WINTER 2018 Periodical Postage PAID Philadelphia, PA and Additional Mailing Offices MISS HOT MESS p15 DR. SAILOR p63 500 College Ave. Swarthmore, PA 19081–1306 www.swarthmore.edu SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN LAURENCE KESTERSON WINTER 2018 WE HOPE YOU’LL RESOLVE TO GET IN TOUCH WITH US THIS YEAR Swarthmore can help customize an endowed fund, bequest intention, life-income gift, or other type of planned gift that advances our educational mission and achieves your financial/estate-planning goals. Begin the conversation: Contact Jessica Cunningham ’08 in College Advancement giftplanning@swarthmore.edu • 866-526-4438 • swarthmore.plannedgiving.org vital spaces MR. CLEAN p76 in this issue 9 LABOR OF LOVE Through Birth, a Companion Swarthmorean doulas make a social-justice difference in delivery. by Cameron French ’14 MOMENT IN TIME November’s SwatFit inaugural Turkey Trot collected donations for local food banks ... and gave Assistant Director of Athletics Max Miller an excuse to shake a tail feather. Mother of the modern doula movement Penny Payson Simkin ’59 (right) with clients and friends, photographed by Ashwin Rao ’99. 18 40 45 FEATURES FEATURES CLASS NOTES What Stays the Same On the Radio Alumni News and Events The most vital of spaces, campus will always spark the Swarthmore spirit. Telling stories and changing the world ... over the airwaves. by Laura Markowitz ’85 by Jonathan Riggs 26 Universal Attraction For stargazing Swarthmoreans, the thrilling exploration of new frontiers. by Kate Campbell 34 Home Is ... A place of comfort, of creativity, of closeness with friends and family: Home is unique to each of us. by Elizabeth Slocum 2 DIALOGUE Editor’s Column Letters Community Voices C. Stuart Hain Rewind David Pao ’65 Gaye Goodman ’67 Tami Kellogg ’91 Their Light Lives On Garnet Scrapbook 76 SPOKEN WORD Tyrone Dunston Bob Freedman ’58 Books Global Thinking John Robbins ’07 WEB EXTRAS BULLETIN.SWARTHMORE.EDU MAKE A NEW FRIEND Meet Sylvia Hand Pott ’52. 9 COMMON GOOD Swarthmore Stories Learning Curve Harris Kornstein ’06 ON THE COVER Nathaniel Peters ’18 in Swarthmore’s Peter van de Kamp Observatory photographed by Laurence Kesterson Profiles Liberal Arts Lives EXTRA SPACE Explore our galaxy of online intergalactic goodies. RADIO GA GA Listen to alumni’s favorite audio pieces and podcasts. DWARF STAR Learn about Benjamin Lay, the mighty Quaker abolitionist. OUR ARCHIVES, OURSELVES Every issue ever is now digitized! Elsita Kiekebusch ’07 Bethany Wiggin ’94 WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 1 dialogue Our Space, Our Time SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN Editor Jonathan Riggs Class Notes Editor Elizabeth Slocum Designer Phillip Stern ’84 Photographer Laurence Kesterson Administrative/Editorial Assistant Michelle Crumsho LAURENCE KESTERSON Editorial Assistant Eishna Ranganathan ’20 Editor Emerita Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49 SWARTHMOREAN vital spaces—the theme of this issue—exist everywhere. Some of the most meaningful to us on the magazine staff, of course, are the ones you help us create in these pages. Now, for the first time, you can more fully explore them and the entire ongoing Swarthmore College Bulletin story: Every previous issue, dating back to the magazine’s 1935 beginning as the Garnet Letter, has been digitized and made available online. As you’ll see, we’ve also made some editorial changes starting with this issue. We’ve redesigned Class Notes and added a new, enhanced In Memoriam section, “Their Light Lives On.” Our motivation for this was simple: The more connected we all are, the more effectively we can come together and change the world. We’re proud to give you the opportunity four times a year to pick up this publication and—just as countless other classmates and community members are doing at the same time—to look back, forward, around, within. Ultimately, the Bulletin is a vital space where we can learn from, challenge, encourage, and inspire each other. Just like Swarthmore. by JONATHAN RIGGS Editor + EXPLORE: bit.ly/BulletinCollection bulletin.swarthmore.edu facebook.com/SwarthmoreBulletin instagram.com/SwarthmoreBulletin Email: bulletin@swarthmore.edu Telephone: 610-328-8533 We welcome letters on subjects covered in the magazine. We reserve the right to edit letters for length, clarity, and style. Views expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or the official views or policies of the College. Send letters and story ideas to bulletin@swarthmore.edu Send address changes to records@swarthmore.edu The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN 0888-2126), of which this is volume CXV, number II, is published in October, January, April, and July by Swarthmore College, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore, PA 19081-1390. Periodicals postage paid at Philadelphia, PA and additional mailing offices. Permit No. 0530-620. Postmaster: Send address changes to Alumni Records, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore, PA 19081-1390. Printed with agri-based inks. Please recycle after reading. ©2018 Swarthmore College. Printed in USA. BEYOND BARS pr inted w i ly H-UV No ‘Ordinary’ Friend I’m not an alum, but I’ve lived in Swarthmore almost 25 years; my kids grew up on campus. This spring, I met Sylvia Hand Pott ’52, whose grandparents had lived in my house. During a visit, I saw the Bulletin—Sylvia joked she was intimidated by how amazing her fellow alumni were. What? Sylvia is amazing. She is thoughtful, dedicated, and swims, kayaks, bikes, and walks the beach daily. Sylvia has raised four interesting, interested children; she hosts anyone at her home in Cape Cod who needs a safe house and an open heart and mind; she sings with a choral group and is active in politics. She is unlike any 86-year-old I know and yet she describes herself as “just ordinary.” Please profile Sylvia. I am so proud of my strong, dynamic, caring friend, and that we share a love of learning, life, family, and, of course, Swarthmore. —VICKY HUESTIS, Swarthmore, Pa. We can’t say it enough: The Bulletin belongs to all of us. Read about Sylvia: bulletin.swarthmore.edu ks th WINTER 2018 nd e Swarthmore College Bulletin / e c o-fri I was gladdened to see fall 2017’s “Unbarring Progress” about prison work. I used to co-lead a program called Houses of Healing—a powerful tool for change written specifically for inmates. The work was truly satisfying, deeply moving, and appreciated. —RICHARD STONE ’65, Fresno, Calif. GOOD BEEHAVIOR Elizabeth Slocum’s “Hive Minded” (fall 2017) reminded me of a wonderful lab I had in the 1960s in Professor Kenneth Rawson’s Biology of Animal Communities class—one of my first experiences with a science class where the labs weren’t meant to test how well you could reach a “correct” answer. We had an elegantly designed study to verify the theory of Karl von Frisch that bees communicated the direction and distance of food with the famous “waggle dance.” (Some scientists countered that bees were directed toward food based solely on scent.) We used the hive behind Martin Biological Laboratory, tagged individual bees by gluing tiny numbers from an electronics parts catalog on their backs, set up scented and unscented sugar water around campus, and observed the bees exiting the hive, feeding, and returning. The results were—alas—equivocal. My first (but hardly last) taste of the realities and frustrations of actual research! Of course, decades later, the “waggle dance” is now accepted as how honeybees communicate. —BOB CUSHMAN ’71, Oak Ridge, Tenn. Managing Editor Kate Campbell 2 Write Here LETTERS EDITOR’S COLUMN in + WRITE TO US: bulletin@swarthmore.edu Please donate my book, Tips for Living Happily and Gracefully as You Grow Older, to McCabe. My daughter, Judy Nicholson Asselin ’75, edited it and her daughter, Carrie, did the illustrations. —JEAN MICHENER NICHOLSON ’49, Medford, N.J. Consider it done. Congrats! NORTH BY NORTHWEST Inclusion. Such a lovely word, thought, and action. Recent Bulletin articles on Swarthmore student involvement in civil rights, being a naturalist, mental health issues, formation swimming, and beekeeping made me feel that perhaps I might one day feel included. I did not get a Ph.D., did not work in academia, did not write a book. Instead, after a lot of wandering, I homesteaded in Alaska and started to seriously study Buddhism in 1996. I built my own cabin by hand. (Sadly, not a log cabin, but I built one for the University of Alaska that is used every year at the Alaska State Fair.) I built my first house on skids in February without knowing it. In the spring when the soil thawed, the half on frozen ground sank, leaving the house 3 feet out of level. Back to square one. I hired a neighbor—a mason—to put in a foundation and went from there to build myself an “Alaskan shack.” So, if you ever have an article about using moose to do your pruning; hunting caribou; getting through the winter with no electricity, running water, or indoor plumbing in a very cold climate; mistaking a black bear for your neighbor’s black lab and running out to shove it away with your bare hands, I will be right there reading along avidly. Thank you so much for your thoughtful Bulletin, and congratulations on your inclusivity. —PANTHEA REDWOOD ’61, Palmer, Alaska WATER WORKS I was thrilled to see “All Together Now” (fall 2017). When I arrived in 1964, I was delighted that the College had a water ballet team that I could become a part of. That fall, we put on “Peter and the Wolf ” (original program enclosed). Water ballet was a part of my years I’m completely happy about. It provided a respite from the angst of studenthood. —JEAN WARREN KEPPEL ’68, Prescott, Ariz. Thank you, Jean. We donated your program to the College Archives. Phyllis Hall Raymond ’54, M’71 donated a wealth of synchronized swimming materials there, as well. If you have any Swarthmore memorabilia, email archives@swarthmore.edu. WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 3 dialogue COMMUNITY VOICES LAURENCE KESTERSON PLACEMAKING “B UT THIS being Swarthmore, the impulse to care is more complex than it might first seem. Indeed, at Swarthmore, empowering others to become their most realized selves is a crucial part of what caring for their well-being means.” —Al Bloom H’09, Swarthmore president, 1991–2009 Shortly after my LPAC work began, Bill Spock ’51 became the vice president and CFO of the College. I see him as the epitome of Swarthmorean caring, and his example as a gentleman and a leader is a lighted marker for me. Bill hired the actual impetus for my invitation and inclusion here: Larry Schall ’75 came on as associate vice president for administration in 1990. Early the following year, he offered me the by Since I began my job of director of facilities unexpected journey in management. Larry’s this caring community thoughtfulness, where I’ve had the honor creativity, intelligence, of helping shape some and encouragement of its physical spaces, strengthened our I have been continually delighted, operations to further embrace what encouraged, and empowered by Al Bloom defined as Swarthmore’s countless people who give these spaces empowering form of care. life: our faculty, students, staff, alumni, Larry’s sensitivity to design in and friends. collaboration with Al and the late In the early 1980s, Eugene Lang Margaret Helfand ’69 also set the ’38, H’81’s generous gift gave me the direction of facilities design on opportunity to come to this campus campus—Kohlberg Hall and the when I was assigned as the project Science Center, for example—and I am manager by the construction firm happy to have followed that lead. building Lang Performing Arts Center. As I come to the end of my career at C. STUART HAIN vice president “Swarthmore’s caring community helps each of us become our most realized selves.” 4 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 Swarthmore, I cherish a more recent example of the kind of care that is the exemplar of this community. The setting was September’s annual appreciation breakfast for our Environmental Services (EVS) staff. Director Tyrone Dunston (pg. 76) introduced President Valerie Smith, who thanked the staff for their work taking care of buildings on campus. More important, she applauded them for their care of the people on campus, especially students. Val gratefully emphasized that point by speaking of the care she had received from the staff seated before her from the moment she arrived on campus. EVS and all of the facilities staff are very much part of that form of empowering care Al described at Swarthmore. I will always be thankful for having been part of that. I remain delighted and forever changed by every opportunity I’ve had to notice not only the splendor of the campus in large and very small ways, but of the people and their interactions whose caring ties it all together. This care makes Swarthmore the uncommon endeavor it is, and, with unbound gratitude, I say thank you for my extraordinary life as a member of this community. —After serving the College for nearly 30 years, STU HAIN retired Dec. 31 as vice president for facilities and capital planning. LAURENCE KESTERSON Caring for our spaces means caring for one another REWIND: WE ARE ALL ONE Consciousness evolution begins with each of us AT SWARTHMORE, I learned to question and to keep an open and critical mind with reference to the settled paradigms we were taught growing up. I hope readers will apply that to what follows. I believe there is a creative force of vibrational energy, containing the universe that your and my souls are experiencing. Everything is ultimately made of that energy—we are all individual manifestations of it. As such, we all by have souls that are a portion of the infinite vibrational energy of ’58 that creative force. Just as one frame of a hologram contains all the information to replicate the whole, every individual soul contains all the information of the creative force. This is what is meant when it is said that ultimately all human beings are connected through our individual souls, which in turn are one with that force, whatever name we give it. This isn’t how most humans were raised. Most of us were raised in a belief system that our tribe was “good” while the other was not only “bad,” but our “enemy.” Our education in “difference” permeates every facet of our lives. Ultimately, this thinking will lead to the end of the human race, unless we develop a new belief system. Our own consciousnesses must evolve for the consciousness of the human race to evolve. We must accept a brand-new paradigm: None of us is “different” from one another—in our needs for food and water, for connection, for meaning, for community. We are, on the individual level, simply distinct BOB FREEDMAN from one another in name and form. As I look back, I never really bought into the old paradigm. As a kid, I rooted for the Cleveland Indians while my friends—avid fans of the Yankees, Giants, or Dodgers—thought I was crazy. I remember telling them, “You root for your teams and I’ll root for mine! But can we agree that we all love baseball?” When I arrived at Swarthmore, I soon learned that the student body was divided into “turkeys” and “jocks.” I chose to make friends based on the individual, not whether they fell into one category or the other. My friends in both camps thought I was unusual. Perhaps that explains why, for more than 20 years, my passion has been reading about and studying how we each can replace this old paradigm. I have met some of the many people who are leading the movement to evolve human consciousness. If you are open to learning more, you might start with the following: Your mind may rebel against what Neale Donald Walsch says in his book The Storm Before the Calm, but I hope you can be open to his logic. Barbara Marx Hubbard will tell you about what she is doing to lead a worldwide consciousness-evolution movement. Also, the Shift Network will lead you to many others who work either individually or as groups to accomplish this evolution of consciousness. The core statements on John Audette’s Eternea site are fascinating and worth a read. Some of you may not agree with or understand my beliefs, but I hope that you will at least think about them with an open mind. The point of an institution like Swarthmore is to seek and honor truth. This is mine, and I want to share it. I welcome questions and comments: rafwritings@aol.com. To quote the great 13th-century Persian poet Rumi: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 5 dialogue AUTHOR Q&A BEHIND THE BOOK GOP vs. LBJ? VERSOS SENCILLOS: EMMA OTHEGUY ’09 by Joshua Zeitz ’96 by Michelle Crumsho In her beautiful bilingual debut picture book, Martí’s Song for Freedom (Lee & Low Books), Emma Otheguy ’09 (pronounced “Oh-teggy”) tells the tale of the famous author, intellectual, and activist’s unwavering dedication to securing Cuba’s liberation from Spain—an especially inspiring story for younger readers. “José Martí’s journey started so young: What he did as a teenager was reflective of actual work toward the cause to which he devoted his life,” she says. “It’s an incredible example from history of how children can be agents for change.” —Available Jan. 30, Building the Great Society (Viking) is Joshua Zeitz ’96’s fourth book. What do you tell kids about your book? I emphasize that José Martí was fighting for democratic values that are shared across the cultures of the Americas. Our current president has made me realize the degree to which democracy has to be taught in order to be preserved— children need to learn, intentionally, that democracy rests upon the right to protest peacefully, a free and independent press, and the cooperation of diverse peoples. What’s its takeaway? Latinos have deep roots in the United States: Our history and the history of Latin America are intertwined. It is possible, as Martí said, to belong to more than one place—to be from every place and on the road to everywhere. What’s the power of picture books? They give children a chance to learn, share, and celebrate. Even the physical KONRAD BRATTKE HISTORIANS ARE influenced by the context in which they live and write. I began this book during the administrative and political challenges Barack Obama faced launching the Affordable Care Act. Ironically, it’s not Obama’s legacy that the GOP Congress and president wish to dismantle. It’s LBJ’s. Block-granting Medicaid, privatizing Medicare, making sharp cuts to school nutrition programs and SNAP, steering federal education dollars to private religious academies, rolling back voting rights—even proposing vast religious exemptions to public accommodations laws: All of these longstanding policy aspirations are an attempt to unravel the Great Society. LBJ and his staff enjoyed certain advantages that may be forever lost. They governed in a rare moment of unbounded economic growth. People generally trusted government and experts—until LBJ’s own dissemblance on Vietnam, followed by Watergate, triggered a halfcentury of public skepticism that has poisoned American life. But many of the challenges are the same. The Great Society attempted to redistribute some of the artificial economic and political privilege that white Americans had come to view as their birthright. That’s where much of the opposition to contemporary liberalism crystallized. We’re still grappling with that problem today. shape of a bilingual picture book inspires the bridging of two languages and the sharing across generations and cultures, stretching across laps or being held up high for a classroom of kids to see. + CONTINUED: bulletin.swarthmore.edu HOT TYPE: NEW BOOKS BY SWARTHMOREANS Rachel Sullivan Robinson ’99 Intimate Interventions in Global Health Cambridge University Press 6 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 In her new book, sociologist and demographer Robinson looks to sub-Saharan Africa to draw often-overlooked global and local parallels between the resources, discourses, and strategies used to promote family planning and those used to prevent HIV—and how the former influenced the latter. “By recognizing the similarities between preventing pregnancy and preventing HIV,” she writes, “we are able to reach broader conclusions about why and how countries respond to health problems.” David Sobel ’87 From Valuing to Value Oxford University Press Sobel, the Guttag Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at Syracuse University, collects 20 years—and counting—of his papers articulating and defending subjectivism: the idea that things have value because we value them. “This book aspires to sketch the main contours of the long and winding road from valuing to value,” he writes, “and to start to make a case that the road is sound and bridges that have been purported to be impassable are in fact repairable.” Jean-Jacques Malo, editor W.D. Ehrhart [’73] in Conversation McFarland Called “the poet of the Vietnam War” by Pulitzer winner Studs Terkel, W.D. Ehrhart ’73 has long been a prized subject, including in the 2017 miniseries The Vietnam War. And yet only a few major interviews (bit.ly/W-D-E) have been published. This collection gives a richer glimpse of the man. “I’d dynamite every war memorial in the United States of America,” he tells one interviewer. “We ought to memorialize people and events worthy of memorialization.” Marilyn Mathews Bendiksen ’59 On Being Called Zion Publishing “I have always been grateful to have been your elder daughter,” Bendiksen writes in this tenderly crafted, deeply researched biography of her late father, the Rev. Charles Mathews. A passionate theologian and spiritual seeker in her own right, Bendiksen examines how her father’s wisdom deepened over a lifetime that spanned five dramatic decades, and how his faith continues to shape her own. “He left us knowing who he was and how his life mattered,” she concludes. WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 7 common good dialogue SHARING SUCCESS AND STORIES OF SWARTHMORE GLOBAL THINKING STORIES OF BELONGING Bringing balance to public discourse on Muslim identity by Amanda Whitbred 8 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 executive order on immigration, or “Muslim ban.” Robbins’s team helped organize a protest in Boston’s Copley Square, during which Robbins was moved not only by the huge crowd and the distinguished speakers, but also by the stories attendees shared. “People brought hundreds of these incredibly passionate and moving signs,” says Robbins. “Signs about their Jewish identity, or the fact that they were immigrants or refugees or children of immigrants or refugees, or that this was not the world they wanted for their kids.” Among 25,000 strangers that day, Robbins experienced the power of community—and reaffirmed his dedication to his mission. “I’m in a position where we can change public discourse while impacting individual lives,” says Robbins. “It’s tremendously fulfilling, and I am very grateful for the ability to do that work.” Robbins credits Swarthmore with leading him toward his career. The College instilled a strong sense of social justice that convinced him that he could “have a big impact on the world and had something to offer.” As an English major, he was fascinated by how people bring ON THE WEB JOHN ROBBINS ’07 Executive Director philosophical ideas together “and pair them with stories and the language of the heart.” After Swarthmore, he earned a Ph.D. specializing in 18thand 19th-century dramas written by women. He uses what he learned to help him tell compelling, relatable stories about the individuals he works with, as well as to combat the negative stereotypes and hateful speech he encounters. “Swarthmore gave me the tools to be able to explore, think through, and critically push back against the narratives that go on in the media or within the larger place of ideas,” Robbins says. “I’m grateful to Swarthmore for giving me the toolkit to disentangle ideas that are full of hate or grounded in fear.” ZERO WASTE CAMPUS We’re on track to divert 80 percent of our waste from the incinerator in Chester by 2022. + LEARN bit.ly/SwatZero READING THE SIGNS Faculty and students instill a love of learning in deaf children. + VIEW bit.ly/R-I-S-E SERVICE AND COMMITMENT Staffers on how being a military veteran informs their College work. + WATCH bit.ly/VeteransDaySwat WHAT, ME WORRY? The late librarian David Peele ’50’s memory lives on in McCabe via a new donation: his MAD magazine collection. + LAUGH bit.ly/MadMcCabe “These problems aren’t going to be solved tomorrow. These are longterm issues with deep roots.” LAURENCE KESTERSON JOHN ROBBINS ’07 wants to change the negative narratives about Muslims that dominate the media. As founding executive director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civilrights group in the country, he says the importance of his work has intensified in the last year. “The stereotypes about Muslims are around violence or lack of belonging,” says Robbins. “The more that we can introduce positive stories of people who are serving their country, who are going through the challenges of adolescence, who are struggling to belong in the same way that many other Americans are, the more we are going to impact how Americans of all backgrounds view Muslims.” In the face of ignorance and hatred, Robbins is motivated by the proactive efforts of advocacy. CAIR’s programs include anti-bullying seminars with teachers, administrators, and parents; meeting with elected officials and getting American Muslims involved in the political process; and responding to speaking requests from the community to learn who Muslims are and what they believe. “When someone is fired from work because they want to take prayer breaks, when they’re denied a vacation or time off to celebrate a Muslim holiday, when they’re harassed at the airport—we’re there for them,” says Robbins, who left his teaching job to apply his communication skills in Boston’s Muslim community. Since hiring a staff attorney a year ago, CAIR has received nearly one call a day asking for this kind of assistance. An extreme example is the impact of and reaction to the January 2017 DISAVOWED ART Deborah DeMott ’70 on when and why artists sever ties of authorship. + LISTEN bit.ly/DeMott SPECIAL DELIVERY Through Birth, a Companion by Cameron French ’14 SWARTHMOREAN DOULAS, like Hana Lehmann ’13 (left, with clients Meagan Ebersole and Joy and Abigail Peterkin), are making a social-justice difference in delivery. They see their work as empowering, validating, and nurturing—even in the face of critics who worry that doulas may drive their own potentially unsafe agendas. Not so, according to the mother of the modern doula movement, Penny Payson Simkin ’59. She says doulas help women understand their options. + CONTINUED: bulletin.swarthmore.edu WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 9 IC ANNIVERSARY Celebrating 25 years of community-building among diverse groups, the Intercultural Center will continue to grow via the Changing Lives, Changing the World campaign gift given by James Hormel ’55, H’09 and Michael Nguyen ’08. Stay tuned for more ways it will create empowering connections, like this cozy moment between IC interns Taty Hernández ’19 and Cindy Lopez ’20 captured during Garnet Weekend 2017. There was ample reason to rejoice at the Aug. 25 ribbon-cutting of the Chester Charter School for the Arts’s new three-story, 90,000-square-foot building: The nonprofit K–12 public charter school can now offer more than ever to its almost 600 students. Swarthmorean ties run deep to CCSA, which was founded in 2012. The idea began with the work of John Alston H’15 and Maurice Eldridge ’61 with support from Jeff Scheuer ’75, Jane Lang ’67, and The Chester Fund for Education and the Arts. The original CCSA building, located in Aston, was smaller, serving only kindergartners through fifth-graders, who had to be bused in. The new school building—complete with dance studios, science labs, and a gym—now serves Chester children in their hometown. Among the Swarthmoreans dedicated to the program’s success are CCSA capital campaign leaders Barbara Klock ’86 and Salem Shuchman ’84, as well as Joe ’73 and Lana Everett Turner ’74, who donated in honor of friends Peter and Peggy Thompson, a professor emeritus and a longtime Swarthmore staffer. @TIBETBASKETBALL LAURENCE KETSERSON The New School BELOVED BENJAMIN IS WAITING + 10 Swarthmore College Bulletin / MORE: bulletin.swarthmore.edu WINTER 2018 ‘Traveling’ Encouraged by Cara Ehlenfeldt ’16 T FRIENDS HISTORICAL LIBRARY DWARF SAILOR, vegetarian teetotaler, smasher of teacups: The fiery Benjamin Lay (1681–1759) was among the very first activists to insist on the complete, unconditional emancipation of all enslaved Africans. Friends Historical Library has a wealth of information on this Quaker hero, including a new biography by historian Marcus Rediker and a spoon fragment allegedly collected from Lay’s Pennsylvania cave home. “We can create really beautiful opportunities for people to understand themselves on a deeper level,” says Andrew Greenblatt ’13, with hoops-loving monks in Tibet. If you’re interested in learning more, email him: lifeofgreeny@gmail.com. O ANDREW Greenblatt ’13, basketball is more than a sport he played at Swarthmore—it’s a social medium, especially at an elevation of 10,500 feet on the Tibetan Plateau. “It’s so intimate,” the longtime basketball lover says. “There are only 10 people on the court, and they don’t wear a lot of gear—you can see their facial expressions and body language.” Greenblatt helps run the Tibetan Hoop Exchange in partnership with Norlha Basketball. This tournament for Chinese and Tibetan teams brings in foreign spectators to add to—and gain from—the sporting experience. Basketball has long been a favorite sport of Tibetans, yet coaches and formal training are hard to come by on “the Roof of the World.” Seeing an opportunity for cultures to connect, the program’s founder partnered with a Tibetan tourism company to create a unique immersion program. Norden Travel promotes the tournament as an opportunity for outsiders to consciously experience local culture while supporting Tibetan-owned-and-operated businesses. Through the exchange, Tibetans and visitors help each other advance—whether that’s by fostering athletic skills, financial support, or newfound awareness. “People get to look a culture in the face, experience what it’s like to live a certain way, and ask themselves questions about how they identify and how they’re moving through the world,” says Greenblatt, “all in the process of doing something like basketball and sharing skills that are in demand in this part of the world.” Greenblatt invites anyone interested in supporting local culture and the love of basketball to attend the next tournament in May. “I become a better person by spending time with the Tibetan people and learning about their culture,” he says. “I’m lucky they’re willing to share that with me.” WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 11 common good Big Pictures FACULTY NEWS With the retirement of the esteemed Peter Collings, Steve Maurer ’67, and Michael Cothren, congratulations on the following new appointments: Picture a photo of Robert W. “Tiny” Maxwell, Class of 1907: imposing in a Swarthmore football uniform, bruised, broken-nosed, and bloody after a 1905 game against the University of Pennsylvania. Picture U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt, shocked by that photo, roaring an ultimatum: College football must implement new safety rules or he will abolish it. That’s the story, anyway. It’s true that after that game, Roosevelt began conversations that culminated in the formation of the NCAA. As for the infamous photo, scholars have pretty well debunked the legend. No one has located this image, and we certainly don’t have it in the Swarthmore College Archives. Thanks to a recent donation, we do now have several dozen photographs of Maxwell: in a Shakespearean play, on the beach, wearing his uniform. He attended Swarthmore from 1904 to 1906 but did not graduate. In 1906, Maxwell played for one of the first pro football teams, Ohio’s Massillon Tigers. He returned to the College in 1909 to serve as assistant football coach. Later, he worked as a referee and sports editor before his fatal 1922 car accident. The original photos came to us in a collection (bit.ly/FHLMaxwell) assembled for a 1984 Sports Illustrated article (bit.ly/TinyMaxwell). —CELIA CAUST-ELLENBOGEN ’09 Michael Brown is the Morris L. Clothier Professor of Physics. Lisa Meeden is the Neil R. Grabois ’57 Professor in the Natural Sciences & Engineering. William Turpin is the Scheuer Family Chair of Humanities. Deep Thinker Making A.I. smarter through diversity by Alexandra Sastre ’05 WHAT DO preventing deforestation in the Amazon, creating wearable devices for patients with Parkinson’s disease, and collecting the largest archive of Urdu texts have in common? Deep learning—and data scientist Rachel Thomas ’05 is helping pave the way. “It’s such a high-impact field,” she says. “There’s so much that’s possible.” A subset of artificial intelligence, deep learning allows tools like Google Photos to organize huge libraries and Skype Translate to work in real time. When Thomas first developed an interest in 2013, however, she found the field extremely exclusive— so much so that it led to the biases of homogeneous Silicon Valley developers being encoded in the tools themselves. Last year, FaceApp’s “Hot” filter was revealed to whiten people’s skin and make their features appear more Eurocentric, but other pervasive biases aren’t always as visible. 12 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 “Algorithms have been used to make hiring, firing, and parole decisions,” Thomas says. “It’s dangerous when they’re biased and not auditable.” Driven to make deep learning accessible and inclusive, Thomas and her partner, Jeremy Howard, launched Fast.ai, a research lab working with the Data Institute at the University of San Francisco to train a new generation of developers. Last year, Fast.ai also established a diversity scholarship to help members of underrepresented communities learn the field. As she’s gotten more people talking— and coding—Thomas was named one of Forbes’s “20 Incredible Women Advancing A.I. Research.” “Being able to get deep learning into as many hands as possible will help solve problems that people working in tech may not even know about yet,” she says. “That’s what really excites me about Fast.ai’s mission.” While Michael Nafziger ’18 was in Barcelona on a preseason men’s soccer team trip, white nationalist demonstrators were descending on Charlottesville, Va., to protest the planned removal of Confederate statues. It hit close to home—he’s from nearby Crozet, and his parents, brother, and grandfather were among the local Quaker counterprotesters. “It was disconcerting to hear about it from afar,” he says about the violence in August. “My family was actually in the crowd that was driven into about 20 minutes before it happened.” Nafziger, a peace and conflict studies major, reflected on the event when he led an All-Campus Collection this fall and shared a poem entitled “If Swarthmore Were Charlottesville” written by Leslee Wagner, wife of men’s head soccer coach Eric Wagner. “It said that Charlottesville could have happened anywhere around the country,” Nafziger says. “It was great to share at the collection because it brought home the reality of what happened.” —ROY GREIM ’14 + QUESTIONS? TREASURES? archives@swarthmore.edu GIVING THE GIFT OF LEADERSHIP DIERDRE KONAR JASON ARTHURS AT ONE WITH CHARLOTTESVILLE Caro Luhrs ’56 (with Katie Clark) was the first female physician on the Georgetown Medical School faculty. She also has driven a D.C. Metro bus, takes ukulele lessons, and has served as class secretary since graduation. AS PART OF the Changing Lives, Changing the World campaign, Caro Luhrs ’56 made a bequest in September to endow the Center for Innovation and Leadership (CIL). Her gift will ensure that future generations have the tools, resources, and mentorship they need to enhance the common good through entrepreneurship, leadership, collaboration, and experimentation. “We have to pay close attention to women in leadership and lift up examples for our students to see and follow,” says Katie Clark, the CIL’s founding director. “Caro has been the first many times over in her life, and we want to honor, uphold, and celebrate her example.” “I feel so happy to be able to make this gift,” Luhrs says. “I hope it will stimulate other people to give to the campaign and respond to the many adventures that a Swarthmore education can lead to.” —EMILY WEISGRAU + FULL STORY: bit.ly/LuhrsCIL WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 13 common good LEARNING CURVE ONCE THERE WAS A QUEEN ... Encouraging ‘happily ever after’ for all With a 4–1 record, the team had its best start through five games since 2012. CROSS COUNTRY Xiaojing Zeng ’19 and Lilly Price ’21 earned All-Mideast Region honors at the NCAA regional meet. The men’s team placed second at the White 8K race at Lehigh’s Paul Short Run. Bridget Scott ’18, Sarah Wallace ’18, Alice Liu ’18, Malia Scott ’18, and Olivia Leventhal ’18. V-Ball VIPs by Roy Greim ’14 Trailing 5–1 is not ideal in the fifth set of a volleyball match, which goes to 15. That’s where Swarthmore’s team found itself during the third round of the NCAA Tournament—Garnet volleyball’s first-ever appearance—with a spot in the national quarterfinals on the line. Their Sweet 16 appearance may have been new, but their opponent was not; lined up across the net was the 12thranked Johns Hopkins Blue Jays, who had defeated the Garnet twice during the season. Head coach Harleigh Chwastyk called a timeout. “One of our players who’s usually quiet, 14 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 Lelosa Aimufua ’20, told us, ‘We are better than this. We have so much more to give,’” Sarah Girard ’19 recalled in the post-match news conference. “Something just clicked.” That would be an understatement— Swarthmore rattled off an 8–0 run to alter the outlook of the match. Hopkins briefly recovered after its own timeout but ultimately fell to the Garnet’s game. In delight, Swarthmore rushed the court for a celebration dogpile in front of a majority pro-College crowd. The Garnet’s five seniors (above) accepted the Regional Championship trophy. It was their 97th career victory in a Swarthmore uniform and the most memorable in their College career. After the tournament, Swarthmore ranked 18th in the American Volleyball Coaches Association poll, the program’s first-ever national ranking. On Nov. 5, backup goalie Sommer Denison ’18 subbed in for the penalty shootout against Johns Hopkins for the Centennial Conference Championship—and secured the Garnet’s win and fourth berth into the NCAA Tournament. Accordingly, she was named Most Outstanding Player. by Gina Myers TO THE TUNE OF “The Wheels on the Bus,” a roomful of children sing along: “The hips on the drag queen go swish swish swish / swish swish swish …” It’s Drag Queen Story Hour at the Brooklyn Public Library, led by Lil Miss Hot Mess, a.k.a. Harris Kornstein ’06, serving creative, playful activism to teach acceptance and diversity at an early age. “I joke that, at heart, I’m an awkward teenage girl in a talent show,” says Kornstein, whose performance ethos combines campiness and sincerity. Started in San Francisco by the literary nonprofit RADAR Productions, Drag Queen Story Hour now occurs at libraries, schools, and bookstores worldwide, tapping into children’s imaginations while providing positive, unapologetically queer role models. Kornstein’s first foray into drag involved a Harry Potter-themed show shortly after he graduated from Swarthmore. He’s come a long way—even appearing as a dancer with pop star Katy Perry on Saturday Night Live. Currently, he balances Drag Queen Story Hour with working on his dissertation at NYU. His research on social media, surveillance, and big data led to more specific questions on how these issues affect the queer community—where policing has long been a concern, from bar raids to forced outings. He’s also interested in how drag provides a creative outlet to resist surveillance. Kornstein’s goal is to bring drag into the classroom at a Swarthmore-like institution where he could work in a hybrid mode of performance and theory. Starting with story hour, though, has been fiercely rewarding. “I have the kids repeat, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a drag queen!’” he says. “I tell them to say that whenever LAURENCE KETSERSON FIELD HOCKEY unsuspecting adults ask them what they want to be. “It’s always a cute moment that plays on the unfounded fears many people have about queers converting children— and that’s exactly why I like it.” “I spread happiness and queer subversion, regardless of who these kids grow up to be.” WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 15 common good LIBERAL ARTS LIVES ELSITA KIEKEBUSCH ’07 BENJAMIN PLUER “Butterflies are vulnerable,” says Elsita Kiekebusch ’07, seen here with the nonvenomous Opheodrys aestivus, commonly known as the rough green snake. “They are very sensitive to their environment, which makes them a good indicator group for climate-change effects.” LIBERAL ARTS LIVES WINGS AND THINGS She’s conserving creatures great and small by Kate Campbell 16 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 Except for the venomous snakes, Elsita Kiekebusch ’07 says her work in stifling swamps is nearly perfect. As a zoology Ph.D. student at North Carolina State University, she studies rare butterflies, tenderly raising them from eggs to adults and measuring their survival and developmental rates across temperatures and seasons to link climate change and the delicate butterfly. “The body temperatures of insects are determined by external heat,” says Kiekebusch. “Increased temperatures due to climate change are causing a variety of impacts to their lives, including shifts in how long it takes for them to develop and alterations to the potential regions where they can survive.” It’s wondrous and rewarding research—but also hot and dangerous. “I love being outside,” she says. “But since I work with endangered butterflies, I can’t wear repellent and am exposed to mosquitoes, ticks, and chiggers.” One of the rarest subjects of Kiekebusch’s studies is St. Francis’ satyr, a surprisingly plain brown butterfly found only in North Carolina. Her role in researching it led to the chance discovery of a never-before-documented phenomenon: a third annual generation for this endangered species. “We had thought they had only two,” says Kiekebusch. “This might sound like a small detail, but it’s actually a predicted effect of climate change. Increased temperatures lengthen the growing season in temperate zones, providing additional time for insects to add generations.” Because there were no observations from previous years, the N.C. State team continues to rule out other causes. “This experience showed me there’s still so much to learn about butterfly biology,” she says, “and opened my eyes to a new avenue of research questions to consider.” LAURENCE KESTERSON Ecologist “People are connecting with the Schuylkill in ways they hadn’t before,” says Bethany Wiggin ’94, who does fieldwork in a kayak. REFLECTIONS ON THE WATER The river’s history and promise are her muse by Kate Campbell THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER is talking. Listening is Bethany Wiggin ’94, who creates imaginative, collaborative ways to teach its mysteries. “It’s a living laboratory,” says Wiggin, associate professor of Germanic languages and literature and founding director of the Penn Program in the Environmental Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. Since 2014, she’s connected the public with the river’s history, health, and ecology through the arts and sciences. Most commuters “commit a willful act of forgetting this river belongs to us,” she says, but it’s urgent to embrace our role as environmental stewards by discovering—and enjoying—the Schuylkill’s tidal ecology. When the Trump administration shuttered the EPA’s climate-change webpages last year, an alarmed Wiggin rallied her colleagues and spearheaded rescue sessions of climate and environmental data, earning her national media attention, including an interview on The Daily Show. By teaming with artists like Jacob Rivkin, whose raft of native wetland plants acts like a floating filter, Wiggin is bringing new energy to her fight; last fall, Penn was awarded a $1.5 million Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant supporting Wiggin’s environmental work and the Penn Program in the Environmental Humanities. “We’ll spark conversations about how the lessons we’re learning in Philadelphia about rising waters might be of use to other communities in port cities across the planet,” she says. Of special interest, Wiggin adds, is her all-liberal-arts-on-deck Floating on Warmer Waters project, which unites Bartram’s Garden, Penn Libraries, and Drexel University to investigate relationships between people and nature on the river. “We’ll be able to offer an on-water intensive seminar,” she says, “with topics from shipping history to riparian ecology, oral histories, art history, and digital design.” BETHANY WIGGIN ’94 Schuylkill Sage WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 17 STAYS THE SAME DOUG PLUMMER WHAT Since 1864, the College’s campus has continually changed, but one thing never will: its power to spark the Swarthmore spirit. To honor this most vital and vibrant of spaces—past, present, and future—we offer this joyful visual-valentine-picture-poem. by Jonathan Riggs | photography by Laurence Kesterson and the College Archives 18 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 19 Glade Garden Crum canoe for two Willets dreaming Here comes the sun Swarthmore has always been a dream that belongs to its dreamers. The glory of nature; the art of contemplation; the quiet moments alone and together: found, shared, treasured. There is wisdom in the calm; there is truth in the eye of the storm. Every inch of campus has been the birthplace of an idea, an emotion, a memory. Joy ride 20 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 First Collection WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 21 1943 Navy dance BCC legacy Pages of spring Parrish peekaboo Anatomy of a science lab Swarthmore has always been a living classroom that belongs to its learners. Discoveries of all stripes—intellectual to emotional, world-changing to whisper-quiet—abound at every hour and place. Compassion and curiosity; exuberance and education. Every question, every connection is a rich opportunity to bond, to build, to begin. 22 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 Literary lounge Matchbox strong WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 23 Net worthy Beach bonding BEP building rendering #thirsty Sunset symphony 24 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 ANGELINA ABITINO ’18 Swarthmore has always been an evolution that belongs to us all. Quakerborn, equality-driven, a work in progress. A beautiful idea—a beautiful ideal—continuously informed, enhanced, and expanded by all who experience it: our common thread, our College, our campus. + Breaking new ground SEE HOW SWARTHMORE CONTINUES to create and reimagine vital campus spaces: lifechanging.swarthmore.edu/spaces WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 25 UNIVERSAL ATTRACTION For stargazing Swarthmoreans, the thrilling exploration of new frontiers by Kate Campbell Pictured in a NASA photo, the Eagle Nebula is about 5.5 million years old. 26 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 27 28 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 LAURENCE KESTERSON STOWAWAYS TO OTHER WORLDS In those discoveries, some of what we do find and haul back to Earth—or unintentionally leave behind—poses a potential threat to humanity … and beyond. The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 created a legal obligation to avoid the harmful contamination of other worlds, says Christopher Chyba ’82, H’03, professor of astrophysical sciences and international affairs at Princeton University. One danger, he says, is viable microorganisms hitching a ride inside our robotic spacecraft. “There is no question that many of these can survive years freeze-dried in space,” says Chyba. “Were they to reach another world with its own indigenous biosphere, there is a small chance that our stowaways could then contaminate— or even overwhelm—that alien biosphere.” Taking caution adds cost and potentially slows the pace of exploration, but he believes it’s worth it. “I’ve always taken preventing forward-contamination seriously,” says Chyba. “It’s the price of admission. It’s why NASA sent the Cassini spacecraft into Saturn’s atmosphere to burn up, to be sure that it could never inadvertently crashland on the moon Enceladus, which has an ocean of liquid water—and possibly life.” The search for extraterrestrial life has long fascinated Chyba, although most of his research now is on nuclear and biological weapons arms-control policy. While he was an associate professor at Stanford University, he also held the “We were always questioning,” says Nancy Grace Roman ’46, H’76, who showcases her Lego figure and Hubble model telescope at her D.C. home. Read her essay on the meaning of Swarthmore: bulletin.swarthmore.edu. NASA, ESA, M. ROBBERTO (SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE/ESA) AND THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE ORION TREASURY PROJECT TEAM MAGINE SWIRLING your hands through the heavens as if the cosmos were water, sifting through the secrets of space: luminous massive stars, red dwarfs, dark matter, supernovas, and wondrous grains of interstellar dust. Swarthmore’s scholars led, and are leading, explorations that continue to change what we know about … everything. An ethereal formation erupting against a canvas of glittering light, the Eagle Nebula photograph that hangs in the home of Nancy Grace Roman ’46, H’76 is a reminder she helped build a doorway to the universe. The image was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Roman, who once studied the stars from Sproul Observatory, is lauded as the “Mother of Hubble.” As NASA’s first chief of astronomy in the Office of Space Science, Roman was integral in bringing Hubble to life, then to space. Early in her career, many scientists scoffed at the idea: “They didn’t think you could learn anything from a satellite that you couldn’t learn from the ground.” Her love of space began early. Roman’s father was a scientist, her mother an amateur stargazer. By elementary school, Roman had started her own astronomy club. When she reached Swarthmore, she took courses by astronomy professor Peter van de Kamp before going on to work at Yerkes Observatory at the University of Chicago. There, she knew she had discovered something important with her study of low dispersion spectra of bright stars. “I noticed that, compared to the strength of the hydrogen lines, the strengths of the lines of other elements varied from star to star,” says Roman. When she divided the stars into two groups accordingly, she detected that the stars with stronger lines moved around the center of the Milky Way in circular orbits, similar to the sun. “The others tended to move in more elliptical orbits and to stray farther from the plane of the galaxy,” she says. “This was the first indication that common stars were not all the same age. These other elements are made in stars and hence increase in abundance as stars die.” One of many of Swarthmore’s legendary space scientists including astronomer Sarah Lippincott Zimmerman ’42, M’50; astrophysicist Sandra Moore Faber ’66, H’86; and professor of physics Janet Conrad ’85, Roman is so culturally significant that Lego created a figure in her honor, part of a Women of NASA collection that also includes Sally Ride ’72. (Upon its release in November, the set rocketed to No. 1 as Amazon’s best-selling toy and quickly sold out.) After more than two decades of management at NASA— and having an asteroid, 2516 Roman, named after her—she continues to advocate for young women in the sciences and stays on top of emerging research. “There’s always an amount of wonder,” says Roman. “Dark energy is a source of energy we don’t even fully understand. We keep discovering things that people never expected to find.” Carl Sagan Chair for the Study of Life in the Universe at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., a private research group devoted to the study of extraterrestrial life. There are at least three ways to look for it. “You could land on another world’s surface or fly through its erupting geysers, and directly sample what’s there,” says Chyba. “This is challenging for reasons of payload mass, expense, and engineering, but also because the surface environments are quite harsh.” Another option would be surveying the atmospheric makeup of planets orbiting other stars. “We may find biosignatures to make a circumstantial case for life on this or that world,” Chyba says, such as finding molecular oxygen together with methane in the atmosphere, just like on our planet. “We’re only beginning these kinds of atmospheric observations for Earth-sized exoplanets, and it’s going to get much better with new telescopes.” A third option is searching for signs of technology detectable across interstellar distances, an avenue that doesn’t require any assumptions about biochemistry, he says, but does require the tremendous assumption of the evolution of technical intelligence. It will likely be a long search, but Chyba’s focused first on detection within our own solar system,“where, if we are lucky, we may find something like microbial life,” he says. ROOT OF THE TREE OF LIFE Among the 100 billion planets or more in the Milky Way, many will be Earth-like with a similar chemical composition, says Aaron Goldman ’03, assistant professor of biology at Oberlin College. He hopes his work will give astronomers a clearer view of whether life might exist there. “Understanding how life emerged on Earth can give us a better idea about where else and how often life has originated in our solar system and galaxy,” says Goldman, who developed LUCApedia, a framework for studying the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) and its predecessors. The database has changed the way research is being done because, beforehand, there was no system of WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 29 Beneath the ice cover of Enceladus is likely a global ocean of liquid water, possibly with hydrothermal vents and habitats for life, says Christopher Chyba ’82, H’03. Read the speech he gave upon receipt of his honorary degree: bit.ly/Chyba03 CARRIER OF THE WORD Part of searching is knowing where to begin. Even though it happened 13.8 billion years ago, John Mather ’68, H’94 desperately wants more people to know the truth about the Big Bang. “The name ‘Big Bang’ conjures up an image of a giant firecracker,” he says, “which is the exact opposite of the way the universe is behaving.” Half the size of Jupiter, 51 Pegasi b was the first known exoplanet when it was discovered in 1995. Jennifer Yee ’07 searches for planets by looking for the effect of their gravity on the light of unrelated stars. The JWST will launch in 2019. “We’ll be looking at distant galaxies merging together and being born from the primordial material,” says John Mather ’68, H’94. Read his essay on Swarthmore: bit.ly/HumbleArrogance 30 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 NASA /JPL - CA BENDING THE LIGHT She watched the stars and wondered how the planets spun. Space held an early fascination for astrophysicist Jennifer Yee ’07, who nurtured her love of it with two fixed habits. Her father regularly called her outside to look up at streaking comets and brilliant meteor showers. “And we also watched a lot of Star Trek together,” she says. At the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Yee searches for planets by microlensing, or looking for the effect of their gravity on the light of distant, unrelated stars. With her research team, she’s discovered more than 20 planets and was awarded a Sagan Exoplanet Postdoctoral Fellowship by NASA. One of her most exhilarating discoveries happened on July 4, 2011. (A true Swarthmorean scholar, Yee had canceled holiday plans because of a very promising microlensing event.) As observations were recorded in Chile, Yee downloaded and analyzed the images. “I had expected that the star would be getting slowly brighter as a function of time, but I actually saw that it was rapidly getting fainter,” she says. “It was so exciting. That MINING THE DUST STREAMS Planets, all the rage in contemporary astronomy, came into existence because tiny bits of dust stuck together and grew into planetesimals. The story of that dust, which exists in the space between the stars, turns out to hold mysteries. Bruce Draine ’69, a Princeton professor of astrophysical sciences, never expected that interstellar dust would become his life’s work. “When my new supervisor at Cornell assigned me to work on it, I initially thought it seemed uninteresting,” says Draine, who received his Ph.D. there in 1977. “But, in retrospect, I’m very glad he did.” Turns out, there are many ways to study interstellar dust. “Faraway dust dims and reddens the light from distant stars, and the starlight energy absorbed by the dust is reradiated in the infrared,” says Draine. Both the dimming of the starlight and the energy radiated in the infrared can be studied using telescopes in space, or on the ground. NASA/JPL-CALTECH classification for the genomic content of ancient life. Studying the features of an organism that existed around 3.5–4 billion years ago has presented many surprises. “Even though this ancestor represents a very ancient form of life, research shows that it was not a simple or primitive one,” he says. “They were strikingly complex with a fully operational genetic code,” including a cellular membrane and many of the elaborate processes seen in organisms today. Despite his interest in the potential for life beyond Earth, Goldman knows it’s unlikely we will be able to visit these planets any time soon. “But in the near future, we may be able to examine the chemistry of their atmospheres,” he says. “There are so many more potentially habitable planets and moons in the galaxy than in our solar system that I think this astronomical approach is our best chance of finding extraterrestrial life.” “This allows us to try to figure out what the dust must be like, but it would be wonderful if we could get some actual samples to study in the laboratory,” says Draine. In 2006, NASA’s spacecraft Stardust brought back spacedebris samples for scientists to study firsthand. “When the collection panel was exposed, it could also collect interplanetary dust, or particles that came from comets and collisions between asteroids,” he says. “Stardust collected three particles they identified as interstellar, but my own view on this is that those particles are unlikely to have been so.” There were four microcraters in the collection panel’s frame with residues that could be analyzed spectroscopically, Draine says—except the particles that made the microcraters were destroyed in the impact. “It’s not easy to capture interstellar grains!” he says. “Some from the time of formation of the solar system ended up trapped in material that arrives at the Earth as meteorites, and these grains-inside-meteorites have interesting stories to tell.” These stories are significant at the cosmic level, but they’re also important on a more personal level. “To be human is to be curious,” says Draine. “The 20th century was the first time that human beings figured out how big and how old the universe is, and what it contains. I feel fortunate to be alive in this era. It’s crucial that our civilization keep its eyes open, and keep asking questions.” Though he can’t say exactly what the next news will be, Draine is sure of a stream of discoveries to come. “The universe will continue to surprise us,” he says, “as long as we keep looking.” LTE CH GOLDMAN: TANYA ROSEN-JONES; YEE: IRENE YEEB Pioneers: Aaron Goldman ’03 studies ancient life forms, while Jennifer Yee ’07 is a planet hunter. was the moment when I knew it was possible we would detect a new planet.” Yee and all the researchers were in luck when her team showed there was indeed a planet, five times the mass of Jupiter, orbiting a star similar to the sun, at a distance similar to that of the Earth. The biggest challenge of her research is that microlensing is difficult to detect. Identifying an “event” is a one-in-amillion chance—the lens star has to be nearly perfectly aligned with the background star in order to detect the lensing effect, and timing is critical. Yee is also working to understand how planetary systems are constructed. “Jupiter-sized planets can be found at all separations orbiting other stars,” she says. “With transits, we’ve seen systems with five or six Earth-to-Neptune-sized planets, in which the outermost planet is only just beyond the orbit of Mercury, but we have a limited knowledge of what kinds of planets exist on wider orbits. “Over the next decade, we can expect microlensing to tell us what’s out there at Jupiter-like distances.” WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 31 EARLY STARGAZERS A central task of early Greek thinkers was to try to invent a compelling, persuasive account of the origins of the universe— what we would call a cosmogony. For the Greeks, the cosmos was unquestionably a well-ordered, elegant system. The great mystery was how it came to be and why it is the way it is. The earliest speculations on the origins of the cosmos consist of a series of grand and often visionary theories, usually incompatible with one another. Anaximander argued that everything was composed of an infinite substance he called apeiron (“boundless”), while Thales, who correctly predicted an eclipse in 585 BCE, believed that moisture was the central element in the birth and evolution of the cosmos. Pythagoras believed ratios and numbers could explain the intricacies of the cosmos; Heraclitus thought an eternally ignited and extinguished fire kept the heavens and earth in place. None of these great minds—you can include Homer and Hesiod’s mythological explanations, too— would have accepted the proposal that the universe was meaningless or that it was too complex for a human mind to grasp. What I find so fascinating and truly inspiring about early Greek interest in the universe is its heady combination of a dogged commitment to the belief that the universe is this perfectly beautiful, divinely ordered thing, with the belief that it can only be fully understood by human observation and fearless, theoretical speculation. —JEREMY LEFKOWITZ, associate professor of classics The Orion Nebula is 1,500 lightyears away. Hubble images show dust and gas where stars are being formed. 32 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 LAURENCE KESTERSON He should know—Mather measured it and was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite with George Smoot of the University of California, Berkeley. In measuring the pattern of radiation that came from the early universe, their work has been so vital to the study of life and space that astrophysicist Stephen Hawking described it as “the most important scientific discovery of the century, if not of all time.” “We learned how to do it together,” says Mather. “We measured the cosmic microwave background far better than we had dared to hope.” He did so by successfully bringing a difficult and innovative satellite project to completion while working with a NASA engineering team. In addition, Mather’s groundbreaking research on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will give the world views of the universe that could never have been imagined. “Working with a different NASA engineering team in partnership with the European and Canadian Space Agencies, many aerospace contractors, and an international science team, we are near to completing an even more challenging telescope that will serve all astronomers everywhere, and enable unimagined discoveries,” he says. His true pleasure comes with each new discovery and the knowledge shared. “We began it with COBE, but now there’s ‘precision cosmology’ and a standard model of the universe with seven numbers to describe everything,” Mather says. “I never guessed it would happen. I’m still astonished at the “We’ve seen how easily diseases can spread globally through planes,” says Linda Vu ’19, “but how easily might a microbe hitchhike between planets on spaceships and probes?” Rare astronomical drawings by Étienne Trouvelot discovered in Sproul Observatory just before the 11,000-pound telescope was dismantled in July and transported to its new home in an Arkansas space education center. + WATCH bit.ly/SproulTelescope power of the idea, the word. None of us knew how to build the COBE satellite when we proposed it; none of us knew how to build the JWST when we proposed it, either. But the objectives were inspiring, and brilliant engineers came from everywhere to contribute. It’s not so personal as it might seem, and I see my role as a carrier of the word.” SKY THE COLOR OF WINE Linda Vu ’19’s life took an exciting turn the moment she started looking up. “I have the keys to the telescope,” she says, patting her pocket on a walk toward the Science Center. Vu studies the stars at Swarthmore using state-of-theart equipment in the van de Kamp Observatory. The keyholding responsibility is daunting, but under the guidance of astronomy professor David Cohen, Vu’s getting more comfortable with it. As a child in Washington, D.C., stargazing was limited— light pollution hid the stars. “Where I live,” she says, “the night sky is the color of red wine.” Vu had planned to be a writer, not a scientist. She didn’t start wondering about space until high school, where teachers made biology beautiful and astrobiology even more so. “This idea of life on other worlds is really cool,” she says, having grown to love astronomy so much that, in her spare time, she analyzes data on exoplanets. “When I first met Linda,” says Cohen, “she wanted to know about an astrobiology course at Swarthmore, which we don’t have—yet. I offered her a position on our exoplanet research team. Since then, she has been a careful and skilled researcher and leader.” Working at the van de Kamp Observatory, Vu—a biology major with a minor in astronomy—finds open-house nights especially rewarding. After all, explaining basic astronomy to the public who come to view the night sky through the powerful 24-inch telescope is important. “What’s the point of scientists doing all this great research if not everyone understands what’s going on?” asks Vu, who hopes to pursue an astrobiology Ph.D. “If people walk away with a deeper love for space at the end of the night, then it was worth it.” And it is—for Swarthmore’s space scholars, sharing knowledge they seize from the currents of at least 100 billion roiling galaxies is as thrilling as the first gasp of delight in finding it. + MORE ON SWARTHMOREAN EXPLORERS: bulletin.swarthmore.edu WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 33 Home is ... ... a symbol of urban renewal BILL KING ’13 Baltimore A place of comfort, of creativity, of closeness with friends and family: Home is unique to each of us “10 Light is a modern space, but its designers carefully saved countless elements of the historic structure underneath,” says Bill King ’13. “This kind of development is a more sustainable model, more respectful of that which came before us. Projects like this have the capacity to renew aging urban landscapes across the country.” 34 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 LAURENCE KESTERSON by Elizabeth Slocum “10 LIGHT STREET is widely celebrated as one of the most beautiful Art Deco-style office buildings in the U.S.,” says King, a lawyer focused on urban planning and land use, “but it’s always faced great difficulty attracting tenants, especially as downtown Baltimore suffered severe population loss from the 1970s through 2000.” Captivated by plans to reinvent the 34-story, circa-1929 building, King signed on as one of its first residents in 2015 and co-founded the City Center Residents Association, a grassroots group representing Baltimore’s fastest growing census tract—and one of its most diverse. “My parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents all lived their lives in Baltimore,” says King. “As I now work in Baltimore, live in Baltimore, and walk the streets of Baltimore—often tracing the same paths they have walked—I am struck by the importance of taking care of this place that we have all shared.” WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 35 ... open to those in need “DOROTHY DAY, the co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, said: ‘I wanted the abundant life. I wanted it for others, too,’” says Brown, who with husband Steve established Casa Alma, a Catholic Worker community that embraces homeless and low-income families. “Living at Casa Alma, I can explore what ‘the abundant life’ entails.” For Brown, it means a modest life, lived in communion with people on the margins. Casa Alma comprises three homes—two houses of hospitality for formerly homeless residents, and a community house where the Browns live with their three children—on a shared urban homestead featuring gardens, a mini-orchard, chickens, dairy goats, and honeybees. “The values that were meaningful to me at Swarthmore,” says Brown, “are the same ones we try to express at Casa Alma: a deep commitment to social responsibility, the thoughtful examination of problems and creative responses, celebrating nonconformity, and valuing each person’s perspective and lived experience.” 36 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 DAVID HUCKABY LAURENCE KESTERSON LAURA SNYDER BROWN ’95 Charlottesville, Va. “Because Arvie suffers from PTSD and chronic migraines, he decided to let go of the ‘haveto’s’ and resign from his job,” says Bunny Sedmont Bennett ’95. “Our household expenses are minimal, so he can develop his gifts of writing and painting, as well as practicing his guitar.” “All the guests are people who bear the brunt of injustice: convicted felons, refugees, immigrants without legal status, people who have experienced trauma or generational poverty,” says Laura Snyder Brown ’95. “Each one has gifts and strengths, and I’m grateful to know them.” “AFTER MANY YEARS of touring with his band, my husband, Arvie, and I decided to move near Nashville to further his musical career,” says Bennett, a social worker, author, and songwriter. “We gave away nearly all of our possessions and chose a lifestyle of simplicity.” Their 400-square-foot cabin—on a dirt road near a little lake in the woods— features a composting toilet, water from a community well, and no oven. (They rely on a grill and Crockpot instead.) The beautiful setting of pastures and hills sparks Bennett’s creativity and offers peace of mind. “My lifestyle enables me to do what brings me joy,” she says, “without the burden of a mortgage.” ... a tiny, inspirational retreat PHYLLIS “BUNNY” SEDMONT BENNETT ’95 Centerville, Tenn. WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 37 ... completely off the grid “Just before Thanksgiving several years ago, a massive grizzly bear killed and cached an elk in front of my home, staying there for about a week before denning for the winter,” says Molly Raney Shepherd ’64. “After a rather fraught initial encounter, we coexisted. When the bear finally departed, eagles and ravens swept in to clean up what remained and to celebrate their own Thanksgiving in a place that is still wild.” “I HAVE ALWAYS been drawn to wild places,” says Shepherd, a retired lawyer in northwestern Montana. “Within days of my move to Missoula in 1975, I visited friends on the North Fork of the Flathead River. The majesty of the mountains, the richness of the forests, and the abundance of wildlife enchanted me.” A decade later, Shepherd purchased 80 acres in the river valley between Glacier National Park and the Whitefish Range, 50 miles from the nearest grocery store. A one-room cabin served as a seasonal getaway until 2003, when Shepherd built “Ararat,” her dream abode, in collaboration with an architect, a structural engineer, and an “off-the-grid guru.” The firewise structure features solar panels, a diesel generator, and propane- and wood-supplied heat. “I love that my home is bold and unexpected,” says Shepherd, “but also warm, welcoming, and functional in what can be an unforgiving environment.” 38 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 LOUIS FOX MOLLY RANEY SHEPHERD ’64 North Fork, Mont. “I didn’t want to just build at the end of dirt roads,” says Massey Burke ’00, who studied natural building in a remote part of Northern California. “I wanted to explore what those techniques had to offer—ecological restoration wrapped up in construction.” Listen to a lecture: bit.ly/MudManifesto “THE RELATIONSHIP TO making things is a funny one in our culture,” says Burke, an artist in the natural-building movement. “Being able to create the life and the world that’s around you is a deep human need, but because everything is so mechanized, that part of being human has been pushed into craft or specialties, where someone else will do it for you.” Using clay, sand, plant fibers, and other natural materials collected at construction sites, Burke builds modern homesteads from the literal ground up. In an alternate use of the ecological technique, Burke retrofitted her small, funky 1940s bungalow in the East Bay, replacing deteriorating stucco and drywall with light straw-clay—a centuries-old process seen in old German storybook buildings. “Building with clay is this universal language,” she says. “We don’t realize it here, but twothirds of the world population still lives in earthen housing. This is a return to what our ancestors did, but it’s also a reinvention of it.” ... an ecological work of art MASSEY BURKE ’00 El Sobrante, Calif. WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 39 H AVE YOU EVER lingered in your car, just to catch the end of a radio story? It’s a medium that speaks to us—literally. With an immediacy and intimacy unlike print, television, or video, radio conveys the sounds of a scene and the emotions and nuance of the human voice in all its colors ... while our minds fill in the blanks. Since NPR first launched in the 1970s, Swatties have been drawn to public radio and helped shape it into what it is today. It makes sense: After all, radio has the power to surprise, spark empathy, and move us all a little further toward the common good. ON THE RADIO Telling stories and changing the world ... over the airwaves Hansi Lo Wang ’09 works out of NPR’s bureau in New York City. “What I love about radio is that it can strip away all of the distractions and focus on one person’s voice,” he says. “We need to really listen to each other now more than ever.” 40 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 BRIAN MCCABE by Laura Markowitz ’85 IN 2004, Swarthmore launched an extracurricular radio program called War News Radio, the brainchild of 60 Minutes producer David Gelber ’63, H’17. Frustrated by the lack of coverage given to the Iraq War, Gelber thought Swarthmore students could do better. Supported by the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, WNR continues its coverage, focusing on the conflicts in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Grateful for her WNR experience, Jess Engebretson ’09 went on to spend a year as a Watson Fellow exploring radio and reconciliation in Rwanda, Indonesia, and Liberia: three countries with histories of violent conflict instigated or exacerbated by radio. Back home, she became a producer for Backstory, a national radio program focused on American history, and then took a job with a nongovernmental organization to teach audio storytelling to displaced residents in South Sudan. “These ‘camps’ of displaced persons were more like small towns of 20,000 to 40,000 people,” says Engebretson. “With no newspapers or radio, and a largely illiterate population, audio programs functioned as a major news and entertainment source.” Disseminating a twice-weekly, 30-minute show in multiple languages—including audio dramas that reflected issues experienced by people living in the camp— Engebretson came away from her Sudanese experience with a new respect for how audio storytelling can create community “in a way akin to literature.” Today a doctoral student in English literature at Columbia and a podcast producer for the long-form series Life of the Law, she’s launching a new podcast to “bridge the divide between academic research and popular conversations that are going on around people’s dinner tables.” HANSI LO WANG ’09 says he majored in WNR more than political science. “It wasn’t just professional development for me, but a culmination of my values of being an engaged citizen,” he remembers. “After talking about war theoretically and reading about it, I was interviewing people in Iraq.” During one such interview, he heard gunshots—“and the reality of it grabbed me through the phone line.” A year out of Swarthmore, Wang won an NPR Kroc Fellowship. He worked his way up from web producer to production assistant on All Things Considered, went on to Weekend Edition and Code Switch, and now is a correspondent on the National Desk, based in New York. Wang credits Ken Sharpe, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Political Science, with teaching him some of the most important skills he uses every day. “Ken’s constant poking and prodding with questions—I try to do this when I tackle a story,” he says. “What are all the different sides? What does the world look like from another person’s perspective?” In the end, radio journalism appealed to Wang because he could be engaged WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 41 CARLOS BARRIA 42 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 “A class I took on Irish contemporary poetry with Nathalie Anderson got us to look at how people use language to deal with histories of atrocity or sustained violence,” remembers Jess Engebretson ’09, pictured working in Liberia. “It raised ethical questions about how to represent those experiences. I still think about those questions when I’m interviewing someone for radio.” WAMU 88.5 in Washington, D.C. The nationally syndicated show launched in response to hate crimes against religious minorities after 9/11 and then broadened—it’s the country’s only public radio show exclusively focused on religion and an opportunity to spark thoughtful discussion. “I like to think about how radio waves can go through walls,” Holtzman says. “It’s the best medium for reaching people who might otherwise not have access to these stories.” “I HAVE NO training in business or economics,” says Mitchell Hartman ’85, senior reporter for American Public Media’s business news program Marketplace and a Swarthmore comparative religion graduate, “so I can come at stories with the naïve questions my listener will probably also have, like ‘What’s the bond market, and should we be worried about it?’” His first job in journalism started senior year, when he worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer. “The end of the summer of ’85, all of the unions struck against [the paper’s owner] Knight Ridder,” remembers Hartman. He got his first clip in the strike newspaper, “but I decided all the journalists were miserable so I would never be one.” After working at a human rights organization run by lawyers—they were even more miserable, he says— he returned to journalism. He earned a master’s from Columbia and freelanced in Europe and the Middle East before landing on his current show in 1994 in Los Angeles, where he had followed his partner, Lisa Silverman ’84, for her teaching job at the University of Southern California. “Then just 5 years old, Marketplace was the scrappy upstart trying to muscle in on NPR’s schedule on the clock,” remembers Hartman. “I worked the graveyard shift for three years at baby-sitter wages. There weren’t enough people, so if you wanted to do something, you could. I was on the air, reporting all the time.” Today, he’s based in Portland, Ore., where he covers employment, labor, and the workplace. “I used to write long Swarthmorean interview questions,” says Abby Holtzman ’16, top left. “Now I feel like good radio is just getting out of the way.” “Hearing someone’s voice helps us feel a connection,” says Andrea Hsu ’95, left. ELISSA NADWORNY “RADIO GIVES VOICE to the underrepresented,” says Abby Holtzman ’16. “Rather than having others narrate their lives for them, people can narrate their own, and I want to bring out these voices as much as possible.” During her first year at Swarthmore, Holtzman hosted a show on WSRN called Students, Stories and Songs, where she interviewed freshmen about what they missed about their homes. “I bribed people to let me interview them by offering to buy them samosas at the Kohlberg Coffee Bar,” she laughs. Touched by the humor and heart in these intimate confessions of homesickness, Holtzman took an oral history class with Diego Armus. “It woke me up to the power within interview dynamics,” she says. “I learned about listening to silence.” After becoming editor-in-chief of The Daily Gazette her sophomore year, Holtzman realized she wanted to be a journalist, so she attended the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. There, she learned the basics of radio reporting: how to structure an audio story, how to hold a microphone correctly, and how to think of storytelling in terms of sound. After graduation, she completed a service learning year as an associate producer for Interfaith Voices, based at AARON LEAF with current events and participate “at a level that isn’t activism, but is just as important: informing the public.” “Our work is cool,” laughs Mitchell Hartman ’85, above. “It’s always a kick when my mother says, ‘Mrs. Reider heard you on the radio!’” “Swarthmore gave me the sense that there’s a moral compulsion to work in the world and tell people’s stories and explain what their struggles are and where they’re coming from, and what the oppression is that hurts us and holds us down,” he says. “Radio gives me that opportunity, and that’s what compels me.” A SENIOR PRODUCER for NPR’s All Things Considered, Andrea Hsu ’95 finds that crafting sound is the part of radio she likes best. “The human voice touches people in a way that words on paper can’t,” she says. An art and Chinese major, she had no idea what she wanted to do for a career, so after Swarthmore she signed on with a public relations firm in Beijing. “I met a lot of journalists, and I thought, That looks like fun,” she remembers. “So I quit and got a job with the BBC as a local researcher.” Her small team came up with story ideas and covered major events such as President Bill Clinton’s 10-day visit to China in 1998. Although she loved the creativity and space to shape and broadcast a story, she also learned about the limits to press freedom in China. Unhappy with some of the BBC’s coverage of Tibet, the Chinese government revoked her visa. After relocating to London to work on BBC Radio’s East Asia Today, Hsu went on to earn a master’s at Stanford and land her NPR gig, but she still draws inspiration from her Swarthmore years, especially two summers she spent in Chester. “Eight of us rented a house and, with money from the College, we ran a summer camp for kids, doing art, theater, and outdoor activities with them,” says Hsu. “It was a chance to live in the community and try to understand the context of people’s lives. Now, when we go out to do a story for NPR, I build in time to get that same context—it makes a difference.” LULU MILLER ’05 fell in love with radio her first year out of Swarthmore. The history major and daughter WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 43 + HEAR pieces by profilees and read an interview with Gene Sonn ’95, audio news director at WHYY: bulletin.swarthmore.edu + LISTEN to Laura Markowitz ’85’s radio work: bit.ly/RadioLM 44 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 KRISTEN FINN of a Quaker matchbox couple was living with three other Swatties in a basement apartment in Queens, trying to write fiction, and working in a woodshop where public radio played all day. After hearing RadioLab, a weekly public radio show and podcast that weaves stories and science into sound- and music-rich documentaries, she wrote the producers “an inquiry/ fan letter/love letter.” They hired her and she eventually became a founding producer. Although she’d had no previous training in radio journalism, doing improv at Swarthmore with the group Vertigo-go gave Miller a surprisingly good foundation. “Going into an interview is like going into an improv scene,” she explains. “If you get out of your head, you’re OK.” She also played Swarthmore rugby, where she learned about team-building and trust. “It’s such a big part of interviewing,” she adds. “You have to stay alert and present, but play is also crucial: Right in the middle of heavy stuff, maybe you use goofiness and irreverence to sneak in these deeper ideas.” After five years at RadioLab, Miller left to earn an MFA in fiction from the University of Virginia. She returned to radio to co-create and co-host the popular NPR podcast Invisibilia, about the ideas, beliefs, assumptions, and emotions that control human behavior. Its first season made history when it hit 50 million downloads and was placed on more than 400 public radio stations. (Miller took a break for much of Season 3 to write a book, due out this year, but is eager to return to radio.) “I am interested in people who have a harder time getting their story told,” she says. “People are sitting on these magnificent tales and experiences, and we are in the position of privilege to be the ones to craft the narrative.” “Tim Burke’s history classes helped me discover a deep (even rabid?) love of primarysource research. It was under his instruction that I fostered a love of doubting the ‘experts’ and turning instead to the people on the ground to tell a story,” Lulu Miller ’05 says. “The process of interviewing and editing tape is not unlike the joyously grueling task of primarysource research: combing through hours of tape in search of the rare gems—emotion, humor, surprising scene details—that deepen a story.” class notes A TREASURY OF ALUMNI-RELATED ITEMS ALUMNI EVENTS LAURENCE KESTERSON BECOME A FRANK 5 FELLOW The Aydelotte Foundation is looking for alumni under 30 who are passionate about their work and value their liberal arts education. Applications open Jan. 16. swarthmore.edu/ aydelotte-foundation ALUMNI WEEKEND June 1–3 Start planning your trip to campus now to join classmates and friends for the Parade of Classes, Alumni Collection, and so much more! alumniweekend.swarthmore. edu The College community came together Dec. 1 for Living the Liberal Arts: A Celebration of Eugene Lang ’38, H’81. Among the attendees were (from left) Lucy Lang ’03, Jose Claros, Rob Miraglia (back), Ben Wiles ’03, Veronica Herrera ’03, BoHee Yoon ’01, and Shreena Gandhi ’01. CHANGING LIVES, CHANGING THE WORLD Celebrate Swarthmore as we launch our comprehensive campaign in Chicago, Miami, and Atlanta this spring. Details coming soon! lifechanging.swarthmore.edu/ events Libby Murch Livingston lizliv33@gmail.com 1941 I enjoyed a delightful get-together of old and new Swarthmore friends this summer on Damariscotta Lake near Jefferson, Maine. I wish that the late Margaret Chase Judd ’39 and my Bill ’39 could have been with us. Daughter Elinor and I drove up to the Judds’ summer place, where we had often brought our family. We, with our five children, had camped many a time with the Judds and their five children years ago throughout the West. When we arrived in New Britain, Conn., in 1945 for Bill to start surgical training at New Britain General, Margaret called that very day to welcome us. We became fast friends. Now, I enjoy Margaret’s daughter Becky, who lives near me. We often lunch together. Those in the Philadelphia area would not think of this as a big deal, but up in the wilds of Maine, one finds few gatherings of Swarthmoreans. Here were three class secretaries: Diana Judd Stevens ’63, her daughter Kathy Stevens ’89, and moi (pg. 75). With Diana’s husband, Paul ’65, also at the gathering, we could “Hail, all hail” with great cheer. I am sorry to report the July 4 death of Isabel Durkee Warner, who had been living at Crosslands Retirement Community in Kennett Square, Pa. After Swarthmore, Isabel worked for the predecessor of the CIA, first in London, then in Washington. She married Miles Warner in 1948, and they had three children before divorcing. She earned a master’s degree in library sciences at Villanova and worked many years as a high school librarian in the Penn-Delco School District. Isabel was an excellent cook, an expert knitter, a serious gardener, and a widespread traveler. She is survived by children Bob, Sallie, and Thomas, and three grandchildren. WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 45 class notes 1942 An avid photographer who piloted his own small plane, he was predeceased by a daughter and is survived by wife Mary, a son, and two grandchildren. Mary Weintraub Delbanco delbanco660@gmail.com Lucy Selligman Schneider reports a quiet life except for the opportunity to view the eclipse from the roof of her 12-story apartment building. Lucy Rickman Baruch “discovered that 96 is not too old to make jam!” after a summer weekend with family, picking then preserving plums at their country cottage. She and Bernard “are getting used to the care home” and find visits of three great-grandchildren a tonic. My home, Roland Park Place in Baltimore, continues major renovations. A summer highlight was the visit of grandchildren Ben and Yvonne with their partners. Daughter Janet Felsten and I spent a pleasant afternoon with Gwynn Russler, daughter of Jacqueline Quadow Russler, who died in December 2015. Jacqui had four daughters and two grandsons who survive her. Elizabeth Letts Metcalf died June 23 in her Florida home after a long illness. Betty had a distinguished psychology career and leadership roles in public service. She won elections three times to the Florida House of Representatives. Betty was married for more than 50 years to the late George Metcalf. They are survived by daughter Christine Metcalf Ng ’83, son-in-law Stephen Ng ’82, and granddaughter Jennifer. William Faison Jr., who graduated from N.C. State with a mechanical engineering degree, died Aug. 23. He served in World War II, then was a safety supervisor at U.S. Steel South Works for 34 years. FOLLOW US! Facebook and Instagram: @SwarthmoreBulletin #SwatBulletin 46 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 1943 Betty Glenn Webber bettywebber22@yahoo.com 616-245-2687 See that info above? Send me a few words on your life and times. Your news may not be of headline caliber, but we’d be happy to have “Page 2 or 3” updates. Act now! Barbara and Jack Dugan “glory in the closeness (togetherness, not geographic) of our three children, six grandchildren, and four greatgrands—scattered but in constant contact.” Jack keeps up with campus news through Barbara Sieck Taylor ’75—daughter of William ’47 and Barbara Tipping Sieck ’50—who worked for him when he ran the Greenwall Foundation. Jack has had vision problems and has added brokenhip complications, but he hopes to be around for our 75th Reunion. In contradiction of my claim that we no longer generate headlines, DeWitt “Bud” Baldwin still works full time at the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education in Chicago, frequently travels abroad and in the U.S., and enjoys working with student interns and other mentees. His “impaired mobility” doesn’t incapacitate him; “retirement has to wait,” he says. He and Michele “plan to celebrate our 60th anniversary in the historic Périgord-Dordogne area of France, known for food, wine, architectural beauty, and the Lascaux caves. It is the region where Michele’s family hid from the Germans in World War II. We are sharing the memories with our children.” Bud’s retirement philosophy rings a bell with me as I watch our kids’ generation picking dates to hang it up; do they know what they are going to do for the next 30 years? Mary Stewart Trageser sends a “best to all” message and delights in welcoming her first great-grand. The little one lives in San Diego, a bit far for day-to-day contact. She’s pleased that “Stewart” is part of his name. Mary works to keep her 1815 church history sorted out. She’s active, too, in a couple of book groups. The complex where I, Betty, live cannot sustain a book club, unfortunately, but I read a lot. I can’t help sharing a bit about a delightedly sophisticated historical novel by Amor Towles. A Gentleman in Moscow portrays the life of Count Rostov, sentenced by the Bolsheviks as an “unrepentant aristocrat” to lifelong house arrest in Moscow’s great Metropole Hotel. The depiction of the following decades is done with gentle irony and humor, quietly effective in skewering officious bureaucracy. The characters are vibrant and the pages littered with understated turns of phrase. Please be in touch, right now while you’re in Class Notes mode. 1944 Esther Ridpath Delaplaine edelaplaine1@verizon.net Sadly, I share the December 2016 passing of Katherine “Kay” Flint Shadek at home in Spring Lake, N.J. She received a degree from Barnard College and was a graduate of Columbia Law School, where she met husband Arthur. As a teenager, Kay traveled extensively with her parents. They had invested in IBM stock, which resulted in a portfolio that she managed for more than 60 years. She and Arthur were benefactors of Franklin & Marshall College, Columbia University, Barnard College, and Stevens Institute of Technology. She was a voracious reader, well-informed on European and U.S. history, and a strict grammarian. She is survived by children Laurence, Thomas, James, and Katherine; 10 grandchildren; and two greatgrandchildren. Eugene Lindstrom died peacefully July 14 at Foxdale Village in State College, Pa. Wife Eleanor had died in 2011, and a son, Jon, also predeceased him. He is survived by children Karen, Mark, and Scott; four grandchildren; and three great-granddaughters. He attended Swarthmore and Iowa State before receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. He was a corporal in the 8th Army Air Corps in World War II serving in Ireland, France, and Germany. Gene taught at Penn State, rising from professor to associate dean of the College of Science to head of the biology department. He retired in 1988. In retirement he was an amateur radio operator, a driver for Meals on Wheels, and a member of the borough’s Shade Tree Commission. He was an active member and on the Vestry of St. Andrew’s Church. My own news is the arrival of my first great-grandchild, Sebastian Robert Delaplaine, on Aug. 30. Granddaughter Emily and her husband returned from their six months of travel in the Far East, and step-grand Devra is traveling for two months in South America before joining a Seattle law firm. Please send me your news. 1949 Marjorie Merwin Daggett mmdaggett@verizon.net Maralyn Orbison Gillespie visited Barbara “Bobbe” Lea Couphos in June in New Milford, Conn. Bobbe is happily settled there with daughter Carol and son-in-law Steve. Maralyn and husband George enjoyed a steam-railroad 1945, 1946, and 1948 are in need of class secretaries. Interested? Email eslocum1@swarthmore.edu. site nearby before going on to Maine for two weeks. Richard Kirschner still plays tennis, though only “a bit.” He and wife Mary live on the banks of the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, N.M., where he does sculpture and wisely advises the world on public policy. Visits from classmates are invited. Condolences to the family of Morton Kimball, who died in September. Mort also graduated from Cornell, then worked for Hilton Hotels and a propertymanagement company in D.C. and Miami. At one point he was NYU’s director of student affairs. Retirement in 1989 took him to Seneca Lake and to the Highlands in Pittsford, N.Y. He was an active volunteer and lifelong opera lover. His extensive collection of Met Opera broadcasts are now at Nazareth College. A returned email led to the sad news that Barbara “Barri” Aeschliman died in August 2015. Barri was born in China and graduated from Temple Medical School. She was a retired psychiatrist who lived and practiced on Cape Cod. Barri and I had lived in the same section of Worth senior year. I had a short but happy mini-reunion with her in the late 1980s on a soccer field in Lexington, Mass., where her daughters’ Cambridge team was playing one from Lexington. Condolences to said daughters, Melanie and Johanna. How about some news from those without emails listed with the College? 1950 Jan Dunn MacKenzie mjanmack@comcast.net Robert Paton died July 2. He received an M.A. in literature from Middlebury College and was an actor, educator, and author, writing Not Just Test Scores. He was also the founder and owner of the Theatre of Dreams in Manhattan. Wife April and sons Craig and Trevor survive him. Margaret “Margy” Hench Underwood died June 26. She was a fierce field hockey and tennis competitor, and also an avid music and art lover. She has two surviving daughters. Stephen Sickle died July 17. Preceded in death by wife Susan and grandson Eric, he was the cherished father of Linda, Judy, and Debbie, and adored grandfather of five. Hope Sieck Gilliams, widow of Howard “Suds” Gilliams ’49, lives in her family home in Potomac, Md., with some help from her son and grandson. Her late brother, Bill Sieck ’47, was married to Barbara “Tippie” Tipping Sieck, who lives at the Broadmead continuingcare retirement community in Cockeysville, Md. Tippie spent many years in the Woman’s Club of Roland Park, Md. Her family reports she has had a full life. Nick ’53 and Lucy Handwerk Cusano live in West Chester, Pa., and are looking to downsize. Joan Litchard Wyon lives in a retirement center near Dedham, Mass., where her younger daughter and family live. “I am on a walker after a lifetime of being athletic, but still have the mind that college challenged and cultivated.” Rudy Hirsch and wife Blanche have lived on Capitol Hill for 35 years. “From here, we have traveled to most corners of the world, but have always been happy to return,” Rudy writes. “Washington is a delightful city, with interesting people, endless museums, concerts, and unique architecture. In 1957, I went to work for IBM and remained a full-time computernik until a few years ago. That gave me a ringside seat for watching the arrival of information technology and the changes it is still making on our lives.” I, Jan, have lived in Denver for 60 years and have kept up College ties. Two children, Kathleen MacKenzie ’78 and Ian MacKenzie ’80, also attended. I stay occupied volunteering at the Botanic Gardens and advocating for peace in the Middle East. As a retired teacher, I try to keep up with school issues such as the effects of charter schools. I hope you will do a better job sending notes than I have the past many years. 1951 Elisabeth “Liesje” Boessenkool Ketchel eketchel@netscape.com I contacted many new classmates, thanks to an updated class list. Wonderful to hear from all who wrote in. Next time, I will try to contact those without email addresses in hopes that we can gather more contributions. First, good news about our class, from Lew Rivlin: “I learned that there are 105 of us approximately 87-year-olds from Swarthmore 1951 still alive and occasionally kicking.” And a response from Ralph Lee Smith: “We appear to be pretty hardy! I’ll be 90 on Nov. 6. Are there other World War II vets among the kickers? I went in at 17 in 1945 and caught the tail end. It would be nice if more classmates sent in class notes!” Suzanne Reymond Frederickson is “alive and kicking despite having been evacuated for two weeks due to the Elephant Hill wildfire. I am home but still have a good deal of smoke—hoping for heavy rain!” Paul Shoup and wife Marija “are in Europe, heading home in a week or two. This will probably be the end of our annual trips to Belgrade (Marija’s home) and Switzerland. All the best to classmates!” Wolf Epstein is “still around—now in northern Wisconsin, where we usually spend summers at what was once a small cottage and now is a 3,000-square-foot, winterized place we call the ‘palazzo.’ It is on a moderately sized lake, about a mile in diameter with very clear water. Seems all we do is travel or plan future travel, like a big trip next year on the Amalfi coast of Italy to celebrate wife Edna’s 80th birthday. We’ve rented a large villa so that all of our children and grandchildren can stay with us. We are both long retired, though Edna still writes and edits for the American Bar Association. We are going to Montreal in October for an ABA meeting.” Wolf and Edna also signed up for a 50-day cruise around South America, and with lots of time to spare, they travel to Europe and back by boat. “Very comfortable with so little rocking that you almost feel you are on dry land. With a daughter and her family in London, we always stop there first before taking the ‘Chunnel’ (the 135-minute fast train) for our usual month stay in Paris—our ‘second home,’ since we lived there for two years in the 1960s and have many friends there. We are both fluent in French, so language is no problem. Best wishes to all classmates who are still enjoying life.” Mary Ann Ash Chidsey writes: “I said a few years ago that I was going to move to a senior residence (Gorham House) in Gorham, Maine, the town where son David lives. I still plan on that but would first like to get son Alan off on his own and finish treatments with several doctors. I’ve joined a Great Books discussion group at our library, which I’m looking forward to. There’s so much to read in print and on the internet—I can’t keep up.” Dick Frost “finished a month in Santa Fe, N.M., where I attended a couple of Pueblo Indian dance ceremonies with a friend from my high school alma mater, Brooklyn Friends. On Sept. 18, I lectured on my book The Railroad and the Pueblo Indians for the Native American studies faculty and students at Colgate University. On the national-disaster front, I expect President Trump to resign by New Year’s from disgust that Congress ignores his bidding, while Robert Mueller’s rope tightens around his belt. Then what?” Miriam Strasburger Moss and husband Sid “have lived in Lathrop Retirement Community, a Kendal associate, in Northampton, Mass., since spring 2015. We enjoy a busy, good life, living near our daughter and in frequent contact with son Paul ’78, who does good work on climate adaptation for the state of Minnesota. Sid WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 47 class notes and I retired from gerontological research five years ago, and we still present at national conferences. In July, we attended the International World Congress of Gerontology and Geriatrics in San Francisco and presented our symposium, We Are Now ‘They’: Old Gerontologists Living in AgeSegregated Housing.” 1952 Barbara Wolff Searle bsearle70@msn.com I am all moved in and slowly acclimating to a retirement community in the California town where my daughter, Karen Linnea Searle ’84, and her family live. After 35 fulfilling years in D.C., I’m finding the process a bit bumpy, but every day is different so I will wait awhile before I tell you more about my experience. In the meantime, if you have been through a big change of this sort, write and tell us about it! I continue to be astonished by the energy and entrepreneurial spirit of classmates. Joan Berkowitz still teaches online in the graduate school at the University of Maryland University College. “This semester I am teaching the mandatory introductory course in cybersecurity. The course is part of a pilot program testing a new approach to teaching. UMUC put out a call for professors willing to try something new, and I volunteered. Students complete six assignments to demonstrate competency in writing, research, developing a personal branding statement, working in Excel, critical thinking, and teamwork. If they don’t get an assignment right on the first try, I explain why and have them resubmit. My only knowledge of cybersecurity is as a victim; my students, in contrast, are working adults with years of experience in information technology. I expect to learn a lot from them.” Sadly, I have three deaths to 48 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 report. Bennett Hill died June 21 from complications after a fall. Bennett was born and raised in Wynnewood, Pa., where he also taught Latin and history for 35 years at the Montgomery School. He gave tours—sometimes in period clothing—at Historic Waynesborough in Paoli, and was a founding member of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Bridgeport, Pa. He is survived by wife Patricia and daughter Elizabeth. Robert Barbanell died Aug. 30 from complications of recent surgery. An 11-year pancreatic cancer survivor with a strong sense of values and a wry humor, Robert retired as managing director of Bankers Trust. He is survived by wife Betsy; son Edward; stepchildren Larry, Mark, and Ellen; brother Arthur; and two grandchildren. Guy Brusca died Sept. 10 in Voorhees, N.J., after a brief battle with pneumonia. Guy joined the U.S. Merchant Marine at the end of World War II before earning an engineering degree at Swarthmore. He received his master’s at Penn and went on to a 40-year electrical engineering career. He is survived by wife Judith, sons Mark and Glenn, two sisters, and four grandchildren. 1953 Carol Lange Davis cldavis5@optonline.net Marguerite “Margy” Morey Zabriskie was planning the first gathering of Building Bridges with Friend Families, in September at the Intervale Center in Burlington, Vt. “Being the lead person on this is both challenging and scary, but I’m hopeful we can pull it off. Unfortunately, our very communityoriented imam has left and I have yet to meet any replacement. Getting the Muslim community involved is very important.” Margy and husband Sandy look forward to the 65th Reunion—if they don’t have a conflict with one of three grandchild graduations in the spring. She hopes several classmates will attend. Stanley Mills contacted Bob Grossman after Hurricane Harvey hit Houston. Thankfully, the Grossmans did not get washed away, but they were confined to their home for several days because of floodwaters. Margery “Marky” McCloskey Laws reluctantly moved from her home of 40 years in Madison, Conn., to a senior residence, The Gables in Guilford, Conn. Clark Dean tells of recently hearing music he once heard coming from Don Mawson and Dick Waddington’s dorm room. Clark contacted the alumni office in an attempt to reach them, but was sadly informed that Don and Dick are deceased. Clark also wrote Stan Mills with a question about a march for piano written by an ancestor in the 1800s. “Stan wasn’t able to answer my question, but I did get two delightful phone calls from him.” Nina Felber Streitfeld fondly remembers Carol Holbrook Baldi, who died in June: “Carol was a close, lifelong friend and my financial adviser whose expert advice enables me to keep my head above water financially. I got to know Carol as we were the slowest eaters left in the old dining hall at the end of mealtimes. We roomed together senior year on the third floor of Worth, were in each other’s weddings, and saw each other through various stages and vicissitudes of our lives. Carol had a brilliant, lucid mind and a capacity for wonder that made ‘amazing’ one of her most frequently used words. Her achievements in being first as a woman in a variety of financial endeavors are spectacular. In investigating investment opportunities, Carol traveled widely. She fell in love with Brazil, and nothing made her happier than visits to Rio. I am grateful to have had the privilege of knowing her and being her friend.” Elizabeth Wilkins McMaster died Aug. 21 in Providence, R.I. After obtaining a master’s in social work from Columbia, Betsy enjoyed a long career that began at New York Hospital and continued at Providence’s Visiting Nurse Association. A lifelong Francophile, she spent two years in Paris in the early 1960s immersing herself in everything French. She spent many weekends and holidays with family sailing the Chesapeake Bay and New England coast. Betsy tutored foreign students in English into her 80s and co-authored a 2014 book about her father, a renowned Johns Hopkins pediatrics professor. Betsy is survived by husband Philip, sons Charley and Joseph, and three grandchildren. Barbara Turlington, an education advocate, died Sept. 3 in Chevy Chase, Md. Barbara taught at Connecticut College for Women and Mount Holyoke and was on the founding committee of Hampshire College in Massachusetts. Barbara is survived by sister Sylvia Turlington O’Neill ’50. 1954 Elizabeth Dun Colten lizcolten@aol.com Good news: First great-grandchild for Fred and Elena Sogan Kyle— Jack Baird, son of their eldest son’s second daughter, born July 4, a “memorable birth date.” Larry Franck was in Maryland during Hurricane Irma, but, because of the storm-velocity reduction, things at his other home in Punta Gorda, Fla., were not as disastrous as predicted. Punky ’55 and Anne Chandler Fristrom are not traveling much these days, but had a busy summer, including a two-week trip to Ashland, Ore., with son David ’83 and his family. Bob Merin died Aug. 27. He was an anesthesiologist who volunteered extensively for church and medical causes and loved tennis, golf, boating, and scuba diving. Wife Barbara predeceased him, but he is survived by children Michael, Jan ’85, and Sara ’88, and granddaughter Katherine. Jay Ochroch says Bob played for the Long Island Lacrosse Club while in medical school, and Jay played against him as a member of the Philadelphia Lacrosse Team. Bob was also an Anesthesia Boards examiner who interviewed son Andrew Ochroch ’87. Small-world department. I maintain that an exceptional number of Swarthmoreans still volunteer. As noted in “Planning to Live to 100? Volunteer!” in the June/July AARP magazine: “The obvious payoff is the social good done. … Findings indicate that—in general—the older the volunteer, the greater the personal benefits of volunteering.” Do you fit this category? Check in, please. 1955 Sally Schneckenburger Rumbaugh srumbaugh@san.rr.com Despite breaking her wrist in a fall, Ann Imlah Schneider was determined to stay active. She organized a full-day trip to Virginia wineries for fellow residents at her retirement community, and soon she was typing with two hands and driving to the airport to pick up her son and his family on their return from Corsica. She is eager to get back to traveling. Bill Bosbyshell retired for the second time in January 2017. After his official retirement in 1999, he assisted with Sunday services at St. Bede’s Episcopal Church in St. Petersburg, Fla. He enjoys sitting in the pew for the first time in 59 years. Bill and wife Caroline Thomas Bosbyshell have traveled extensively in retirement and, following an August 2016 Great Lakes cruise, had a mini-reunion with Bob ’54 and Mary Jean Gray Schless in Chicago. “It was a wonderful visit,” Caroline says. At home, she stills enjoys gardening. I wish I could share the photo she sent of their lovely backyard. Caroline kindly sent me the impressive, four-column New York Times obituary for Roger Abrahams, who died June 20. It was Roger, she tells me, who reconnected her with Bill in 1956. When Roger came to visit her apartment-mate, Lois Lesley Donohue, he brought along Bill. That meeting led to their marriage. Roger explored the profane and vibrant folklore of black everyday life in his many books and music albums. Remember him and Ralph Rinzler ’56 singing folk songs? One anecdote from the obituary made me chuckle. It seems that when Roger turned in his dissertation, “Negro Folklore From South Philadelphia,” the head of Penn’s English department told Roger’s adviser: “We cannot have a dissertation with such foul language in the English department. If you want to approve it, go and have your own department.” The university opened a department of folklore and folklife, and Roger got his doctorate. I urge you to look up the obituary (bit.ly/RAbrahams). It’s worth reading. This column would be more worth reading if I had more material. Please write! 1956 Caro Luhrs celuhrs@verizon.net Jessica Heimbach Raymond spent three weeks in Heidelberg, Germany, this summer, studying German language and culture at the Goethe-Institut. The 50 course participants, from 18 countries, were divided based on speaking ability. Jessica was the only American in her small group and the oldest in the entire program. Jessica next traveled to Bamberg, a “charming medieval town and a UNESCO World Heritage site.” She did a lot of sightseeing and got lost several times but “always managed to find my hotel.” Sigrid and Bob Adler’s grandson Bronimir Adler-Ivanbrook ’17 graduated from Swarthmore in May. The Adlers were there, and Bob remembered “how fortunate we were to have the opportunity CAPTION THIS to study and grow in that splendid setting.” Bob’s comparison with other colleges became particularly vivid the very next day when granddaughter Maira received her diploma from the University of Maryland. “Sitting in an enormous, cavernous UMD athletic facility provided a vivid contrast” to what he had just witnessed and had experienced himself 61 years ago. How many of you know the name of our 1956 commencement speaker? Bob and I had forgotten. Joanna Rudge Long’s detective work uncovered that it was Judge Charles Wyzanski. Does anyone recall what he said? Trudy Richter Mott-Smith (pg. 75) has contributed her energy and skills to many important social causes. Now in her 80s (like all of us), her latest venture has been to develop a solar panel for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Concord, N.H. The congregation wanted to reduce its electric bill and also believed the reduction of CO2 emissions was mandated by the Seventh UU Principle: “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” Trudy was selected as project manager. After a year-and-a-half of work, including planning and zoning, 100 solar panels now rest on mounting driven into the ground by the church, concealed from the street by shrubbery. The project’s total cost was $130,000, about $30,000 of which was spent on zoning and planning approvals. The panels have been producing electricity since May, saving the church about $5,000 per year. Great job, Trudy! 1957 Minna Newman Nathanson jm@nathansons.net YOUR CAPTION HERE! Be creative! Submit a caption by March 15 to cartoon@swarthmore.edu. To see last issue’s cartoon with suggested captions, go to Page 65. Mayer Davidson and his wife moved into a continuing-care retirement center: like being on a cruise ship (many activities, meals served in a communal dining room, a much-smaller living WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 49 class notes space, and people around all the time) but without the waves. He can’t yet take full advantage as he still runs diabetes programs in a safety-net Los Angeles County outpatient clinic and a “free” clinic, sees endocrine patients, teaches medical students, and does clinical research at Charles R. Drew University. The FDA approved the insulin-dose-adjustment algorithms he and his son’s company computerized. Mayer adds that—as his grandparents immigrated—he is an example of how immigrants enhance the economy and well-being of Americans. At the end of the summer, Barbara Fassett Oski Beane moved from Florida to Vermont near daughter Jessica. While at her Lake Carey, Pa., house for the summer, Barbara and daughters Jessica and Jane had lunch with Roger ’53 and Lily Anne Frank Youman and their daughter Nancy; the girls were childhood friends. Barbara and Jessica also had lunch in NYC with Sari Ginsburg Seiff’s daughter, Judy, and her father, Eric. The Oskis and Seiffs shared a camping trip years ago. Several classmates died recently. Please send any remembrances. Clifford Earle died in June. Though Cliff majored in physics, music was important to his time at Swarthmore, and friend Peter Schickele dedicated several pieces to him. Cliff and Elizabeth “Lisa” Deutsch Earle ’59 married as National Science Foundation fellowship graduate students at Harvard. Cliff spent postdoc years at Princeton before joining Cornell’s math department, serving as chair until his 2005 retirement. His research on complex analysis resulted in more than 80 widely cited papers. An active musician, Cliff often accompanied singers on piano and was a church choir member. Besides Lisa, Cliff is survived by daughters Rebecca and Susan and two grandsons. Thomas Maher also died in June, survived by wife Helen and children Thomas and Rebecca. Tom majored in engineering and received an MBA from the University of Virginia. He worked for the President’s Office of 50 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 Emergency Preparedness and the EPA. Tom was a member of the Philadelphia Union League, an active church member, and a Red Cross volunteer. A great-greatgrandson of Gen. John T. Wilder— whose battles at Chickamauga and Chattanooga were pivotal in the Union’s Civil War victory—Tom enjoyed family Civil War history, the history of Roan Mountain, Tenn., and model trains. Stephen Pitkin died in Stuart, Fla., in August, leaving his wife of 54 years, Marcy, two children, and a granddaughter. Steve had a master’s in city planning from Penn and served in the Army and National Guard. He taught at Penn’s Fels Institute of Government and later as an adjunct with Springfield College and LSU–Shreveport. An Eagle Scout, Steve supported scouting after retirement and was active in planning associations and the Unitarian Universalist Church. He loved tennis, exploring new cities, classical music, and birding, with a lifetime count of 200 birds. 1958 Vera Lundy Jones 549 East Ave. Bay Head, NJ 08742 verajonesbayhead@comcast.net I was delighted to hear from Jim Burgwyn. Upon graduating from Swarthmore, Jim was an Army draftee. After serving, Jim earned a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. He taught history at West Chester University for more than 30 years and has written seven books, most recently Mussolini’s Last Gasp: The Italian FOLLOW US! Facebook and Instagram: @SwarthmoreBulletin #SwatBulletin Social Republic 1943–1945. Jim also played for and managed a Men’s Senior Baseball League team. “I had many wonderful times playing in tournaments in Phoenix and Florida, plus father/son games with son Ted, a star hitter and second baseman.” Jim retired in his mid-70s with a lifetime batting average of .370! Jim lives with wife Diana, a music critic, in Center City Philadelphia, and keeps fit by playing tennis. “Best to all my longlost Swarthmore friends. Do get in touch: hjburgwyn@gmail.com.” Leonard Willinger died March 10. He is survived by wife Mary Anne, four children, 12 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. Our condolences to his family. Please get in touch! Don’t forget: Our 60th Reunion is in June. I hope to see you there. 1959 Miriam Repp Staloff staloff@verizon.net I just returned from an interesting, fun-filled trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was early spring there, chilly and rainy. Visitors are treated very well, as the economy, while improving, is also subject to atomic inflation, 30 to 40 percent in the past few years. This year, the government is trying to harness inflation to about 20 percent. Since I last visited, some 30 years ago, the city has grown like a child on steroids. Tall, thin, reflective-mirrored buildings are crowded onto a square inch of ground. Apartments cost as much as $2,000 per square meter. The gracious, French-style “palaces” exist; many are disappearing. The ubiquitous tango dancers, which I recall stalking tips on almost every street, are gone, consigned to “tango shows with dinner,” principally for visitors. The young female dancers remain lithe, sequined, and acrobatic; their male partners, middle-aged, suited, and bored. Unless you want to hear more about “My Summer Vacation,” I suggest that you write and let me know what you did on yours. 1960 Jeanette Strasser Pfaff jfalk2@mac.com Peter and Barbara Hopf Offenhartz ’58 had a delightful visit with John and Yvonne Schaelchlin Palka on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle. The Offenhartzes were there to see the eclipse. “Clear skies, no smoke, and just over two minutes of totality; even saw a solar flare. As my 9-year-old grandson said, ‘Awesome!’” Johnny and Yvonne are about to undertake a major transition—they have lived in the Pacific Northwest since 1969. “Now family calls, and we are moving to Maple Grove, a suburb of Minneapolis.” Yvonne is continuing full-steam-ahead with her Sumi art. Her instruction book, Super Simple Sumi-e, has been picked up by Sasquatch Press in Seattle. Johnny’s blog, Nature’s Depths (naturesdepths.com), continues—there are whispers about turning it into a book. Chris Clague has a book recommendation: Graham Allison’s Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? “The answer seems to be yes, but we have to think about China realistically.” Our topic: In response to a classmate’s complaint about the many errors in newspapers and books, Mimi Siegmeister Koren replied, “Editors and proofreaders are so 20th century!” This set off an email exchange. Janet Lockard: “I’m still trying to make it into the late 20th century. I don’t think there’s any hope of my joining the 21st. Does anyone else choose not to have a clothes dryer or dishwasher?” Sara Bolyard Chase remembered her house from 1970, which boasted a four-legged 1926 stove and cord clotheslines in the basement laundry room. “What I love about some ‘inconveniences’ of earlier household arrangements is that they add a set of ritual observances to one’s life—daily, weekly, seasonally. One can luxuriate in the subtle sense of accomplishment of fitting necessary acts to their necessary times.” Joan Stadler Martin agreed: “We have never had a dishwasher; my husband, Michael, has always washed the dishes and even enjoys the ritual. Our dryer is used only for tumbling the stiff clothes after they have dried on the line.” But she added, “I may try a smartphone next month.” (She did! And she likes it!) So it seems that we are ambivalent about the wonders of the 21st century. Mary Lynne Ahroon Poole: “Most of us have had home computers since our 40th, when the Sw60 listserv began. My first was an Apple II in 1981. I know some of you were online long before I was. We may do without clothes dryers, but the internet is really important to all of us.” John Harbeson remembered one old technology with no regrets whatsoever: “How did we survive the reign of the Ditto master?” John Palka added: “Remember the scribing stylus with a tiny ball at the tip? It was a challenge to draw pictures with it without ripping the membrane of the master!” Joan Bond Sax: “I don’t think the current generation even knows where the word-processing commands ‘cut’ and ‘paste’ came from. I remember that for the first two issues of our reunion yearbook, not yet named The Coot, I sent out instructions that reminiscences had to fit within certain margins. They were mailed to me. A few of us gathered around my dining room table to cut out your contributions and paste them onto 8-by-11 sheets of paper that we copied at the copy center.” Linda Habas Mantel reported: “Kenneth and I traveled from Portland, Ore., to N.Y. yesterday via a connection in Chicago. Guess what—there are almost no flight monitors in the airport to let you know your gate! ‘Everyone’ has a phone app that shows all the information. Well, I don’t have an iPhone, and Kenneth goes into a minor panic if he can’t see a monitor. Finally found one just before the escalator—whew!” Kay Senegas Gottesman remembered writing research papers using the library, the card catalog, and browsing in the stacks. “We hosted Swarthmore students for 10 years while they were in the D.C. area for unpaid internships. One topic discussed at dinner was the differences in our experiences. They couldn’t understand how we wrote papers without the internet. I explained that either way you have to know what questions to ask, what you are looking for, and how to recognize relevant information when you see it. I’d also point out the old way was easier, since there was a finite amount of material to search through in the physical library. I would always end by noting that it was my/our generation that was responsible for the origins of today’s technology.” And a few tidbits from Sue Willis Ruff: WTF meant Wednesday, Thursday, Friday; when we misspelled, we couldn’t blame spell-check; only the Three Billy Goats Gruff had to worry about trolls. Topic to be continued … 1961 Pat Myers Westine pat@westinefamily.com This was written on the first day of autumn and won’t be read until the new year. Please send me your holiday letters and updates—I know that everyone is doing interesting, fulfilling activities and traveling to fascinating places in retirement. I appreciate classmates who answer my requests for news. Mary Lou Jacobson CottonMiller writes from New York state that she retired as Ulster County Community College’s registrar 14 years ago and loves being active in all her groups—meditation, memoir writing, book club, French conversation, wellness, church, choir—and traveling the world with husband Dave Miller. She has three Cotton sons: The oldest, Will, is a Cooper Union grad who has been with NYC’s Mary Boone Gallery for 18 years and had a show at its uptown location this fall; middle son Keith, an Oberlin Conservatory grad, finished a three-month tour (piano/keyboard) with Idina Menzel’s band and toured with Joan Osborne in the fall; and the youngest, Neil, is the “mainstream” (her word, not mine) one who works for a computer company in Austin, Texas. After 30 years in Ashland, Ore., Sandra Dixon and husband Arthur downsized and moved to Portland, Ore., to spend time with their only grandchild, Scarlet, 4. Sandra left her staff psychiatrist job when they moved, but soon expects to work about eight hours a week at a crisis clinic. This past year, she played violin with the University of Portland orchestra, but she is looking for new playing opportunities now that the group doesn’t need community members. As we get older, our lives are a mixture of good and sad news. Faith Blocksom Gildenhuys sent both. She and husband Dion moved from Ottawa, Ontario, to Victoria, British Columbia, in 1997 when they retired from university teaching positions: she from Carleton University, where she taught English; he from McGill, where he taught mathematics. Faith keeps active as a freelance editor for government departments and scholarly journals. Son Peter has two children and is a philosophy professor at Lafayette College, and daughter Anne has three children and is a biomedical engineer in Ottawa. Their family gives them great pleasure, but their lives changed in 2011 when Dion was diagnosed with Parkinson’s “plus” (depression and dementia), which became increasingly serious. After caring for him at home for five years, Faith reluctantly moved him to a care facility last year. She does not travel much anymore, but she and Dion enjoyed past trips to Europe and China. She would love to hear from anyone traveling to her end of the continent. I, Pat, am finishing a series of terms (seven years in all) on my retirement community’s Resident Advisory Council, all as secretary. (What else?) The RAC Constitution requires a two-year hiatus after two terms. I will remain active as secretary of two other groups and involved in myriad other clubs and groups. My youngest grandson is a freshman at Slippery Rock (Pa.), and my youngest granddaughter, Kira Emmons ’20, is a sophomore at Swarthmore after spending much of the summer doing research for the engineering department. 1962 Evelyn Edson 268 Springtree Lane Scottsville, VA 24590 eedson@pvcc.edu After all the news I garnered at the reunion, I am suffering from a dearth of information. Even most of my trustworthy correspondents are silent. Jackie Lapidus and Lise Waldman Menn continue to promote their anthology, The Widows’ Handbook, by giving readings with contributors and widowed friends, and speaking with therapists, bereavement groups, and educators. Still waiting for that call from Oprah. Jackie reports that the sailing expedition with Sandy and Izzie Phillips Williams ’63 went off as planned and was a delight, despite cloudy, cool weather. She also shared the news of Stanley Rosenberg’s new book, Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve, released in December. Stanley has “more or less” retired from his bodywork practice and moved to Copenhagen to be closer to his children and grandchildren. Lee Moore, last seen in Class Notes sailing his boat, About Time, in the Caribbean, writes from the Hurricane Irma zone that he and his wife had to evacuate their home in Florida for Albany, Ga. “We were treated royally and made to feel at home. Despite the circumstances, WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 51 class notes ALUMNI PROFILE we enjoyed it.” Many of their northern Caribbean friends were not so fortunate. He grieves over the destruction. “We will contribute what we can—it won’t be enough. But everyone can help a little, and collectively it will add up.” Dave Burack is “semi-retired” but still works on environmental assessments in such exotic locations as the Mongolian– Russian border, Nepal (a powertransmission project), and Vietnam (highway and bridge construction in the Mekong Delta). When not traveling, he lives “independently and happily” in Brooklyn, near his son and daughter, their significant others, and a grandson, 8. “Sadly, I need to report the passing of my former wife, Lani Despres ’63, whom many classmates knew and loved, last February after a lengthy illness but with her family in close attendance.” I, Evelyn, returned from four weeks in Japan, where my sister and I visited my niece, Ursula, who works there. It was a special treat to have a “native” guide, as she speaks Japanese and helped us navigate Tokyo’s subway and supermarkets. I had always wanted to see Japan, and found the beauty of its gardens, the serenity of its shrines and temples, and the civility of its people completely satisfying. So write to me! 1963 Diana Judd Stevens djsteven1@verizon.net Who is thinking about our 55th? Irma survivor Polly Glennan Watts, recovered from femur fracture, volunteered to help with music. Suzi Merrill Maybee, who visited Swarthmore this fall to see her granddaughter play volleyball, looks forward to the reunion. Bruce Leimsidor’s reunion plans depend on whether he returns to Chechnya to teach this spring. Last summer, Bruce taught about immigration and asylum in Bucharest. Anne 52 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 Howells is tantalized by reunion prospects. In June, Anne was ordained as a novice Zen priest— not something she imagined for herself when she retired and moved to Seattle. She still plays chamber music, participates in book groups, and travels, and is shedding possessions before moving to a retirement residence. Mired down in condo and dancecamp stuff, Jane Jonas Srivastava says we will have to wait for the story of the 96 needles, perhaps until reunion. Seth Armstrong, who wants to attend, wrote a 200-page paper, “Flaming Moderate,” about all potential future American policies. Recently, Seth traveled to Morocco and Sevilla. Rich (Dick) Burnes and wife Judy planned to attend our 50th, but the heavy rains (remember them?) kept them at home. Last June, they spent a night (excellent food and accommodations) at the new Inn at Swarthmore. Rich says they hope to get back there—which may mean they will attend our 55th. In September, Austine Read Wood Comarow, who wants to attend our reunion, started Osher Lifelong Learning classes at UNLV. Sandy Hutchison Smith isn’t sure whether she and Rad will attend our 55th. If their granddaughter, a Temple freshman, is still in Philly in June, they might. The Smiths and their family spent a week at Arch Cape, Ore. Rad and Sandy enjoy the many activities of Ann Arbor, Mich., including Osher Lifelong Learning. Kevin Cornell says Jeb Eddy plans to attend our reunion. Kevin injured his shoulder while working at the farm and asks anyone with advice about replacement surgery to contact him. Kevin and wife Pat’s geothermal/solar-energy heating and cooling system at the farm has them in the black for both. Next up for the Cornells: downsizing their D.C. house. When Linda and Evan Smith are in Maryland, the Cornells see them often. Between selling her D.C. house and moving to Seattle, Gail MacColl stayed at Bob and Caroline Eubank Lyke’s place while they were in Japan, where Caroline lived for several years. For the second time in just over a year, Kathie Kertesz moved within Mill Valley, Calif., to a place with a lovely landscaped private patio. Marianne and Phil Wion celebrated their 50th anniversary in Switzerland with family. Holly and John Cratsley celebrated theirs with family at a Wyoming ranch. In October, the Cratsleys were in Japan for the 20th anniversary of their sister-city relationship, Concord, Mass., and Nanae, Hokkaido. Hans Treuenfels and spouse Terri Stebbins spent four months on their boat in southeast Alaska enjoying the wilderness, virtually no internet or cellphone connections, and no TV or newspapers. David McLanahan toured Germany, Croatia, and Greece. Helen Rees Lessner cruised from Vancouver to LA. Dave ’62 and Alice Handsaker Kidder visited their son, a United Airlines pilot, who lives in Guam. At home, Alice promotes speaking opportunities for an organizer of Black Lives Matter, Karlene Griffiths Sekou. Holly Humphrey Taylor is determined to retire and has set June to resign from the boards on which she serves. Meanwhile, she enjoys visits from family. One of Atala Perry Toy’s photographs received best of show at the Midwest Museum of Natural History. Several others were accepted into regional juried shows. Dan Menaker likes comparing Amazon book rankings with Leo Braudy: The African Svelte for Dan and Haunted for Leo. Dan is working on three books. For Book I, so far, he has “A…” More on Books II and III next column. Pat Horan Latham has many hearings scheduled for her arbitration work, which she loves. She is on the board of a federal credit union in Florida. David and Marilyn Tindall Glater, Holly and John Cratsley, Dorothy Earley Weitzman, Nancy Braxton, Ellie Jahoda Horwitz ’62, and Alice Carroll Swift ’61 attended the memorial Friends meeting celebrating Robert Tinker’s life. After the summer email telling of the deaths of Susannah “Sukey” Stone Eldridge (July 28) and Rosalie Berner Fedoruk (July 30), Terry Spruance, a voice not heard from in years, called. Terry continues part-time CPA work and enjoys his granddaughter, bridge, tai chi, reading, and the sensational garden wife Anne created. Our class will miss Sukey, who relished the freedom to travel, study, and spend time with family and friends after she retired, and Rosalie, a devoted student of Tibetan Buddhism and perpetual scholar. We’ll also miss Lani Despres and David Bartlett, whose deaths I learned about on deadline. More in spring’s Class Notes. 1964 Diana Bailey Harris harris.diana@gmail.com swarthmore64.com In my 15 years of preparing our Class Notes, this is the first time that I’ve not had to trim—usually with painful severity—the abundant news that you so faithfully provide, in order to fit the 800-word limit. I think it’s because we’re now Garnet Sages. It’s not that we have fewer activities to report, but, by tradition, we now have a column in each of the Bulletin’s four annual issues, instead of two: spring and fall. Not only does that mean generating more news; it also means seeking updates before the last news you sent me appears in print. Our Class Notes editor said we could choose to revert to our former spring/fall schedule. Since we have our terrific swarthmore64. com, generously sponsored and expertly curated by Bernie Banet to cover our “breaking news,” I think our previous rhythm makes sense. From now on, news will be due only at winter and summer solstice. We’ll be out of sync for one more cycle, since I must ask for news for the spring issue before you read this in the winter issue. Then we can proceed on an even keel. Barbara Kline King wrote, right after I’d turned in the last column: “Our oldest grandson, Evan, “The uniqueness of Swarthmore was that it gave a liberal arts education to an engineering student who had never gotten that before,” says David Pao ’65. THE EYES HAVE IT A proud scientist, engineer, doctor, & dad by Carol Brévart-Demm DAVID PAO ’65 had just finished kindergarten in Nanking, China, when his father received an overseas assignment—requiring Pao to repeat the school year in the United States. “I wonder if that affected my psyche,” he jokes, but moving between cultures gave him a unique perspective throughout his education. Initially slated to go to MIT, Pao instead accepted a scholarship to study engineering at Swarthmore. The uniqueness of the College’s liberal arts education opened a different door entirely: Swarthmore allowed Pao an extra year to complete medical school requirements as well as his B.S. in electrical engineering. Completing medical school at Columbia University and an internship at George Washington University, Pao pursued a residency in ophthalmology at Thomas Jefferson University–Wills Eye Hospital, inspired by his curiosity about his own near-sightedness and new technology in the field. “Initially, I was a very rare person there, the only engineer among 125 medical students,” he says, “but engineering lends itself to ophthalmology, since it includes physics, optics, and measurement.” Today a clinical associate professor in private practice at Jefferson University–Wills Eye, Pao holds six patents and has developed numerous instruments, including a bipolar cautery to seal microscopic vessels and an electrophysiological system to measure electrical signals from the eye and brain. He also advocates for bipartisan patient-protection legislation. “Swarthmore reinforced my moral and ethical commitment to society,” says Pao. A former president and current board member of the Pennsylvania Academy of Ophthalmology and the Bucks County Medical Society, he has served on numerous committees of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Pennsylvania Medical Society. Pao is now turning his attention to plasma, the ionized gas referred to as the fourth state of matter. (The sun and lightning are examples of hot plasma; fluorescent bulbs, certain TV screens, and ozone water treatment are examples of cold.) “The field of plasma medicine is unlimited,” he says. “We are at the same point as when Benjamin Franklin discovered what could be done with electricity without being electrocuted. We must encourage researchers to explore this area—the United States has only 10 plasma medicine departments, whereas Asia and Europe have more than 50—and counting.” He’s working on refining a handheld medical plasma probe, to be produced this year. Among his key colleagues are Greg Fridman and Justine Han of Drexel’s plasma medicine department; Ralph Eagle of Wills Eye Hospital; and ophthalmologist daughter Kristina Pao ’04. “Kristina and I experienced unique father-daughter bonding with time spent in the operating room performing eye surgery,” he says. He’s proud of her—and of all his fellow family alumni. In addition to Kristina, they include his other daughters, Jennifer ’01 and Tiffany ’06; sons-in-law Thomas Mather ’00 and Paul Thibodeau ’06; brother Peter ’53; and great-nephew James ’13. With the success other countries have had with improving their antisepsis, wound-healing, cancer treatments, and even crop yields thanks to plasma, Pao’s hoping that his family’s Swarthmore bond pays off in other ways, too. “I foresee us plasma researchers collaborating with the Scott Arboretum,” he laughs, “to grow the world’s largest leafy plant for agriculture and medicine!” WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 53 class notes graduated from Princeton with high honors in economics and he’s got a full-time job in Chicago.” Congrats, Barbara—and Evan! John Simon reports, “My 10-month CAT scan last week is clear!” Congrats to you, too, John. Along similar lines, Peter Freedman reports: “At men’s group, we talked about our various ailments and how we are handling them, sharing sympathy and good ideas. I’m the oldest in our group. Life is good, if sometimes achy. “Just spent a weekend in Minneapolis watching my twin 14-year-old grandchildren and 3,000 other kids compete in the national Ultimate Frisbee tournament—a beautiful game to watch. Remember Frisbee at S’more? Two of Elise’s games were live-streamed on ESPN. I’m still a terror at ping-pong at 75! “I reconnected with Bob Olshansky this summer for a nice lunch outside Boston, and am Facebook friends with Bruce Leimsidor ’63, an immigration expert in Venice who makes the most interesting posts. Also hanging out with Barbara and Dan Pope ’66 when they are in town— they live in Eugene, Ore., and also have a condo in Portland. Ran into my sister’s friend Janine Fay ’67 in Somerville, Mass. “Waiting for Mueller to finish his job finishing off President Twitter … want to see him in his new striped suit.” Jerry Blum reports: “Wife April and I continue our dancing life. Sept. 8–10 will be our 11th FootFall Dance Weekend. We are hosting a series of Third Thursday Challenging English Country Dance workshops at our home and will attend five dance weekends plus a one-day English Country Dance Ball this fall. As we both proceed into our 70s, dancing keeps us young.” Ann McNeal still clerks Mount Toby Friends Meeting in Leverett, Mass., and appreciates “the terrific opportunities for growth in spiritual, interpersonal, and personal dimensions. I also had a painting accepted into the Northampton, Mass., Biennial—it’s not Venice!—an abstract based on impressions of the Grand Canyon.” 54 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 BULLETIN BOARD Notes and announcements from our staff. ARTFULLY CRAFTED Were you fortunate enough to take a course with Professor Emerita T. Kaori Kitao? Help us pay tribute to this Swarthmore living legend by sharing your memories of her. HIGHS AND LOWS It takes courage to fail—and it’s not always easy for Swarthmoreans. Big or small, what have you learned from failing? PET PROJECT Do you have unusual or just-plain-beloved pets? We’d love to hear about the animals in your life and what they mean to you. bulletin@swarthmore.edu Duncan Foley, the Leo Model Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research, received the Guggenheim Prize in the History of Economic Thought for 2017, recognizing lifetime achievement in the field of economics. Congrats, Duncan! 1965 Kiki Skagen Munshi kiki@skagenranch.com smore65.com David Darby wrote a note some time back about moving to Fiji. Being prosaic, I didn’t realize he was joking. (After all, moving to Fiji isn’t that far out of the ordinary for our class, is it?) “We sold our Seattle condo and now live only in Montana,” he writes. “I will try to be more discreet in my use of alternative facts and fake news in the future, since dozens of friends were planning to visit or regaling us with their own trips to Fiji.” Almost as exotic as Fiji, Leonard Barkan writes that in recognition of his recent book, Berlin for Jews, the German ambassador invited him to speak at the embassy in D.C. on Nov. 9 in commemoration of Kristallnacht. “Too weird?” he adds. “You decide.” Ursula Poole Carter: “Richard and I spent our summer break at our chalet in the Maures hills in Provence (formerly my parents’ retirement home). During an earlier ‘gardening trip’ in May, we explored the particularly breathtaking ancient hilltop village of St. Paul de Vence near Nice. I am blessed with good health and enjoy my membership in a small, longstanding book group in Exeter, England, as well as a steady diet of cryptic crosswords and killer sudokus.” Nancy Weiss’s communication from Charlottesville, Va., was much darker. “Unfortunately, I will always remember what happened Aug. 12, my 74th birthday. My wife, Carol, was in the church the night before, when the KKK and neo-Nazis marched through the UVA campus toward the church with their flaming torches. It felt like they were going to set fire to the church, which had over 1,000 people inside. Instead, they turned their attention to UVA students and staff. We still have about 30 people in the hospital. “I am still in a state of disbelief … that this happened here in our beautiful town. “On a happier note, we went with friends to be in the path of the total eclipse, and it was spectacular. It was eerie to feel it suddenly get cold, to see what looked like sunset all around the horizon, and to hear some roosters start crowing. This month we are off to southeastern Peru and the Manu road with the Amazon Conservation Association.” Diana Burgin still writes about the music world. “This summer my ‘double’ book appeared [two books in one volume on the life of her father, Richard Burgin]. Also, Performing Life: The Story of Ruth Posselt, American Violinist won a Certificate of Merit in the Association for Recorded Sound Collections 2017 Awards for Excellence. My next project is a translation of and commentary on five long poems by Marina Tsvetaeva called Five Hard Pieces.” A children’s book I, Kiki, wrote about India, Nonny, Nani, also appeared. Ann Erickson got “unloader” leg braces to help arthritic knees and can now enjoy walks in the redwoods again … but not the weekend she wrote, as the then-100-degree air was filled with smoke. “My thoughts often are about slowing down climate change. I am glad more Swarthmoreans are increasingly active in this cause.” In June, Peter Bloom retired from teaching after 47 years in Smith College’s music department. He is still working on books and articles. The hurricanes that brought so much damage to the Caribbean and southeastern U.S. touched some classmates. Linda Pike Goodloe was in the middle of Irma and “had a terrifying night, but the eye wall started to disintegrate before it got to us. Still both north and south of us there is much more devastation, many flooded, tens of thousands without power.” She adds that it felt weird to be in a mobile-home park on the water, lots of houses very old, with almost no damage. Lucia Norton Woodruff lived vicariously through Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath from Austin, Texas, through hearing about it from her daughter and family in Houston. Steve Saslow has been hiking and seeing Oregon with Dana Carroll, Will Bloch, and other Swarthmoreans. “After hearing about 10 days ago that the nation’s lowest temperature that day was 31 degrees in Gothic, Colo., I dug a bit to learn whether Swarthmore continues to be associated with the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory there.” He found that it is, though not as deeply as in the time of Dr. Robert Enders. Finally, we have lost another classmate. Linda LaMacchia died July 30 in Dharamsala, India. A memorial was held Sept. 2 at Kunzang Palyul Choling, the Tibetan Buddhist temple where she often went in Poolesville, Md. Dorita Sewell and Vivian Ling attended. 1966 Jill Robinson Grubb jillgrubb44@gmail.com With hurricanes, floods, fires, choking smoke, and continuing injustice in America, “Haply I think on thee,” solvers, thinkers, doers, Renaissance men and women, and dear classmates. We lost Judy Walenta to decades of cancer Sept. 1, her daughter, Angola, holding her hand as she passed. How lovely we could see this brave, gentle soul at our 50th Reunion! From pneumonia to a thoracic aortic aneurysm to an enlarged right ventricle and hypertrophy, Pam Corbett Hoffer discovered sleep apnea was the cause and now champions the CPAP machine. Sandra Moore Faber received the Gruber Award for her studies of the structure, dynamics, and evolution of galaxies. This column can’t do justice to her riveting scientific insights. Jody Pullen Williams reminds us to seize the moment and enjoy each other now. She invites us to visit her Airbnb as guests: 65 Ponce de Leon Drive, Ormond Beach, FL 32176. Also on the Class of ’66 B&B list, Jane Carol Johnson Glendinning finished building a three-season cottage on Providence Island in Lake Champlain, Vt. Jim Tear was able to move from Tampa, Fla., to Midlothian, Va., on Sept. 14, despite Hurricane Irma. He was eager to return to the eastern deciduous forest and the Piedmont plateau, where he enjoys photography, hiking, and biking. Bob ’64 and Catherine Young Kapp got their fifth golden retriever for their golden anniversary. Another gift to themselves was a trip to Spain and Portugal. On the home front, Lisa and Joe Becker are shredding a lifetime collection of paperwork but enjoy watching The Lead with Jake Tapper, John Oliver, and Grantchester. Suzy Fox highly recommends Heir to an Execution, the 2004 documentary produced by Ivy Meeropol, daughter of Mike Meeropol ’64. In a series of moving interviews, Ivy explores the fate of her grandparents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, with integrity and openness. Suzy came away with a tremendous admiration for Mike and thinks we should show the film at a reunion. Over a lovely lunch in NYC, Janaki (Wendy) Hughes Patrik and Judy Petsonk explored how aging has enriched their respective arts. Judy claims life’s complications have helped her better imagine complex motivations, missed cues, and the unacknowledged fears of characters in her novels. She now has the patience to revise, playing with complex structure and points of view. On one busy day, Judith Graybeal Eagle watched a Spanish soap, cleaned an aging dog, replaced old appliances, recharged a shrubbery trimmer, sliced a cold Okinawan purple potato for scooping Greek yogurt dip, warmed to good wishes from Roy Van Til, considered reading Andre Agassi’s Open, hid two clarinet reeds in a sewing box, weighed the saving wisdom of top journalists, and reviewed video of a new granddaughter. Dulany Ogden Bennett enjoys serving on Kendal at Hanover’s board. Meanwhile, she spends time with her baby granddaughter, getting her ready for Swarthmore lacrosse. Martin Ewing shared memories: “As freshmen, poking around musty Beardsley storage with John Cheydleur and Alan Douglas ’65; finding remains of old WSRN, long off the air; wondering how to restore it, certain that every college needed a radio station; consulting with Evan Deardorff ’63, who knew where the bodies lay; proposing to use College money to put ’SRN into studios in upper Parrish; relating to facilities staff; placing transmitters in dorm basements; measuring FCC field strengths; and managing wily on-air talent, keeping their heads above the academic waters. Oh, and Eva Reissner [Ewing].” Linda Lynes Groetzinger’s most notable moment was serving birthday cake on an upside-down drawer. The day before school started this fall, Tom Riddell and wife Meg took their local grandkids (ages 12, 9, 9, and 6) out for the day. Breakfast at Miss Flo’s diner, a 2.5-mile walk by and wade in the Mill River, snacks and drinks midday, an hour at the playground with the obligatory Meg obstacle course, a fort in the backyard, a blue heron sighting on the river (though one kid thought it was a “herring”), and then home, ready for school. Glimpses into the Depression and World War II years are seen in Wendy Prindle Berlind’s gathering of her husband’s parents’ letters from the ’30s and ’40s. Years ago, Eleanor Bly Sutter introduced author/conductor Joel Sachs to the music of Arvo Part and a score of thenunknown composers from the Soviet Union. He just wrote to tell Ellie of discovering, in the German Historical Museum in Berlin, a letter from Einstein to an organization trying to get visas for Jews trapped in Germany. Einstein recommended a young violinist named Boris Schwarz, to whom Ellie had written to see if he wanted her collection of Soviet compositions. Schwartz put her in touch with Sachs, who made the compositions famous. Query: How are we adventurous? 1967 Donald Marritz dmarritz@gmail.com swarthmore67.com For those who attended our 50th Reunion, the memories are still dancing—well, OK, walking—in our heads. Thanks again to Belle Vreeland Hoverman and everyone who attended. If you did not, please consider coming to the 100th. If you, like the grasshopper, have neglected to save for your dotage, please note that Jan Vandersande has published A Short and Simple Guide to the Best Bets in the Casino. Jan calls it “a must-read for anybody who goes gambling. It will very likely save you money, and you might even make money.” Kip Allen retired from classical music radio announcing, but not before making his station the Arbitron highest-rated in the country. He also recorded Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, doing all the voices, as Dickens purportedly did, says Kip. It’s available on Amazon, “along with at least 100 other readings. Some are pretty good, but mine holds its own.” Parkinson’s continues to present challenges for Kip: Physical movement is erratic, and the disease has begun to diminish his voice, so the Dickens recording came “just in time.” Barry Feldman ’68’s series of constructions, “The Portables,” saluting and sometimes sending up makers and shakers of the 20thand early-21st-century art world, is on Instagram, @barry_g_feldman. Tasso Feldman, son of Barry and Randy Warner, was in a play last spring at Princeton’s McCarter Theater. Maybe because I, Don, find myself listing (to port? to claret?), I lean toward lists. Font size matters. Chuck Rosenberg cheerfully supplied the following updates, in convenient, bite-size form: 1. Last June, Carol Weiss Rosenberg ’66 and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary. WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 55 class notes ALUMNI PROFILE 56 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 a variety of deportation/removal cases. 1969 Jeffrey Hart hartj@indiana.edu Glenda Rauscher died March 18. We are all grateful for the many years she spent as class secretary. I posted an obituary on the class Facebook page. I will be reviving a regular class email to supplement this column. Feel free to offer suggestions for how to improve it. John McKendry reports: “It was four years ago that I had my first bear in the yard. I had forgotten that it was in August; thought it was more a winter thing. I still haven’t fully gotten the hang of living out in the wilderness.” Subhashini Saghal Ali was interviewed about a film based on the Indian National Army trials (bit. ly/Subhashini). Fred Feinstein was in South Carolina to view more than two minutes of total eclipse. Randy Larrimore saw the eclipse in Hillsboro, Mo: “Wasn’t as dark as I thought it would be. Nor did the temperature drop that much—but it was 88 degrees. Pretty weird, though, as it got darker and darker. Could see planets. The wind did stop. For a true space cadet, this was pretty neat.” Kristin Wilson travels back and forth to NYC and Paris to visit her son, a professor of 19th-century French art at Stern College for Women. She still works for Kaiser Permanente in the Bay Area, designing IT-system changes. Ellen Daniell, husband David, and daughter Abby enjoyed diving and hanging out at Anthony’s Key Resort in Roatan, Honduras, in January 2017. Elizabeth Coleman wrote a poem about her mother featured on Poets Reading the News (bit.ly/ ElizabethColeman). Ellen Schall said she was “proud to have completed a 30-day meditation challenge at MNDFL. Amazing studio.” David and Joan Glass Hilgers attended the American Bar Association’s Health Law Section meeting in March in New Orleans. They dined at Antoine’s while there. Rich Rinaldi had his left knee replaced in June, but is recovering nicely. Belle Brett keeps a blog on downsizing (bit.ly/BelleBrett). Anne Lowry Klonsky ’71 and her husband stayed at the Atlantic Inn on Block Island, R.I., in August. Mike Sollins and his family visited Nova Scotia this summer. Randy Holland joined Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as senior of counsel in the Wilmington, Del., office. He retired from the Delaware Supreme Court in March after more than 30 years. Sarah Barton and husband Joseph “live on the side of a mountain overlooking the Matanuska Glacier, about 100 miles northeast of Anchorage, Alaska. This place includes a home and laboratory, with experiments in water, solar, gardening, heating, lighting, training, art, alternative energy, music, and communitybuilding. I still consult with Alaskan museums and work on Arctic policy. Life is made more grand with four grandsons. Come visit.” Tom McKay posted music by the Lake Effect Winds quintet, in which he plays clarinet (facebook. com/LakeEffectWinds). Michael Vitiello lectured in June on legalizing marijuana in Italy (coals to Newcastle?). He also toured a manufacturer of balsamic vinegar. I hope he will share his recipe for risotto with red wine. Cardiologist Felix Rogers retired in June from Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital in Michigan— not going cold turkey, but reducing his hours. Dorothy Twining Globus has been traveling back and forth visiting her grandson in the U.K. and her granddaughter in Manhattan. Her garden on Fire Island is flourishing. Carl Kendall still commutes between New Orleans and Fortaleza, Brazil. He received a Science without Frontiers Award from the Brazilian government to train students in public health. Ronald Krall lives in Steamboat Springs, Colo., where he and his wife operate Off the Beaten Path, an independent bookstore, coffeehouse, and bakery cafe. 1971 Bob Abrahams bobabrahams@yahoo.com swarthmore71.org We are living in interesting times, and our classmates remain involved. Dan Wasserman has been busy with his editorial cartoons for The Boston Globe. I guess there’s been something going on in politics or whatever. Don Mizell spearheaded the effort to successfully create Dr. Von D. Mizell–Eula Johnson State Park beach, Florida’s first state park named for an African-American. Don also got Hollywood, Fla., to rename three streets that honored Confederate generals for nearly 80 years. And Don was appointed to a second term on the Florida Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Congrats to Shelley Fisher Fishkin, who received a lifetime achievement award from the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College in August for “helping to assure that a rigorous, dynamic account of Twain stays in the public consciousness.” Shelley was the first woman to receive the award, established in 1991 and given every four years. “I welcome this award as a vindication in the scholarly community of my understanding of Twain as one of America’s important social critics,” Shelley says. “He was someone who asked his countrymen to confront our history of racism, hypocrisy, corruption, and greed in compelling ways. He tried to help us break out of and question a mindless acceptance of an unjust status quo. That is the Twain who matters most to me.” Rick Beatty and wife Kate visited Catherine Caufield in Point Reyes, Calif., last summer. “Though we JODI NEWTON 2. We are both thoroughly enjoying my retirement after some 40 years of teaching, though I am still “doing” art history. 3. We are going solar this fall, if the folks on the local historic preservation commission will give us the requisite “Certificate of Appropriateness.” 4. The catalog of some 70 Rembrandt prints (69 religious and one self-portrait)—which Carol and I collaborated on for more than 10 years—is finally seeing the light of day (Indiana University Press). The prints are owned by Notre Dame’s Snite Museum of Art and were on display there this fall. Make sure to see The Big Sick, in which Nick Kazan’s daughter Zoe gives a terrific performance. Belle Vreeland Hoverman says the College has agreed to pay for swarthmore67.com for the next five years so that we won’t have to deal with pop-up ads and the like. This should allow us to communicate more regularly with one another. Please send me any ideas you might have to start and maintain conversations. Mark Sherkow and husband Bob Hostettler had a great time at the reunion, after which they hiked before returning to the Midwest. Mark started a new chorus season and hopes to write and continue organizing his condo, “after 30 years of letting that slide.” I am sorry to report the deaths of two classmates. Jill Hays died in September while under hospice care at a friend’s home in Bennington, Vt. Jill’s life was distinguished by a love of travel, languages, books, and writing. She is survived by daughter Aislinn and two grandchildren. Many were shocked to hear of the death of Eric Brown, who was his usual lively self at our 50th Reunion. Eric died in August in Madison, Wis. He is survived by daughters Allison and Jillian, and wife Karen Kimball. Eric was a management consultant who loved traveling, languages, and bicycling. Too bad the College no longer has a football team, which no doubt would “take a knee” in support of racial justice and equality. My kids are both legal-aid attorneys, defending indigent immigrants in “This mosaic is made of broken pottery, stained glass, and blue wine-bottle shards,” says Gaye Goodman ’67, with her dog, Sammy. “It was inspired by a photo from Scientific American of misfolded proteins doctors are studying in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.” FREE SPIRIT Her unique journey is as colorful as her art by Jonathan Riggs WHEN YOU ask Gaye Goodman ’67 for her life story, be specific. “Cocktail waitress, belly dancer, flight attendant, art teacher—I’ve had the most checkered past of any alum I know,” she laughs. “Of course, every career was done with an abundance of intellectual insight.” Today an Albuquerque, N.M.-based artist and successful entrepreneur, Goodman has been an adventurer since childhood, when she capped off a year living in Japan with sailing around the world at age 10. “I was totally hooked on travel after that,” she says, “and it set the pattern for the rest of my life.” After Swarthmore, she lived in Switzerland, France, and Mexico but found her true home in the world of art. Supporting herself and her first husband as a door-to-door pastel portraitist in Houston, Goodman decided to strike out on her own. She moved to La Jolla, Calif., where she lived by the beach in a house full of Vietnam War fighter pilot veterans, dove for abalone, and decided to devote herself to art. “I developed a way to draw on velveteen in batik, and they sold really well,” she says. “That was the start of my actual commercial art career.” To fund it, Goodman moved to San Francisco to work for World Airways. As a flight attendant, she traveled the world anew, riding horses around Egyptian pyramids and meeting her second husband in the mists of Machu Picchu. That marriage inspired her to create large, abstract paintings; her divorce inspired her to open an art gallery in Galveston, Texas, and eventually move to Albuquerque. On the advice of her managementconsultant brother—who encouraged her to scale back on the harp lessons and professional belly-dancing side gigs—Goodman focused all her energy on Faux Real Floors, her latest business. Using artistic techniques she’d perfected over the years while innovating others, Goodman finished the concrete floor and walls of a Rio Rancho, N.M., restaurant with industry-changing aplomb. “Floor staining had been around for 60 years, but no one was thinking of it the way an artist would, and people just went nuts for what I did,” she says. “So I created a 10-chapter-long video revealing all of our secrets that we priced at $97. More than 11,000 copies sold around the world before my brother stopped counting.” As she trains her successor, Goodman focuses on her own art again and her current medium: mosaics that utilize special phosphorescent glow stones. For the beautifully broken path she’s followed over the years, it makes lovely artistic sense, too. “My life’s been a roller coaster, but I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way,” she says. “Even when it was sad, it was never dull, and ultimately fulfilling.” + MORE ART: gayegoodman.com WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 57 class notes hardly knew each another in college, we had a delightful, fun visit. Catherine even brought her Cygnet for our entertainment! I am happy we were able to connect.” Jim Colvin still loves western North Carolina. “Doing mostly trail running, having completed the Black Mountain Marathon and a 30K trail race, among others. Also continuing holistic therapy practice, singing in Asheville Choral Society, and active in growing progressive church committed to justice and inclusiveness. Give a shout if visiting the area!” And, for those of you planning ahead, Nancy Shoemaker and Rick Beatty point out that our 50th Reunion is May 27–30, 2021— Memorial Day weekend. Nancy added the event to our Class of 1971 Facebook page, facebook. com/groups/swarthmore71. Check in there and mark your calendar. 1973 Martha Shirk swarthmorecollege73@gmail.com swarthmorecollege73.com We’ve heard from quite a few longsilent classmates this year, some with 44 years of news to report. Elizabeth Enloe: “I’ve been fortunate with my work, first with the NYC–RAND Institute, followed by eight years of international relief and development in the Dominican Republic and Somalia, then 28 years leading domestic programs of the American Friends Service Committee. My Quaker membership led to board service, including at Haverford College. Neither ‘retired’ nor employed, I am enjoying an extended personal sabbatical. I share life in two locales—NYC and Beaufort, S.C.— with a loving architect partner of 20 years.” Since moving to California in 1989, Mary Ann Maggiore has been ordained as a nondenominational minister; served as a council member and mayor of Fairfax; comforted the sick as Marin 58 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 General Hospital’s chaplain; consulted and wrote a book on Raising a Sane and Successful Teen; and started the nonprofit LAUNCH (formerly Five 4 Five) to help disadvantaged youths in South-Central LA. “Thought it would be a five-year thing, but now it’s my life, and the nonprofit is chugging along pretty well. The goal is to get everyone into meaningful work.” Christine Stinson (formerly Christopher Stinson) writes: “With the elimination of my gender dysphoria, my life is simply wonderful.” She earned two doctorates—in zoology and business administration—and teaches accounting and finance at Ferrum College in Virginia. “When I’m not teaching, I’m running, writing and performing music, kayaking, cooking, reading, and gardening.” Read more about Christine at bit.ly/2gTVOnI. Jeff Schon is raising capital to launch Akili Network Inc., which would be the first commercial digital broadcast network distributing free educational entertainment content to 18 million children in Kenya. (Akili means “smart” in Swahili.) It could mean relocating to Nairobi, he reports. Read Jeff’s amusing take on how President Trump is affecting the labor force’s productivity at bit.ly/2kIiHGQ, and learn more about the vision for Akili Network at bit.ly/2ypfR4V. Karen Kelly and husband Bill Levy have lived in Williamstown, Mass., since Karen retired from her Philly-area geriatrics practice in 2011. “It has been a good move for us. I have been enjoying more free time, travel, exercise, and less anxiety.” Karen and Bill became first-time grandparents in September when daughter Emily gave birth to Penelope Mae. Two of their three kids are doctors, FOLLOW US! Facebook and Instagram: @SwarthmoreBulletin #SwatBulletin and the third is a consultant on electronic health records. David and Virginia Mussari Bates also have a new grandchild, Henry Galen Weir, born Feb. 22 to daughter Katie Bates Weir ’08 and husband Alec. Retirements: —Debra Lieberman from her faculty position in UC–Santa Barbara’s communication department. She still directs the university’s Center for Digital Games Research. —Patricia Emerson from a 30-plus-year teaching career, the last 25 at Brielle Elementary School in Monmouth County, N.J. “I am not done with education, either mine or others’, but I’m ready for change. Suggestions?” Read a lovely profile about her at bit.ly/2xYsfFt. She has moved to Oregon, “home of my birth and my heart.” —Isaac Stanley after 28 years as a business/IT analyst at MetLife. He and wife Ava Harris Stanley ’72, who practices cardiovascular medicine, celebrated 44 years of marriage and are parents of George, an electrical engineer, and Chris, a jazz trumpeter. “In ‘retirement’ I look forward to expanding my board and church leadership, with a focus on Chicago community revitalization and other learning opportunities,” Isaac writes. He is training to be a docent at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House in Chicago, and last spring completed the first round of yoga teacher training. He also sails and maintains their 39-foot 1978 Irwin Citation sailboat, Star of the Sea. —Pat McDonald and husband Tim Welles (Haverford ’68), from NYC psychotherapy practices, followed by a move to Eastham, Mass., on Cape Cod. “We decided the sea and beautiful environment were calling us to live here full time. I plan to have a small psychotherapy practice here and also hope to dive into a long-delayed genealogy research project. We both will be involved in volunteer activities, Tim with Habitat for Humanity, and I with animal rescue.” —Randy Thomas, as research director for CNRS Physiology in France. Hope many of you plan to be at Swarthmore June 1–3 for our 45th Reunion. Meanwhile, post updates at swarthmorecollege73. com or facebook.com/ SwarthmoreClassOf1973. 1975 Sam Agger sam.agger@gmail.com Suzanne Benack writes: “Is everyone else thinking about retirement? I’m hoping for spring 2019 and really looking forward to it. I’d love to hear others’ retirement fantasies. Mine involve a year of rarely being out of pajamas, working on my house, reading, cooking, and playing piano. And lots of visiting friends.” Bruce Jenkins got married two years ago; Alex Henderson attended the wedding. Gary Albright and his violinist wife, Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio, completed the 21st season of their Cactus Pear Music Festival in San Antonio. Back home in Reno, Nev., they established the nonprofit Chamber Music Reno, which offers a “Silver Soirée” house concert series, a mentoring program for high school musicians, and educational outreach events. Larry Schall writes: “Life in Atlanta remains fun and rewarding. I am deep into my 13th year as president of Oglethorpe University and hoping to make it to 15 before I figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Betty and I have found a new passion: inn-to-inn hiking. This summer, we spent 15 days drinking our way in and over the Italian Alps, first on the French border, then on the Austrian border. We still enjoy our four children and three grandchildren, especially since they all live elsewhere!” Annette DiMedio performed as soloist with orchestra at the Teatro Nacional in Guatemala this summer. David Gold writes: “It’s been 25 years since the devastation caused by Hurricane Andrew—and now Irma. Not nearly as destructive, but extremely damaging, messy, and disruptive.” Rob Crain retired from Honeywell in October after 40 years and plans to spend more time at his mountain home in Flagstaff, Ariz. He wrote from Barcelona, where he celebrated his 36th wedding anniversary. Sherry Coben writes: “After 22 years on the wrong (left) coast, my husband and I are plotting a return to the east. Our grown daughters are fairly ensconced in NYC, and our suburban nightmare of a house is still waiting for a 10-year-old and a 13-year-old to return home from school—an uneasy, unlikely mix of Miss Havisham’s dining room and an Edward Scissorhandsstyle suburb. Time to go back to civilization. Relocating at the precipice of old age is daunting, though; I suspect many classmates are dealing with this third act. One wishes there were a place to go where likeminded souls might spend their time. Not Florida. Not Arizona. Not a golf-course-centric retirement community. Something more like a liberal arts college for seniors, with lots of opportunities for learning and hanging out and artistic self-expression and communal meals and … alas. Such things are wasted on (or given to and appreciated by) the young. Wouldn’t this be a lovely time to go to college? Without all the pressure of preparing for adulting.” Kip Davis writes: “In July 2016 I reached out to the college registrar, Martin Warner, asking what I needed to complete my Swarthmore degree. After establishing that I had met the PE requirement and passed the swimming test, he said that I was one credit short of my degree requirement and a twocredit thesis short of meeting the requirements of my major, sociology and anthropology. Martin connected me with the department chair, Sarah Willie-LeBreton, who—though she was on leave— volunteered to be my adviser. Martin also pointed out that because my original thesis was an incomplete, there would be no charge from the College—so I got a 2017 experience at 1975 prices! Thanks, Mom and Dad. “I turned in my thesis in April and walked at Commencement in May (bit.ly/KipDavis). I was so touched by the outpouring of support— from the hugs I received from the registrar’s staff when I picked up my graduation packet, to the kind words I received from fellow Class of ’17 graduates, to the standing ovation I got from faculty as I received my diploma (and another hug) from President Valerie Smith. “I could not have done it (while working full time) without the support of my wife, Jill, and my kids, Sonia and Evan; the kindness of former professors Elijah Anderson and Philip Weinstein; Chris and Judy Epstein Leich, who opened their home while I researched; and Marty Spanninger ’76 and husband Bob Mueller ’68, who put me up on all my trips to campus.” Also in attendance cheering Kip were Jeffrey Scheuer and Barbara Sieck Taylor. David Cressey and Rob Wachler visited Ontario’s Killarney Provincial Park for seven days in September. “We challenged ourselves on a backpacking slog, sans devices, into remote backcountry, absorbing an astonishing landscape of pink granite and snowy-white quartzite cliffs and escarpments. Much starry campfire talk was wasted on the halcyon Swats of longgone days and nights. Robbie and I humbly apologize if y’all’s ears were burning.” 1977 Terri-Jean Pyer tpyer@hartnell.edu Donna Mundy Martin retired after 36 continuous years in high technology, despite numerous mergers and acquisitions at Digital Equipment Corp., Compaq, HP, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. She looks forward to her second act as a voice actor for public-service announcements, audiobooks, travel and tourism, and technical and instructional materials that utilize her vast experience in marketing and product management. She and husband Ralph live in Bear, Del. Their youngest daughter started medical school in the Caribbean. Congrats to Mary Lou Dymski and her soccer team, the Bay State Breakers, who in July won the Women’s Over 60 Championship at the U.S. Adult Soccer Association’s Adult Soccer Fest 2017 in Murfreesboro, Tenn. In March, Robert George (pg. 75) received an honorary doctorate from the Universitat Abat Oliba in Barcelona, Spain. And in August, Robby was honored by Baylor University when it announced the Robert P. George Initiative on Faith, Ethics, and Public Policy, a new program in D.C. The initiative held its first event in October, “Faith and the Challenges of Secularism: A Jewish-ChristianMuslim Trialogue.” Robby will be actively involved in the Baylor in Washington program while he continues as Princeton’s McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. 1979 Laurie Stearns Trescott sundncr88@comcast.net Lorin Kusmin lives near D.C. and retired after 32 years of service to the U.S. government. Twenty-seven of those were with the USDA’s Economic Research Service, concentrating mostly on the rural economy. Lorin’s intention was to work a few more years, but he chose not to finish his career working under the current administration. Wife Cathy returned full time to her speechpathology profession, which allows Lorin time to meet the needs of their two teenage daughters and four cats. Lorin wonders how classmates are labeling our life stage. “Middle-aged” might be a stretch as we enter our 60s, but “elderly” doesn’t fit, either. Are we “near old” or “oldish”? Lorin already anticipates a return to campus for our 40th Reunion. Never too early to plan for that! Since fall 2016, Peter Plocki has taken a break from defending the U.S. Department of Transportation in litigation to be the transportation secretary’s special adviser on safety oversight of D.C.’s subway system, Metrorail—a challenging yet rewarding job. In his spare time, Peter has enjoyed traveling to points from Maine to Georgia supporting wife Merry, who is taking her own challenging, rewarding break, hiking the Appalachian Trail. Janet Tognetti Schiller became a volunteer for Days for Girls about two years ago, launching the Rockville, Md., DfG team after giving a speech at a Women of Temple Beth Ami event. People are often shocked to learn that feminine hygiene is a pervasive problem not only in developing countries, but also here in the U.S.—in prisons, homeless shelters, and schools. Janet discussed this with Maryland Delegate Aruna Miller last fall, paving the way for Gov. Larry Hogan’s signing of House Bill 1067 in May. The legislation makes sanitary supplies available free of charge to homeless women and girls in shelters and schools. (Incarcerated women were already provided for.) Janet considers herself more an analyst than an advocate, but after this experience, she believes each of us has the power to make the world a better place, if we vote, persist, and stand up for what we really believe. That’s it this time around! Email me with news you’d like to share. 1981 Karen Oliver karen.oliver.01@gmail.com “Time for me to weigh in,” says Jon Berck. “After moving a couple of years ago with my wife, Suzy, WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 59 class notes from the Upper West Side to the Upper Upper West Side in Garrison, N.Y., opposite West Point, we’re continuing our journey up the Hudson Valley this fall by buying a house in Beacon, N.Y., the newest ‘new Williamsburg.’ I’ll continue my Manhattan-oriented solo law practice, while Suzy transfers her clinical psychology practice and eliminates her commute. We’re very excited. I’m celebrating by having cataract surgery and delighting in seeing the world without glasses for the first time in 50 years!” Caren Glatt shared her memories: “Swarthmore was a cool place where one could intellectualize at breakfast, love at lunch, and compare realities over dinner.” Jeff Gordon notes that when it comes to loyalty and inertia, he likely has few peers. In September 1985, two years after moving to Chicago upon getting an MBA from the University of Michigan, Jeff married the former Mindy Block and started working at the then-nanosized valuation/ corporate advisory firm of Duff & Phelps. Thirty-two years later, “both relationships are still going strong!” Jeff and Mindy (formerly an attorney, now the Midwest Kehilla relationship manager for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism), live in Highland Park, north of Chicago, and have three adult children: Matthew, an attorney (married to Shoshana, a pediatric resident), and Jonathan, a health-care consultant, both in Chicago; and Hannah, a senior brand strategist at an ad agency in NYC. His “other” long-term relationship, Duff & Phelps—as a result of organic growth and strategic acquisitions—is now the largest independent valuation company in the world. Jeff’s niche is advising boards of public and private companies. Jeff is a member of Alumni Council, which he says has been a rewarding experience, deepening his connection to the College 35 years after graduation. Thomas Hjelm of NPR was named the 2017 U.S. Chief Digital Officer of the Year by the CDO Club, an award given to inspiring digital and data leaders. Read more about his career at bit.ly/HjelmCDO or bit.ly/ 60 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 THjelm (CliffsNotes version: MFA from USC, then NBC, AOL, NY Public Radio, and NPR). Leslie Jones moved to LA in 1985 for a Ph.D. in folklore and mythology studies at UCLA, where she studied Celtic and comparative mythology and wrote a dissertation on medieval Welsh Arthurian romance. This ultimately resulted in 13 years as executive editor of the journal African Arts (published by the UCLA African Studies Center); don’t ask how, because there’s no clear through line. Her big effort of the past several years has been yanking the journal out of decades of nearbankruptcy by bringing in three institutions to form an editorial and financial consortium. It’s been such a success that Leslie was invited to talk about it at this year’s Association of American University Presses conference. “Along the way, I’ve published five books of my own on topics in folklore and mythology; worked for an encyclopedia publisher, an archaeological institute, and a journal of geophysics; spent a year in Wales on a Fulbright; and become a semiprofessional bellydancer. I seem to be settling into a life of Middle-Aged Woman With Cats-ness, with cronehood on the horizon. The last year has added political protest marches to my roster. That’s one I’m really looking forward to being able to ditch.” Swarthmore received notification of Michael Miller’s death from his husband of 33 years, Robert Seletsky. We heard separately that the Association for Environmental Health and Sciences Foundation will rename its East Coast Conference Student Competition in his memory. “Mike was an integral part of the Scientific Advisory Board, conference planning, and the student competition for many years,” the foundation said. “He was passionate about the competition and the next generation of environmental scientists who came to showcase their work at the conferences. His dedication to furthering science through knowledge, education, and the emerging leadership of students was his hallmark.” Lauren Tumminello Thomas celebrated 20 years of marriage to Peter Der Manuelian, professor of Egyptology at Harvard, and 36 years of small-apartment living in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, where she moved after graduation. After organizing concerts and lectures at the Museum of Fine Arts for 17 years, she became a writer for dot-coms and a freelance editor. Now she stays busy on the Gibson House Museum board and volunteering for the garden club and neighborhood association, protecting trees and historic architecture. She has five cats and politely ignores everyone’s reactions upon hearing that. 1983 John Bowe john@bowe.us Dan Mont writes: “The strangest thing that happened this year: My eldest son turned 30. How the heck did I get old enough for that?” Dan founded the nonprofit Center for Inclusive Policy, which focuses on education, employment, and social protection. Beth Varcoe got a horse, and husband Rod Wolfson, an architect, got a new job—at Swarthmore! He is a planner/ project manager. Kevin ’84 and Kristie Stokes Hassett’s elder son graduated from Columbia and works at Compass Lexecon, an economics/business consulting firm, while their younger son is a sophomore at St. Albans School in D.C. “Kevin and I are delighted that we still have three more years of cheering from the bleachers.” Andrea Davis enjoys directing her therapy center, playing music, running long-distance trails, and the excitement in her kids’ lives. Her children study veterinary medicine at UC–Davis and architecture at Harvard. Classmates as grandparents! Cindy White Lewellen and husband Dave still live in West Virginia, while their younger son married in April and elder son had a baby in July. Cindy is a certified music practitioner, playing harp for hospital patients in palliative care. Barry Datlof, being a procrastinator, is still deep into tween- and teen-coping years. His fertility company has started clinical trials in Hungary. Barry had a great “3B” dinner in Brookline, Mass., with Bob Lufburrow and Bruce Mallory. Leslie Johnson Nielsen has three grown kids in three states, with interests spread across an ethnomusicology Ph.D., an inprogress math education Ph.D., and work in the Bay Area. She’s added two sons-in-law in the past two summers. Leslie works at Puget Sound Educational Service District and is proud of efforts to eliminate opportunity gaps by leading with racial equity. Lauren Schmitz Isaac celebrated her first year of marriage to J. Isaac. “It’s strange to do this at this stage of life—I decided to change my name to his, and that’s a lot of work at this point!” Daughter Claire, at Clark University, is friends with Martha Swain’s daughter. Lauren saw Diane Wilder and Vivian Yeh on a visit to Philly and Ellen Andersen Benya when Ellen visited Portland, Ore., and she regularly sees Susheela Jayapal, who lives nearby. Katy Roth and Dreux Patton ’84 traveled (with kids) to Iceland, Norway, and Sweden; Patty Scholz ’85 noticed their daughter’s Swarthmore sweatshirt while on Mount Flyen in Bergen. “We just enjoyed a dinner with Dante DiPirro, Dave Pazer, and John Walsh. We plan to attend the reunion, for sure.” Nancy Burton Dilliplane is still pastoring at Trinity Episcopal Church in bucolic Bucks County, where she provides several feeding programs and the area’s Code Blue shelter for those without adequate housing on below-freezing nights. Husband Steve still works at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philly, an engineer among scientists. Congrats on their 33rd wedding anniversary, in June. Their kids are scattered from Pennsylvania to California. In June, Dave Gertler and Sue ALUMNI COUNCIL NEWS Swarthmore’s Alumni Council wrapped up its review/voting process at its fall meeting and is working on nominations for next fiscal year. Members meet on campus again in March. alumni@swarthmore.edu swarthmore.edu/alumni/alumni-council Kost commemorated their 25th anniversary with a two-week literary trip through England and Scotland. In August, their son married his college girlfriend on a lovely San Diego afternoon. They are happily adjusted to “in-law” status. Suellen Heath Riffkin will miss our 35th—daughter Becky is getting married that weekend. Suellen started a consulting gig with Friends Council on Education in Philly, improving teacher observations and feedback. She has a steady beau, a pediatric neurologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, coasting into retirement. Deb Felix writes: “I am living the dream. My college admissions advising practice is flourishing, entirely fueled by referrals from former clients. I can work from anywhere, spending fall and spring in Maryland, much of winter in Florida, and summer ‘at home’ in Wellfleet, Mass.” (Check out her yearbook picture, pg. 75.) She gained some practical new skills last summer renovating a family cottage. Joy (Susan) Hutchinson spent two years at Swarthmore before transferring to UC–Santa Cruz. She received a master’s in philosophy, cosmology, and consciousness from the California Institute of Integral Studies in 2010. She chose “Joy” “to just be joy every day” and to help herself and others “remember that we are all joy.” Her career is a mix of community organizing, activism, and healing. Nils Davis is looking for his next gig, learning big data and machine learning, and writing a book on product management, Secret Product Manager Handbook. He and wife Sally live in “the bluestate paradise,” Menlo Park, Calif., where they enjoy a weekly blues jam and dancing before heading home to Masterpiece Mystery. I very much look forward to seeing you at our 35th! 1985 Tim Kinnel kinnel@swarthmore.warpmail.net Maria Tikoff Vargas maria@chrisandmaria.com Science: One of your secretaries (Tim) went to Madisonville, Tenn., to see the eclipse. He got some pretty decent photos. Lifestyle: “During the eclipse,” writes Paula Rockovich Gable, “my husband and I drove our Prius to Cleveland’s West Side Market to buy local organic produce. Aren’t we the cliche?” Paula is the interim minister at First Unitarian Cleveland–Shaker Heights. She also finished an executive doctorate in business administration with a concentration in leadership and ethics from Georgia State over the summer. “During the eclipse, I was at the gym lifting weights with my trainer,” writes Karen Rosenthal Hilsberg. Karen left her psychology career and now researches container-recycling policy for a nonprofit think tank. She is also editing a book about the Sutra of 42 Chapters, an ancient Chinese Buddhist text; singing in a choir; volunteering; and doing homeimprovement projects—“more time to have fun.” Leslie Blum and husband David Cziner are empty nesters “and enjoying less laundry and mealplanning but do miss the kids. I’m still doing onsite employee health as an internist and loving it.” Their eldest, Jon, is a doctoral student in Juilliard’s composing program; middleman Mike is a medicalinfection data analyst. “He’s discovered a passion for microbes and epidemiology!” Sarah, the youngest, is a Colgate sophomore. Education: After seven years as assistant superintendent, Patrik Williams was promoted to superintendent of schools in Smyrna, Del. Pat had previously been an English teacher, then an associate principal in Dover. Business: Susan Gigler works at BD Biosciences in flow cytometry sales. Ben Backus writes: “I just signed on to be chief science officer for a San Francisco startup, Vivid Vision Inc. They make virtual-reality games to treat binocular vision disorders. Husband Carl and I will miss New York. It’s scary to give up being a professor with tenure, but I will get to do science in a really stimulating environment and spend less time writing grant proposals. We’ll be living in the East Bay and look forward to being near family.” That’s all for now! Keep those cards and letters coming. 1987 Sarah Wilson swarthmore87@gmail.com Coming together for our 30th Reunion, many of us had the chance to connect for the first time in three decades. Dozens of classmates who had never been to a reunion joined those who’ve been attending since we graduated. One of the weekend’s highlights was Josh Davis and Reid Neureiter taking on two students in a mock debate. They may have lost the competition to the reigning national champion, but classmates agreed their wit was unsurpassed. Josh writes that this year marks the start of college for his last two sons. Malcolm ’21 is at Swarthmore, and Andrew at Grinnell. Wife Jennifer’s Title IX investigative work keeps her busy, and Josh still practices and teaches law. The couple also participate every year in the College’s Lifelong Learning Program in Boston. This fall marked their fourth class with Philip Weinstein (who remains as inspiring and intense as he was when we were in school). Fellow debater Reid continues his practice as a civil and commercial litigator in Denver. His children with wife Nora are (almost) all grown up, with one graduated from college and living in Europe. Their second, a Wesleyan junior, is spending her year in Buenos Aires, and their third is a high school senior. The youngest plays soccer and rugby, and Reid takes photographs for the school teams. Reid also spends his free time cycling, skiing, and enjoying the Colorado outdoors. At the reunion, Mark Harkins entertained us with tales from the D.C. frontline. He continues to enjoy teaching non-politicals in the executive branch how the legislative branch operates, through a little nonprofit affiliated with Georgetown University. “Especially now, it is useful for agency personnel to understand and communicate well with Congress. I also have enjoyed mentoring recent grads who are interested in working in Congress. But most exciting, my eldest (Micah ’21) just started at Swarthmore. He has already spent more time in Cornell Library than I ever did, and he is trying to spend more time at Renato!” Mark had a great visit with Miriam Jorgensen in June when he visited St. Louis. Her eldest, Olivia Smith ’21, is also a new Swarthmorean. In keeping with the Swarthmore tradition of civic engagement, Lori Kenschaft is a Unitarian Universalist congregation lay leader WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 61 class notes ALUMNI PROFILE and organizes to help end mass incarceration in Massachusetts, for which she received an award from the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women. On a housekeeping note, I, Sarah Wilson, have taken over compiling our Class Notes after a muchappreciated and very-long stint by Tom Newman. We’d love to hear from you! There is an email to make it simple to contribute, swarthmore87@gmail.com. For those on Facebook, there’s also a fairly vibrant private group, Swarthmore ’87 25th Reunion, which you are welcome and encouraged to join. I guess I should add my own update: I, Sarah, returned to the U.S. in 2014 after nearly three decades in the U.K. Having worked as a journalist and done communications for international NGOs for many years, I have now settled into NYC doing communications for one of the largest labor unions in the country, 1199SEIU, representing health-care workers. 1989 Martha Easton measton@elmira.edu Kathy Stevens stevkath@gmail.com Tom Lee and wife Stacy opened Home Care Assistance of Greater Burlington, Vt. “After several years in corporate America, it was time to get back to self-employment— this time combining talents with Stacy’s care background and launching our nonmedical homecare business, helping seniors live well at home. Needless to say, we are excited to be helping to change the way the world ages. I particularly love that we’re getting well-integrated into the local senior-care community and all the wonderful associations we’ve made over the past year. We got to catch up with Dave Pope during a training trip to Palo Alto, Calif.” 62 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 Last June, Clif Kussmaul—visiting as a Fulbright specialist—went to Ashesi University College in Ghana (founded by Patrick Awuah). Kir Talmage writes: “Nothing much new in my messy house in Vermont. We finally have a school bus that comes almost to our house. I still work on projects and don’t finish them—some of them would even be good projects. I did help my stepmother with her children’s book; I finished the layout and it’s now in print. I became a Girl Scout leader, because of course I needed one more long-term, intense, timeconsuming project about which I know nothing. Still part time at the Birds of Vermont Museum, and part time self-employed in frontend website development.” 1991 Nick Jesdanun me@anick.org As I write this column on a train from Warsaw to Krakow, Poland, I am reminded of how wonderful public transit is outside the U.S. I don’t own a car, and I’m annoyed any time I have to rent one. Even when I lived in transit-capable Philly and D.C., I needed a car many times. Anyone outside New York get by without one? I’d love to hear how you manage. Because I’m in Europe, I’ll start there. Biologist Brian Inouye, on sabbatical from Florida State, returns this spring to Stockholm University, where he was a Fulbright scholar. He spent the fall at a field station in Colorado. Consequently, his daughter will attend three different schools for third grade. He and wife Nora enjoyed a visit from Chris Potter over the summer. Tom and Miranda Michael Cantine ’93 left the comforts of Seattle for a summer trip to Italy and Greece, where they and their three teens “consumed more than our fair share of gelato.” Tom works at Microsoft’s Bing search advertising group. He broke a 10-year hiatus from tennis and joined a competitive league. His teammate was former Swat doubles partner Vivek Varma ’88. In the U.K., Jess Hobart reminds me I still need to do a marathon there—and very soon, for it to count in my quest to run in all E.U. countries. (Poland and Belgium on this trip brought the count to five— out of 28. Yikes!) Some of you may remember Alex and Dawn Rheingans McDonnell strolling down Parrish Beach with triplets several reunions ago. Alex, Rose, and Amelia are now high school seniors. Their eldest child is at Washington U. in St. Louis, while the youngest just started high school. The family lives near Swarthmore and sees Deirdre McMahon occasionally. Dawn teaches in Springfield, while Alex is at Friends’ Central. Karan Madan’s son Arjun ’21 is a Swarthmore freshman. So is Cammy Voss and Denis Murphy ’89’s son, Declan Murphy ’21. Two of Declan’s high school classmates are also part of the Class of ’21. Meanwhile, sister Eliza was a counselor-in-training at Camp Dark Waters, where she met Fox, son of Bruce Maxwell and Jill McElderryMaxwell ’92. The connections get deeper: Jim Ellis’s three sons were also there as campers. Alison Carter Marlow’s son, James, is considering Swarthmore for chemistry, engineering—or both! Daughter Jacinthe started high school. Alison works at YouthBuild Boston, helping teens and young adults build trade skills and prepare for the GED. In Maine, Chris Lyford’s three children are taking advantage of an unusual opportunity to learn to ride the unicycle and juggle in a school club. Chris joined the Scarborough Education Foundation board to promote innovation in schools, while wife Cari is on the town’s school board. Chris occasionally sneaks out with Matt Murphy and Fred Horch to see a concert and “talk about the good old days.” Ted LaCrone says his daughters, 12 and 16, “are occupying my attention when my work at a local hospital isn’t.” Beth McGinley’s son, Antonio, 2, is “a sweet, fun little guy with wild, curly hair and a ready grin.” She works at the World Bank and tries to limit travel while Antonio is still young. She was away just five nights for a work trip to India. Wow! (Jet lag lasted longer, though.) Catherine Rich’s daughter, Emily, turned 5—an age that combines “skill development and ‘assertion of independence.’” Catherine is a primary-care doctor at Boston Medical Center and runs a training program focusing on underserved communities. Sad news from Nancy Hughes in Singapore: It’s been a tough year with her mother’s death in April. She thanks Bob Bronkema, Leslie Donato Schwab, and Mary Grace Folwell for their support and drive to the funeral back in the States. Meanwhile, Nancy’s daughter, Jesse, a high school senior, isn’t applying to Swarthmore: “She wants to create her own identity, I guess.” Laurel Hester and husband Rob celebrated 20 years of marriage and “like to say we are ‘free-birding’ instead of ‘empty-nesting.’” Her son attends Rochester Institute of Technology, while her daughter attends boarding school to challenge herself more than the local high school in Ithaca, N.Y., could. Laurel says boarding school was a difficult decision, but her daughter “makes the most of her smaller discussion-based classes— hearing about it reminds me of Swarthmore.” Laurel is a biology professor at Keuka College. 1995 Erik Thoen erik_thoen@alum.swarthmore.edu Sally Chin sallypchin@gmail.com Leading off this hardcopy edition of Class Notes with a certain irony, let me introduce a class Facebook presence! One of our more “Preserving culture should be done everywhere, not just in one spot,” says Tami Kellogg ’91, on Ile Amsterdam in the southern Indian Ocean, one of her many global adventures. TAILWINDS She sailed into a new career in Panama by Kate Campbell TAMI KELLOGG ’91 tugs laundry from the clothesline, and a troop of howler monkeys bellows in the nearby trees. The sound, a mix of barking dog and bothered cow, is as natural as a songbird here. “Life in the tropics, right?” she says. A retired ER doctor, Kellogg moved to Panama to work with the Emberá and Wounaan, ethnic groups in the remote Darién rainforest. Her route here was circuitous, including tall ships and a disaster relief effort. But a passion for languages has—so far—kept her wanderlust at bay. Invited for a monthlong visit in 2011 because of her medical expertise, Kellogg was so beguiled by the people and their intimate connection to their environment that she asked to stay. Today, she’s helping them protect many vanishing traditions. “Despite a lack of highway, the roads are encroaching, and they are losing forest and culture,” says Kellogg, founder and president of the nonprofit Soambá, or “One Common Heart” in English. “It’s the story we know well: commercialization, industrialization, assimilation to the colonial culture. We’re working to restore indigenous language where it’s been lost.” Before medical school, Kellogg studied linguistics at Swarthmore. “Now I think about that all the time, translating between English and Spanish, and thinking about indigenous languages,” she says. “Language loss is a loss for humanity.” In addition to cultural survival workshops for all ages, Soambá teaches sustainability. “You can have good infrastructure without spending tons of money and using nonrenewable resources,” says Kellogg. “It’s about expanding choices. We want to empower communities to grow and develop as they see fit, within their own worldviews, so future generations inherit a livable world.” Some of the preparation for rainforest life was strengthened by her medical career. The relentless pace included treating accident victims, heart attack patients, stab wound survivors, and the common sprained ankle. Her comfort with taking charge as well as a newly learned patience are skills she uses daily. “Working in medicine was a privilege,” she says. Even so, the sea called. “I had a few experiences sailing on the Chesapeake Bay as a child,” says Kellogg. She continued sailing during medical school at Harvard University. When she moved to New York City for her residency, she volunteered at the South Street Seaport Museum, working on the historic Pioneer. “There’s nothing cooler than sailing past the Statue of Liberty in a hundred-year-old schooner,” she says. Experiences like that eventually inspired her to take stock of her role as a doctor ... and sail away from it for good, accepting a job on a ship for $1,000 a month. She eventually sailed two 7,000-mile ocean voyages, changing latitude and longitude at a human pace. “It made me so happy,” she says. “When you sail, you really get in your bones what it is to live on this planet. You understand the shape of it, the distances, and the fragility. Sailing is the perfect speed.” Her voyage finally led her to Panama, where she found her current calling. Sometimes she misses the high seas, but Kellogg knows she’s in the right place. “Life gives us what we need to grow,” she says. “I feel so incredibly lucky to know the Emberá and Wounaan people. They’ve taught me what it is to be human, without sentimentality, but with a deep connectedness: to people, to animals, to the Earth.” WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 63 class notes socially adept members, Eugene Sonn, took the initiative to create the group Swarthmore College Class of ’95 (bit.ly/Swat95). He certainly deserves a lot of likes; within two weeks of its early September start, the group already had 84 members! According to the Swarthmore College Alumni Online Directory, we have 312 people associated with our class, so a couple hundred classmates now have unfinished homework. If you enjoy Facebook, follow the link, request to join, and start (re) connecting with classmates. In the D.C. area, Sampriti Ganguli continues to help philanthropists achieve the greatest good with their resources. She’s been quite busy over the past six months, with donors stepping up in the areas of climate change, immigrant rights, and civic engagement. I was envious to learn that Sampriti and husband Eric Gibbs took an ‘anniversarymoon’ and headed to Tuscany in August, sans kids, and “enjoyed Swattie-like intensive study of religious iconography and fine wines.” Otherwise, they remain active trying to keep up with sons Keiran, 11, and Devin, 14. Cherry-Rose Anderson and Aaron Brockett live with their kids in Boulder, Colo. Son Jasper, 14, started high school, while Eliza, 11, is a sixth-grader at Jarrow Montessori School. Cherry and Aaron started a software firm in 1999 that has grown into an eight-person company specializing in web-application development. Cherry focuses on social-justice issues in her spare time and helped start a Boulder NAACP chapter. After five years on the Boulder Planning Board, Aaron dove into local politics and is now two years into a four-year term on the Boulder City Council. Congrats for getting involved! Finally, I, Erik, enjoyed a great family vacation with a road trip through southern Canada. One highlight was kayaking in the Thousand Islands region, where you can paddle around numerous small islands in the St. Lawrence River. I particularly liked the name Moneysunk Island! We want to hear from you! If you’ve been up to something 64 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 interesting, whether work or pleasure, please let us know. 1997 Joy Oliver joy_oliver@hotmail.com Our class celebrated its 20th Reunion in May. Christopher Sunami attended his first reunion in 15 years and roomed with Cyril Yee and Tony Cheesebrough, just like the old days. Christopher’s and Cyril’s families also met up later in the summer for a fun-filled week at the Toronto home of Cyril’s ever-gracious parents. Katie Jozwicki Morgan says her favorite reunion moment was during the dance party (deejayed by the legendary Alan Sama—thanks, Alan!), when Prince came on and all the millennials stopped dancing. Uri Ko Yoo also reports having tons of fun at the reunion with her husband and sons, Noel, 3, and Asher, 1. Uri still lives in Silver Spring, Md., and works in the Office of General Counsel of the Social Security Administration. Laura Gitelson was sad to miss the reunion but had a good reason: She and husband Josh Arnold had second child Micah Gitelson Arnold on April 24. Micah joins brother Daniel, 3. Laura works part time for MIT undergraduate admissions and lives near Boston. After 13 years with Warner Bros. (and a short stint at a startup called Loot Crate), Cynthia Hong Suttle is now the proud smallbusiness owner of College Nannies + Sitters + Tutors in Burbank, Calif. Let her know if you’re traveling to the LA area and need a sitter. Annie McCasland-Pexton still lives in Melbourne, Australia, and has written a book, Invisible Work, released in November. Swatties are on the move! Erika Rauer moved to Eugene, Ore., with her husband and two daughters to be executive director of the Eugene Opera. She would love to meet area Swatties and requests that you contact her through the company. After 10 years in Wisconsin, Stephen ’96 and Nina Santos Laubach have replanted themselves in central New Jersey, returning to the Lawrenceville School, where Steve incorporates a working farm and surrounding 700 acres into the science curriculum. Rest assured, they will remain Packers fans! Their first Swattie visitors included the family of Rebekah Bundang and Chuck Stevens ’96 (a Lawrenceville School alumnus) as well as Steve’s brother and sister-in-law, Jacob ’93 and Anjolie Idicula Laubach ’98. Jill Rubin, husband Andrew, and kids Lilja, 6, and Reijo, 4, moved to Hartland, Vt. They landed in a wonderful co-housing community that includes Jersey cows, sheep, a llama, farm fields and gardens, cross-country ski trails, and a wonderful community of people (cobbhill.org). Jill welcomes nearby people to reach out. I, Joy Oliver, have temporarily returned to the D.C. area with husband Nate after two years in Morocco with the State Department. I look forward to catching up with old friends during the six months of training before moving on to our next assignment. With the light comes the shadows. After all this lovely news, it saddens me to report that Eric Mealy died unexpectedly July 25. Eric is remembered as a sweet soul with a wicked sense of humor. With his kind words and beautiful voice, he made a huge impact on all of us lucky enough to know him. He will be missed. 1999 Melissa Morrell melrel99@hotmail.com Chris Seaman and Allison Lyons ’02 welcomed second child Owen Michael Seaman in summer 2016. Owen is now walking and waving at everyone he meets. “I received tenure at Washington and Lee University School of Law (where I’m an associate professor),” Chris writes. “I also became director of the Frances Lewis Law Center (W&L Law’s research institute) last summer.” Mary Meiklejohn-Pitney and husband Jack had son William Endeavor Pitney in October. “Big sister Eleanor is over the moon. I continue to handle the data needs of a community health center on the North Shore of Massachusetts, and our little island town is not underwater yet.” Eric Bishop-von Wettberg and family moved to Vermont to take faculty positions at the University of Vermont. “We are happy to be back in the Northeast close to family and friends. I am thrilled to teach in a department focused on agriculture, and to have students focused on organic farming and sustainable approaches. I spent the summer in Guangzhou, China, as a Chinese Academy of Science Fellow at the South China Botanical Garden, and will be in Ethiopia this fall as a Fulbright specialist.” Ben Fritz’s book The Big Picture will be published March 6. It uses material from the Sony Pictures hack to take readers inside a studio and explain why theaters are full of so many sequels, reboots, and superhero movies and so few original films for adults. Ben lives in LA and covers Hollywood for The Wall Street Journal. Ashwin Rao and family are doing well and I, Melissa Morrell, am lucky to see them often. Ashwin is in his fourth year as program director of the University of Washington Sports Medicine Fellowship, his ninth year taking care of the Seahawks, and his 10th year caring for UW Husky athletes. “The women’s crew team, whom I care for, won the NCAA national championship this year. It’s the sixth UW national FOLLOW US! Facebook and Instagram: @SwarthmoreBulletin #SwatBulletin championship for which I’ve been a team physician, along with the Super Bowl win.” Not bad for a team doc! Ashwin was also elected to the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine’s board of directors. He and his fam visited NYC and caught up with Andy Caffrey, Gordon Roble, and Bob Griffin. Motivated by despair at national politics and the feeling that in blue Massachusetts he can’t effect change politically, Roger Paratore Bock has been volunteering at a food pantry. “It has been surprisingly rewarding—I feel like I’ve been helping people who actually need help, and I get to learn how to say words like ‘butter’ in different languages.” Vanessa Carter lives on a sailboat in Sausalito, Calif., “with my partner, Joe—everyone’s invited to come for a sail! The hard part of my update is I’m caring for both of my parents, who have Alzheimer’s.” Vanessa visited Leena Kansal and husband Tom Dittmann in sunny San Diego, where she met their gorgeous twin babies, Eva and Sonya. Josh Knox is the proud parent of a second-grader (yikes!) and enjoys his Mondays taking her swimming or for a playground romp. Caliandra joins him Tuesdays for aikido class, which he helps teach. Josh is delighted to resume practice, many years after training with the Swarthmore Aikido Club. He looks forward to showing Eric Bishop-von Wettberg around his permaculture garden in Holyoke, Mass., now that Eric has moved closer and the garden is coming into its own. Benson Wilder and family are past one year in Seattle and have mostly recovered from eight years in D.C. Benson works at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and sees brother-in-law Mac Funk and family often. The little cousins—Lusa, Mae, Silas, Wilson, and Ethan—remain two short of fielding an Ultimate team. Elizabeth Nickrenz Fein is in a Pittsburgh band called Take Me With You. Jenny Briggs saw their debut when they opened for Men Without Hats. Helen Oliver enjoyed lunch with Alyssa Rayman-Read in early summer, “where we played hooky from work and caught up on the last 18 (*cough*) years.” I, Melissa Morrell, have returned to my maiden name five years after being divorced. I have also retired from Microsoft, shifting my work-life balance to entirely life. This year will definitely be a new adventure. Fortunately, I’ve joined one of the two Seattle book clubs to keep me intellectually stimulated. We are reading books within the theme of “Black/White, African/American, North/South, Then/Now,” which is exceedingly timely. I have the good fortune of seeing Susan Hunt, husband Paul, and their family regularly. I’ll also be spending much more time with my daughter, Clara, 7. If you missed seeing your news here, email me and I’ll add you to our next issue! 2001 Claudia Zambra claudiazambra@gmail.com We’ll begin with a few nuptials. Kate Fama married Alexander Tzschentke at a small ceremony in the Irish countryside Sept. 9. The two met in Berlin and have settled happily in Dublin. In attendance were bridesmaid Sari Altschuler (and husband Chris), Chris Woodrell (and husband Mark), Vanessa Knoedler, Alissa Parmelee, Aymeric Frély Pansu (and wife Anne), and Maya Peterson ’02. The bride and groom were champs and danced until almost 3 a.m.! Kate, an assistant CAPTIONED! “Is that the train to Tuscaloosa?” — Josh Miller ’86 “You can’t miss its arrival because you’ll hear ‘goo goo ga-joob’ over and over again.” — John Goldman ’71, H’17 “Looks like it’s slippery rail season again.” — Ben Marks ’16 + MORE CAPTIONS: bulletin.swarthmore.edu professor of American literature at University College Dublin, has started a three-year research group focused on architecture and the humanities. Jason and Demetra Ray Caldwell had a ball with their two little girls at the wedding of James JohnsonPiett ’03 and Yas Khawja ’03. It was a blast seeing their entire Swat family! The class has welcomed a few more children. Ryan ’99 and Deirdre Downey Fruh, in Atlanta, had Vivienne Saoirse in midSeptember. Brothers Teddy and Thad are enjoying Vivi and can’t wait for her to be able to jump on the trampoline with them. Marisa Chavez, an OB-GYN on call at the hospital the night Vivi was born, was one of the first people to meet her. Matthew Davis and Betsy Grossman welcomed Jasper Douglas Davis on July 5 in Washington, D.C. Class of 2039?! A few others checked in from D.C., including Jaime Yassif, who last year became the Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness program officer at the Open Philanthropy Project, a charitable organization based in San Francisco. She frequently travels to the Bay Area, where she hangs out with Ann Finkelstein, Dave Auerbach, and Emily Clough ’03. Andrew Breitenberg regularly hangs in D.C. with fellow Sixteen Feet alum Carl Roose ’00, David Ramirez ’01, and Alex Lundry ’99. He is translating the Bible from the old Greek and Hebrew and also making art. Children Wills and Isobel Grace are 5 and 2. Nearby, Pat Murray teaches American government and politics at American University and lives in Columbia, Md., with his wife and son, Andrew, 1. Aryani Manring left D.C. for Yangon, Myanmar, with her husband, Scott, and two kids. She and Scott serve in the U.S. Embassy and say it’s good to be back in Southeast Asia. Lily Yang and Peter Hastings are in Stockholm. Antoinette Eltz is in London (moved back there from Zurich almost two years ago) and enjoying everything the city offers. She changed jobs and WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 65 class notes is much happier, because she travels significantly less. If anyone passes through town, please get in touch—she would love to catch up! Maggie Thomer and Sam Picard live in St. Petersburg, Fla., where she is a urologist and he is a paramedic. Sam pastors a small church with a largely homeless/ marginally housed congregation, which is a true adventure. He’s also midway through a master’s in health-care administration. Maggie was training for a mid-December triathlon. Katie Hutchinson lives in Cambridge, Mass. She, Sarah Jay, and Amy Dickson ’99 took inspiration from Loring Pfeiffer ’02 and started a chapter of Solidarity Sundays, a feminist activist group dedicated to resisting President Trump’s agenda—message them to join! Tenaya Scheinman is a senior attorney at the King County Department of Public Defense in Seattle. Laura Cohen relocated from Philly to Seattle with fiancé Matt, who landed a job with Rooted in Rights, a disability media advocacy project at Disability Rights Washington. They’re enjoying getting to know Seattle and reconnecting with Carrie Griffin Basas ’99, Jen Callaghan, and Suor Kim ’02. 2003 Robin Smith Petruzielo robinleslie@alum.swarthmore.edu Yasmin Khawja wed James “JJP” Johnson-Piett on Sept. 18 in Newport, R.I., in yet another unforeseen Quaker matchbox. Yasmin spilled barbecue chicken on JJP’s khakis when “matched up” at Lillian Marsh ’01 and Walker Lee’s wedding three years prior. Yasmin finished an internal medicine residency. The couple live in Astoria, Queens, and honeymooned seaside in romantic Lisboa, Portugal. Sydney Beveridge and Josh Wakesberg celebrated their 66 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 SPOTLIGHT ON … JOSH LOEFFLER ’03 Josh Loeffler ’03 accepted the position of head men’s basketball coach at Johns Hopkins University. He and wife Helen Leitner Loeffler ’04, a certified nurse midwife, live in Baltimore with their children, ages 5 and 1. “It’s great to be involved on a campus, dealing with college students,” he says. “I got my break in coaching from my football coach at Swarthmore, Pete Alvanos. Who knows what I would be doing if he did not hire me at Hamilton College?” + Queens, N.Y., wedding with a guitar serenade, cat jokes, trivia, poetry, and heirloom pants made of American flags. Mark Angelillo helped introduce the couple; Erica Cartmill, Rashelle Isip, Blair Cochran, Renee Willemsen-Goode, Kanani Milles, Josh Hurwitz ’02, Sam Dingman ’04, Josh Kramer ’00, and Caroline Bermudez attended. Hollis Easter married Jasmine Walker in Vermont. Swatties there included Amelia Hoover Green, Melissa Running ’94, and Eileen Thorsos. Ali Furman and husband Jay had son Nathan Michael in July 2016. Abraham, 4, is a great big brother! Ali is an M&A partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers’s advisory practice in NYC. Jay completed a movement science Ph.D. last spring and is a professor at St. Peter’s University. The family lives in Summit, N.J. Neil Cavanaugh and wife Eva had twins Axel and Hazel in April. Brother Grey, 4, already rides a bicycle without training wheels. Ben Schak and wife Dory had second daughter Eliza Rhys Schak on June 2. Liza Henty-Clark moved to Sonoma County, Calif., and lives in a cabin in the redwoods. Son Elliot, 7, loves to listen to audiobooks and plan tree forts. Liza is an occupational therapist in the area’s tiny school districts and is earning yoga teacher certifications for children and adults. Noah Metheny moved from D.C. CONTINUED: bulletin.swarthmore.edu to Geneva, Switzerland, where he works at the Global Fund. He spent the summer paddleboarding on Lake Geneva, hiking the Alps, and visiting Swatties across Europe. Davita Burkhead-Weiner started a new job in child and adolescent psychiatry in Ann Arbor, Mich. Ursula Whitcher resigned her tenured position at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire to become an associate editor at Mathematical Reviews (part of the American Mathematical Society). She has enjoyed settling into Ann Arbor. Morghan Holt Milagrosa practices midwifery and women’s health on glorious Whidbey Island, north of Seattle. Working for a public district hospital, Morghan enjoys serving a diverse community with limited access to health care. She is also working on a pregnancy manuscript. Daughter Alexxys, 20, works full time in marketing; Nuala, 9, loves fourth grade by the sea; and Pablo, 3, is refining his preschool parkour tricks. Todd Gillette moved to San Diego in July for his second of three one-year rotations in acoustic force fields research at Northrop Grumman. Latika Young was appointed director of Florida State’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Academic Engagement. She enjoys hanging out with alligators and manatees, jumping into springs, and bikepacking through the Apalachicola National Forest. Patty Park is now assistant professor of literature in American University’s MFA in creative writing program. She is working on her second novel and looks forward to reconnecting with D.C. Swatties. William Tran left NBCUniversal after almost seven years to join Viacom as VP, Production Risk Team, in Business and Legal Affairs. Cleve and Krista Marshall Cooke had two great outdoor summer birthday parties for Linda Grace, 3, and Caleb, 5. Krista is a family doctor in a Christian urban clinic, while Cleve is a habilitation aide. They have taken up family taekwondo. Rashelle Isip was featured in September’s Cosmopolitan in “Desk for Success,” sharing tips on organizing and maintaining a productive workspace. Eden Wales Freedman was named 2017 Woman of the Year by the Women’s Equality Coalition of Linn County, Iowa, for her work on behalf of woman and girls in the U.S. and Afghanistan. With three girls age 5 and younger, Susan Christensen Henz is moving at “kid speed” these days. Music consists of “Pickle, Pickle, Little Star” and truly terrible “Hokey Pokey” renditions. Amelia Hoover Green connected with Laurel Eckhouse and Emily Clough at an American Political Science Association meeting in San Francisco. Amelia’s son, Henry, started preschool at the center where husband Jarrod is a director. 2005 Jessica Zagory jazagory@alum.swarthmore.edu We had an exciting summer of new careers, family members, and adventures. Liza Anderson moved to Claremont, Calif., for a two-year position as visiting assistant professor of theology and the history of Christianity at Claremont School of Theology. Ian McCready-Flora started his second year as an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Virginia. He was previously in St. Louis University’s philosophy department and Columbia University’s Society of Fellows. Daughter Felicity started kindergarten. In July, Tanya Aydelott started an MFA in writing for children and young adults at the Vermont College of Fine Arts; later that month, she packed up her northeast Ohio apartment and moved to Williamstown, Mass., to be associate director for international recruitment in Williams College’s admissions office. On her drive, she popped by Pittsburgh to see Caroline Carlson ’06, though she failed to bring a copy of The World’s Greatest Detective for an autograph. Keizen Li Qian is happily embarking on a biology MS at Cal State–Fullerton, studying protein function in manganese-oxidizing bacteria. Elizabeth McDonald had daughter Flora Andromeda Rotondo in October 2016. Elizabeth and husband Mike Rotondo are having so much fun seeing her gain new skills every day. Flora’s also played with other Swattie babies, in San Francisco and during summer travel. Sarah Cohodes and husband Andrew Shawhan had daughter Devorah Shawhan Cohodes on May 30. Rachel Jacobs Zimmerman and her husband had daughter Hannah Marie on June 8. Son Zack loves being an older brother, and Rachel is remembering how to function on little sleep. Rachel Scott and Aaron Wasserman had Nathan Joseph Wasserman on June 8. They were fortunate to have much of the summer off to figure out the first weeks of parenting and take pleasant day trips around town. Anyone who wants to marvel at Nathan’s cheeks—or change a diaper—is welcome to stop by their Boston home. Jessie Martin and Joe Raciti had daughter Lucy May Raciti on Aug. 25. Lucy would like to apply early-early action for the Class of 2039. Her academic record is forthcoming, but so far her interests include eating, snuggling, and being incredibly cute. Adam Gerber and Dana Friedman had Lina Ruth Friedman Gerber, also on Aug. 25. Maria “Piper” Hy joined Doctors Without Borders and is going to South Sudan as an OB-GYN. Jason Bronstein moved to NYC and is the assistant professor of sleep medicine and pediatric pulmonology in the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. As she enters the New Year, Erin Dwyer-Frazier is reflecting on her first year in solo practice. The Law Office of Erin Dwyer-Frazier: Legal Solutions for Digital Creatives is hitting its stride, and for each new client, Erin learns 10 new things. She and husband Steve Almeida had their sixth wedding anniversary this year and also adopted dog Abby from Freedom Street Rescue, which transports dogs from a high-kill, high-volume Texas shelter to areas with higher adoption rates. Her older “brother,” Tucker, was also a rescue but was “only” transported from Missouri. They’ve become best friends, and Erin and Steve remain committed to encouraging adoption everywhere and saving as many shelter dogs as possible. #AdoptDontShop Lindsay Brin married Aaron McFarlane on July 29, in the woods in Maine. A small group of friends and family hiked in on Friday and had a lovely weekend of swimming, paddling, hiking, playing music, and the wedding. Tedi Asher (whose wedding they’d attended two weeks earlier) was there. After an M.A., a Ph.D., and several years of postdoctoral research, Lindsay pivoted from ecosystem ecology to data science. She now works at a tech consulting company. Chun Mei Lam and Raissa Diamante (former Swarthmore admissions staff) married June 25 in Pasadena, Calif. In attendance were bridesmaid Maria “Piper” Hy, officiant Powen Shiah ’09, and Audrey Chan ’04. 2007 Kristin Leitzel Hoy kleitzel@gmail.com Duncan Gromko lives in Freiburg, Germany, home to Black Forest cake and beer mixed with lemonade. He enjoys the great hiking nearby, traveling Europe, and meeting up with Colton Bangs in Belgium occasionally. Duncan moved to Freiburg a year ago with Aurora Munoz ’10, whom he married last May. He works for a forest and climate-change consulting company. Athena Samaras lives in Durham, N.C., and is a pediatric nurse practitioner at a federally qualified health center. Over the summer, Athena married Alex Bibbey in Annapolis, Md. Sara Sargent officiated, with Elizabeth Richey, Ian Adelstein, Karen Lorang, Simone Boyle, Lauren Irizarry ’08, and Edson Carias ’08 attending. Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham got married in June, surrounded by enough Swarthmoreans to constitute a mini-reunion. His father, John Goldsmith ’72, FOLLOW US! Facebook and Instagram: @SwarthmoreBulletin #SwatBulletin officiated. Emily Gasser Zucker married Matt Zucker in front of family Thanksgiving 2016 and held a public wedding in Ithaca, N.Y., on Aug. 5. Nina Thanawala, Mu Yang, Kannie Chim, George Hang, Rosemary Gonzaga, Gil Jones ’01, Loring Pfeiffer ’02, Nathaniel Fairfield ’01, Daniel Sproul ’03, Katie Tunning ’03, Kevin Setter ’02, and Corlett Wood ’08 attended, as did faculty members Vince Formica (biology), Elizabeth Drellich (math), and Peter Klecha (linguistics). Emily teaches in Swat’s linguistics department, and Matt teaches robotics in the engineering department. Michelle Tomasik and Andrew Cheng ’08 had baby Annika Yulin Cheng in early July. Caleb Ward lives in a 10-person “WG” in Berlin with partner Michèle and new baby Béla, a sunshine-filled sweetheart. He’ll be working on a dissertation on ethics and feminist philosophy for at least another year there, and he welcomes visitors! Nim ’06 and Katie Crawford Cohen had their first child in mid-May. Ilian James Cohen is a bundle of energy and curiosity, which surprises no one. Katie finished a postdoc at Columbia School of Nursing in March and has since started as a health policy researcher at RAND Corp. She, Nim, and Ilian moved to LA over the summer. After six months of living with her parents, Kristin Leitzel Hoy is back in her fully renovated early 1800s farmhouse. The move happened just in time to welcome son Cooper, born at home the second night in the house. Christine Costello Kensey continues her EdTech work as director of training and user adoption at TargetX. She has re-entered the university setting, pursuing a master’s in organizational leadership and learning from George Washington University. Jon Stott started an executive master’s program at NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service. He is also deputy director of EcoRise, a nonprofit inspiring a new generation of green leadership. WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 67 class notes Tim Roeper finished an economics Ph.D. at the CUNY Graduate Center and began his first semester teaching at NYU. Nathaniel Peters earned a Ph.D. from Boston College in May and started the Morningside Institute, a small academic nonprofit in NYC. He is also a lecturer at Columbia. Karl Petre has become fully absorbed by the adventures of his Apple workplace. In his free time, he enjoys catching up with Bay Area classmates. Nat Erb-Satullo and Nicole Belanger Satullo ’08 moved to the U.K., where Nat started a lectureship in archaeomaterials (a blend of archaeology and materials science) at Oxford. Anna Torres is an assistant professor in the University of Chicago’s comparative literature department, specializing in Yiddish literature and gender studies. She is completing her first book, Any Minute Now, the World Overflows Its Border! Eliza Blair attended the Tech Elevator coding boot camp over the summer and launched a career as a software developer in the financial sector. She is renovating her dream home in Cleveland. Juliet Braslow and Carlos Villafuerte ’08 enjoy life in Santiago, Chile. Juliet works with the U.N. in the Sustainable Development and Human Settlements Department of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Katie Van Winkle is writing a dissertation and directing, most recently an international tour of Bear Eats Bear, a self-guided postapocalyptic audio nature-hike play. 2009 Melanie Spaulding maspauld1@gmail.com Yoi Tibbetts accepted a position as a research assistant professor in the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, where he studies motivation and how it relates to student and athlete performance. He is moving to Charlottesville with Evan Nesterak, who co-founded the online publication the Behavioral Scientist. Yoi and Evan comprise half of a new startup, the Mindset Assessment Project, which works with the U.S. Soccer Federation to examine the motivation of players in the Development Academy and youth national teams. Hannah Jaicks is program manager for Future West, a Northern Rockies nonprofit that works to protect biodiversity in rural western communities. Hannah works with policymakers to ensure the recent de-listings of the grizzly bear and wolf from the endangered-species list do not result in extinction. Hannah also coaches a high school lacrosse team in Bozeman, Mont., that won the state championship last year. Jason Thrope was promoted to vice president of global capital raising and investor relations at Starwood Capital, where he started as an associate in 2012. He has played an increasing role in the firm’s fundraising and will spend more time working with clients. Sophia Pan moved to NYC for a job at the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery and lives in Brooklyn with Marissa Davis ’08. She would love to meet up with area Swatties. Rafael Rivero founded and manages Occupy Democrats and the Washington Journal. He and partner Eric Brown toured Mediterranean Europe. Keith Benjamin moved from D.C. to Charleston, S.C., to be the city’s director of traffic and transportation. He and his wife had baby Kingsley this summer. Sasha Shahidi works at LA’s Ford Theatres, which had an exciting slate of summer shows. Jeff McManus is still technical director at IDinsight, a nonprofit helping leaders in developing countries use evidence to improve their social impact. He spent most of August, September, and October training staff in India, Zambia, and Kenya. Virginia Tice McManus still teaches at Lighthouse in East Oakland, Calif., but in a new role: as a K–3 literacy specialist at a new school, Lodestar. This has come with unique opportunities for creativity; e.g. her “classroom” is on the stage of an auditorium, which shows how important reading and staff flexibility are in SPOTLIGHT ON … DAN HAMMER ’07 Dan Hammer ’07, an environmental economist and doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, was honored with the first-ever Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award, for expanding the accessibility of satellite data. “Swarthmore taught me the value of a broad perspective,” he says. “The liberal arts curriculum granted the ability to learn new things quickly—and to love that process.” + 68 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 CONTINUED: bulletin.swarthmore.edu her new community. Hyunjoo “JuJu” Lee finished an emergency medicine residency at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in NYC and is in Philly for a Medical Education Fellowship at Jefferson’s Sidney Kimmel Medical College. Zach Rhinehart is in his second year of a cardiology fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh and enjoys every minute, especially his time in the cath lab, the CCU, and with his patients at the VA. Wife Erin finished a residency after celebrating their fifth anniversary and will join the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh as an OB-GYN. Zach and Erin excitedly announce that Elliot Joseph Rhinehart (Class of ’35?) was born in February. Elliot had a blast with Uncle Nick ’13 at Aunt Tessa ’17’s graduation, although he has not warmed up to Sharples, forgoing pasta bar in favor of breast milk. Diana “Teddy” Pozo graduated from UC–Santa Barbara with a film and media studies Ph.D. and a doctoral emphasis in feminist studies. Teddy’s dissertation project on queer videogames, vibrating movie-theater seats, and teledildonics is titled Haptic Media: Sexuality, Gender, and Affect in Technology Culture, 1959–2015. Haptic Media is under embargo, but interested readers can find parts of the work in Rated M for Mature and a forthcoming “In Practice” section of Camera Obscura, shepherded to publication by professor Patricia White and featuring an essay by Claudia Lo ’16. The Camera Obscura section is about the Queerness and Games Conference, an annual, community-oriented, nationally recognized event exploring the intersection of LGBTQ issues and video games. Teddy’s been an organizer for three years and will co-lead the conference in 2018. Emlen Metz finished a psychology Ph.D. at Penn and moved to Berkeley, where, through an unexpected turn of events, her postdoc is in the physics department! Her subject is teaching scientific and critical thinking under the physicist Saul Perlmutter. Dan Hodson started at Yale School of Medicine in June. Sean Nesselrode received an art history Ph.D. from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts in May and joined Rhode Island School of Design as assistant professor of history of art and visual culture. Patrick Rock got hired to teach psychology full time at Glendale Community College in California. Ben Raphel appeared on Jeopardy! on Dec. 8—hopefully, everyone tuned in! Lin Gyi and Eric Loui got married May 28 and honeymooned in Portland. Kevin and Jordan Schmidt Shaughnessy had second child Kathleen “Kate” Rae Shaughnessy on May 18. Kate enjoys milk and sleeping and even took her first plane ride. Liam turned 2 in October and is settling into his new role of big brother. He especially loves showing Kate his toys and helping her do tummy time. Tally Sharma Venjohn and husband Chris had baby Edison “Eddie” Bernard Venjohn. Eddie made a slightly early appearance on Mother’s Day, and his interests include eating, sleeping, and listening to Daveed Diggs on repeat. That baby clearly has excellent taste! Katie Sauvain writes that another Quaker matchbox child has arrived: She and Ben Thuronyi ’07 had baby Milo in March. 2013 Paige Grand Pré jpgrandpre@gmail.com With the 5th Reunion rapidly approaching, classmates continue to pursue academic achievement. Marina Tucktuck started at St. George’s University School of Medicine in Grenada, while Joan O’Bryan began studies at the University of Cambridge for an M.Phil. in public policy. She is psyched and believes it will be tons of fun. Also excited to be back in school is Yin Guan, who after three years of teaching math and science and a year of traveling Asia returned for a master of theological studies in Buddhist studies at Harvard Divinity School. She moved into a lovely apartment near Davis Square with four other humans and two cats, all of whom are amenable to visitors! On the flip side, a number of peers wrapped up graduate degrees in the past year. Jacqueline Small finished a joint-degree program in May, earning a master of social work from Rutgers and a master of divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary. After graduation, Jacqueline moved to Erie, Pa., to work for Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun, author, and lecturer, at her organization, Benetvision. Jacqueline is thrilled to do research for Sister Joan’s publications, managing a fund that provides prisoners with free journals and spiritual books, and designing e-courses on topics like mindfulness, feminism in Christianity, and interfaith work. Monika Zaleska earned an MFA in fiction writing from Brooklyn College and teaches composition and literature courses in the English department. Hannah Kurtz finished her term in Cambodia in July, moved to D.C. in August, and started a master of ethics, peace, and global affairs at the School of International Service at American University. Sarah Vogelman earned an art history master’s from NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts and began as the exhibition assistant at the Philadelphia Museum of Art for 2020’s Jasper Johns Retrospective. She looks forward to reacquainting herself with Philly and cannot believe the 5th Reunion is almost upon us. Nearby in Jersey, Nick Allred sweats it out on the streets of a runaway American dream by day; by night he rides through mansions of glory in Rutgers’s English department. In career news, Ben Goossen published Chosen Nation, the story of a Christian religious group’s entanglement with German nationalism from the 19th century through Hitler’s Third Reich and the Holocaust. Max Nesterak eats avocado toast in the house he owns in Minneapolis. He is a producer at Minnesota Public Radio News and an editor of the Behavioral Scientist with Evan Nesterak ’09. Sam Sussman was selected as one of the Frank 5 Fellows by Swarthmore’s Aydelotte Foundation. Sam is co-founder and present director of Extend, a conflict-education NGO in Israel– Palestine that has been featured at the U.N., at the Oxford Union, and in Slate and The Huffington Post. Sam graduated from Oxford with an M.Phil. in international relations in June. Eugene Prymak is now a full sales engineer for Powerhouse Equipment and Engineering. Traveling out west on a monthly basis is a welcome necessity for handling his territory, but he still resides in Goshen Valley in West Chester, Pa. He purchased an investment property nearby as well as a different primary vehicle. Most important, Eugene “looks forward to continuing to visit campus this year and beyond.” Zach Nacev married Erin Curtis on Aug. 5 at Erin’s parents’ house in Silverdale, Wash. A bunch of Swatties made the trip out to celebrate (and enjoy a mini-Pub Nite reunion!), including Sean Mangus and Yvonne Socolar in the wedding party, Chloe Stevens, Emma Thomas, Taryn Colonnese, Kira White, Jackson Goodman, Bryce Codell, Klara Aizupitis ’14, Tim Kwilos, Rory McTear, Sam Bennett, Fernando Maldonado, Laurie Sellars ’15, Marie Mutryn ’12, Yaeir Heber ’11, and Camille Rogine ’11. Andi Merritt (now Campbell) got married in June, and Elliot Padgett married Megan Holtz in August in Denver. Joshua Satre married Morgan Feddes in Montana in the company of many Swatties. He is pursuing an M.A. at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies as a Sié Fellow. Julia Melin entered the second year of a sociology Ph.D. program at Stanford and married a Yalie on July Fourth weekend. Melissa O’Connor ’14, Ashley Gochoco ’14, Aaron Moser, Jessica Seigel ’16, Eliana Cohen ’17, and Josh Raifman ’15 were there. I wish you all the best and look forward to seeing everyone at the reunion! If you have any notes, please submit them to me. 2015 Alexis Leanza leanzaalexis@gmail.com West Coast: Jason Heo returned stateside to San Francisco this summer after a year in Beijing as an inaugural Schwarzman Scholar and now works at Emerson Collective. Jason sees many Swatties regularly: Callen Rain, Justin Cosentino, Ellen Bachmannhuff, Matthew Sharma, Emanuel Schorsch, María Ximena Anleu Gil, Yongjun Heo ’09, Ari Spiegel ’13, Davis Ancona ’14, Sarah Nielsen ’16, Emily Gale ’16, and Razi Shaban ’16. Come visit! (Unsure if invitation is directed to just me or the wider community—I’d contact Jason before showing up.) The middle part: Kate Wiseman and Lauren Barlow are gallivanting between the Chicago Diner and Red Stars games (for which Lauren gets Kate free tickets). They completed the Chicago Triathlon together. Kate is in her third year as a 10th-grade English teacher; Lauren routinely RAs her work friends when they go out. East Coast: Kimaya Diggs lives in Northampton, Mass., where she is a freelance music teacher for grades 6–12. By night she manages a craft brewery and performs original music. She received a Callaloo poetry fellowship last summer, married Jacob Rosazza in June, and will release her first solo album this winter. Patrick Ross is a writing and research specialist at the Wilma Theater in Philly and a firstyear member of the Foundry, a playwriting collective. He still collaborates with Kimaya and contributed lyrics toward her upcoming album. Ariel Gewirtz passed her general exam and is officially a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton! She works in a Bayesian stats lab modeling human genomic data. Osazenoriuwa Ebose is finishing her last year at Temple Law School and will work at Schnader WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 69 class notes SPOTLIGHT ON … MAYRA TENORIO LOPEZ ’15 Mayra Tenorio Lopez ’15 was named a Gates Cambridge Scholar, the third Swarthmore alum to receive the honor. As a master of philosophy student, Tenorio will explore how indigenous women in Guatemala use their bodies to resist gendered violence within their community. “Swarthmore encouraged me to see myself as capable of producing knowledge,” Tenorio says, “which very much widened a world of possibilities for me.” + Harrison Segal & Lewis following graduation. She’s still figuring out adulting and will take any and all advice. Emma Madarasz and Elyse Tierney moved back to the Philly area. Emma is an assistant director of residence life at Ursinus College, and Elyse is attending Bryn Mawr for a master’s of social service. The two got engaged and happily share custody of their fat, furry son (read: cat), Puck MadaraszTierney. The Gang (Ian Lukaszewicz, Jason Hua, and Joseph Hagedorn) broke up: Ian headed home to “Strong Island” in pursuit of higher education; Jason took a step toward becoming a washed-up Main Line squash pro by moving to the suburbs; and Joe continues his work from a new Gayborhood flat while the world takes bets on whether he will ever actually apply to medical school. After a year as a research coordinator in Penn’s emergency department, Tim Vaughan submitted his medical school applications. He looks forward to no longer weeping over his laptop while writing and rewriting essays for hours. Check the summer Class Notes to see if he actually got in. Claudia Lujan escaped the heat in Texas, where she started school at UT–Southwestern, to visit Randy Burson, who started an M.D./ Ph.D. at Penn. Greer Prettyman (neuroscience Ph.D. at Penn) and Justin Sui joined the weekend “festivities” by ordering takeout and studying until the caffeine 70 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 CONTINUED: bulletin.swarthmore.edu proved ineffective. The familiarity was comforting. Abroad: After two great years of paying D.C. rent, Steven Gu moved to Singapore to pay even more in rent, ride bikes, and eat lots of laksa lemak. Natalia Choi still sends me sweet nothings occasionally from Korea or Siberia or Cádiz, the breezy southern coast of Spain. Her Spanish is improving, but at times she feels Swarthmore didn’t adequately introduce her to the art of free time. I will accept any suggestions on her behalf and pass them along. Andrew Dorrance teaches sixth grade at the American School of Puebla, Mexico. It’s challenging teaching elementary school for the first time, but he enjoys the experience. Location unknown: Ned Weitzman sits on his couch a lot and plays video games with Zoeth Flegenheimer and Temple Price, who kick Evan Rosenberg’s butt at said video games on a regular basis. We could—and probably will—judge these young men for submitting this particular tidbit for Class Notes, but, hey, some studies have found that video gamers are faster, more efficient, and less likely to make errors during laparoscopic surgery, so maybe we’ll all have to bite our tongues in 20 years when they’re removing our inflamed gallbladders. Except Evan. Evan should not be trusted to take out any gallbladders. I, Alexis Leanza, passed my first board exam; one down, countless to go! I am excited to have signed up for a career of lifelong learning and lifelong standardized testing. 2017 Isabel Clay isabelmarieclay@gmail.com Emily Wu emilywu1456@gmail.com In the few months since graduation, our class has already begun to impress and inspire. In true Swarthmore fashion, a number of us are pursuing further education. Cynthia Siego started a master’s in global health in Boston, and Sara Planthaber began law school in Pittsburgh. Tess Wei completed an art residency at Chautauqua Institution last summer and began a post-bacc at PAFA this fall. Grace Farley started in Duke’s Patek Lab studying the biomechanics of super-fast movement in mantis shrimp and midge larvae. She lives with Charles Kacir in a Durham, N.C., duplex and enjoys the occasional company of N.C. native Indy Reid-Shaw. Jon Cohen started a graduate research position at UC–Davis in August modeling Northern California’s reservoirs, rivers, delta, and aqueducts. To make the move west, he drove crosscountry, stopping along the way to see Dan Asplin in Chicago; Isaac Little and Meg Bost in St. Louis; Dan Peterson ’18 in Berkeley; and Atousa Nourmahnad, Marissa Cohen, and Elizabeth Tolley ’18 in LA. He fit in some solo time camping in all five Utah national parks. He hopes anyone in the area will reach out to meet up. A number of us also began our first full-time jobs. Daniel Banko-Ferran moved to D.C. to be a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau research assistant. Amit Schwalb teaches at Philly’s Vaux Big Picture High School. Also teaching is Haley Gerardi, leading high school chemistry and forensics courses in Delaware. Brandon McKenzie works in ophthalmology at Penn and lives in New Jersey. Sarah Branch moved to Brooklyn, N.Y., for a yearlong BRIC Downtown Brooklyn Arts Management Fellowship. Raven Bennett began as the interim Title IX fellow at Swarthmore. Isaac Little moved to St. Louis with Meg Bost after graduation. He is a systems engineer at Emerson Hermetic Motor, and she is a lab technician at Washington University School of Medicine. Out west, Teruya KusunokiMartin works in machine learning research. Shantanu Jain now lives in San Francisco with 2016 Swatties. Tushar Kundu started at USC as an economics research assistant. About 10 minutes away, I, Isabel Clay, teach English at University Prep High School. I’m also pursuing an urban education M.A. through Loyola Marymount University. Outside the U.S., Meiri Anto is abroad learning French. Tom Wilmots toured Europe before starting a master’s in finance and economics at the London School of Economics this fall. A few Swatties remembered to fit in a well-deserved break in the postgraduation chaos. Chris Bourne was “eating breffix, hoopin, and making my own shower chairs” before his school year began. Perhaps most impressive of all, Liam Fitzstevens has been going to bed at 9:30 p.m., averaging an outstanding eight hours of sleep each night. their light lives on our friends will never be forgotten expanded tributes at bulletin.swarthmore.edu Isabel Benkert Daly ’37 Helen Van Tuyl Davis ’34 Helen, an economist turned real estate agent, died Oct. 20, 2017. A lifelong hiker and swimmer deeply interested in nutrition and health, Helen raised her family in a former farmhouse in McLean, Va., where she grew vegetables and explored the mountains. A math honors graduate, an actuary, and a creative, loving homemaker, Isabel died Sept. 22, 2017. Daughter Florence Battis Mini ’68 wrote: “My mother raised the four of us, took care of her aging father, ran the household, and folded my older half sister happily into the rest of the family, all with every appearance of serenity. She also volunteered at church, led a Girl Scout troop, learned to identify every tree in North America (or so it seemed), and earned an MLS. She always could give someone a ride; friends were always welcome for dinner or to stay the night.” Celia Price Patterson ’39 Celia, a loving wife, mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, died Jan. 29, 2016. A homemaker who held a B.A. in French from the College, Celia’s fondest hobby was dancing. Barbara Deweese Day ’40 Barbara, who worked for the Army Finance Office in Seattle and later for the Red Cross as a social worker in military hospitals during World War II, died Oct. 5, 2017. An English literary major and homemaker who raised three children, Barbara was an active community volunteer and master storyteller who loved learning, traveling, cooking, and entertaining. William Faison Jr. ’42 William, a World War II Army veteran who graduated from North Carolina State with a mechanical engineering degree after leaving Swarthmore, died Aug. 23, 2017. A devoted father and grandfather who built a 34-year career at USS South Works as safety supervisor, he loved piloting his own small plane and taking photographs with his ever-present camera. WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 71 in memoriam Barbara Valentine Hertz ’43 Barbara, a graduate of Friends Seminary and Barnard College, died Aug. 24, 2017. A lifelong lover of the Adirondack Park, she also served as managing editor of Parents Magazine; director of development of Barnard College; director of development at the Rosenstiel School, University of Miami; and director of foundation relations at the University of Miami. Nicholas Beldecos ’43 A Navy vet, former executive and engineer with Westinghouse Electric, and loving family man, Nicholas died Oct. 9, 2017. Over the years, Nick gave of his time and talents to many nonprofit boards, including Magee-Women’s Hospital, St. Edmund’s Academy, St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral, and, most notably, Family House, a home away from home for patients and their families dealing with life-threatening illnesses, where he served for 25 years as a founding member. Dorothy Shor Thompson ’43 Dorothy, a talented potter and caring school bus driver for special education students, died Jan. 6, 2017. A volunteer reading tutor, she also earned a degree in meteorology from the University of Chicago. James Sutor ’46 James, a retired vice president and secretary for the board of Provident Mutual Life Insurance Co., died June 1, 2014. A World War II Navy veteran who served on the USS Monterey in the South Pacific, James was a board member of many organizations, including the Philadelphia StudioRecording of the Blind and Dyslexic. Howard Harris ’48 Howard, a World War II Army veteran who eventually become vice president of public affairs for CPC International, died Aug. 13, 2017. A lover of sports, classical music, bridge, theater, American history, good friends, and good writing, Howard doted on dogs and was described by his family as “the rock and guide who sheltered and encouraged us.” Thomas Hodges ’49 A gifted advertising entrepreneur, lifelong lover of Maine, and widower of Elizabeth Wilbur Hodges ’49, Thomas died Aug. 6, 2017. Full of mischief and good humor, “T.V.” could be found inventing gadgets in his basement; writing, illustrating, and binding his own books; creating board games; espaliering fruit trees; cartooning; singing and dancing; or repairing antique clocks. He once built a harpsichord on a lark. Morton Kimball ’49 Morton, who served in the U.S. Navy aboard a destroyer during World War II and was recalled to duty during the Barbara Stone Gelb ’46 A celebrated author and journalist who entered Swarthmore at 16 but dropped out to become a copy girl for The New York Times editorial board, Barbara died Feb. 1, 2017. The co-author with her husband of three definitive biographies on the legendary playwright Eugene O’Neill, Barbara penned many other acclaimed books as well as a one-woman play, My Gene, about O’Neill’s third and final wife, Carlotta Monterey. 72 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 Korean War, died Sept. 7, 2017. Formerly New York University’s director of student affairs, “Kim” was an active volunteer in retirement with a lifelong love of opera; Nazareth College now holds his extensive collection of Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. Stephen Sickle ’50 A loving husband, father, and grandfather who also held an MBA in marketing from the University of Chicago, Stephen died July 17, 2017. University of Pennsylvania and worked for RCA and its successors for 40 years, Guy died Sept. 10, 2017. After serving in the U.S. Merchant Marine at the end of World War II, he earned his high school diploma before entering Swarthmore. Guy loved his family and friends dearly, and always enjoyed a good game of tennis. Elizabeth Wilkins McMaster ’53 Elizabeth, who earned a master’s in social work from Columbia University and built a lengthy career helping others, died Aug. 21, 2017. A Francophile whose husband described her as a “7-star cook,” Betsy was a longtime pillar of a Providence, R.I., women’s debating society, the Shakespeare Society, and a book group. She was renowned for her quiet optimism, determination, compassion, and strength. Barbara Turlington ’53 An advocate for international education and empowerment of seniors as well Gordon Mochel ’50 Gordon, who went on to earn a master’s in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, died June 18, 2017. A resident of Connecticut, he was the husband of Patricia Lackey Mochel ’50, the brother of the late John Mochel ’45, and the brother-in-law of the late Janet Bartleson Mochel ’43. Guy Brusca ’52 A distinguished electrical engineer who earned a master’s from the Robert Merin ’54 An Army veteran who became a globally respected, field-leading anesthesiologist, Robert died Aug. 27, 2017. President of the Association of University Anesthesiologists from 1987 to 1988 and author of more than 75 publications, he retired to South Carolina, where he enjoyed tennis, golf, boating, and scuba diving as well as church and volunteer work. Sarah Curtis Lichtenstein ’55 Sarah, a powerhouse psychologist in the field of decision research and the inaugural president of Eugene, Ore.’s Human Rights Commission on Women, died Aug. 31, 2017. One of the key figures in establishing her field—which fundamentally shifted economics and psychology—Sarah also had a passion for math and music as well as an exceptional capacity for empathy, wit, and analysis. Sheila Brown Bishop ’57 Robert Barbanell ’52 A managing director of Bankers Trust who prided himself on being a devoted husband, father, stepfather, grandfather, brother, uncle, brother-in-law, and son, Robert died Aug. 30, 2017. After attending Swarthmore, he graduated from New York University and was much loved by family and friends for his intellectual curiosity, strong sense of values, and wry humor. as a lover of flowers and gardens, books and Beethoven, animals and people, Barbara died Sept. 3, 2017. She completed her bachelor’s at American University of Beirut, Lebanon, and built an impressive career that included serving as director of international education at the American Council on Education as well as on the board of directors of Alliance International Educational and Cultural Exchange. Yoshiro Sanbonmatsu ’50 Yoshiro, an admired teacher who sought to educate his students about the human condition in all its complexities, died Oct. 22, 2017. A social justice advocate who handcrafted dollhouses—with working doorbells and real wallpaper—for his daughters, Yosh became a full-time artist in retirement and is remembered for his moral seriousness, good humor, and humility. Sheila, who taught physics at Youngstown State University, died Aug. 30, 2017. One-half of a Quaker matchbox couple, she was married to Edwin Bishop ’58 and enjoyed reading, needlework, and gardening. Felicia Forsythe Humer ’57 Felicia, a retired social worker and birthright Quaker, died Oct. 23, 2017. A devoted mother and grandmother, Felicia was an accomplished pianist— having played by ear at age 4—and enjoyed singing in a number of chorus groups. She was also passionate about serving those in need and volunteered Mary Jane Winde Gentry ’53 Mary Jane, a loving force of nature who dedicated herself to building supportive communities while encouraging friends and family to do the same, died Oct. 4, 2017. An influential volunteer who played key roles in establishing the Vermont Children’s Trust Foundation and launching the Champlain Valley High School Duo Program, Mary Jane loved tennis and spending time with her family. her time at the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, as a tutor, and at her local YMCA. Leonard Willinger Jr. ’58 A devout associate pastor who served Trinity Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., Leonard died March 10, 2017. He left Swarthmore after a year and found his direction when he converted to fundamentalism in 1959. After completing his education at Christian institutions and devoting his life to religious service, he frequently corresponded with the College on matters of faith. Virgil McKenna M’59 Virgil, a popular, award-winning psychology professor emeritus at—and undergraduate alumnus of—the College of William and Mary, died Aug. 2, 2017. An ardent admirer of horses and wire fox terriers, he passionately followed College of William and Mary news and sports, drawing pride in its past as well as its future. WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 73 in memoriam Paul Rothman ’62 The owner and publisher of Fred B. Rothman Law Books as well as a beloved husband, father, and grandfather, Paul died in October. Although he treasured growing up in a large family in New York, Paul decided at age 13 that his dream was to move to Colorado, and he built a beautiful life there, drawing immense pleasure from the mountains. Martha Merrill Pickrell ’60 Martha, who eventually earned her bachelor’s in history from Indiana University South Bend in 1970 and worked as an archivist, writer, and editor, died Sept. 20, 2017. A prolific but unpublished poet who enjoyed writing and recording her selfpenned music, Martha was a vigorous walker, a voracious reader, a low-key cook, and a grateful, giving friend to many. the book Songs and Lives of the Jomo, about Tibetan Buddhist nuns living in northern India. friends wherever he went—his ability to find something in common with anyone made him unforgettable to so many. Ann Coulter ’66 Mary ‘Molly’ Wood ’74 A former inner-city social worker in Washington, D.C., and director of volunteer services at Frankford Hospital in Philadelphia, Ann died Sept. 20, 2017. Active in the civil rights and antiVietnam War movements, Ann volunteered in retirement for the League of Women Voters of Jefferson County, W.Va., and the Eastern Panhandle Single Payer Action Network, a group founded to advocate for Medicare for All. Judith Walenta ’66 A gifted and accomplished nurse practitioner and healer who went above and beyond to improve the health and lives of her patients, Judith died Sept. 2, 2017. In addition to her Swarthmore bachelor’s, Judith held degrees from Stony Brook University and New York University and completed training as a family nurse practitioner at Community General Hospital in Syracuse, N.Y. She was loved by many. Eric Brown ’67 Eric, who learned six languages and loved running his own management consulting business for more than 30 years, died Aug. 28, 2017. Passionate about international travel, bicycling, and his family, Eric made David Bartlett ’63 David, a beloved pastor, professor, and pillar of the Yale community—among others—died Oct. 12, 2017. The author or editor of nearly 20 books and 50 articles, David served churches as well as schools and applied everything he learned to enhancing the work of parish ministry. WINTER 2018 Class secretaries (from left) Diana Judd Stevens ’63, Libby Murch Livingston ’41, and Kathy Stevens ’89 met up in Maine last summer. A freelance proofreader and medical editor who also attended law school, Helene died June 23, 2017. Remembered for her sense of humor, Helene volunteered with New York Cares, coaching job seekers through interview preparation, supporting the city’s library projects, and securing clothing for impoverished children. Elizabeth Singreen Racina ’04 Elizabeth, who transferred from Swarthmore to Tulane University and then conducted postgraduate studies in France, died May 10, 2016. Fiercely loyal, a devout Catholic, a lover of the arts and French language, a writer, painter, poet, and creator of many things, Liz married and had a baby daughter, Olivia, in 2015 and cherished her family. From left: Kheay Loke ’81, Danny Kaplan ’81, Maya Hanna, Kathy Hom Huang ’83, Martha McGrady ’81, and John Huang ’81, hiking Lake Tahoe in 2016. From left: Lila Weitzner ’19, Ben Marks ’16, Daniel Banko-Ferran ’17, and Isabel Knight ’16, at a Changing Lives, Changing the World event in D.C. Jill Hays ’67 A teacher and researcher, Linda died July 31, 2017. Beloved by her large family, Linda is also remembered as the author of Swarthmore College Bulletin / SCRAPBOOK Helene Abramowitz ’77 Jill, a seasoned traveler, prolific writer/ editor, and accomplished poet with an enviable rare-book collection, died Sept. 4, 2017. A lifelong learner who loved exploring different cultures and tutoring students across many subjects, with a specialty in ESL, Jill spoke several languages, including Irish, French, and Japanese, and selflessly arranged to have her body donated to the University of Vermont for medical research. Linda LaMacchia ’65 74 Molly, who was born and raised in Swarthmore and later became a respected paralegal in Philadelphia, died July 15, 2017 As comfortable working on complex transactions for high-powered clients as she was at home with her beloved English sheepdog Tess, border terriers Lucy and Jake, and standard poodle RosyLou, Molly read extensively and delighted in the Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle. GARNET Robert George ’77 (right) received an honorary doctorate last March from the Universitat Abat Oliba CEU in Barcelona, Spain. Nearly two dozen people joined Chinese professor Haili Kong on an Alumni College Abroad trip to China and Tibet. Photos: bulletin.swarthmore.edu Deb Felix ’83 still summers “at home” in Wellfleet, Mass., where a yearbook pic from the ’80s caught her cozying up with a fake captain atop the Bayside Lobster Hutt. Trudy Richter Mott-Smith ’56 spearheaded the installation of 100 solar panels at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Concord, N.H. + SEND YOUR PHOTOS/BLURBS TO BULLETIN@SWARTHMORE.EDU + to report a death notice, email records@swarthmore.edu WINTER 2018 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 75 spoken word their beds were made tight and their barracks clean—all conducted with a white glove. I actually enjoyed it, because I could tell officers, “You did pretty well, but here is where you can improve.” CRISP AND CLEAN by Elizabeth Slocum SINCE JOINING Swarthmore in fall 2016, Tyrone Dunston has brought a military precision to his role as director of Environmental Services (EVS). The proud Marine (watch bit.ly/VeteransDaySwat for more) values order and tidiness—one colleague has been known to peek inside his office, look around, and exclaim, “Neat!” Working with his crew behind the scenes, Dunston hopes to establish Swarthmore as Pennsylvania’s cleanest college. 76 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2018 What should we know about EVS? Our mission is quality assurance. We also manage the waste with much help from our Sustainability staff. Our vision is 80 percent of Swarthmore’s waste being diverted from the Chester incinerator by 2022. It’s going to take change of behavior, education, and homework. We’re designing waste bins and trying to be as uniform as possible throughout campus while addressing the needs of different buildings. We try to be productive, cost-effective, and meet campus sustainability needs. How did your more than a decade of military service influence you? In the Marine Corps, I was selected to conduct quality-assurance inspections, which included reviewing the barracks of high-ranked officers. These were officers I had to salute every day, and I had to make sure What do you enjoy off the clock? Spending time with my wife—we’ve been married 33 years—or with my grandson. I enjoy fishing and working out, but I’m usually with family. We go to Ocean City, Md., one of my favorite places. It’s hard to take my mind off work, so I try to do things that relax me. My wife says, “You talk about the workplace more than any other place you’ve been.” And I say, “I guess that’s because I enjoy my work.” So is your house incredibly clean? Yes! I drive my wife crazy. She’s neat to the point where she cleans the house a lot, but I’m more structural, where things always have to be lined up. People come to our house and say, “You are a perfect fit for each other.” Even here at Swarthmore, it’s not just about cleanliness. It’s about the structure, the presentation. You’ve got people coming in—whether they’re parents bringing students back to school, or the students themselves— when they first enter their dorm, if it’s clean, neat, smells good, it says a lot about what they’re venturing into. And a first impression a lot of times leaves the last impression. LAURENCE KESTERSON LAURENCE KESTERSON What drew you to Swarthmore? I liked the diversity and the Quaker values. I visited the campus after I applied, and I found out that once you come, you stay here. Everybody seemed happy. And what do you know? Two days later, I was called in for an interview. It’s been a beautiful fit. in this issue 9 LABOR OF LOVE Through Birth, a Companion Swarthmorean doulas make a social-justice difference in delivery. by Cameron French ’14 MOMENT IN TIME November’s SwatFit inaugural Turkey Trot collected donations for local food banks ... and gave Assistant Director of Athletics Max Miller an excuse to shake a tail feather. Mother of the modern doula movement Penny Payson Simkin ’59 (right) with clients and friends, photographed by Ashwin Rao ’99. WINTER 2018 Periodical Postage PAID Philadelphia, PA and Additional Mailing Offices MISS HOT MESS p15 DR. SAILOR p63 500 College Ave. Swarthmore, PA 19081–1306 www.swarthmore.edu SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN LAURENCE KESTERSON WINTER 2018 WE HOPE YOU’LL RESOLVE TO GET IN TOUCH WITH US THIS YEAR Swarthmore can help customize an endowed fund, bequest intention, life-income gift, or other type of planned gift that advances our educational mission and achieves your financial/estate-planning goals. Begin the conversation: Contact Jessica Cunningham ’08 in College Advancement giftplanning@swarthmore.edu • 866-526-4438 • swarthmore.plannedgiving.org vital spaces MR. CLEAN p76