 lawyers in offices
from coast to coast and in Hawaii. Mentoring young lawyers, who
she says are often trying to dedicate themselves to both their careers
and their families, is a big part of her job. “I think they come to the
Navy because they think they can have a life here. Frequently in the
beginning of a law career, they’re expected to give everything and
more. We don’t demand that of our attorneys.”
How did the Friend come to be at home in the Navy? “I’m just a
different person than I was 30 years ago,” she reflected. “Vietnam
was a different time. I’m comfortable now with the idea that we
need a military force to defend the country.”
Still, the law hasn’t been her only focus. In spurts, Lewis has
written poetry and begun a mystery novel. Dabbling in watercolors
gave way to oils. Figure painting, landscapes, and still lifes led to
paintings of people’s houses she calls home portraits. Once again,
she hit a place where she was juggling “too many interests” and feeling she had to focus.
“I’m not trying to escape the law, because I love it,” Lewis said.
“But I finally decided, about a year ago, that with the job I’ve got, I
had to pick.” She chose painting, an avocation she hopes to master
well enough to carry her into retirement from the Navy. She
approached a friend about helping her with marketing, and recently,
she’s started doing paintings of private homes for people around the
Washington, D.C., area in earnest. She spends weekends painting,
showing her work at outdoor art fairs, preparing for a gallery show
in the fall and building up her portfolio for commission work.
People ask her how she manages to do so many different things.
“I just say I don’t clean my house very much,” she laughed. “It’s
always a trade-off.”

SEPTEMBER 2002

Navy Attorney and Artist:
Robinwyn Lewis ’65

17

Real Estate Broker, Carpenter,
Photographer, and Perpetual
Student: Philip Metzidakis ’79

W

7

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

hat do you call a fellow who cuts real estate
deals in Manhattan one day, shoots photographs for
National Geographic another, takes regular trips to meditate with
Eastern Orthodox monks in Greece, and makes sure he’s always taking a college class?
A maverick of the market and the mind.
Philip Metzidakis insists he’s not a Type A personality: “I’m just
seeking an interesting and fulfilling life. I like adventure.”
Adventure was a pattern established early. As an undergraduate,
Metzidakis, son of retired Spanish professor Philip Metzidakis,
quickly established a rhythm. He took the first semester of his sophomore year off, went back to Swarthmore for three semesters, and
then took a second semester off before returning for three semesters
and graduating. On his first semester off, he hitchhiked through the
United States and Mexico. On his second semester off, he flew to
London and made his way eastward—overland to Egypt, into the
occupied Sinai. He financed his travels with carpentry, both as summer jobs near home and while on the road.
After “enough” trips abroad and back, Metzidakis got his degree
in 1980 and settled in New York. He thought to return to Europe,
but as he was planning to go, he had an epiphany: “I realized that
most people are like trees: They live where they are planted. Very few
are strong enough to leave the place where they are born to pursue a
dream because leaving means abandoning the known for the
unknown. New York is a magic filter that collects the people from all
over the world who are strong enough to abandon everything for

18

their dreams. It’s a city of people with dreams. It’s the city for me.”
Nurturing his own dream of making his living independently,
Metzidakis turned his carpentry experience into a viable business.
He was soon supervising 10 employees on three or four jobs at a
time and vying for business against the city’s fraternity of veteran
builders. “I knew nothing—absolutely nothing—about business,”
he said. “I cringe when I think back on some of the contracts I
signed. I made a lot of money, and I lost a lot of money.”
He soon saw that real estate brokers were making more money
selling the stores, offices, and homes he was building. So, in 1985,
he became a commercial real estate broker. That went well until the
recession of the late 1980s dragged the market to a crawl. He made a
nimble jump into building office interiors, taking a job as director of
the interior construction division of Tishman, one of the largest
builders in the country. “I hated it,” he said. “It was absolutely corporate. Everything flowed downstream from the top.” In true Renaissance fashion, he realized he was happiest working for himself. “I
said: ‘That’s it, if I ever work for a grand and glorious individual
again, it’s going to be me.’”
Metzidakis tried his hand at writing video scripts and corporate
speeches. When a friend called to say she was writing an article on
New York for a magazine in Chile, he dashed off a list of angles she
could cover—and she invited him to take the pictures. The pictures
were a hit in Santiago, and the editors asked to see more.
When a producer with whom he had worked before announced
that he was going to Greece on assignment for National Geographic,
Metzidakis piped up that he’d been taking a night class in Modern
Greek and could go along as a translator—and photographer. “I got
two spreads out of it,” he said.
As the New York real estate market came back to life, Metzidakis
founded a new company. The Jansizian Group, Ltd. (named for his
maternal grandfather who, because of the massacre of Armenians in
1915, was the last man to bear the family
name), has become a force in Manhattan’s commercial real estate market.
“Mostly, we represent companies and
not-for-profit organizations in their
search for space,” he said. “We do what
the big real estate brokerage companies
do but without the hype.”
And when he’s not wheeling, dealing,
pointing, or shooting, Metzidakis can
be found in Greece meditating with
monks in a monastery on Mount Athos.
In their own way, these retreats have
allowed him to revisit his religion thesis. “The Depravity of Hope and Faith:
A Search for Meaning” was his attempt
to shake his own late adolescent
nihilism and find meaning. “I argued
that hope and faith create slaves of men,
but what I wanted more than anything
was not to be an atheist.” He still doesn’t have his final answer, but he finds
useful markers for his journey in the
Christian mysticism of the monks.

Engineer,
Innkeeper, and
State Legislator:
Scott Cowger ’82

7

help. And any thoughts he had of “staying home on the farm” have
been happily delayed by his duties—as a state representative.
Well aware of Maine’s environmental problems after so many
years of hands-on contact with them, Cowger wanted to make
changes on a broader level. After losing on his first try, Democrat
Cowger unseated the Republican incumbent two years later by a
slender 27 votes. In typical Renaissance style, though, Cowger
resists the loaded label “politician,” preferring “public servant.” By
any name, voters must like what he does because they’ve re-elected
him twice.
As House chair of the Joint Natural Resources Committee, he has
overseen many satisfying victories. Maine enacted the strictest standards in the nation for mercury and dioxin emissions. It was the
first state in the country to outlaw the sale of mercury thermometers
and thermostats and now requires dentists to make brochures available informing patients of the risks of mercury amalgam fillings.
After three terms, he finds that representing his constituents is
its own 24–7 job. “I don’t have time to read books anymore,”
Cowger sighed. “I go to bed reading reports.” Despite not having a
vacation for close to a decade, he’s not complaining. He accepts constant motion as the price for satisfying his multifaceted interests.
“That’s the problem of having so many interests. You don’t have
time to realize every aspect of any one,” he said. Innkeeping comes
closest yet to a holistic expression of himself. “This is the best experience I’ve ever had,” he said. “As an innkeeper, there’s the big benefit, psychologically, of making people happy every day.”
It must be working. Maple Hill Farm Bed & Breakfast Inn was
recently featured as one of “30 Great Inns” in Travel & Leisure
(June). It can be found at www.maplebb.com. T
Ali Crolius is a Renaissance soul who writes, teaches, and paints in
Amherst, Mass., where she lives with her 10-year-old son, Ezra.

SEPTEMBER 2002

T

hink engineer, and you
probably don’t think of someone who, in Lobenstine’s words,
“prefers variety and combination over
concentrating on any one thing.”
But even when he was engineering
full time—for the first 15 years after
graduation—Scott Cowger chafed
against the same-old same-old. His first
job, at Maine’s legendary Bath Iron
Works shipyard, found him cooped up
in a trailer inhaling the cigar smoke of a
decidedly one-dimensional boss. And
the fact that he was working on weapons
systems for warships wasn’t a match
with his own values or the Quaker orientation of his alma mater.
In a quest for a little fresh air, Cowger spent the next 15 years
moving from job to job, dipping his drafting pen into the challenges
of working with municipalities and the private sector. He designed
stormwater systems for housing developments, capped municipal
landfills, and drew up wastewater pollution abatement plans for the
city of Portland. Anything to keep his mind active, his people-oriented personality satisfied, and his day’s work aligned with his
deeply held environmental values.
“The pattern I’ve always followed is to do several different things
at a time,” said Cowger. His Renaissance spirit found that variety in
being sole proprietor of his own consulting firm, with its multiple
demands of managing a budget, putting out bids, and juggling several projects at once. “Without the variety and change of things, I
would have become bored. You can definitely tie that to Swarthmore. I happened to have an engineering degree—from a liberal arts
college.”
When the opportunity to buy a 1906 farmhouse on 130 pastoral
acres outside Augusta, Maine, came up seven years ago, Cowger
grabbed it. “I still don’t know what drove me into starting a B&B,
other than that I was interested in running a business, serving people, and living my life by my own interests,” he said.
As we spoke by phone, front-desk sounds came over the line.
Guests were greeted and checked in by Cowger’s partner, Vince Hannan, as Cowger described the view from the office window: “I see
the hills way beyond our animal pastures and the sun just starting
to set,” he said.
After 10 years of trial and error, the business of running an inn
has become as idyllic as his initial vision of it. But Cowger’s goal of
“going out in the garden and planting perennials” has been more
difficult to realize. There was a major renovation to do, the constant
demands of hosting guests, and the challenge of finding reliable

19

By Sasha Issenberg ’02
Photographs by
E l e f t h e r i o s Ko s t a n s

Notes for Life
THE CHESTER CHILDREN’S CHORUS COMES OF AGE.

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

J

20

ust before 12:30 on a Saturday afternoon in early June, six children gathered around a piano 4 miles from their homes in
Chester, Pa. They sang a song about how easy it is to go home,
written by a man who never had to run a car pool. Associate
Professor of Music John Alston’s left hand floated through the air,
conducting as his right plinked out a melody on the piano.
“Goin' home, goin' home,” the children sang, “I'm a-goin'
home.”
“Mother’s there, 'spectin me; father's waitin' too,” they continued. “Lots of folks gathered there, all the friends I knew.”
After they finished the song, Alston told the children—all
around 8 years old—that they had performed well, and he instructed them to exit Swarthmore’s Lang Music Building, where a white
15-passenger van waited out front. By 1:30 p.m., he was supposed to
be back in the same place with a whole new group of older children.
The kids were part of the Chester Children’s Chorus, of which
Alston, 41, is founder, director, and animating spirit. Some days, he
is also chauffeur. On this day, he had one hour to drop off the first
group at their homes and to pick up the second and take them to
the College for an afternoon rehearsal. Alston used to do this as two
separate legs, making all the drop-offs before starting his pickups;
to expedite this process, which frequently demanded retracing his
path across the length of Chester, he recently decided to drop off
some and pick up others in geographical sequence.

Alston drove the van off campus, headed south to Chester, a city
of 36,000 with remarkable poverty, a history of municipal corruption, and a well-earned pessimism about the American urban condition. Alston had no list of stops, no map, and so the trip had an
improvisational quality, as he tried to design an efficient itinerary en
route while two of the girls sat in the back, loudly singing along
with the hip-hop on the van radio. “The nice part,” Alston says, “is
I get to hang out with them and get to know Chester better than
any taxi driver.”
Alston has also come to know the members of his chorus better
than most conductors. Each child rehearses with Alston on the
Swarthmore campus twice weekly during the school year—one
after-school session and one on Saturday—and then daily during a
five-week summer camp. He is a demanding and intense leader during rehearsal time, scolding the children at the slightest indication
of distraction: wandering eyes, slouching posture, unfocused
singing.
Alston also spends many evenings and weekends hanging out
with members of the chorus—taking them to the movies or out to
eat. Many ask him for advice about problems at home or at school;
sometimes, they receive it unsolicited. Two of the boys live with
Alston at his home in Parkside, which borders Chester, having left
homes riddled with family problems.
Alston does not hide similarities to his own youth. “They know

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MUSIC JOHN ALSTON (ABOVE IN THE LANG MUSIC
BUILDING) HAS BEEN TEACHING SINGING AND OTHER SKILLS TO CHILDREN
FROM CHESTER, PA., SINCE 1995. “I JUST REALLY WANTED TO START A
CHOIR,” HE SAYS OF THE GROUP, WHICH NOW HAS NEARLY 50 STUDENTS.

my father was a disaster,” he says of the alcoholic who abused
Alston’s mother before they divorced. He says he had a mediocre
Catholic school education until, in fifth grade, he was selected for
the Newark Boys Chorus, a renowned group that traveled internationally for performances. There he was captivated by music—“It
was everything to me,” he says—and decided at a young age that he
wanted to spend his life involved in it, in defiance of expectation.
“I told my eighth-grade teacher I wanted to be a conductor. She
asked if I liked trains.”
Alston received a bachelor of music degree in 1983 from Yankton
College in South Dakota and a master’s in music in 1985 from the
University of Northern Iowa. In 1995, he completed a doctorate at
Indiana University.
In 1994, after he had been hired to teach music at Swarthmore,
Alston asked College administrators for support in helping to realize a standing dream. “I just really wanted to start a choir,” Alston
says, “so that one day there would be in Chester something like the
Newark Boys Chorus.” Chester schools enthusiastically invited
Alston to conduct auditions at Columbus Elementary School,

where Swarthmore students were involved in an after-school tutorial program. In February 1995, he emerged with 15 boys whose voices
impressed him. After a few months, only seven were left in the
group. Alston conducted his first chorus camp over the summer,
and it was a limited program: rehearsal time, a snack, and a pickup
game of baseball afterward. Ever since, he has recruited new members the same way, through grade school tryouts. Now 48 children
are in the choir—the youngest is 7 years old and the oldest 17—
including 27 newly accepted second-graders.
Initially, the choir was all male. “All I can say is, being a guy, I
know how to coach boys,” Alston says. But after a few years, he
invited a few of the boys’ sisters to join as well. “They would come
after school, hanging out at rehearsal,” he says. “Not to be patronizing, but I would ask them to help serve the pre-rehearsal snack.
They would sit with the boys and help keep discipline. All the time,
they were learning to sing. There they were, learning everything
their brothers would learn.” Now, there are 23 girls among the 48
members.
The chorus does not receive any financial support from the
College; it does, however, get in-kind donations, including use of
rehearsal space and vans and Alston’s time. He has a special
arrangement by which he is given a reduced course load each semester in exchange for forgoing sabbaticals to which he would otherwise be entitled.

SEPTEMBER 2002

John Alston has
come to know
the members
of his chorus
better than most
conductors.

21

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

22

Alston estimates that the chorus will need an operating budget
of $90,000 over the next fiscal year. When the Chester–Swarthmore College Community Coalition disbanded three years ago, the
chorus inherited its assets. Now, that cash is running out, and the
chorus has turned to grants and fund-raising to support itself.
Last fall, Alston hired Andrea Hoff Knox ’64 as managing director of the program. Knox, formerly a reporter and editor for The
Philadelphia Inquirer, created an advisory board for the chorus and
spends much of her time raising money and writing grant proposals
to assist Alston. “He’s the guy with the vision, with the musical talent,” Knox says. “He’s not thinking about money or where to get it;
it’s not his expertise or where he’s comfortable.”
Alston’s vision includes securing “a beautiful place in Chester to
rehearse” and then one day turning the chorus program into a yearround school. Alston has been talking about this idea for a while,
but Knox has added momentum. “He could never see how to get
from where he is now to the school,” she says, “but now he can see
it.” Alston doesn’t find this optimism similarly reflected in all of the
children. “I wish I could tell you they’re genuinely excited,” he says.
“Some are listening. Some are not.”

U

nlike the Newark Boys Chorus—or the most famous of all such
groups, the Harlem Boys Choir—Alston has never tried to
develop the chorus as primarily a performance group. Most of the
group’s public appearances are nearby, at places like the Chester
YWCA and the Swarthmore United Methodist Church. For Alston,

THE CHORUS REHEARSES TWICE WEEKLY DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR AND
DAILY DURING A 4-WEEK SUMMER CAMP. “I WANT THEM TO LEARN TO WORK
REALLY HARD ALL THE TIME,” ALSTON SAYS. “I TELL THEM, ‘YOU HAVE TO
BRING YOUR A-GAME.’”

the pressure of mastering a repertoire for the stage distracts from
the real point of the chorus, developing an appreciation for music,
the ability to read music, and a sense of discipline among its members.
“There are lessons that traditionally fathers pass on to their children, and for many of these kids, there is nobody to do that,” Alston
says. “I don’t pretend to be their father, I don’t pretend to be their
best friend. I’m probably a role model. But Michael Jordan’s a role
model, too—and I can’t win with that. They want what Michael
has.” The unusual rapport Alston has developed with many of the
boys—he says he is most comfortable describing it as “an unclenephew relationship”—was not by his design. “I think they started
it,” he says. “One of the kids—he was tiny at the time, and now he
weighs more than I do—just called to see what I was doing. Josh
and I are best friends now. He just wanted to know what was up.”
Laurie Daniels says that Alston is “a brother-father type of guy”
to her son Nkenge, 12. Nkenge is a small, shy boy who is currently
home schooled—in part because he used to get picked on in school.
He has been in the choir since he was 8 years old and has begun to
take piano lessons as well. He says he likes Christian music and
hopes to one day sing in a church choir. “He has become very social.

B

noun-verb agreement.”
“That’s three ‘ain’ts’ and the bathroom
light on,” Alston says to Vincent, offering a
tally of accrued debts.
“That’s a dumb rule,” Vincent says.
“You want to get into Harvard?” Alston
asks. Vincent doesn’t answer, but he is one
of three chorus members who have progressed enough to be invited to sing with
the College Chorus. Alston says he “held
his own”in the bass section during this
spring’s performance of Brahms’ Requiem.
Before he started the choir, Alston had
never been to Chester, never even driven
through. Parts of it became quickly familiar
to him. “It’s a poor city,” he says. “It feels a
lot like Newark, where I grew up.” From
behind the windshield of the van, Alston
has watched Chester for eight years—and knows plenty about its
schools, families, and housing stock. But he refuses to draw any
conclusions about the state of the city. “I don’t study economic
development in Chester,” he says. “I just want to find the 10 best
second-grade singers every year. I just want to see a few kids
blossom.” T

The chorus is not
primarily a
performance group.
Mastering a repertoire
can distract from
the real point—
music appreciation
and discipline.

y the time Alston makes his last pickup,
it is already past 1:30 p.m. Alston concedes that the day’s rehearsal will have to be
shortened and apologizes to the boys in the
car for forgetting to bring a football, which
dashes hopes for a quick postrehearsal game.
Hurrying to make it back to Swarthmore—
in a van increasingly noisy with the sounds
of the radio and teenagers—Alston pulls up
to a stop sign and asks Vincent Wilson, sitting to his right, to look out the passengerside window to see if there is oncoming traffic. Wilson, 14, is one of
the two boys who lives with Alston.
“Ain’t nobody coming this way,” Vincent says.
“That’s a buck,” Alston snaps. Since Vincent has been living
with him, Alston has developed a system of fines for two major
infractions: $1 each time he says “ain’t” and $1 for each time he
forgets to turn out the light after leaving a room. “That’s it for
now,” Alston explains later. “When he masters that, we’ll go on to

Sasha Issenberg ’02 is a writer at Philadelphia Magazine.

SEPTEMBER 2002

He’s now a social boy; he is outgoing,” Mrs.
Daniels says of the choir’s effect on Nkenge.
“It has spilled into his schoolwork. I see it in
his mannerisms, how he is when he has to
do schoolwork. He is more patient and concentrated.”

23

Spreading
Their

WIN

S
G

C L A S S O F ’ 0 1 G R A D UAT E S V E N T U R E I N TO T H E “ R E A L WO R L D . ”
By Andrea Hammer

T

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

RICK
SAM E

8
SON ʼ8

tions such as lack of challenge, disumbling from the nest of college
crimination, or gender issues. “The
life into the work world requires
questions are much easier to congraduates to find their wings as
template if one starts from the
they explore new territories. To negotiate
feeling that one is not alone,”
the transition from campus life—fulfilling
Francis says.
daily needs—through the unfamiliar realms
“When one leaves the womb
of job interviews, apartment searches, and
of ‘Mother Swarthmore,’ the
monthly financial obligations, young adults
must draw on previously untapped sources of
adjustment can be very chalif
e was
a t t it u d n o n y o u r
e
r
lenging. But our graduates
personal strength and perseverance.
o
t t e n t io
e a ll
warthm
“ T h e S c u s e d le s s a y o u m u s t b t u d ie s , ”
are very good at coping
Swarthmore’s Career Services Office offers
y o u f o r a n c e , t h e n e d in y o u r s
and at breaking tasks and
students and graduates much-needed support
a p p e a o r e in t e r e s t s .
the m regory say
during this confusing and often stressful period
problems down into manageEvan G
able components,” he adds.
(see box). For example, questions such as “Who
Demonstrating that ability, 72.1 percent of the Class of
am I, and what do I have to offer?” and “Can I
do things that are consistent with my goals and values?”
2001 already had plans for employment—based on a Career
arise. In response, Career Services staff members “offer
Services Survey before graduation from 269, or 81 percent, of
support by trying to be good and responsive sources of
332 graduating students. In addition, 18.2 percent wanted to
attend graduate or professional school in 2002, 1.1 percent
information, feedback, and advice,” says Tom Francis,
were interested in more undergraduate study, 2.2 percent had
director of Career Services. “And perhaps most of all, we
try to be a place where people can come to have their
travel or vacation plans, 2.2 percent were uncertain at that
time, and 4.1 percent had other interests. Of these responquestions and their uncertainty acknowledged in a nondents, 44.2 percent were “very firm” about the certainty of
threatening environment.”
Many alumni continue to use Career Services as they make
these plans; 17.8 percent, “firm”; 16.7 percent, “tentative”;
9.3 percent, “uncertain”; and 11.9 percent, “very uncertain.”
changes throughout their careers. “Most of our contact of this
sort is with alumni in the first five to 10 years after SwarthOne year later, seven of these ’01 graduates relate the realities involved during the last year in emerging from the Colmore but sometimes later as well,” Francis says. Some consult
lege’s cocoon and creating adult lives in New York, California,
about the steps for applying to graduate school; others are
contemplating career or job changes or difficult work situaand Swarthmore.

24

“I hav e had to cha nge how I
with frie nds —n o long er do I inte ract
stop
ran dom ly on the pat h from Sha
rple s
to McC abe to cha t for thre e
hou rs,”
Lea h Zall man says .

SON ʼ8
8

“Com

computer science and music, he is also
h a v e tin g in t o t h e
o
‘r
exploring opportunities for musical theater; a ll o v e r alegaar n h o w t oe apl w o r ld , ’ y o
u
y o u r in
resent
in : w h
o y
yo
ter
singing both pop and classical; composing, a d d
r e s s t he s t s a r e , a n o u a r e a n d u r s e lf
d
w
em,” A
writing, and arranging music; and producn d r e a h o w y o u ’ ll h a t
J
u
n
c
ing recordings. “The skills I developed at
os say
s.
Swarthmore, both in my studies and my
extracurricular musical endeavors, have
curiosity about things foreign.”
given me a strong base on which I could
Gregory, however, is also aware of the
build experience in any of these musical
challenges resulting from an insatiable
subfields. At any rate, I am excited about the appetite for knowledge, saying: “An idealism
opportunities that exist here in the city.”
attributable to both sparkly eyed youth and
Gregory, who is living in Spanish Harlem, Swarthmorean ambition prevents me from
has found the ability to spend more time
choosing a career path decisively. There are
with his family in Radford the most gratifyjust too many things I want to try, countless
ing aspect of the last year. “Undoubtedly,
numbers of which I will never get the
the most fulfilling part of the year was the
chance or have the time to do. But, neveropportunity to reconnect with my family,
theless, I am looking forward to pursuing a
from whom I felt rather detached while
lot of different occupations in the future.”
immersed in my studies at Swarthmore.”
wo of the Swarthmore friends that
He thinks that the College has prepared
Gregory has reconnected with in New
him for the challenges of the working world,
“having learned at Swarthmore to approach York are roommates Andrea Juncos and
Leah Zallman, who live with Zallman’s
every question with an open mind and to
roommate from her Study Abroad Program,
evaluate all potential solutions objectively. I
think one of the most important products of Sarah Lazarus (Vassar ’01).
“Finding affordable housing in New York
an education, at Swarthmore or anywhere
else, is the unceasing hunger for more infor- is always problematic, but we were lucky to
find this apartment on our second day of
mation, or at the very least, a wide-eyed

T

SEPTEMBER 2002

C

lass of ’01 Commencement speaker
Evan Gregory—whose powerful delivery stirred many—moved to New York
from his hometown of Radford, Va., during
the spring. “As a recent graduate, my relationships with classmates are very fresh and
strong,” he says. “A desire to be closer to the
Swarthmore alumni community was one of
the major motivations for me to move to the
area. Now, as indispensable as those relationships are, there is also a natural desire
to meet new people and make new friendships—a task not as easy as one might expect in one of the most populous cities in
the world!”
Gregory is working as a telecommuting
developer for Oaks Design, for which all of
the employees—including Patrick Boe ’01
and Josh Galun ’02—complete software
programming projects over the Internet. The
company has no central office, and the
employees live in places such as Philadelphia; New York; and Washington, D.C. “The
closest thing to a ‘base’ that exists is the
home of my boss, Rob Oaks, who lives,
somewhat ironically, on Vassar Avenue in
Swarthmore, across the street from [Associate Dean of the College for Student Life]
Tedd Goundie. We provide custom software
solutions on a contract basis to various
clients. As developers, Patrick and I are
responsible for programming the functional
portion of the software,” Gregory says.
As a graduate who had a double major in

SAM E
RICK

e is th e p ro vi ou s ch an g
“T h e m os t obss co d e, a fa r cr y fr om at
fe ss io n al d rean d p aj am a b ot to m s thit ’
th e T- sh ir ts th e ‘lu ck y se m in ar ou tf
co n st it ut ed at ti es ,” G re g or y ad d s.
fo r m an y Sw

SAM ERICKSON ʼ88

N ʼ88
SAM ERICKSO

“I feel a little spoiled by the quasi-utopian
community of learning at Swarthmore—
the rest of the world is not so ideal.”

25

RA RIE
S
BARBA

“I pro
iz e d a b a b ly a m a
s c h o o n d f o c u s e d li t t le m o r e
h e r e t l, ” s a y s E r ic t h a n I w a s o r g a n s o I c ae n d t o b e s L e iv e . “ P r o b a c k a t
h
je
n focu
s m o r eo r t e r in d u r c t s
at
in t e n s
e ly. ” io n ,

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

SAM

ERIC

8
N ʼ8
KSO

“I miss having my friends around
the corner from me all the time.”

26

looking,” Zallman says.
Remembering their good forhis
s e tt e r e s t u
a
c
tune after using a broker, June d in new )
k b
t
Yo r i n g a nl y a s a (lef
cos adds, it “was a miracle
w
e xcit cial cos
N
because the three of us had very
n e spe Jun
e to
a m s u c h a b e — e” s a y s
c
I
little time available for apartment
“
to
is
te,
t).
c i t y p l a c e r a d u a(righ
hunting. And it’s been wonderful
man of
g
g
in lege lman
living here in a safe, beautiful area,
the department,
col h Zal
wit
close to Central Park, and near some
who saw a nice fit beof the city’s best restaurants.”
tween this position and my experiJuncos is working downtown as part
ence and interests,” says Zallman, who
of the editorial team at Catalyst (www.cata- majored in biology with a public policy conlystwomen.org), a nonprofit research and
centration.
consulting organization that works to
Besides the financial challenges of living
advance women and people of color in busi- in New York, Juncos has made some other
ness and the professions. “We work with
adjustments in her new life. “At Swarthlarge companies and firms to help them
more, you take so many classes and particiaddress issues related to diversity in the
pate in all kinds of activities; your mind is
workplace, with a special focus on women’s
constantly being stimulated by a number of
issues,” says Juncos, who writes, edits, and
different subjects. Being at school allows
researches projects for the Marketing and
you to address a number of your interests
Strategy Department. A special major in
with little effort. But in the working world,
education and English literature, she found your time is distributed differently—you
the job last summer from an on-line job
have to put more effort into seeking out the
bank that focuses on the nonprofit sector. “I things that interest you,” she says.
came to New York because there were so
“But New York has so much to offer,
many opportunities, several people that I
although it can feel a little overwhelming at
am close to, and because this city is such an times,” Juncos adds. “I think I could live
exciting and interesting place to be—espehere for years and still not do everything
cially as a new college graduate.”
that I want to do. Unlike at Swarthmore, I
Zallman works in the North Bronx as a
have nights and weekends free, which is
research coordinator in the Department of
such a positive change. But coming from
Family Medicine at Albert Einstein College
Swarthmore to New York City, at first, you
of Medicine, working primarily to improve
don’t even know where to start.”
the quality of end-of-life care. “I found this
Zallman thought that life after Swarthjob by e-mailing Peter Selwyn ’76, the chair- more would similarly afford her extra time.

But “I have found that, like my
time at Swarthmore, my postgraduate life
has been busy, and there is, once again, not
enough time to do everything that my environment offers me.”
She has also had to adapt to her newfound independence, which is both the
most fulfilling and distressing part of the
last year. “It is hard after being at Swarthmore, where I had constant guidance and
feedback, to move into an environment
where I am often much more on my own,”
Zallman says. “My approach to projects has
certainly changed. Projects are often more
group oriented now than when I was at
Swarthmore, which changes how I go about
them. Now, instead of integrating theories
and literature sources, I integrate people’s
needs and interests with my own abilities
and style.”
Although still surrounded by many College friends, Juncos has also had to learn
how to make new friends again. “Of course,
it’s certainly not as easy as when we arrived
at Swarthmore…. But a lot of my Swarthmore friends have met people through work
or volunteering, connecting with old high
school friends, or just bumping into new
people. So our circle of friends is constantly
growing.”
Although both Juncos and Zallman are
relieved to have the pressure of a heavy academic workload behind them, they both feel
the absence of their classmates, professors,
and staff. “I miss constantly being around a
group of independently motivated people,

S
RIE

A

cross the country in Novato, Calif. (in
Marin County, 30 miles north of San
Francisco), Jane Ng and Eric Leive are living
together and working as digital artists for
Ronin Entertainment (www.roningames.com), an interactive software development
company. Both interned with the company
during their junior year.
“The whole thing started when I requested a Cooper Foundation grant during my
sophomore year to invite a person from the

CAREER SERVICES SUPPORT
AT SWARTHMORE

A

ccording to Tom Francis, director of
Career Services, his office provides
both students and alumni with the following:
• Access to on-line career opportunity
information and a referral list that is
Swarthmore specific as well as a hardcopy version of its job and other listings in a newsletter
• Individual career inquiry, advising,
and strategy appointments as well as
resume, letter of application, and application essay critiques and advice
• On-campus recruiting program with
visits by 50 to 100 organizations a year
• Extensive career library
• Access to a wide network of alumni
contacts and potential contacts
• Extern Program, offering students
weeklong shadowing experiences for
career exploration
• Summer job and internship information
• Letter of recommendation and credential service
• Advice and information about graduate school application processes, strategies, and testing
• Vocational interest and personality
inventories

BARBA

special effects/computer game industry to
come to campus,” says Ng. “I came into contact with Terrence Masson, then a supervisor
at Industrial Light and Magic, the firm
owned by George Lucas that made all the
effects for the Star Wars movies, who became
my Cooper speaker and friend. The Cooper
event was held in February of my junior year,
and by then, Terrence had become the director of development at Ronin. During his stay
at Swarthmore, I showed him my portfolio,
and he agreed to have me as an intern over
the summer.”
In 2001, with a shrinking job market, Ng
and Leive decided to move to Novato even
though Ronin could not hire them immediately. “I decided to work for free until they
were so impressed by my work, they would
have to take me in,” says Ng. “At that time,
they were at the end stages of making Bruce
Lee: Quest of the Dragon, an Xbox game title. I
offered my services to the leader of the next
project, who said I could make some maquettes for his character designs. After Eric
and I made four 6-inch-tall full-body sculptures and four 5-inch-tall busts, Ronin
wanted to have us as part of the team even
in the gloom of a bad economy. We agreed to
a less than desirable compensation plan,
which included some of our salary to be paid
retroactively” when new funding became
available.
Adjusting to their tight salaries and
drawing on savings has been difficult, but

SEPTEMBER 2002

many of whom were my
age,” says Zallman, who
is applying to medical schools and is working toward a career in academic and/or
international medicine.
“I also miss going to student performances, being on the beautiful campus, and
chatting—and procrastinating—with
friends at Sharples until closing time,” Juncos says. “I miss the unique camaraderie
that comes from sharing an intense experience with people at such a formative time of
life. But the friendships I made at Swarthmore will be part of my life forever.”
Down the pike, Juncos is considering
going to graduate school. “But I am taking a
couple of years to explore my varying interests, through my job, volunteering as a mentor for Girls Write Now, and just by observing different aspects of this city and all it
has to offer. I will definitely stick around
New York for a little while. I love it here, but
I am also excited about where my path will
take me next,” she says.

N g (l
t h e ir S efta)n d L e iv
m e n t a n F r a n c is c e (right)f o
le a s e wo n t h e I n t e r o B a y A r e a u n d
h o m e . it h o u t e v e n e t a n d s ig a p a r t n s e e in
n
g t h e ire d t h e
new

RA RIE
S

A
BAR
BAR

oth
te b at
a
r
g line I
nte
t o i d i s c i py d a y, m e e
l
ab emic Ever o so
“
d
ng
bei y acad Ng. ty to
e
i
v
e
n
o
n
m
l
“I es of ays Ja portu ore.”
sid rk,” s y op en m
wo rish m ve ev
c h en g I l o
thi

27

28

they have been compensated in
other ways. “I love my work, and
many of my co-workers have
become good friends over the past
year,” says Leive, who has a sense of
creative control and valued input in their
projects. “Work is extremely demanding,
both time-wise and in terms of creative
energy, but I enjoy the variety of work I get
to do. Despite what people may think, it
involves a lot more than just sitting around
and playing games all day.”
Leive thinks that the heavy workload at
Swarthmore prepared him well for his current responsibilities. “No matter what
comes my way now, it pales in comparison
with what I went through at Swarthmore.
In talking to a couple of other Swatties, I
realize that we could all be prepared a little
better in knowing when we’re taking too
many responsibilities from an employer.
One of my friend’s biggest criticisms in his
first review after graduation was he didn’t
complain enough when he was swamped. I
feel like we were trained so well to just soldier on and do what needed to get done
that sometimes we don’t look to see if we
really should be doing it,” he says.
Ng and Leive found their apartment via
the Internet while they were still in Swarthmore and signed a lease without even seeing their new home. “Fortunately, the place
was very nice—it even has a view of the
bay,” says Ng, who thinks of herself as a
“very adaptable person” after leaving Hong
Kong for Canada when she was age 14. “So

JIM GRAHAM

AHAM
JIM GR

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

mming
progra r u g b y
e
t
la
p
e
ayed u k e d w it h t h t h e
at, I st
a
“At Sw n a r o u n d nt r u p s a y s . “ I nd y o u ’ r e
a n d r a” K e it h B e n f o r m e r, a nr e s t e d . ”
t e a m , o r ld , d o t h e, y o u g e t a r
r e a l w ; t h e la t t e r
a nerd

Kw ab en a A du
st ud y “s om et ’s pa re nt s w an te d hi m
vi n ce d th em h in g p ra ct ic al .” H e co to
n ol og y w as th at in fo rm at io n te ch n fo r G h an a, ” th e “w av e of th e fu tu reh is h om el an
d.

moving out from
school to California was more fun than
challenging. The most challenging part is
figuring out my legal status as a Canadian
citizen and tax residency status without the
aid of advisers at Swarthmore. I didn’t have
to worry about obtaining visas and learning about new tax forms when I was at
school.”
In terms of other notable experiences
during the last year, Ng says: “Another
strange new thing is that I am the only
female out of about 35 employees at Ronin.
This is commonplace in the interactive
software business, and I am actually very
proud to be somewhat of a pioneering
female in the field. I am very fortunate to
have considerate and genuinely nice coworkers, who never once made me feel like
I am the odd gender out and that I am not
part of the team. It is, however, much
harder for me to find female friends in the
area, and I am very glad to be able to keep
in constant contact with my Swarthmore
friends on-line.”
Despite the rewards of their current life,
they both miss the simple pleasures in
Swarthmore. “I miss Parrish beach,” says
Ng. “I miss the fact that I could just walk to
Worth [Health Center] when I didn’t feel
well and be taken care of. I miss having academic discussions, and I miss hearing the
intellectual dialogue of others at school. I

miss the company of some of my professors. I miss the company of my various
eccentric friends,” she says, echoing Leive.
“The majority of my Swarthmore
friends are either on the East Coast or
abroad, so I don’t get to see them nearly as
much as I’d like,” he says. But “Jane and I
both live and work together, which has
been great and has made it easier to be
away from my other friends. At this point, I
couldn’t imagine being in a relationship
where the other person didn’t understand
what I did. We manage to keep our personal relationship separate from our work relationship, and so far, it seems to be working
well.”

A

fter receiving job offers from a start-up
management consulting firm and from
Microsoft, Kwabena Adu and Keith Bentrup, respectively, decided to stay close to
Swarthmore—and start their own business. Adu had accepted his job offer in
December 2000, but a week after graduation, he received notice from the company,
eliminating new-hire positions as a result
of the crashing economy. Bentrup never
accepted Microsoft’s offer because he simply didn’t want to live in Seattle.
“Maintaining Swarthmore friendships
has been very important to me and part
of the reason that I stayed in the area,”
Bentrup says. “The quality of life that we
have is so intimately tied to the quality of
our relationships. I’ve found that my relationships with Swatties, the faculty, staff,

AM
JIM GRAH

“We’ve had the challenge of
starting a business with no capital—
except our intellectual assets.”

and the community are unparalleled.”
Adu had been Bentrup’s project partner
in their final Swarthmore computer science
class and discovered “the partner I’d been
looking for.” Bentrup was also mulling over
starting a similar venture. After taking
inventory of their skills and knowledge,
Adu realized “we could offer an even wider
range of services together,” he says. Bentrup
was proficient in several programming languages and relished computer graphic and
Web site design; Adu knew Macintoshes
and was familiar with networking.
Adu, who majored in computer science
and took engineering for more than two
years, is convinced that information technology is the “wave of the future for
Ghana,” his homeland. Tennessee native
Bentrup, a biochemistry special major with
a concentration in computer science,
telecommuted as a programmer for a pharmaceutical company in Connecticut the
summer after graduation.
Soon, the partners decided to go into
business together, forming Lucid Tech Solutions LLC (www.lucidtechsolutions.com).
Still providing their services at the College,
Adu and Bentrup also offer complete computing technology advising, planning,
implementation, and support to small businesses, nonprofits, schools, and homes in
Philadelphia and Delaware County.
Adu and Bentrup also take satisfaction

lenge of starting a business with no capital—except our intellectual assets—and
developing it into a profitable one,” says
Bentrup. “In just 10 months, we have had
to learn, implement, and support a breadth
of technologies that our counterparts in
more established firms take years to do,
which can be scary at times,” says Adu, who
lives in Secane, Pa.
Even though Bentrup still lives near the
College in Wallingford, Pa., with Peter Yoo
’01 and Mike Duffy ’01, he finds his new life
different from his experience as a student.
“I find myself speaking a different language
of both an entrepreneur and a consultant.
My life revolves around time, efficiency,
profit and loss, business law, cash flow, and
techno-speak. Beyond all the business
aspects, I’ve also studied a fair amount of
human psychology, which has proved invaluable in establishing relationships and
rapport in the business world as well as
motivating myself and employees—oh and,
of course, marketing, which is itself the
study of human psychology.”
Up to this point, their new business
has largely grown through referrals. Adu
and Bentrup first ask, “What problem do
you want solved?” Then, they come up
with a solution that is both affordable
and “lucid to the client,” Adu says. Their
goal is to make the solution worthy of
compensation.
“Starting your own business is almost

an unfathomable experience for those who
haven’t, but I highly recommend it,” says
Bentrup. “I’ve had to learn so much about
many aspects of people, business, and law.
I’ve studied both federal and Pennsylvania
law, accounting, marketing, salesmanship,
the hiring process, the intangible art of
interacting with so many different types
of people from clients to competitors to
employees. It’s almost overwhelming,
but more often than not, it’s also fun,” he
adds.
Bentrup envisions remaining on the
same path for a while. “I’m one year out of
college and have my own successful business with a great partner and intelligent,
hard-working employees. I’m close to my
Swarthmore friends and the College itself.
“I choose my hours. I’m building my
own business, not someone else’s. I can stop
what I’m doing and go for a run in the
Crum anytime I like. By next year, I could
be leading the same life but from anywhere
in the country or while traveling the globe.
Yeah, I’ll stick with this for a while,” he
says. T
One of the many useful books in the Career Services Office library is Quarterlife Crisis: The
Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties
by 20-somethings Alexandra Robbins and Abby
Wilner (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2001). For
additional information about the resources
available through Career Services, visit
www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/career_services.

SEPTEMBER 2002

in g t h e
ow h e lp c o r p o ra te
n
e
r
a
I
nd
c e in
“ Ke it h aRe la t io n s O f fi y in to t h e ir
A lu m n i s e d te c h n o lo g . T h ey a re a b le
We b -b a n s ,” A d u s ays to g et h e r.
in the educational aspect of
o p e ra t iomo re s er v ic e s
to o f fe r
their work. “We’ve had the unique chal-

29

A World That Is
NOT JUST OURS
T W O V E T E R A N C O N S E R VAT I O N I S T S C H A L L E N G E A M E R I C A N S
TO TA K E T H E L E A D I N P R E S E R V I N G W I L D L I F E .

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

W

30

hen Henry David Thoreau wrote
that most people live lives of
quiet desperation, he clearly did
not have in mind Bill ’72 and Amy Vedder
Weber ’73. In the normal course of their
professional working lives, one or the other
or both of them have been detained by Idi
Amin on suspicion of being counterrevolutionary mercenaries; hiked alone through
unfamiliar montane rain forest while suffering from malaria-induced hallucinations;
climbed trees to escape Africa’s most dangerous animal, the cape buffalo; had their
house cut completely in half by a falling
Hagenia tree; gone one on one with a 400pound silverback gorilla; scaled a rugged
12,000-foot mountain while four months
pregnant and without climbing gear; assisted in the murder investigation of a worldrenowned animal behavioralist; had a
$1,000 bounty put on one’s head; and set a
world record by counting 353 Colobus
angolensis ruwenzorii monkeys in a single
group.
OK, some of those experiences could be
classified as desperate. But “quiet”? Not
hardly. And this is only the short list. Even a
partial accounting of the couple’s adventures
over the years would fill a book. In fact, it
has filled In the Kingdom of Gorillas: Fragile
Species in a Dangerous Land (Simon & Schuster, 2001; Touchstone, 2002), co-authored
by Weber and Vedder.
The couple, who met and married at
Swarthmore, joined the Peace Corps in 1973,
spent two years teaching in what was then
Zaire (now the Congo), and fell in love with
Africa. Even before their Peace Corps days
ended, they knew they wanted to come back.
Within a few years, they found their way to
Rwanda and the mountain gorillas of the
Parc National des Volcans.
Vedder and Weber cover all of this in the
book: how they came to work with the
famed Dian Fossey and discovered a pro-

foundly disturbed woman who had already
outlived her usefulness to the gorillas she
loved, how they struggled to save the rapidly
dwindling mountain gorilla population in
the face of overwhelming odds, and how
they watched a country they loved get torn
apart by civil war and the most intense
genocide of a genocidal century.
It makes for something more than fascinating reading. Awesome reading is more
like it, made all the more so by their understated writing. Much about Weber and Ved-

der must be found between the lines because the couple is self-deprecatory to a
fault: Mostly you are left to infer their physical courage in the face of constant challenges from both the natural and the human
world; their moral courage in the face of
constant challenges from Rwandan, U.S.,
World Bank, and other officials and fellow
conservationists; their single-minded determination to save Rwanda’s mountain gorillas no matter what—even if it meant, as it
often did, keeping their mouths shut in the

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY BILL ʼ72 AND AMY VEDDER WEBER ʼ73 AND THE WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY

By W.D. Ehrhart ’73

THE VISOKE VOLCANO IN RWANDA (ABOVE) IS
PART OF THE PARC NATIONAL DES VOLCANS,
WHERE MANY MOUNTAIN GORILLAS LIVE. AMY
VEDDER AND BILL WEBER LEARNED TO RECOGNIZE
INDIVIDUAL GORILLAS, SUCH AS THE ONE NAMED

FEBRUARY 1978, THEY RESCUED A 4-YEAR-OLD
GORILLA (RIGHT, WITH AMY) FROM POACHERS.
DESPITE CONSTANT CARE, THE ANIMAL DIED OF
WOUNDS SUFFERED WHEN IT WAS TRAPPED.

SEPTEMBER 2002

QUINCE (ABOVE RIGHT), BY THE PATTERN OF
RIDGES AND LINES ABOVE THEIR NOSTRILS. IN

31

“It seemed odd to me
that we’re asking the
world’s poorest people
to live with tigers and
elephants, but we
won’t live with wolves.
We’re asking other
countries not to log
while we knock down
our own forests.”
BILL WEBER GETS CLOSE TO PABLO (TOP LEFT),

face of provocation, obfuscation, and stupidity.
“We had heard that Fossey was difficult,” says Weber, “but we decided we were
going to go [to Karisoke, Fossey’s research
center], come hell or high water. We had no
idea how high the water would get.”
“But the gorillas were amazing,” says
Vedder, explaining why they stuck it out.
“You look into their eyes, and there’s a
thinking being in there. They couldn’t be left
alone. They were not going to survive.”
“Fossey had won the global battle,”
Weber adds, “but she was incapable of
fighting the local battle. There was no one
to do it but us.”
“We saw we could make a difference,”
Vedder says, “And to walk away from that—
we just couldn’t.”

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

D

32

uring their first 18 months in Rwanda,
Vedder spent much of her time with a
single gorilla family, sitting among them day
after day in the rain and cold at 10,000 feet,
watching what they ate, studying not just
their behavior but their nutritional needs
and habitat use patterns. Meanwhile, realizing that “you couldn’t save the wildlife without addressing people’s needs as well,”
Weber concentrated on the people side of
the equation. “Here were impoverished local
people,” he says, “who were being told to
stay out of their own parks.”
Rwanda is the most densely populated

country in Africa, and most people depend
on farming for a living. Much of the Parc
National des Volcans had already been lost
to farming in the decade before the couple’s
arrival in 1978. Weber set out to convince
Rwandans that “Rwandan needs couldn’t be
addressed by destroying the park” but
would be better served by turning it into a
tourist destination.
Thus was born the Mountain Gorilla
Project (MGP), which by 1989 was attracting 7,000 tourists a year willing to pay $200
each to spend an hour with the gorillas as
well as providing employment to local
Rwandans hired as park rangers and guides,
drastically reducing poaching and creating a
great deal of indirect spending within
Rwanda. It’s what has come to be called ecotourism, though there was no such name for
it then. When the concept was finally developed, it drew heavily on Weber and Vedder’s
pioneering work.
The program has been so successful that
the gorilla population is now up to about
360 animals from a low of 260 20 years
ago. Even the terrible civil war did not
destroy the program; though it languished
for nearly a decade, tourists in the thousands are back again.
Long before the civil war, however, Vedder and Weber had turned to other projects.
“I think people find it very hard to understand how we could move on from gorillas,”
says Vedder. “We were very attached to

A BOLD GORILLA WHO WAS KEENLY INTERESTED
IN HUMANS. PABLO WAS THE ELDER SILVERBACK
IN THE LARGEST-KNOWN GORILLA FAMILY,
COMPRISING 44 MEMBERS.

them. But the MGP was an immediate success. And we felt we were leaving the project
in good hands. And finally, there were such
big challenges in other areas. The more we
learned about the gorillas, the more we realized we had to leave them to save them.”
Weber says, “Every moment you spend
with the animals, you’re not spending with
the director of parks. To save the animals,
you must deal with the forces that threaten
them.”

T

hrough the 1980s, the couple worked
on a variety of projects in Rwanda while
earning doctorates from the University of
Wisconsin and raising their sons Noah and
Ethan. By 1990, they were both working for
the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS),
which, under its old name of the New York
Zoological Society, had funded their initial
research on mountain gorillas, Weber as
director of WCS’s Africa programs, Vedder
as Biodiversity Program coordinator. When
Weber became director of the North America Program in 1993, Vedder took over as
director of the Africa Program.
In fact, Weber created the North America
Program. “I was very content to be running

WEBER AND VEDDER LIVED IN RWANDA WITH THEIR CHILDREN, NOAH AND
ETHAN, FOR SIX YEARS IN THE 1970 S AND 1980 S . AMY (ABOVE) CARRIES
YOUNG ETHAN ACROSS A BRIDGE MADE OF BAMBOO AND VINES IN ZAIRE.

IN THE 1980 S , DEVELOPMENT OF AN ECOTOURISM PROGRAM (LEFT)
CONVINCED THE RWANDAN GOVERNMENT TO ABANDON PLANS FOR RAISING
CATTLE IN THE PARC NATIONAL DES VOLCANS. TODAY, THE POPULATION OF
MOUNTAIN GORILLAS IS THE HIGHEST IT HAS BEEN SINCE THE 1960 S .

SEPTEMBER 2002

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY BILL ʼ72 AND AMY VEDDER WEBER ʼ73 AND THE WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY

the Africa programs,” says Weber, “but
meanwhile, I’m reading about spotted owls
and wolves here in the United States. It
seemed odd to me that we’re asking the
world’s poorest people to live with tigers
and elephants, but we won’t live with
wolves. We’re asking other countries not to
log while we knock down our own forests. I
thought we should hold ourselves to the
same standards we expect of others. We
could be setting a better example for the
world.
“This [current Bush] administration is
particularly bad,” he continues. “They are so
in bed with the vested interests, especially
oil and energy. They’re sticking oil rigs all
over the Rockies.”
“Bush has lifted the moratorium on
building logging roads in our national
forests,” adds Vedder.
Weber is especially contemptuous of the
proposal to drill for oil in the Alaskan
National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). He
describes a 10-day rafting trip he recently
took with son Noah through ANWR, concluding, “And then to imagine oil rigs there.
How do you tell Bolivia and Ecuador not to
open their parks?” His tone shifts from
incredulity to sarcasm: “All parks should be
inviolate,” he says, “except ours.”
“I just came back from meetings in
Bolivia,” says Vedder, “and I can tell you
that the world is watching what we do.
Ecuador. Congo. Gabon. Are we going to
drill in the most pristine wilderness left in
our country?”
Two years ago, Vedder left the Africa Program herself to become a WCS vice president as well as director of the newly created
Living Landscapes Program. “I was really
torn,” she says. “I hated to leave Africa, but

33

WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY

MOOSE

studying five key species of animals known
as “landscape species” because if you can
protect these, you can protect just about
every other species in the area.
“If you don’t know how these animals
behave,” says Vedder, “you’d think: ‘a million
acres [the size of the park]—that’s huge.’
But the animals have ranges even larger
than the park’s boundaries. Bongos [large
antelopes] travel up to 75 miles, elephants
100. Dwarf crocodiles move back and forth
between the park and the reserve. Chimpanzees disappear from areas that are
logged. Nobody knows why. But you can’t
just say to people, ‘No hunting. No logging.’
People need to eat; they need to make a living. What is sustainable?”
Another Living Landscapes project
involves Madidi National Park in Bolivia,
and, of course, the lands and animals and

people all around the park. Here, however,
the primary conflict is not over hunting or
logging but between the indigenous Tacana
people of the lowland forests and developers
backed by the provincial government, with
additional conflict in the mountains between farmers and spectacled bears.
Two of Vedder’s Living Landscape projects involve Weber’s North America Program: Greater Yellowstone and the Adirondacks, both just now in the process of
selecting landscape species. “People ask us,
‘How can you work with each other day in
and day out?’ But it’s all we’ve ever done,”
says Vedder. From all appearances, they’re
about as durable and compatible a couple as
ever was, even commuting together daily
from their home in Yorktown, N.Y., to WCS
headquarters at the Bronx Zoo.
Nevertheless, over the years, they have

BEYOND
BOUNDARIES:
LIVING
LANDSCAPES

WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY

the Living Landscapes Program sounded
neat intellectually, and I wanted to help it
work and make sure it was linked to on-theground programs.”
She hasn’t had to leave Africa entirely,
however. The Living Landscapes Program
has projects all over the world, and, despite
dealing with much larger geographic areas
and many more species of animals, it isn’t
much different from those early efforts of
Vedder and Weber to balance the needs of
gorillas with those of people.
One Living Landscapes project in CongoBrazzaville, for instance, involves the million-acre Nouabale-Ndoki National Park,
which is abutted by multiple logging concessions, the Lac Tele Community Wildlife
Reserve, and a legal trophy-hunting zone as
well as the borders of Cameroon and the
Central African Republic. The project is

BLACK BEAR

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

34

A

new venture for Amy Vedder is the Living Landscapes Program, which works
to save wildlife both inside and outside protected areas and to reduce conflict between
people and animals. The project is based on
the simple reality that animals—especially
large species such as elephants, jaguars, or
bears—do not respect the boundaries of
parks and wildlife preserves. Part of the

Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS)
approach involves the designation of a
small number of key “landscape species” in
particular areas. These are animals that
require large and diverse areas and, when
they and the lands they need are protected,
will tend to assure the conservation of a
wide range of other species as well. These
principles apply to 50 WCS Living Landscape

© AMIMALS, ANIMALS/EARTH SCENES

WOOD TURTLE

WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY

LOON

© AMIMALS, ANIMALS/EARTH SCENES

MARTEN

projects in Africa, South America, and North
America. One example is the Adirondack
Mountain region of New York State, where
Vedder and Weber have a summer home. The
five species pictured here are possible
“landscape species” for that region (a selection process is now under way). Learn more
about Living Landscapes at http://wcs.org/7490/livinglandscapes/.

COURTESY BILL ʼ72 AND AMY VEDDER WEBER ʼ73

“There has to be
something of
higher value than
consumption. The
world cannot survive
at the level that we
[in the United States]
are living. This is
just not sustainable.”
TO ALL OUTWARD APPEARANCES, AMY VEDDER

paging elephants or confronted poachers
armed with machetes and axes—though
Vedder still wonders what impression she
made on neighbors when the couple first
moved to Yorktown Heights, N.Y., and she
immediately began hacking away at an old
tree stump in the front yard with a wickedlooking machete, whose Rwandan name
translates roughly into “the peacemaker.”
Whatever the neighbors may think, this
is decidedly not an ordinary couple. Though
you are not likely to get them to say as much
themselves, together they have helped to
revolutionize the way the world thinks
about and deals with conservation issues.
But the myriad forces arrayed against conservation success seem at times overwhelming.
“There’s never been a rate of extermination like we’ve seen since the turn of the last
century,” Vedder says. “There has to be
something of higher value than consumption. The world cannot survive at the level
that we [in the United States] are living.
This is just not sustainable.”
Weber adds: “We’re just totally dependent on our addiction to oil—on sticking
that hypodermic needle into the ground, on
this thing that is killing us. And we’re losing
the population battle.”
“And the corruption battle,” Vedder
interjects. “You’ve got to have your eyes wide
open.”
Yet Vedder and Weber remain positive.
“The great success of the Mountain Gorilla

(SECOND FROM LEFT) AND BILL WEBER (RIGHT)
LOOK LIKE ANY OTHER WHITE MIDDLE-CLASS
COUPLE FROM THE SUBURBS, NOT LIKE FOLKS WHO
HAVE DODGED RAMPAGING ELEPHANTS OR
CONFRONTED POACHERS ARMED WITH MACHETES
AND AXES. WITH THEM ARE SONS ETHAN (FAR
LEFT) AND NOAH.

Project made us optimistic really for all of
our lives,” says Vedder. “It showed us what
you could do. There was a lot of doom and
gloom around, but we made it work. We
came away feeling that we really could make
a difference.”
Weber says, “You have to fight the fight.
I don’t know what the alternative is. And
there are good things happening. Moose are
coming back to our national forests. Beaver,
martens, fishers. It looked like wolves were
finished in the lower Forty-Eight, but now
they’re represented in eight different states.”
“We do win battles,” says Vedder. “You
can make a difference. It’s just really important to have wilderness in our lives. We need
that. To remember that this world is more
than just ours. Just be aware. That’s the first
step.” T
W.D. Ehrhart teaches English and history at the
Haverford School. His newest book is The Madness of It All: Essays on War, Literature and
American Life (McFarland & Co., 2002).

SEPTEMBER 2002

spent a great deal of time apart—on a few
occasions, as much as six months but much
more often for shorter periods, ranging from
days to weeks. Vedder recently missed the
couple’s 30th wedding anniversary because
of a trip to Bolivia and followed that almost
immediately with another to Alaska.
Through it all, however, one or the other
parent has always been home with the boys.
Weber says: “One thing about WCS is that
they let us kill ourselves at our own pace.”
Vedder translates, “We have incredible flexibility in shaping our schedules.”
Weber adds, “We don’t have a life outside
of work, family, and sports.” The boys—
Noah is now a senior at Washington & Lee,
and Ethan is a senior at Yorktown High—
have always taken after their athletic parents, who between them won varsity letters
at Swarthmore in football, lacrosse, softball,
and swimming.
For many years, both parents coached
community youth soccer and lacrosse, and
Vedder still coaches the girls’ lacrosse team
she founded 10 years ago. She missed two
games in June because of her trip to Bolivia,
but Weber covered for her.
“Sometimes one of the girls or a parent
will ask, ‘Where’s Amy?’ I’ll say, ‘She’s in
Bolivia. She’ll be back for Saturday’s game.’
I’m not sure that fully registers.”
It probably doesn’t. To all outward
appearances, Vedder and Weber look like
just another middle-class couple from the
’burbs, not like folks who have dodged ram-

35

ALUMNI DIGEST

Alumni Weekend 2002
Pho t o g r a p h s b y S t e v e n G o l d b l a t t ’ 6 7

RIGHT: THOMAS WHITMAN ’82, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MUSIC, LED A GAMELAN TRADITIONAL
INDONESIAN PERCUSSION ORCHESTRA WORKSHOP.

BELOW LEFT: EMILY THOMFORDE ’04 (LEFT) AND
SAM CRISWELL ’57 (RIGHT) AT REGISTRATION

BELOW CENTER: ARTISTS JANET STANLEY MUSTIN
’45 (LEFT) AND JENEEN PICCUIRRO ’92 DISPLAYED THEIR WORK IN THE LIST GALLERY.

BELOW RIGHT: VALERIA JOKISCH-SAGRERA ’01
(FOREGROUND) AND JOEL PRICE ’00 PERFORMED

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

IN THE KOHLBERG HALL COFFEE BAR.

36

ABOVE: THE CLASS OF ’92 PARTIED IN THE
INTERCULTURAL CENTER.

LEFT: PARADE MARSHAL ELENOR REID ’67
AND NATIONAL CONNECTION CHAIR DONALD
FUJIHIRA ’69

BELOW: SINGING ROUNDS UNDER THE BELL TOWER

JOHN FINKBINER ’98, SARA PALMER ’91, AMY

WERE (LEFT TO RIGHT) OTAVIA DE MOURA PROP-

MARINELLO ’02, ADRIAN DOHRMANN PACKEL ’04,

PER ’00, ELLIOTT MORETON ’88, SONIA MARIANO

MARK HANDLER ’05, DAVID SZENT-GYORGYI ’83,

’02, THALIA MILLS ’00, JIM MOSKOWITZ ’88,

AND JULIA SZENT-GYORGYI

BELOW: MEMBERS OF THE CLASS OF ’82 PLANTED A
TREE IN MEMORY OF CLASSMATE JONATHAN RANDALL, WHO WAS KILLED AT THE WORLD TRADE
CENTER ON SEPT. 11, 2001.

NEAR RIGHT: CLASS OF ’57 REUNION CHAIR MARGARET “PEG” CALMAR MEHAN ’57 (LEFT) VISITS
WITH TERRY ARMSTRONG THOMPSON ’57 (CENTER)
AND MARJORIE THOM ARGO ’57.

FAR RIGHT: COLLECTION SPEAKER ARLIE RUSSELL
HOCHSCHILD ’62, ALUMNI COUNCIL PRESIDENT
RICHARD TRUITT ’66 (CENTER), AND ARABELLA
CARTER AWARD RECIPIENT PAUL GASTON ’52

BOTTOM RIGHT: THE 50TH-REUNION CLASS (LEFT
TO RIGHT): CLASS VALET ELIZABETH NOLTE ’03,
THOMAS REINER ’52, AMY HECHT ’52, ANNE
PINGON VALSING ’52, BARBARA WOLFF SEARLE

ABOVE: MEMBERS OF THE CLASS OF ’97
CELEBRATE FIVE YEARS IN THE “REAL WORLD.”
HELD HORIZONTALLY: JOHN RANDOLPH II

SEPTEMBER 2002

’52, AND CLASS VALET MICHAEL LOEB ’03

37

ALUMNI DIGEST

Council continues athletics efforts

A

t its April meeting, the Alumni Council interacted in plenary sessions with
President Alfred H. Bloom; Alumni
Managers David Singleton ’68 and Cynthia
Norris Graae ’62; and Council’s representatives to the Board of Managers Ad Hoc
Committee on Athletics Jenneane Jansen
’88 and Rick Ortega ’73. Council received an
update from President Rich Truitt ’66 on
efforts to increase understanding and promote healing among alumni following the
College’s decision to restructure the athletics
program. As part of these efforts, the Council, at the request of the Ad Hoc Committee,
is inviting input from interested alumni into
the establishment of criteria by which to
measure progress in implementing changes
in the athletics program (see box).
Members of the Council enjoyed the
opportunity to hear about current projects
from students active in volunteer service
and from Patricia James, director of community service learning. Members also participated in a lively career networking dinner
with about 80 students. Through its three
working groups—Alumni Support, Student
Support, and College Advisory and Support—Council members advanced several of
their initiatives.

NOTICE TO ALUMNI
INTERESTED IN
AT H L E T I C S AT S WA R T H M O R E
Alumni who wish to provide input into
the criteria to be used to measure
progress in the College’s efforts to
strengthen the athletics program are
invited to offer ideas to the Alumni
Council at Alumni_Council@swarthmore.edu. To familiarize yourself with
what is currently being considered,
please see the draft criteria proposed
for consideration by the Board of Managers’ Ad Hoc Committee on Athletics
at http://www.swarthmore.edu/alumni/images/Athletics Assessment__draft.pdf. If you do not have access to
the Internet, you may request a hard
copy from the Alumni Relations Office
at (610) 328-8402. All input received
by Nov. 30, 2002, will be considered by
the working group of the Alumni Council.

Finally, as a culmination of efforts begun
last year, the Council adopted the following
mission and vision statements:

CONNECTION NEWS

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

Paris: Catherine Seeley Lowney ’82 has
taken the helm of the Paris Connection.
Our thanks to outgoing Chair Robert
Owen ’74 for his efforts on behalf of the
Connection. Watch your mail for future
events—a hike and chateau visit are possible activities. If you are interested in helping with this Connection, contact the
Alumni Relations Office at alumni@swarthmore.edu.

38

S WA R T H M O R E B O O K C L U B S

STUDENT COMMUNITY SERVICE LEADERS DISCUSS
THEIR WORK WITH MEMBERS OF THE ALUMNI COUNCIL
DURING THE COUNCIL’S SPRING MEETING.

Boston: Stephen Smith ’83 and his wife,
Robin, organize the Boston-area book
group. If you are interested in joining this growing group, please email steveandrobin@mediaone.net, or contact the Alumni Relations
Office.
Metro DC/Baltimore: “Go to Hell with the Swarthmore Connection Book Club” is the theme for the 2002–2003 year. The group
will read Virgil’s Aeneid (Alan Mandelbaum translation); Dante’s
Inferno (Mandelbaum, Sayers, or Pinsky translation); Milton’s Paradise Lost; Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; Sartre’s No Exit;

Mission statement: “The Alumni Council
provides a range of services to alumni, students, and the administration of Swarthmore College; fosters communication
between the College and alumni; and facilitates input from alumni to the College in
the development of policies.”
Vision statement: Guided by the enduring
values of Swarthmore College, the Alumni
Council will be a leader among college alumni organizations by providing an evolving
range of services to alumni, students, and
the College administration and by informing and influencing policies to further the
mission of the College.”
The Alumni Council Update, a newsletter
for members of the Council, is now posted
in the alumni section of the College’s Web
site. Please check this site for more detailed
information on the initiatives of the three
working groups and other activities of the
Council. For those without computer access,
please do not hesitate to contact me or the
Alumni Relations Office via telephone or
regular mail for a copy of the newsletter.
Council members welcome input and ideas
from alumni.
—Rich Truitt ’66
President, Alumni Association
and Beckett’s Endgame. If you are interested in joining the group, e-mail Sue
Ruff ’60 at sueruff@aol.com, or contact the Alumni Relations Office at
(610) 328-8404.
New York: If you are interested in joining
the New York book group, please e-mail
Sanda Balaban ’94 at Sanda_Balaban@alum.swarthmore.edu.
Philadelphia: Contact Philadelphia Connection Chair Bruce Gould ’54 at brucegould54@hotmail.com, if you are interested in this book group.
SWIL REUNION

SWIL (Swarthmore Warders of Imaginative Literature), the science fiction/fantasy club, will celebrate its
24th anniversary with a reunion on campus on Nov. 8 to 10. There
will be story reading, singing of filks and rounds, games, and the
gathering of SWIL folklore and history. Everyone ever involved with
SWIL—as well as those who just want to hang out with SWILfolk—
are invited. For more information, please e-mail Jim Moskowitz ’88
at jim@jimmosk.com.

President
Richard Truitt ’66
rich_truitt@alum.swarthmore.edu
President-Designate
Melissa Kelley ’80
melissa_kelley@alum.swarthmore.edu
Vice President
Susan Rico Connolly ’78
susan_rico@alum.swarthmore.edu
Vice President
George Telford III ’84
george_telford@alum.swarthmore.edu
Secretary
Allison Anderson Acevedo ’89
allison_acevedo@alum.swarthmore.edu

Liz Probasco Kutchai ’662
Minna Newman Nathanson ’571
David Uhlmann ’842
Maria Tikoff Vargas ’853

ZONE E
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota,
Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, West
Virginia, and Wisconsin
David Bamberger ’623
Sharon Seyfarth Garner ’891
Robert Grossman ’532
Jenneane Jansen ’883
Lisa Jenkins ’021
Vida Praitis ’882
Hugh Weber ’002

ALUMNI COUNCIL
ZONE A
Delaware, Pennsylvania
Joko Agunloye ’013
Kathleen Daerr-Bannon ’714
Carol Finneburgh Lorber ’633
Hugh Nesbitt ’612
Christian Pedersen ’494
Marcia Satterthwaite ’711
William Will ’491
Milton Wohl ’463

ZONE B
New Jersey and New York
Glenn Davis ’732
Nick Jesdanun ’913
Jane Flax Lattes-Swislocki ’571
Anna Orgera ’832
Erika Teutsch ’443
Douglas Thompson ’621

The
Alumni
Council
YOUR OFFICIAL
LINK TO SWARTHMORE

ZONE C

ZONE F

Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont
Alice Clifford Blachly ’491
Christopher Branson ’842
Scott Cowger ’821
Allen Dietrich ’693
Rosemary Werner Putnam ’622
Susan Turner ’603

Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky,
Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Tennessee, territories, dependencies,
and foreign countries
Jonathan Berck ’812
Panayiotis Andreou Ellinas ’871
Julia Knerr ’811
David Lyon ’733
Gertrude Joch Robinson ’503
Joanna Vondrasek ’942
Wendell Williams ’511

ZONE D
District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia
T. Alexander Aleinikoff ’743
Sabina Beg ’834
David Goslin ’581
Benjamin Keys ’013

Utah, Washington, and Wyoming
Janet Cooper Alexander ’683
Deborah Bond-Upson ’711
Wilburn Boykin Jr. ’772
Seth Brenzel ’941
Ginnie Paine DeForest ’582
Ariss DerHovanessian ’002
Leonard Rorer ’543

AT LARGE
Dawn Porter ’882
Martha Rice Sanders ’772

CONNECTION REPRESENTATIVES
Boston
Stephanie Hirsch ’92
Chicago
Marilee Roberg ’73
Los Angeles
David Lang ’54
Metro DC/Baltimore
Sampriti Ganguli ’95
Ana Corrales ’97
Metro New York City
Sanda J. Balaban ’94
Deborah Branker Harrod ’89
North Carolina
George Telford III ’84
Philadelphia
Bruce J. Gould ’54
Jim J. Moskowitz ’88
Pittsburgh
Barbara Sieck Taylor ’75
Michaelangelo Celli ’95
San Francisco
Neal Finkelstein ’86
Rebecca Johnson ’86
Seattle
Deborah Read ’87
Twin Cities
Lia Theologides ’89
Libby A. Starling ’92
Martha Easton ’89
Paris
Catherine Seeley Lowney ’82
National Chair
Don Fujihira ’69

ZONE G

KEY

Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii,
Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon,

1 Term ends 2005
3 Term ends 2004

2 Term ends 2003
4 Nominating Committee

SEPTEMBER 2002

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OFFICERS

39

CLASS NOTES

Two Roses?

EMILY MOLLENKOPF ’05/THE PHOENIX

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

40

PHOTOGRAPHS BY WALTER HOLT

T

hree decades after graduating,
many of these smiling members
of the Class of 1972 attended a
reunion in June that was, by all reports,
“sweet.” As Linda Valleroy and Kevin
Chu said, “It was easy to pick up right
where we had left off 30 years ago—
after looking down at the name tags.”
One dark-tressed young woman of
mystery found a novel way to show off
two roses. Anyone willing to ’fess up?

ALUMNI PROFILE
S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

42

R a i s e d t o Vo l u n t e e r
THE SONNEBORN SISTERS ARE STILL GOING STRONG.

W

hen sisters Kathryn “Sis” Sonneborn Read ’31 and Doris “Doss”
Sonneborn Lippincott ’35 speak of
each other—and they each only agreed to
speak at all if the other was willing—the
mutual affection is evident. Doss, 88, is
“beautiful,” “exquisitely dressed,” and her
2002 induction into the Atlantic County
[N.J.] Women’s Hall of Fame “was terrific,”
says Sis. In turn, Doss labels Sis, 92,
“remarkable,” “generous,” and “respected.”
Both are lifelong tennis players. One
founded Swarthmore’s women’s tennis
team; the other was captain of it. After graduating—one in education, the other in fine
arts—they studied shorthand and typing at
a business school in their hometown
Philadelphia; they both ultimately worked
there, at Drexel Institute of Technology
(now Drexel University)—one in the
Domestic Science Department, the other in
the Physical Education Department. Their
late husbands, physician Hilton Read H’62
and hotelier Jack Lippincott ’27, were best
friends; Kathryn met Hilton on a blind date
set up by Jack and Doss.
Sharing the happiness they have experienced in their family and married lives,
Kathryn and Doss spread beneficence wherever they happen to be. Now widowed and
living in Thomasville, Ga., and Margate,
N.J., respectively, they still devote themselves to service of one kind or another. “We
were brought up to be volunteer-minded,”
says Doss.
Fifty years of Kathryn’s life have been
dedicated to the Ventnor Foundation, a
peace-building organization created by the
Reads in 1951 and named after the New Jersey town in which they then lived. During a
stay in Germany shortly after World War II,
they were shocked by the horrendous working conditions of German doctors and suggested inviting some of the young medical
residents to work for a year in the United
States. Kathryn says: “Hilton thought that if
the Germans came over and got to know the
Americans and saw what our doctors were
doing, and the Americans saw that the Germans were human beings, too, then, maybe,
as he put it, ‘we could wage peace.’” The
organization grew to include participants

VOLUNTEERS KATHRYN SONNEBORN READ (LEFT)
AND DOSS SONNEBORN LIPPINCOTT (RIGHT)
ENJOY A FAMILY REUNION IN MARGATE, N.J.

from Austria, Switzerland, India, South
Africa, and Japan. “It was a meeting of the
minds, in the hope that we could help prevent another war,” says Kathryn.
In 1962, Hilton Read received an honorary degree from Swarthmore for his work
with the foundation. Kathryn, a former
longtime member of the College Board of
Managers, says, “Hilton got quite a few
honorary degrees, but this was the one he
cherished the most.” She remains in regular
contact with the “alumni” of the Ventnor
Foundation, publishing a newsletter and
visiting them annually in Europe.
Nowadays, beside volunteer work with
the local historical preservation society,
library, university, and Alzheimer’s aid
group, Kathryn is a reading mentor at the
local elementary school, where her young
students not only improve their reading but
also are fascinated by the veins in her hands
and the color of her white hair—some write
her love letters. “It’s pure joy, this one-half
hour a week,” she says.
Emphasizing the deep sense of togetherness (“we-ness”) that she says defined her

marriage, Kathryn says: “I’ve tried to keep
up the things that Hilton would have done.
You do things where you see a need.”
Doss is a former College athlete and captain of the varsity tennis team. She also
played hockey and basketball. Channeling
her energy in other directions now, she is
cited by the Charity League, her nominator
for the Hall of Fame, as “a tireless advocate
and practitioner of volunteerism, a source of
inspiration to her community, church, and
to the organizations to which she belongs.
Doss has focused her energy and commitment toward improving the lives of those
around her.”
One of Doss’ favorite activities is working for Manna, a catering group for the
AIDS Alliance. “It’s very satisfying,” she
says. “After you’ve chopped up 50 pounds of
onions with a good friend, you’re crying
together.” She is a longtime volunteer in the
Atlantic City Medical Center and the American Red Cross, and she has been a member
of the Charity League for 50 years. Among
the league’s fund-raising activities is the sale
of a Christmas pin, which varies in design
from year to year. Last year, the group produced 7,000 handmade pins. She is also
deacon of Margate Community Church.
For the past few years, Doss has been the
focal point of a reunion that brings North
and South together. In June, she rents a
house close to her home and invites her
family to stay. This gathering includes her
son’s family from New England and Kathryn
from Georgia. “It’s Christmas in June,” says
one of her grandchildren. Doss’ husband,
Jack, used to say, “When Doss is around,
she spreads true happiness.” And she’s still
doing it.
Sometimes, when relaxing from their
busy lives, the sisters talk on the phone. “I
called [Doss] one night,” says Kathryn, “and
the Miss America pageant was on the television. For a whole hour, the two of us
watched [the pageant] together, and the
phone call cost only $6! Nobody minded if
we talked. There was nobody wearing a big
hat sitting in front of us to block the view.
We had one terrific hour together. We are
close.”
—Carol Brévart-Demm

BOOKS & ARTS
S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

54

Gorillas and Honey
A BOOK EXCERPT

G

o ahead. Sit next to him. Adrien
deSchryver’s suggestion was part
tease, part dare. Amy hesitated,
then smiled as she began to crawl toward
Casimir, a massive silverback scowling at us
from beneath a tree about thirty feet away.
Surprised by her eager response, deSchryver
grabbed Amy by the belt and pulled her back
to his side. For the next thirty minutes, we
watched Casimir and his family of gorillas
from a respectful distance of fifteen to twenty yards. Thick bamboo limited our views to
isolated body parts. The gorillas tolerated
our presence, but several stayed completely
out of sight and all were clearly nervous.
Occasional screams ripped the still mountain air. Powerful smells and strange plants
enhanced the sensory stew. We were elated.
Our pygmy guide, Patrice, was calm—
seemingly bored—throughout our time with
the gorillas. But on our hike back to park
headquarters, he grew more animated when
another creature caught his eye. Patrice stalked his tiny prey until it led to an invisible
target. Locating the entryway to the bee’s
nest, he ignored repeated stings as he
ripped open the rich ground. Within a
minute, he returned to our group with a
wide grin on his face and large chunks of
dripping honeycomb in his hands.... Soon
our faces were smeared with an indescribably exotic mix of flavors and substances.
On that late summer day in 1973, we entered
the land of gorillas and honey.
Five years later, we would experience the
wonder of sitting peacefully among mountain gorillas in Rwanda—and the awesome
responsibility of trying to save their population from extinction at the hands of
humans. But in 1973 we were Peace Corps
volunteers in eastern Congo, with much
more to learn before we could make any
meaningful contribution to conservation.

W

e met in 1969 at Swarthmore College
and married three years later. Two
kids from small towns in upstate New York,
we shared the best and worst of the late
1960s and early 1970s. The King and
Kennedy assassinations, Vietnam, Kent
State, acid rock, Earth Day, Women’s Lib, the
Generation Gap, and seemingly endless cultural conflict. Through much of that turbu-

“You will see many
strange and different
things.... Always
keep a question
mark in front of
your eyes and ask
‘why’ before you
judge something
you see as wrong
just because it is
different.”

lent time, Swarthmore’s Quaker tradition
was a calming influence. While other campuses went up in flames, our passions were
doused with a smothering blanket of Quaker understanding—and the admonition to
use our learning and experience to go forth
and make the world a better place. Following graduation, our budding interest in conservation and an urge for adventure led us
to Africa via the Peace Corps. We weren’t
qualified for specialist positions in parks or
wildlife management, so we joined more
than one hundred other volunteers to be
trained as the first teachers sent to Congo,
which was then known as Zaire….
In many ways, we were fortunate that we
began our work in Africa as teachers. If we
had started in conservation, with strong
pressure to save some park or species, we
might have been quickly pulled into adversarial positions with local people and government officials. Instead, teaching brought
us into constant contact with Africans and
their view of the world. We saw how our students learned and came to understand reasoning and values that shaped their perceptions. We gained firsthand experience working with the dysfunctional Congolese education bureaucracy—and saw how pervasive
corruption could crush individual initiative
at a very young age. We became fluent in
French and learned Swahili, a regional Bantu language that opened up a rich and rewarding world of contact with the large
majority of local people who spoke no European language. Most of all, we were able to
take our time and absorb the African way of
life and culture that surrounded us. We tried
to follow the advice of a Jesuit priest who
had addressed our Peace Corps group toward
the end of our formal training. You will see
many strange and different things over the next
two years, he said. Always keep a question
mark in front of your eyes and ask “why” before
you judge something you see as wrong just
because it is different. It was excellent advice.
From Bill Weber and Amy Vedder, In the Kingdom of Gorillas: Fragile Species in a Dangerous Land, Simon & Schuster, 2001.
Reprinted with permission of the authors. See
W.D. Ehrhart’s [’73] feature “A World That Is
Not Just Ours” about the Webers on page 30.

OTHER BOOKS

New Yorker, Saturday Review of Literature,
Harper’s, and The New Republic.

Caroline Jean Acker ’68, Creating the American Junkie: Addiction Research in the Classic
Era of Narcotic Control, The Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2002. Weaving together
the accounts of addicts and researchers, this
historian explores how addiction in the
early 20th century was strongly influenced
by the professional concerns of psychiatrists
seeking to increase their medical authority.
She also examines other factors, including
the ambitions of pharmacologists to build a
drug development infrastructure and the
American Medical Association’s campaign to
reduce prescriptions of opiates and absolve
physicians in private practice from the
necessity of treating difficult addicts as
patients. The author is an associate professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University
and co-founder of Prevention Point Pittsburgh, a needle exchange program in
Allegheny County, Pa.

Adam Haslett ’92, You Are Not a Stranger
Here, Doubleday, 2002. This debut collection of short stories focuses on people facing some of life’s most profound dilemmas,
including saying good-bye to someone you
love, letting go of a long-held secret, and
understanding the meaning of mental suffering. In settings ranging from New England to Great Britain and Los Angeles to the
American West, these nine stories explore
the themes of love and honor, pity and
pride, and compassion and sacrifice. Currently a student at Yale Law School, Haslett
has published work in Zoetrope: All-Story
and The Yale Review.

Paula Lawrence Wehmiller ’67, A Gathering
of Gifts, Church Publishing, 2002. The
author writes about her experiences as educator, priest, parent, and member of a
remarkable African-American family, whose
origins she traces in this JourneyBook. She
writes: “Telling stories is the way we speak
in our family. ‘Parable’ is our mother
tongue…. Separating stories from who I am
would be like separating breathing from the
way I live my life. The stories that want
telling are my way of knowing where I’ve
come from, who I am becoming, and who I
am called to be in this world.”

THE COVERS OF A GATHERING OF GIFTS (TOP) AND
U.S. POLICY ON CLIMATE CHANGE (BOTTOM) DRAW
READERS TO THESE RECENTLY PUBLISHED BOOKS.

William Matchett ’49, Shakespeare and Forgiveness, Fithian Press, 2002. This study of
Shakespeare’s plays discusses the differences
between “pardon” and “forgiveness,” tracing
the evolution of the latter in works such as
Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merchant of
Venice, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, King Lear, and
The Winter’s Tale. To complete this study,
Matchett, professor emeritus of English at
the University of Washington, drew on years
of scholarly study. From 1963 to 1982,he
was editor of Modern Language Quarterly and
the author of several books of poetry and
criticism; his work has also appeared in The

E. Roy Weintraub ’64, How Economics
Became a Mathematical Science, Duke University Press, 2002. This book follows the history of economics within the framework of
mathematics in the 20th century. The
author also examines the career of his late
father, economist Sidney Weintraub. The
author is professor of economics at Duke
University; editor of Toward a History of
Game Theory; and author of several books,
including Stabilizing Dynamics: Constructing
Economic Knowledge.

COMPACT DISK
Yvonne Healy ’75, Stories From the Heart of
the World, 2002. The author/artist presents
original adaptations of folktales from
around the world, which are suitable for listeners of all ages. Titles include Lugh, the
Shining One; People-Eating Monster; and Isis
and Osiris.

SEPTEMBER 2002

Barbara Pearson Lange Godfrey ’31; Julie
Lange Hall ’55 (ed.), Man of Chautauqua and
His Caravans of Culture: The Life of Paul M.
Pearson, self-published, 2001. After gathering letters, photos, lecture notes, and plays
in which her father acted—with the assistance of Friends Historical Library at the
College—the author tells her father’s story,
helping her understand the facts of their
family history. In the preface to the book,
addressed to her children who never knew
their grandfather, Godfrey begins this story
where her father’s letters started—with one
to his future wife. Many of these letters,
reproduced in the book, document life during the late 1800s and early 1900s as well
as the influence of railroads at the time.

John Riggs ’64 (ed.), U.S. Policy on Climate
Change: What Next? A Report of the Aspen
Institute Environmental Policy Forum, The
Aspen Institute, 2002. In January, the
Aspen Institute convened a diverse group of
scientists, economists, business leaders,
environmentalists, and government officials
to discuss solutions to greenhouse gases,
which dangerously interfere with the global
climate system. This book draws together
the thinking from leading experts on the
nature of climate change and ways to
respond to these issues. Some of the topics
explored include action to reduce emissions,
investment in future technologies, and government leadership.

55

C H R I S K I N G ’ 6 8 W E AV E S T H E TA P E S T R Y O F H I S O W N L I F E .

A

s another “Renaissance soul” (see p.
14), Chris King has personally experienced the richness—and divisiveness—of finding time for many interests.
“Multiple interests mean you are less likely
to win the big prize in a given arena,” he
says. “So if it’s important to be found meritorious by your fellows, stick with your
favorite thing. Being a jack-of-all-trades is
likely to get you some scorn. But if weaving
the tapestry of your own life is paramount,
then having a very broad palette is wonderful. Sometimes, I ask myself what I should
give up in order to be more visible.”
King’s creativity has found one outlet in
his children’s books. The Boy Who Ate the
Moon (1988) is based on his boyhood fantasy about the moon getting caught in the
branches outside his window. The Vegetables
Go to Bed (1994) was born out of his involvement in a Hartford, Conn., community garden, where he imagined the nighttime activity of vegetables. Before publishing these books, he tested them on children in local schools—relishing their feedback as “the best part of being an author.”
After graduating from Swarthmore,
where he was a sociology/anthropology
major, King worked on a live, nightly news
and public affairs show for public television in Florida—shooting and editing film,
setting lights, and conducting interviews.
Later, he produced filmstrips and audiotapes with companies in New York and
Connecticut. In 1988, he started the company King Productions.
During the last few years, King has
mounted two original dramas. A Mother in
My Head won the Marblehead Little Theater one-act competition in 2001 and special recognition from the Eastern Massachusetts Association of Community Theater, when it was presented in tandem with
Our Appointed Rounds in February by the
Sherborn Players. He has also published
articles in the June 2001 and March issues
of Friends Journal, but most of his creative
energy is now focused on an adult novel.
Inspired by his uncle William Foote
Whyte ’36, who wrote the groundbreaking
book Street Corner Society, King still finds
his interest in anthropology a “great tool

CHITRA YANG KING ʼ68

ALUMNI PROFILE
S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

62

Lure of Many Sirens

KING, IN SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO AFTER VISITING HIS SON IN LOS ANGELES, WRITES FOR CHILDREN
AND ADULTS, CREATING SONGS, SHORT STORIES, AND PLAYS. HE REGULARLY DOES VOICE-OVER WORK
FOR MUSEUMS AND AUDIOBOOKS AND ENJOYS DIRECTING AND ACTING IN COMMUNITY THEATER.

for a playwright.”
At Swarthmore, he particularly remembers Professor of Psychology Kenneth Gergen’s course on group dynamics, in which
students were their own “guinea pigs.” He
says, “I was impressed by the way a meeting could be changed by who sat in what
chair and intangibles such as ‘sex appeal.’”
Although he is pleased to see the arts
curriculum expand at the College, he
remains concerned that artists are not
equally valued as scientists. “Why not
deliberately aim for more?” he asks, after
remembering the emphasis on reading and
talking about art versus the importance of
simply being artists.
King credits wife Chitra Yang King ’68
with nurturing his ability to pursue creative
interests. “Perhaps the greatest blessing is
a spouse who is 86 percent tolerant of having an ‘artist-in-residence,’” he says. “We
have sort of played ‘leap-frog careers.’ In
the mid-1980s, when Chitra decided to

reapply to medical schools, I stuck with my
somewhat mundane job as an educational
media producer and took care of our son,
while she got through the tough job of
becoming a doctor.”
Later, “When she was ready to practice,
I began my own media business. Knowing
I have a ‘magpie mind,’ I reached a firm
conclusion: Anything I do is my work. Not
all of it may be immediately remunerative,
but it is what I do and who I am. Being a
‘late bloomer’ in many ways, I concluded
that I had to respect the many sirens who
lured me, while trying to improve my ability to focus on each one. I usually fail. If
there is something you love beyond reason,
pour yourself into it.”
King adds: “I like having left a thumbprint on the universe. Someone laughed
who otherwise wouldn’t have. Someone
who didn’t have a clue is now asking useful
questions.”
—Andrea Hammer

ALUMNI PROFILE
S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

70

Te a c h i n g fo r C h a n g e
KEVIN HUFFMAN ’92 HAS RETURNED TO TEACH FOR AMERICA.

K

evin Huffman is your typical Swarthmore alumnus. He was an English
major. He went to law school. And, of
course, he wants to change the world. But
the amazing thing is that he’s actually doing
it!
Huffman is the vice president of development and general counsel at Teach for
America (TFA), the nonprofit organization
that, since its inception in 1990, has placed
approximately 10,000 recent college grads
in teaching positions throughout the country’s underserved school districts.
Huffman, like many college seniors,
longed “to make an impact right out of college.” Having spent a semester in Chile, he
initially thought that he might like to teach
English abroad. However, he was accepted
by TFA—at that point a fledgling 3-year-old
organization—and found himself teaching a
bilingual first-grade class in inner-city
Houston.
“It was fantastic,” says Huffman. “There
was an enormous sense of both pressure
and possibility,” referring to the importance
of quality elementary education in a system
that often fails students later down the line.
He says that despite a preservice training
program that, back then, included little
hands-on teaching experience, he dealt with
these pressures thanks to “a great support
network—people who were living and
breathing the academic achievement of their
kids.”
Huffman ended up staying in Houston
past his two-year commitment, after connecting with the people and neighborhood
he had come to know so well. Throughout
his years at New York University Law School
and later with the Washington, D.C., firm of
Hogan & Hartson, where he practiced education law, his time with TFA was not forgotten, and, in 2000, he returned there in
his current capacity.
As the vice president of development,
Huffman has ambitious plans for the program, now in its 12th year. He is attempting
to triple recruitment within three years by
borrowing tactics from corporate recruiters
to go after “the campus superstars.” However, he still bemoans society’s priorities in
this area: “It seems crazy that if you want to

KEVIN HUFFMAN (STANDING) HOPES THAT TFA ALUMNI ARE BOTH TEACHERS AND POLITICIANS, WHO
WILL HELP SPREAD THE ORGANIZATION’S MESSAGE.

be an investment banker and make a lot of
money, then people will fly you around and
take you out to dinner; if you want to be a
teacher, you have to invest an incredible
amount of time and energy jumping
through a whole lot of hoops just to figure
out what you have to do.”
The program is hoping to capitalize on
its alumni network of 7,000 people currently. Although 60 percent of TFA alums are
still involved in education, Huffman sees
the other 40 percent as equally vital in producing social change. Ultimately, he hopes
that alumni are both teachers and politicians, principals and chief executive officers,
so that the organization can spread its message throughout society.
Despite TFA’s broad ambitions, it still
faces much criticism from established
teacher-training programs as well as
respected education writers. The program’s
opponents say that it doesn’t prepare its
corps members well enough and “de-professionalizes” teaching, thereby doing a disservice to the children it aims to help. In

response, Huffman cites several studies,
showing sponsoring principals’ satisfaction
with TFA teachers compared with other
beginning teachers, a high retention rate
within the program, and the strong performance of children taught by TFA staff.
He also is quick to point out that though his
training experience a decade ago was insufficient for his needs in the classroom, the
pedagogy behind the training has been
revamped since then, and the five-week orientation now includes much more realworld experience.
Huffman thinks that Swarthmore’s philosophy meshes well with that of TFA:
“When I left Swarthmore,” he says,”I remember thinking, ‘Will I ever be around a
group of people with the same values and
the same drive?’ I felt exactly that way at
TFA, too…. I also don’t know that anything
else has ever given me such a tangible sense
that I made a difference.”
—Jeremy Schifeling ’03
Adapted with permission from
The Daily Gazette (Feb. 7)

IN MY LIFE

Letters
from
the Front
DA I LY U N C E R TA I N T Y O U T S I D E J E R U SA L E M
By Av i v a Ku s h n e r Yo s e l i s ’ 9 6

I

don’t consider myself living in a war zone now, although I suppose my
descriptions of living outside Jerusalem sound as if I do. The following
are excerpts from letters I’ve sent to my sister, Tamah Kushner ’83. I
offer them neither as a political appeal nor as a defense; I only want to
share my feelings and experiences about what it’s like to live as an Israeli
Jew “over the green line.”

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

Dear Tamah,

72

I’ve always been one for new experiences. Saturday night, I find
myself driving along a dark road surrounded by abandoned buildings. We pass a fluorescent green-lit tower, which I realize is a
minaret, a section of a Muslim mosque—not a welcome site in our
situation. I look at my husband. “Are you sure we’re on the right
road?” I ask him, even though I’m holding the map and navigating.
He takes his gun out of its holster, loads it, and hands it to me.
“Hold it,” he says. “And look around. Be ready to fire or hand the
gun to me.” We drive down the road in silence.
An almost hysterical giggle bursts from my throat. I’m holding a
semi-automatic weapon in both hands, when I’ve never even fired
the thing. I’m a nice girl from South Jersey. How did I get here?
At an army checkpoint, we ask the soldiers if we’re going in the
right direction. Straight on, they tell us. They’re boys of no more
than 19, wearing bullet-proof vests, helmets, standing behind sandbags and cement blocks. We’re in a war zone.
But the strangest thing is that my husband is not being overdramatic or ridiculous. People are shot at all the time. It doesn’t even
make the news anymore unless someone’s seriously injured. A youth
threw a Molotov cocktail at my brother-in-law when he was driving
near Ofrah last week. Thank G-d it didn’t go off. We are living in
surreal times, which explains why I am carrying a gun in my lap and
whispering the phrases of psalms. We are more scared on this road
because it is unknown.
We travel from our home to Jerusalem every day, passing checkpoints where explosions and shootings occur daily. Still, our life
progresses as “normal.” We go on with weddings, births, and happy
occasions and sit with friends and relatives. We achieve normalcy.
We try not to boil over when we hear accusations about the “settlers” or how foreign countries think we should take less action—
even though we’re still being killed every day by people who think
it’s OK to blow yourself up for a cause.
It was good to talk with you, Tamah, last Saturday night and
laugh a bit to relieve my worry.

Y

itzchak wants me to get a gun. Now that I finally know how to
shoot it, he thinks I’m ready to own one. He doesn’t like the
idea of my driving with the kids with no protection. At first, I
thought he was crazy. What am I, born and raised in the mall capital
of America, going to do with a semi-automatic in my purse? I’m still
adjusting to the responsibilities of being a parent.
We first had this conversation on the way to visit Yitzchak’s
brother and my new sister-in-law. They wanted us to visit them in
their new home near Efrat, with the children. I looked at my husband, but I already knew what our answer would be. As scared as I
was to travel that road, we had both agreed that we wouldn’t change
plans because of terrorism. This was our family.
So there we were, again, on a darkened road, passing junctions
where passengers in cars are shot at regularly.
Then, Yitzchak says gently, “You know, Aviva, if we are shot at, it
will be at close range.” I look at him for a moment, not understanding. Then I realize, people come down from those villages, hide in
the bushes, and shoot at passing cars. I turn around and look at my
sleeping children in the back seat and have a moment of true fear.
We ride the rest of the way home in silence.

I

am an American. I like being an American. I still get choked up
when I hear the “Star-Spangled Banner.” I believe firmly in the
democratic process and constitutional law. I respect the flag and am
fascinated by our brief history. I vote.
Yet I choose to live in another country.
As much as I am an American and culturally always will be, I am
an Israeli by choice. Simply stated, I fell in love with Israel and could
not leave; that is why I live in this duality. As a Jew, this is the place I
belong.
The past year has been painful, difficult, and challenging. Life
has been altered; even though the big picture has changed, the little
things affect me most. Like the fear that surprises you when you
least expect it, driving next to a bus, sure that it will blow; or taking

AVIVA YOSELIS (ABOVE, LEFT), SEEN WITH HUSBAND YITZCHAK AND
CHILDREN MA’AYAN TOVA AND B’NAYA, HAS LIVED IN THE WEST BANK SETTLEMENT OF MITSPEH JERICHO SINCE 1997. AN ISRAELI SOLDIER (TOP)
PATROLS NEAR THE FENCE OF A SIMILAR SETTLEMENT AFTER PALESTINIAN
GUNMEN ATTACKED A BUS, KILLING EIGHT SETTLERS THERE ON JULY 17.

your child to buy shoes and giving the man on the street a sideways
glance, sure that he is the next suicide bomber. My heart starts
pounding, I sweat, and the fear bubbles in my throat. I cannot
count how many buses I’ve gotten off because I was sure that the
passenger next to me was going to explode.
The panic sometimes overwhelms me, but I struggle to get over it
and continue with my daily life—or they will have won. I do look at

it as a victory or loss, us against them. The irony is that I am surrounded daily by Arab Israelis and Palestinian Arabs who go about
their daily lives as I go about mine. The taxi driver, the street cleaner,
the waiter, the hospital attendant, the academic, the teacher, the
builder are all Arab. We meet everyday, sometimes with a smile,
sometimes a wave, sometimes nothing, but we are in each other’s
pockets. I wonder at the surrealism of it all, how we can be neighbors and enemies in the same breath. I don’t wish those individuals
any harm; in many cases, we work side by side. But in the back of my
mind always stands the thought that their nation wishes that my
people would get up and go from their land forever.
I feel the little things the most—like debating whether to go to
an event because it’s in an area where there’s been shooting, even
though there have been bombs in Netanya, Haifa, and Tel Aviv.
Where is it really safe?
I knew some of the people killed, although there have always
been degrees of separation: a student friend of my husband’s, my
neighbor’s brother, and a friend of a friend. Sometimes I’m sure that
tragedy is waiting just around the corner; because I have been
spared, the next attack will take someone I love.
But through it all, we go to work, come home, and spend time
with family. We go to movies, supper, and the park. The light shines
over Israel: the hundreds of miracles of last-minute diffused bombs
and gunfire that narrowly missed hitting a school bus full of children or the bomb that mysteriously didn’t go off in a place that
would have killed hundreds.
I don’t listen to the news anymore. One morning, I wanted to
hear the names of those killed in the latest attack. “Maybe I know
someone,” I said, “and I will want to go to their funeral.” My husband looked at me.
“What you’re doing there,” he said, pointing to my prayer book,
“is much more important. I can see that you’ve crossed the line, lost
perspective.” It’s been half a year, and I’ve rarely heard a news
report. I do feel much calmer, have things more in perspective. My
priorities are relationships with those I love, my own development,
my connection to G-d, and my love for fellow Israelis—although
they can drive me mad with frustration. That’s my purpose, and
everything else must remain in the background.
The truth is that life is uncertain. No matter where we are, sickness, car accidents, trauma, and death lurk around the corner. But
we live in our state of denial that keeps us invincible and isolated,
until the mirror cracks. When we step out of that isolation we feel,
mortality holds our hand as we wake up in the morning and kisses
us goodnight as we climb into bed.
In Israel, we feel it more strongly. T

SEPTEMBER 2002

AP PHOTO/EITAN HESS-ASKENAZI

Mortality holds our hand
as we wake up in the morning
and kisses us goodnight
as we climb into bed.

73

LETTERS

Letters...
were made up of self-conscious individualists like ourselves who would willingly take
personal positions but might not accept
someone else’s tactics and wording? Worst
of all, what if our views, no matter how
expressed, were those of only a small
minority?
This left the second possibility as the
more likely: that we would gather relatively
few signatures. But when we faced this possibility, there arose a common dilemma in
the politics of principle.
Some of us held that relatively few signatures made no difference. What counted was
our own consciences, not social results.
Others asserted that if only a few people
signed, an important but suppressed truth
about Swarthmore as a racist institution
would be exposed—an exposure that was
probably necessary to arouse others, before
there could be any progress.
On the other hand, some of us maintained that securing relatively few signatures
would cause more grief for Maurice, embolden the racist opposition, and leave our
cause demoralized.
With considerable unease, I argued the
second of these positions. In the end, we
did nothing, though perhaps as much from
exhaustion as conviction. Soon after, Maurice Eldridge took a year off.
The memory of the hate mail incident
and its lessons and then of Eldridge’s great
gifts to the College by twice returning—first
as a student and nearly 30 years later as an
administrator—have become fixtures of my
Swarthmore education.
CHARLES MILLER ’59
New Market, Va.

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

TRUE FEELINGS?

76

The Bulletin sure set off a storm with the
stories in which faculty member Farha
Ghannam and alumnus Roger Heacock ’62
were strongly critical of American and
Israeli policies (“Peace, Politics, and Justice,”
December 2001, and “Professor in Palestine,” March 2002). In the middle of that
storm, it was heartening to see the letter in
the June edition from Suzanne Fried Singer
’56, who, while taking strong issue with Mr.
Heacock’s views, nonetheless did so in a
thoughtful, well-reasoned manner, which

continued from page 3
did credit both to her and, by association, to
Swarthmore.
By contrast, I was surprised and disappointed by the degree to which some
Swarthmore alumni clearly would prefer
censorship (or worse) to the publication of
views with which they disagree. Rather than
emulating Ms. Singer and directing their
challenge solely to the substance of such
views, they attack the intelligence, professional competence, and/or integrity of the
individuals who express them.
I can understand and sympathize with
the intensity of the views expressed by these
writers, but that intensity gives them no
claim to superior morality or wisdom. They
might wish to do some soul searching on
their own “true feeling” both toward freedom of speech and the values of the liberal
arts.
STEVE PENROSE ’66
Dallas
THOUGHTFUL PROFILE

The profile of Roger Heacock seemed a
thoughtful way to show how one Swarthmore alumnus was doing good work in a
difficult area. It reminded me of some of the
best traditions I learned at the College.
In May, I had the chance to visit Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Jerusalem. I saw for
myself the devastating effects of the occupation. Like Heacock and many Quakers, I
believe that peace and protection cannot be
achieved through violent occupation and
EDITOR’S NOTE
We received an unprecedented number
of reader responses regarding both “Professor in Palestine,” the profile of Roger
Heacock ’62 that appeared in the March
Bulletin, and the June letters in reaction to that article. Following our usual
policy—which is to publish letters
reacting to an article and, in the subsequent issue, letters responding to those
letters, we will close this particular conversation with the letters in this current
issue. Additional letters may be found
on our Web site: www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/sept02/letters.

apartheid. As a Jew, I feel strongly that when
Israel denies a people the right to self-determination, it not act in my name or in the
interests of Jewish people. Thank you for
continuing to emphasize peace and justice.
RACHEL NEUMANN ’92
Brooklyn, N.Y.
VITUPERATIVE LANGUAGE

I was dismayed by the vituperative language
of the letters published in the March and
June issues. I thought that Swarthmore
seeks to imbue in its students critical thinking and the ability to understand the perspectives of people who are different from
themselves.
Are the writers incapable of thinking
critically about Israeli government policies?
Are they incapable of empathizing with people whose land has been seized and who are
locked in tiny ghettos, unable to get to work
or to school? Do they have no concern about
the rights of people living under military
occupation for a third of a century?
Instead of trying to look at both sides of
the political situation, they viciously attack
two fine scholars, Farha Ghannam and
Roger Heacock ’62, making unjustified
charges of anti-Jewish attitudes against
them. Instead of attacking them, Swarthmoreans should celebrate the presence of
Professor Ghannam on the College’s faculty
and should praise Professor Heacock for his
perseverance in teaching under such difficult conditions.
ANN MOSELY LESCH ’66
Philadelphia
APPALLING

As one of Swarthmore’s first graduates of
color, I had the pleasure of receiving an
honorary doctorate from the College in
2002. I am writing to express my strong
support for the article about Roger Heacock.
That some alumni assert the article should
not have been published because of Professor Heacock’s pro-Palestinian politics is an
appalling example of would-be censorship
at an institution committed to freedom of
thought and expression. It is especially
appalling when we remember Swarthmore’s
historic tradition of respect for the individual human conscience.
One alumna who denounced the article
said she was withdrawing financial support
from the College. That is enough to make
me send the enclosed check. Though it is

SPEAKING OUT

A large and growing movement of committed Jews is speaking out against the Israeli
occupation of Palestine, opposing all forms
of violence by both Israelis and Palestinians
and supporting a genuine peace process. As
a participant in this movement, I have seen
other Jews attack and silence us when we
merely try to describe Palestinians as human
beings who, like Israeli civilians, are suffering from the violence. These attacks intensify when we criticize Israeli policies or question U.S. military and political support for
Israel. The letters in the last issue of the Bulletin illustrate this dynamic.
Another example is the growing number
of boycotts of mainstream newspapers by
right-wing Jews who believe that Palestinians should be portrayed as only terrorists—
never as victims of violence or injustice. At a
recent counterdemonstration against a boy-

A large and growing
movement of committed Jews
is speaking out against the
Israeli occupation of Palestine.
—Alexandra Volin ’96
cott of The Philadelphia Inquirer, I was called
a Nazi and told that I couldn’t possibly be a
Jew.
It is unethical by both Jewish and democratic standards to try to silence voices with
which you disagree. It is even more unethical to dehumanize other people by refusing
to acknowledge their pain, their humanity,
and their individuality. The heartbreaking
conflict between Israel and Palestine is
destroying lives in the Middle East; we who
watch from across the ocean need to stop
attacking each other when we debate the
conflict.
ALEXANDRA VOLIN ’96
Philadelphia
NO PEACE WITHOUT SECURITY

When Roger Heacock complains about the
dangers faced by his children in Ramallah,
one has about as much sympathy for him as
for a parent who deliberately ties his chil-

dren to the track in the path of an oncoming freight train. While he and his wife are
busy “bearing witness” in the name of
Quakers, they might want to take a moment
to ask why their Palestinian friends, though
demanding a state for themselves, steadfastly refuse to acknowledge a similar right for
Israelis.
There can be no peace until the Palestinians recognize the right of Israel to exist.
There is no rationale for Israel to give up
land if it will not gain security by this gesture. No nation is required to commit sui-

The truth is that Palestinians
want their state, not side
by side with a Jewish state
but in its place.
—Jan Feldman ’76
cide. Heacock’s friends are deceiving him
when they say that all they want is a state.
That is part of the truth. The complete truth
is that they want their state, not side by side
with a Jewish state but in its place.
Finally, we are told that because of Professor Heacock’s “delightful humor and congenial outlook,” he looks forward to eventual “peace and the establishment of democracy.” So far, things don’t bode well for the
Palestinians’ exercise of democracy. My
guess is that given the chance, they will
replicate the regimes that exist all over the
Arab world. Begin to imagine Birzeit University, Professor Heacock, without its
female students. You can also kiss your copy
of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales good-bye, as it
is unlikely to survive scrutiny by the Islamic
morality police. If, in fact, you want to
demonstrate your solidarity and commitment to the Palestinians and live your
Quaker ideals, persuade them to talk peace,
teach peace, negotiate peace, and pray for
peace. These are the tactics that they have
not yet tried. A Quaker friend of theirs
could demand no less.
JAN FELDMAN ’76
Shelburne, Vt.
POSITIVE PEACE

Some of the reactions in the June Bulletin
are grounded in a zero-sum approach to the
Palestinian-Israeli encounter. The United
States should move the parties from winlose perceptions to a win-win scenario.
Roger Heacock envisions a positive peace

based on democracy and justice—not a negative stalemate based on either the force of
Palestinian suicide bombers or of Israel’s
permanent occupation of the West Bank.
This is entirely in keeping with the Quaker
teachings and traditions that Roger brought
from his birthright and that one would hope
others gained in their Swarthmore education.
JOHN CORBIT ’61, Narragansett, R.I.
JONATHAN GALLOWAY ’61, Lake Forest, Ill.
ROMAN JACKIW ’61, Boston
SOLUTIONS, NOT STEREOTYPES

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is in desperate need of novel solutions and creative
negotiation. We, as Swarthmore graduates,
students, faculty, and staff are well educated,
globally aware, and instilled with the values
of peace and justice. How can we fall back
on ethnic and religious stereotypes and discount the human dimensions of this conflict? If Swarthmoreans cannot move discussion toward a solution to the conflict in the
Middle East, who will?
Whether or not we support Roger Heacock’s decisions to live and work in Palestine, learning of his experience exposes
those of us who are physically isolated from
the conflict to a novel perspective. Alumni
profiles remind us of the many and varied
paths taken by Swarthmore students and
serve to broaden our collective experience.
AMANDA FINE ’93
Lansing, Mich.
FREEDOM OF IDEAS

I have just returned from the Middle East,
where I experienced firsthand the political
antipathy to the United States and the
moral outrage over America’s uncritical support for the Israeli repression of the native
Palestinians. It is regretfully clear why we
are hated and distrusted.

I trust that the College will
not yield to pressure groups
that seek to intimidate the
editors of the Bulletin.
—Brice Harris ’53
I applaud Roger Heacock for his principled Quaker understanding of the conflict, I
deplore those who say they will stop giving
to Swarthmore because of an article they
don’t like, and I trust that the College will

SEPTEMBER 2002

small, it is my first contribution in many
years. Your editorial integrity in this case is
an inspiration.
ELIZABETH MARTÍNEZ ’46
San Francisco

77

LETTERS

not yield to pressure groups that seek to
intimidate the editors of the Bulletin. Freedom of ideas is for everyone.
BRICE HARRIS ’53
Los Angeles
FAIRNESS BOTH WAYS

After reading the letter by Julie Marcus ’87
in the June Bulletin, I looked again at the
Heacock article. I cannot see any clear-cut
anti-Jewish pattern—only a sense of fairness to the Palestinians. Marcus evidently
equates fairness to Palestinians as unfairness to Jews, which leads to her conclusion
that the Heacock story (which was not written by Heacock, of course) was anti-Jewish.
It appears that the concept of fairness both
ways is not possible in her mind. Her effort
to induce alumni to discontinue giving to
Swarthmore is vicious and petty. The College should not have to consider financial
damage every time the Bulletin publishes a
stimulating article. Marcus must have
missed the “sense of the meeting” when she
went through Swarthmore.
ROGER KEENAN ’46
Chico, Calif.

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

FUNDAMENTALIST RAVINGS

78

Bolton Davidheiser ‘34 writes that Muslims
worship a false god and that the Jews will
only regain Israel when they “recognize as
Savior the One they crucified.” For the
Swarthmore Bulletin to publish and, therefore, lend legitimacy to these fundamentalist Christian ravings is a disgrace. This is
gross anti-Semitism in the truest sense of
the word, being both anti-Jewish and antiMuslim. The Bulletin should print differing
opinions, but it has no obligation to publish
such offensive remarks because in doing so,
it declares that these intolerant pronouncements are worthy of serious discussion.
Would the Bulletin have included Davidheiser’s letter if it had been as insulting to
Quakers?
RICHARD KING ’74
Cherry Hill, N.J.
JESUS WAS A JEW

One quiet little line in Bolton Davidheiser’s
otherwise reasonable letter to the Bulletin
(June “Letters”) has been a cause of mayhem, violence, and murder for 2,000 years.
That statement—so offhand, so casual in its
accusation of deicide—was his reference to
“the Jews” having crucified Jesus. By “the

SPIRIT AND HOPE

When, in 1970, I chose to resign my
teaching position at Colorado College
with the declared intention of expatriating myself, a few verbal and written assaults followed from public and
private fellow citizens, branding me
an enemy of my country. As can be
seen, the pattern has now been
repeated; only the color of the enemy
has changed from red to green.
I would like to pay tribute to Jessica Carew Kraft, the young Swarthmore graduate who wrote the portrait
of me in the March Bulletin. By making a pilgrimage to West, then East
Jerusalem; by going on to Ramallah
and Birzeit in the quest for subjective
and objective knowledge regarding a
complex problem; and by being determined to come to grips with it—she
has proven herself to be more representative by far of the spirit and the
hopes of our people than are those
who would paint their perceived foes
in monochrome.
ROGER HEACOCK ’62
Ramallah, West Bank
A PEACEMAKING VENTURE

As a Jew living in West Jerusalem, I
confidently affirm that the profile I
wrote about Roger Heacock ’62 (“Professor in Palestine,” March Bulletin) is
not anti-Semitic, nor is it anti-Israel.
Perhaps if readers knew that the article was clearly conceived as a peacemaking venture—one that bridged
the tremendous gap between the territories and Israel proper as well as
the gap between non-Jew and Jew—
they might see it differently. I also
received criticism from my Jewish
community for going to Ramallah and
Birzeit University and for writing so
glowingly about Roger. Yet I was so
pleased to have the opportunity,
which turned out to be a life-changing experience. I appreciate the Bulletin’s continued support for the piece.
JESSICA CAREW KRAFT ’99
Jerusalem

Jews,” he presumably means all Jews, 2,000
years of Jews, each and every one of us.
The irony is that Jesus himself was killed
(by the Romans, of course) primarily for
being Jewish. He was crucified, as so many
Jews were crucified, because he was a potential threat to the power of Rome. He was a
threat because he was Jewish and outspoken
and because he was a leader in the Jewish
community at a time when there were rumblings of the Jewish insurrection that broke
out in full force a few years later, leading
Rome to destroy the Jewish state entirely.
Isn’t it strange that all Jews, in perpetuity, are given the blame for supposedly
killing Jesus but not given credit for having
produced him? He was one of us, as were
Joseph and Mary (and John and Peter and
Paul and Matthew and Simon—indeed,
most of the Apostles and most of his followers). Jesus lived as a Jew and was killed as a
Jew.
I have often heard Christians say, “God
sacrificed his only begotten son.” If God
sacrificed him, then it was God’s choice,
wasn’t it? And whoever carried out the sacrifice was doing God’s will? And without this
sacrifice, the world would not be saved? So
what does it mean to accuse “the Jews” of
having done this—and to use this as justification for 2,000 years of persecution and
murder of Jews?
ALEXIS BAR-LEV
Salt Lake City
DANGEROUSLY WRONG

I’m having a lot of trouble with the people
writing in to complain about the article
about Roger Heacock. Roger is a great guy,
and what he’s doing—teaching poor students in an embattled area—seems to be a
great thing to do. What has it to do with the
government policies of the area? Even if one
hates them, one can respect what Roger is
doing. How can Swarthmoreans ask for censorship of an article about someone doing
something risky and significant in the
world? For that matter, how can they ask for
censorship of any article?
I’m proud to be Jewish and am all for
Israel, but I’m not for narrow-minded letter
writers lost in their own passion. To cut off
contributions to the College because you
don’t like one article in the Bulletin seems
dangerously wrong.
IKE SCHAMBELAN ’61
New York

How depressing to open the June issue of
the Bulletin and find so many letter writers
spouting the same Israeli propaganda that
we read in the letters column of our daily
newspapers. I had hoped for better from
Swarthmore alumni. Where are the tolerance, independent thinking, openness, and
influence of Quaker principle that is so
often referred to in these pages as the legacy
of a Swarthmore education? Quaker principle requires that all persons be listened to
with an open mind. It is a challenge sometimes to give up one’s conviction, especially
when one thinks it has been rationally
arrived at, but it is amazing what can come
from an honest discourse. The appropriate
response to Roger Heacock and Professor
Ghannam is to examine what they have to
say in an effort to discern truth and to
respond in kind. I hope that the members of
the Swarthmore community will find ways
to support all of those who seek an honest,
lasting peace, no matter who they are.
DEBORAH GOODYEAR RECTOR ’59
Costa Mesa, Calif.
CIVILIZED RESPONSE

If we want the terrorists—and, more important, their uncommitted sympathizers—to
respond in civilized ways, why do we not
provide them with some mechanism for
doing so? If Osama Bin Laden’s primary
complaint was about the desecration of holy
places, where could he have sued or lobbied
under international law to achieve this
rather modest goal?
Congratulations to the Bulletin. To suggest that publishing criticism of Israel is
reason enough to cut off support for the
College is truly pathetic.
SHAWN DISNEY ’55
Onancock, Va.
PRIVILEGED

I was shocked by the vehement reaction to
Roger Heacock’s decision to “bear witness
and live in solidarity with the occupied
Palestinians.” What in any other part of the
world would have been recognized as a
courageous and selfless choice was condemned as though Roger and his family
approved of the senseless violence that
accompanies the struggle of a people displaced, subject to daily humiliations, and
facing the overwhelming military force of a
far stronger power. The Heacocks moved to
Palestine when the fortunes of the Palestini-

“The appropriate response
to Roger Heacock and
Professor Ghannam is to
examine what they have to
say in an effort to discern truth
and to respond in kind.”
—Deborah Goodyear Rector ‘59
ans were at a low ebb—just after Ariel
Sharon’s invasion of Lebanon and the massacres of Palestinian refugees at Sabra and
Shatila. They have stayed there through the
first Intifada, watched the changes during
the frustrating years of the Oslo process,
and refused to run when the Israeli government destroyed the infrastructure of the
Palestinian Authority.
As a classmate, I feel privileged to know
Roger, Laura, and their children. I visited
them in Ramallah three times and saw the
respect and affection with which they are
held by their neighbors and colleagues. The
world needs to understand what is going on
in Palestine. Would that there were more
witnesses to the realities on the ground like
Roger Heacock and his family.
RONALD SUNY ’62
Ann Arbor, Mich.
MANNER OF ATHLETICS DECISION
WAS CONSISTENT WITH
SWARTHMORE’S QUAKER TRADITION

As a member of the Board of Managers
since 1993, as chair of the Board’s Nominating and Governance Committee, and as secretary of the Swarthmore Corporation with
responsibility for the accurate recording of
the Board’s proceedings, I feel an obligation
to respond to the letter from Cornelia
Clarke Schmidt ’46 and Eleanor Schmidt
Clark ’71 (“Oaks With Quaker Roots,” June
Bulletin). This letter once again attacks the
Board’s December 2000 action with respect
to the intercollegiate athletics program,
characterizing the action as “rushed” and as
failing to use the “sense of the meeting”
procedure rooted in Quakerism.
I must dispute the assertions of Cornelia
Schmidt and Eleanor Clark, neither of
whom participated in the events they so vigorously condemn. The Dec. 2, 2000, Board
meeting was the culmination of an extensive
period of review of the College’s athletics
program by the Board and a specially consti-

tuted Athletics Review Committee. The first
decision taken at that meeting with respect
to the proposal to eliminate football and
wrestling from the intercollegiate sports
program was, in fact, one that reflected the
unanimous view of the managers present
that an immediate decision on the proposal
to eliminate those sports was necessary. The
minutes record that all managers present
were in accord that a substantive decision
on the proposal “must be made immediately
so as to protect recruiting for the coming
year and define the future parameters of the
intercollegiate athletics program before the
admissions office and prospective students
made decisions about next year.” The ultimate 21–8 vote (with one manager abstaining) to eliminate these sports must be understood in the context of the unanimous
sense of the managers that such a substantive decision could not responsibly be
delayed.
Moreover, the writers fail entirely to note
that a special meeting of the Board was convened, at the request of managers who had
voted against the decision, on Jan. 4, 2001,
to reconsider the matter. After a full discussion, participated in by 34 of the 38 thenmanagers and four of the eight then-emeriti
managers, the minutes of the Jan. 4, 2001,
meeting state that the Board decided “without voting and without objection, to let its
decision of Dec. 2, 2000, stand.”
The decision taken by the Board of Managers in December 2000 and reaffirmed in
January 2001 was, of course, a complex and
difficult one, about which members of the
Swarthmore community may well continue
to have divergent views. However, I submit
that when one actually looks at the record, it
shows that the decision was taken in a manner entirely consistent with Swarthmore’s
Quaker tradition.
LILLIAN KRAEMER ’61
New York
CORRECTION

In “Land-use plan looks ahead," (June “Collection"), it was stated that two properties
in the block bounded by Chester Road, College Avenue, Cedar Lane, and Elm Avenue
are not owned by the College. In fact, there
are three such properties.
Write to the Bulletin at 500 College Avenue,
Swarthmore PA 19081, or e-mail bulletin@swarthmore.edu.

SEPTEMBER 2002

DEPRESSING

79

T H E M E A N I N G O F S WA R T H M O R E B E C O M E S C L E A R .

By Arlie Russell Hochschild ’62

I

wonder if it’s true for you, too, that
Swarthmore looms larger in your life as
more time passes. You can leave this
place, but Swarthmore follows you out the
door. Even if you were having an existential
crisis at the time and couldn’t fully absorb
Swarthmore, something important about it
becomes part of you anyway. And I’m wondering now just what that important part is.
When I was a student here 40 years ago,
I had it backward. I wanted to be loved by
Swarthmore and was less clear about what I
loved back. I felt enormous respect for its
professors and my roommates and friends
but a cursory, ill-informed, anonymous
warmth for its Quaker tradition. I took for
granted one key aspect of that Quaker tradition—the place it held for large dreams.
This message is not the one that I imagined Swarthmore was imparting to us,
which was more along the lines of learning
for learning’s sake. Although I was imbibing
the official message, I’d also been eyeing
that portrait of Lucretia Mott on the wall of
Parrish Parlors. I regret that I didn’t pause
then to have a good conversation with Mott
about the importance of dreams. The conversation would have made her smile.
For Mott had many big dreams; one of
them was the founding of the College,
which she did with a few dozen others in
1864. Born in 1793, Mott was also active in
the movement to abolish slavery and win for
women the right to vote and be public citizens. She fought for prison and school
reform and temperance and opposed war.
In the course of her activism against
slavery, she was chosen to be a delegate to
the World Anti-Slavery Conference in London in 1840. There, she sat next to Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the segregated
women’s section outside the main gallery in
which the conference was held, forbidden
any formal participation. Later, Stanton
credited a conversation with Mott about
holding a national women’s right’s convention—a talk sparking the Senecca Falls,
N.Y., conference in 1848 and the beginning
of the 19th-century women’s movement.
In imaginary conversations with Mott,

FRIENDS HISTORICAL LIBRARY

BAC K PAG E S
S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

80

Why We Need Dreams

I regret that I
didn’t pause to have a
good conversation
with Lucretia Mott.
I’ve asked what issues she would take on
today. I imagine her telling me that she’d sit
down to talk some Quaker sense into President Vajpayee of India and General Pervez
Musharraf of Pakistan. Under the nose of
an oil president, she’d work to end American
dependence on oil-related military adventurism and call for all universities and colleges to follow Swarthmore’s lead in moving
toward sustainable energy [see “Air Power,”
p. 11]. She would protest the World Trade
Organization’s policies of attaching “structural readjustment” requirements to loans
to poor countries. The equity Mott sought
between men and women would also be
sought between the rich and poor peoples
around the globe. And she would ask the
question beyond the “equality question”—
equal to what? Equal on whose terms?
Equally caring or uncaring?

Swarthmore, bless its heart, puts a little
bit of Mott in us all. In an age of postmodernism and identity politics, it passes on
trace elements of the Enlightenment. It’s
not that we all share exactly the same
dream. But going through this place, it is
difficult not to catch hold of, freshen, reflect
on, critique, and enlarge your dream.
What is a dream? It’s a vision of the
world as it isn’t yet. It’s a tendency to feel
that ideals are as real as anything else. It’s a
chronic allergy to the word “inevitable” as
in “global warming is inevitable,” “WalMart triumphalism is inevitable,” or “war is
inevitable.” It’s a gravitational pull toward
optimism, a faith that things can improve.
Even in my classroom at the University of
California–Berkeley, nondreaming students
say, “flexible workweek? Subsidized child
care? Sharing ethic at home? Work-life balance? You have to be kidding. Pipe dream.”
Then, in the back row, a hand goes up. And
bless God, it’s Mott. Or rather it’s her spirit,
living on in the form of a young, gay man
with green hair and earrings who is saying,
“What are you talking about? Norway’s
done all that long ago. It’s time we did it
too.”
As a teacher, I’ve watched a parade of
dreams—large, collective dreams of the
1960s; the fading dreams and then fractionalizing dreams of the 1970s and 1980s; and
the more worried, private dreams of the late
1980s and early 1990s. For all of them, any
dream worth its salt calls for a capacity to
doubt itself. Dreamers need to be willing to
criticize their dreams—to know when
they’ve gone sour or been just plain wrong.
Clearly, too, a dream needs content. It
would be a fatuous statement, indeed, to
praise dreams of all sorts. After all, Genghis
Khan had a dream. Adolf Hitler had a
dream. No, I’m talking more particularly
about dreams in a humanistic, progressive
and—broadly speaking—Quaker tradition.
For though I am not a Quaker in any formal sense, I feel we need this tradition now
more than ever. With the triumph of global
capitalism, the rise to power of right-wing
governments in many First World countries,

LUCRETIA MOTT’S PORTRAIT (FAR LEFT) NOW
HANGS IN THE FRIENDS HISTORICAL LIBRARY.
THE SCOTT AMPHITHEATER (LEFT) IS A CAMPUS
RETREAT WHERE MANY HAVE HATCHED BIG
DREAMS. DURING ALUMNI WEEKEND, COLLECTION
SPEAKER ARLIE HOCHSCHILD CHATTED WITH JERE-

with the likes of Rush Limbaugh dominating our airwaves, we need counterpoints. I
know of no safer moral ground on which to
stand than, broadly speaking, that of the
Quaker tradition. And facing that moral
ground, we discover a great paradox.
Although Quakerism was part of a religious tradition that led to the rise of capitalism, ironically it now offers solid moral
ground on which to plant our feet in the
attempt to counter the overreaching and
negative aspects of it. In The Protestant Ethic
and the Rise of Capitalism, Max Weber
observed that Protestant religious sects—
such as that of the Quakers—upheld the

values of thrift, hard work, work as a calling, an orientation to this-worldliness (as
opposed to monasticism)—all of which
fueled a motivation to work hard, which led
to the rise of capitalism. If Weber is right,
Quakers were part of this story of the rise of
capitalism; many prominent Quakers in the
United States and Europe were, indeed, captains of industry and commerce.
With their beliefs and unusual customs,
they also stood apart from the society they’d
created. They were pacifists. They said, “thee
and thou.” They refused to use the days of
the week because they were named after
Roman or pagan gods. They refused to sign

letters, “Your Humble and Obedient Servant” because people should only be humble and obedient servants of God. In short,
the Quakers were oddballs, and it was perhaps this quality that helped them establish
a tradition antithetical to the negative elements of capitalism.
As my roommate from 40 years ago and
lifelong friend, Caroline Hodges Persell ’62,
observed, “The Quakers are antimarket.
They were one of the inventors of the idea
of ‘enough’—as in “We have enough stuff.
We don’t need a sixth television or a second
van,” especially as a model lifestyle to export to the Third World. The world’s ecosystem can’t survive it.
So we face a paradox. The Quaker tradition may have inadvertently led us into the
mess of an overmarketized society. But
more than most traditions, it can help get
us out of it. Now, 40 years later, after the
tests have been handed in, graded, and
handed back, I think I’m finally beginning
to see the main idea, the hidden curriculum—what Swarthmore has all along been
trying to mean.
Lucretia Mott and Swarthmore, I thank
you deeply for upholding the importance of
dreams. It is what I love about you. T
Arlie Hochschild is professor of sociology at the
University of California–Berkeley. This article is
adapted from her talk at Alumni Collection during Alumni Weekend 2002.

SEPTEMBER 2002

BOB KRIST

STEVEN GOLDBLATT ʼ67

MY WEINSTEIN ’97 AND RACHEL GIBSON (BELOW).

ALUMNI COLLEGE ABROAD
MAY 10–20, 2003

THE ART AND ARCHITECTURE OF

SICILY

A MIRROR OF MEDITERRANEAN HISTORY

DAVID RAMOS

E

xplore Sicily, an island that mirrors the whole history of
the Mediterranean. It has been fought over, occupied,
and colonized by everyone from the Greeks to
Garibaldi—and all have left their mark. The trip itinerary covers the entire island of Sicily, with visits to several fascinating
cities and towns. Here, we will investigate some of Europe’s
finest archaeological sites, dating to the Greek and Roman
periods.
Highlights include the following:
• Mount Etna, one of the world’s most active volcanoes
• The Imperial Roman Villa of Casale, with its intricate and
colorful mosaics
• The Doric temples of Agrigento
• The Greek Temple at Segesta
• The Royal Normal Palace of Palermo, considered the
artistic gem of Sicily
Our faculty lecturer is Patricia Reilly, assistant professor of
art history. A graduate of the University of California and
Bryn Mawr College, Reilly specializes in Italian Renaissance
art and art theory. Together, she and our travelers will discover the island’s captivating history and architectural heritage.
A brochure will be mailed this fall. For more information,
please contact Carla White at (800) 451-4321.