28 2 47 FEATURES DIALOGUE CLASS NOTES Origin Point Editor’s Column Letters Community Voices Alumni News and Events Black Studies provides an academic home for urgent discussions on race. by Elizabeth Redden ’05 36 United in Song Swarthmore’s Alumni Gospel Choir expands musical possibilities at the College. by Queen Muse 40 Voice, Mind, Spirit President Valerie Smith Profiles Studentwise Sean Decatur ’90 Karama Neal ’93 Books Looking Back Joe Green ’21 Global Thinking Their Light Lives On Asahi Pompey ’94 76 SPOKEN WORD 9 COMMON GOOD Swarthmore Stories Quiz’more Learning Curve Assistant Professor of Sociology Nina Johnson Taylor Tucker ’20 Liberal Arts Lives Garikai Campbell ’90 Elizabeth Lindsey ’02 The Chester Children’s Chorus celebrates 25 years of love and strength. by Ryan Dougherty ON THE COVER The Black Cultural Center and Black Studies Program celebrate 50 years. Illustration by Monica Ahanonu. TERRY CHAPIN ’66, H’16 was awarded the Volvo Environment Prize 2019 for his work in Earth stewardship. See pg. 9. WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 1 dialogue EDITOR’S COLUMN Talk About the Journey SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN Interim Editor Kate Campbell Senior Writer/Editor Ryan Dougherty Designer Phillip Stern ’84 FRIENDS HISTORICAL LIBRARY SPA 200/B8/094 Photographer Laurence Kesterson Administrative Assistant Lauren McAloon Editorial Assistant Eishna Ranganathan ’20 Editor Emerita Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49 KATE CAMPBELL Interim Editor CONTRIBUTORS Redden is a freelance writer and journalist. She holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia. She lives in Delaware, where she and her husband help run an animal rescue in their free time. Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 Send address changes to records@swarthmore.edu The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN 0888-2126), of which this is volume CXVII, 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. THAT’S OK STUFF I was happy to see the swing in the fall 2019 Quiz’more. This may be an item for a future quiz: Who put up the first swing, being on a huge tree on the front lawn below Clothier? From my limited knowledge, I believe it would be me. I, living in Wharton, went to the hardware store in the Ville and bought 50 feet or more of strong, large-diameter rope, somehow built the seat, climbed the tree to tie the rope, and soon began to see many students enjoying the long, graceful ride. That was spring 1958. The swing was still being enjoyed when I returned as assistant dean of admissions in 1965–66. However, perhaps there was an earlier swing, before my time. A quiz might ferret out an earlier swing raised by an earlier student. Then the following question: How did the swing become a tradition, and who continued to maintain the swing? The College landscape crew? —JOHN SCHUCHARDT ’61, Ipswich Mass. Missed Opportunity Reading Fred Pryor’s obit in the Washington Post brought back a great memory. (Read more about Fred on pg. 14.) When I was Swarthmore’s associate vice president for external affairs in the ’90s, I invited Fred and wife Zora to be the guest lecturers on an Alumni College Abroad trip to Germany. In East Berlin, I took a group to see I-forget-what. Fred was in charge of another group. Not until we reunited on our bus did I learn that he’d taken his group to the old Stasi headquarters to look at his files. What a missed opportunity for my group! —BARBARA HADDAD RYAN ’59, Cary, N.C. + WRITE TO US: bulletin@swarthmore.edu Queen Muse writer Printed with agri-based inks. Please recycle after reading. ©2020 Swarthmore College. Printed in USA. pr inted w i th Ahanonu is a freelance illustrator based in Los Angeles. She has worked with companies such as The New York Times, InStyle Magazine, Adidas, Sprite, Salvatore Ferragamo, and DreamWorks Animation. Send letters and story ideas to bulletin@swarthmore.edu nd e Elizabeth Redden ’05 writer 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. e c o-fri 2 Monica Ahanonu artist bulletin.swarthmore.edu facebook.com/SwarthmoreBulletin instagram.com/SwarthmoreBulletin Email: bulletin@swarthmore.edu Telephone: 610-328-8533 ly H-UV ks “PERHAPS TO LOSE a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are.” That quote from Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man speaks to the themes explored in this robust winter Bulletin. As we celebrate Black Excellence at Swarthmore, we share the singular experiences of more than 40 Black alumni, the formation of two choirs, the evolution of Black studies, and the history of how “the House” became a home. Each story—whether detailing the pain of isolation, the conflict in forging new paths, or the joy of building community—is part of Swarthmore’s history: how it has changed its alumni, and how it’s been changed by them. With guest poets, writers, historians, civil rights leaders, artists, and scientists joining in the College’s celebrations, explore the great work being accomplished on this small campus, and meet the Swarthmoreans who are carrying their experiences and knowledge out into the world. A LONG, GRACEFUL RIDE A New York Times obit of Samuel Hynes, a longtime professor at Swarthmore, reminded me of this regret: Students rarely know much about their professors, even at a relatively small college like Swarthmore. I was lucky that Hynes (pg. 13) taught me in 1951–1952; he was then figuring out how to teach, and I was figuring out how to study. I did not know he was a heroic fighter pilot who endured 78 missions during World War II. Obviously, I didn’t know he would go on to be a brilliant writer (Flights of Passage, The Soldiers’ Tale, etc). I went on to write nine books; I would have enjoyed knowing of his literary aspirations. Or knowing him. I remember Hynes as a brilliant guy, a little gruff and remote. Reading his obit underscored this reality: I wish students could have more insight into the lives and interests of their professors. We students are strangers to them; it doesn’t need to be mutual. By the way, when Hynes liked something I wrote, he would say something ebullient, like “That’s OK stuff.” —PETER BART ’54, Palm Springs, Calif. Class Notes Editor Elizabeth Slocum by LETTERS in Muse writes about medicine, health, and science. She holds an M.A. in strategic communication from La Salle University, where she is a visiting assistant professor of communication teaching courses in journalism and public relations. WHERE’S THE FIRE? My mother, Lydia Cooper Lewis Rickman, Class of 1906, used to tell me that a student was expelled from the College “for putting out a fire in Trotter,” and that even in her day Trotter was considered “not fit for purpose.” Fact or fiction? —LUCY RICKMAN BARUCH ’42, Marlow, England College Archivist David Obermayer did some digging and shares the following information: There was a fire in Trotter Hall, then called the Science Hall, in 1905. Trotter Hall was originally built in 1881 and called the Science Hall since it housed the lecture and laboratory spaces for all of the sciences. In the early 1900s, the building was only 20 years old, but due to the ever-increasing interest in the sciences among the student body, the administration made plans to build a new chemistry building. When a fire broke out in one of the chemistry lecture halls in 1905, the plans were pushed up and the new chemistry building opened in 1906. + EXPLORE FURTHER: swarthmore.edu/friends-historical-library Elizabeth Bryant ’13 writer Bryant is a writer and multimedia creative from St. Peter, Minn. She works in marketing and publicity at Graywolf Press. Roy Greim ’14 writer reim is Swarthmore’s G assistant director of communications. He graduated from Swarthmore College with an honors major in history and a minor in German studies. WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 3 dialogue COMMUNITY VOICES GLOBAL AMBASSADORS LAURENCE KESTERSON From New York to Ghana, alumni are changing the world A S PRESIDENT of multidisciplinary core curriculum Swarthmore College, I with degree programs in computer treasure opportunities science, business administration, to meet with alumni management information systems, and across the globe and engineering. learn about their lives. Patrick was able to attend These visits affirm the exponential Swarthmore because of the College’s impacts of a Swarthmore education; our generous financial aid. He benefited alumni are indeed changing the world. from a range of curricular and In October, I spent an evening with cocurricular opportunities that led more than 125 alumni, parents, and him to earn degrees in engineering friends who gathered in New York City and economics and launch his career for “Liberal Arts Lives: as a software engineer Swarthmore in Fashion.” and program manager for The event featured Microsoft. a conversation with Swarthmore inspired by fashion designer Joseph Patrick to take the Altuzarra ’05; journalist lessons he had learned and longtime editor of home to Ghana and Glamour Cindi Leive create an institution ’88; and Cathy Polinsky that would forge ethical, ’99, chief technology entrepreneurial leaders of officer for Stitch Fix, the the future. I’m delighted online personal style service. The to say that he and his team are discussion of the intersections of achieving nothing less—encouraging fashion, technology, and the liberal students to think critically, work arts was fascinating; their experiences collaboratively, communicate exemplify the types of opportunities a effectively, and hold themselves and Swarthmore education makes possible. others to the highest ethical standards. Farther from home, I was similarly Although this was my first visit thrilled to visit Ashesi University to Ashesi, its campus felt somehow in Ghana with a group that included familiar. Like Swarthmore, Ashesi representatives from higher education, is landscaped with beautiful native business, and nonprofit organizations. trees and plants and features an Patrick Awuah ’89, H’04 founded amphitheater and outdoor gathering the liberal arts institution in 2002 spaces and classrooms, supporting with the vision of combining a its vision of a holistic residential VALERIE SMITH President 4 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 experience. On day two of my visit, I met Sebastian, who had been a visiting student at Swarthmore in fall 2018 studying mathematics and music theory. Enthusiastic and insightful, Sebastian shared compelling reflections about his time both inside and beyond the classroom at Swarthmore. Sebastian represents a community of Ashesi students and alumni who confidently articulate the ways their coursework, commitment to problem solving, and entrepreneurial spirit prepare them to confront grand challenges—those facing Ghana, the African continent, or the world as a whole. I often think about the values that help define Swarthmore: extending the liberal arts to the world beyond our campus; providing a transformative educational experience; serving the common good; and removing socioeconomic barriers to a Swarthmore education. My journeys on behalf of the College continue to reinforce this message and demonstrate that our alumni embody these values across seemingly disparate fields, including technology, fashion, entrepreneurship, and higher education. That is the power of a Swarthmore education—an education that changes lives that change the world. LAURENCE KESTERSON President Valerie Smith enjoys a conversation with Cindi Leive ’88 and Joseph Altuzarra ’05 at an alumni gathering in New York. “I have been able to discuss my identities on a deeper level,” says Joe Green ’21, co-president of Students of Caribbean Ancestry. STUDENTWISE: SENSE OF SELF How student groups at Swarthmore helped me affirm my identities by Joe Green ’21 SINCE COMING to Swarthmore as a shy freshman in the fall of 2017, many experiences have shaped me into the proud Afro-Latinx queer man I am today. I arrived just starting my gender transition, trying to figure out who I wanted to be as I became more independent. I was attracted to Swarthmore after seeing my cousin and brother thrive here and continue their graduate education at Yale and Howard. That exemplified what this college can do to prepare students for life after graduation. I knew this was the right place for me as a curious and eager young adult. Now a junior, I am a Black studies and music major. Without Swarthmore’s liberal arts education, I would not have been able to experiment with different disciplines and find what worked best for me. I have taken classes in many departments, including psychology, art history, Latin American and Latino studies, astronomy, history, and English. These courses allowed me to explore many of my academic interests and opened my mind to the different routes of study available. Without becoming involved in student groups like the Swarthmore African-American Student Society, Students of Caribbean Ancestry, and ENLACE, I would not have been able to embrace my many identities. SASS and ENLACE provided spaces for me to explore my Black and Latinx backgrounds, and I am now co-president of SOCA with one of my closest friends. The dinners, parties, discussions, and large TriCo events held by these groups helped me embrace my cultural background in a way I had not been able to in high school. SOCA gave me a perfect middle ground between my identities and provided a space for me to explore my Jamaican and Puerto Rican roots with other Caribbean Swatties. But I also had to accept that as a primarily White institution, Swarthmore can sometimes feel less than inclusive. A range of my personal experiences—from the sense of being unwelcome, to hostility—have also shaped my time here. I am at a place in my college career where I want to apply what I am learning to my communities as much as possible. This is where Black studies comes in. By combining cultural studies and music, my goal is to do ethnomusicological research in graduate school on my way to a career in education. Between academics and student groups, I am finding a balance that allows me to be engaged with my own communities within the College. I have been able to discuss my identities on a deeper level, as my classes have given me the knowledge to reflect on my experiences in a way I could not have when I was younger. Swarthmore has given me the opportunity to engage intellectually, not only with others but, more importantly, with myself. This has helped me discover who I want to be in this world—and how to apply my knowledge in my communities. I am hopeful about this year of Celebrating Black Excellence, which should be about acknowledging and giving back to Swarthmore College’s Black community. And although I believe Swarthmore has more work to do to become a space of true inclusivity and acceptance, I also have hope that this celebratory year can help bring about some needed change. WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 5 dialogue Submit your publication for consideration: books@swarthmore.edu BEHIND THE BOOK HOT TYPE: New releases by Swarthmoreans INTRIGUE AND ARCHITECTURE by Tom Kertscher PERHAPS THE BIGGEST mystery of Marga Jann ’72’s new novel is where the truth ends and the hypothetical begins. A semiautobigraphical account stemming from her 2017 Fulbright to Sri Lanka and other academic assignments, The Architect: Four Countries, Four Faces (Arrow Gate Publishing) follows Jann as she “unwittingly finds herself embroiled in a dangerous and diplomatically sensitive battle between MI6/CIA operatives and Saudi Intelligence.” Jann, a French-American research fellow at the University of Cambridge (both in real life and in literary form), devotes a chapter to each of the four “faces” she visits—Sri Lanka, Korea, Cyprus, and Uganda—and the encounters she has in each country, sharing sociocultural and geopolitical insights while also highlighting the power of prayer. “As I glanced back, there was no longer a vague party in black chasing me but a whole gang,” begins a particularly dramatic moment in Korea. “I could not imagine what their interest in an architecture professor could be.” As the chapter concludes, Jann ponders if they were ISIS cell members or random punks. Though the threat diminishes, the intrigue builds—to be played out over two more novels. 6 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 Burke, a biographer, writes a captivating tale about the intense relationship among four 20th-century artists and the works they influenced, drawing upon correspondence from the four to reveal how they each inspired and provoked one another. Le Ke Son & Charles Bailey ’67 William Armstrong ’54 and Fisseha G. Demoze Harry Margolis ’77 Get Your Ducks in a Row: The Baby Boomers Guide to Estate Planning Ducks in a Row Publishing A founding and co-managing partner at a revered elder-care and special-needs law firm, Margolis shares comprehensive knowledge on all aspects of estate planning. “I knew there needed to be a simple way to approach estate planning that was digestible, relatable and would ultimately drive people to plan their futures without running into all the devastating pitfalls that can occur when nothing or very little is planned,” Margolis writes. Navigating a New Life IN THE IMPERIAL VALLEY, Ram Singh is fleeing Oregon after a traumatic incident and accepts his friend Karak’s offer to work on a small cantaloupe farm. This is the sweeping landscape of Passage West (Harper Collins), the debut novel by Rishi Reddi ’88. The story follows a family of Indian sharecroppers as anti-immigrant sentiments begin to rise in 1914. Ram struggles among other immigrants to farm in the desert while missing his wife and new son. As he navigates his new life, a rivalry simmers between Ram and Karak until the tensions of life in the West threaten to erupt. education, work, family—and her alma mater. “Swarthmore opened up the world to me,” she writes. “The first two years was a wide variety of courses in both sciences and humanities. That is when I got interested in economics. In the second half of my undergraduate degree, we started learning to change the world.” Reddi, author of the award-winning 2007 collection Karma and Other Stories, explores the complexities of identity for South Asians and their role in American history. In writing Passage West, she says she processed her own gradual assimilation: “Many immigrants live betwixt and between countries and cultures for a very long time, which most nonimmigrants don’t realize.” In this moving portrait of a man’s search for belonging, Reddi asks the question Who is welcome in America? Robin Ridington ’62 Spaghetti Must Be Ambidextrous: Sonnets 2008–2019 Plume of Cockatoo Press A sonnet writer since his Swarthmore days—when he fondly remembers spending a whole day speaking in iambic pentameter—Ridington covers themes as varied as turning 80 and Donald Trump in this new book of poetry. “The sonnets in this collection luxuriate in the richness of English vocabulary and excoriate the decline of language and civility in the world around us,” he writes. From Enemies to Partners: Vietnam, the U.S. and Agent Orange G. Anton Publishing By pulling their notes together, Son and Bailey address the aftermath of Agent Orange and the current scientific understandings of the chemical while considering the solutions to addressing the consequences of its use—advancing the conversations around dioxin and the legacies of the Vietnam War. Ethiopian Amharic Proverbs Tigray Development Association Armstrong was an associate director of the U.S. Peace Corps in Ethiopia in the late ’60s when Fisseha Demoze taught him Arabic and the two began to collect and translate Ethiopian proverbs. This book represents their collaboration and offers a fascinating insight into Ethiopian customs and culture through centuries of philosophical wisdom. Consider proverb No. 124: The wasting away of an elephant and the losses of a rich man are not noticeable. ­—LAUREN McALOON Lucy Bunzi Mallan ’54, with assistance from Phil Shapiro and Jeff Edelstein Memoirs Lulu Press In this autobiography dedicated to her children and grandchildren, Mallan writes about her childhood, marriages, Carolyn Goldberg Burke ’61 Foursome: Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe, Paul Strand, Rebecca Salsbury Penguin Randomhouse WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 7 common good dialogue SHARING SUCCESS AND STORIES OF SWARTHMORE GLOBAL THINKING PATHWAYS TO POSSIBILITIES ON THE WEB GOLDMAN SACHS “There’s a catalytic impact of investing in women entrepreneurs,” says Asahi Pompey ’94, shown with graduates in Beijing. “They reinvest their savings in health and education for families. They create new jobs and products and services in their communities, resulting in growth in those communities.” WINTER 2020 bit.ly/MellonMays WELCOME MAT Read a Q&A with Imaani El-Burki, the new director of Swarthmore’s Intercultural Center. bit.ly/ImaaniEB Similarly, 10,000 Women has provided a world-class business education to 10,000+ women in more than 100 countries, also at no cost to participants. The program was informed by research showing that investing in education for women could help close a range of gender gaps and contribute to higher global economic growth. Through Community TeamWorks, the talent, energy, and experience of the company’s 38,000 employees are harnessed to make a tangible impact in their own communities. Under Pompey’s leadership, the program achieved a milestone 150,000 hours of service in honor of Goldman Sachs’s 150th anniversary in 2019, supporting more than 900 nonprofits globally. Pompey has seen first-hand the transformative power of philanthropy Executive Swarthmore College Bulletin / + DIVERSIFY + MEET HER ASAHI POMPEY ’94 8 ‘DEFINING ROLE’ Swarthmore hosted aspiring academics of color at the regional Mellon Mays conference. on communities, families, and individuals—including in her own life, she says. Thanks to a scholarship from the American Field Service—a grantee of the Goldman Sachs Gives program— she was able to attend high school in Japan. Closer to home, a scholarship from the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation in part financed Pompey’s Swarthmore education. “I am privileged to have a family support system—my mother, Edith, and my father, Theodore—that value education tremendously and recognize how it is a pivotal pathway to economic mobility and intellectual advancement,” she says. “I now try to pass that ethic on to my two sons, Maximilian, 11, and Sebastian, 9. “Along my path, I encountered so many teachers and professors, in particular at Swarthmore, whose dreams for me were bigger than my dreams were for myself.” ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE Rose Ridder ’20 was named a laureate of Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society. + CELEBRATE LAURENCE KESTERSON “MY LIFE HAS REALLY BEEN marked by opportunity,” says Asahi Pompey ’94, who emigrated from Guyana to Brooklyn, N.Y., with her family at age 9. “I fundamentally know that talent is everywhere but, all too often, opportunity is not.” Over the past 14 years, Pompey has risen through the ranks at the financial firm Goldman Sachs, culminating last year with a promotion to partner and a new position as global head of corporate engagement and president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation. In her current role, Pompey oversees the firm’s signature 10,000 Small Businesses and 10,000 Women programs; its global employee engagement activities; and Goldman Sachs Gives, a donor-advised fund. “We have a mission to leverage our expertise and longstanding culture of service to promote economic progress in communities,” says Pompey, a political science major at Swarthmore with a J.D. from Columbia Law. “Collectively, we’ve deployed more than $2.5 billion over the last decade through our philanthropic efforts.” Since launching in 2009, the 10,000 Small Businesses program has reached more than 9,100 businesses across the U.S. and 1,700 in the U.K., providing practical business education, support services, and access to capital, at no cost to participants. In the U.S., participants consistently outperform national averages, with more than 50% creating net new jobs and more than 70% increasing revenues 18 months after the program. “From Baltimore to Brooklyn, from Detroit to Dayton, from Cleveland to Kalamazoo—I am continually struck by our business owners’ grit, hustle, and dedication to not only their employees but to their communities,” says Pompey. bit.ly/RoseRidder PHYSICS LESSON Physicist Tristan Smith discusses Einstein, gravity, and his Cottrell Scholarship. + EXPLORE bit.ly/TristanSmith Mind the Light, day and night: Parrish casts a soft glow on campus on a chilly fall evening. LIGHTING THE WAY Global Guardian TERRY CHAPIN ’66, H’16, an ecologist and founder of the concept of Earth stewardship, was awarded the 2019 Volvo Environment Prize. Chapin’s published work over the past 30 years has influenced the understanding of biological diversity that underpins human well-being. His focus has been on the global Arctic, where ecology meets climate change in the carbon-rich expanses of tundra, permafrost, and boreal forest. “I think the stewardship framework has some potential to move society from creating a planet in peril, to one in which people can live more sustainably with nature,” Chapin says. “So I’m glad to see that framework recognized.” WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 9 common good Nikki Giovanni Shares Creative Inspiration NEW PLANS AHEAD by Roy Greim ’14 said. “There is no map that takes us far around it. This is our fate, to move with a poet-pilot’s guidance, despite the lightning, heart beating with the thunder, knowing that after darkness eventually comes dawn and the poet-pilot has guided us to a smooth landing, a new place, a wonder with the chance to begin again.” After discussing politics, religion, and Nashville’s history as “Music City,” Giovanni read her poem “Tennessean by Birth,” about her home state, which she left as a child when her family moved to Cincinnati. She also read SPELMAN COLLEGE EDUCATION AND ACCESS: Spelman College President Mary Schmidt Campbell ’69, H’09 visited campus in October during Garnet Weekend to give the 2019 McCabe Lecture, “Education: The New Civil Rights? What Is the Role of America’s Colleges and Universities in Expanding Access to Educational Excellence?” (Watch: bit.ly/CampbellMcCabe.) In her talk—part of the College’s Celebrating Black Excellence programming—Campbell spoke about the work Spelman is doing in Atlanta to increase literacy among middle schoolers and how liberal arts colleges can do more to support nontraditional students. Campbell has been a leader in education, the arts, and the public sector for more than four decades. She is dean emerita of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, former vice chair of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. For upcoming Black Excellence events, visit swarthmore.edu/blackexcellence. 10 her 1968 work “Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)” before ending with a poem from her forthcoming book, Make Me Rain. Entitled “A Bench for Toni Morrison,” the poem is dedicated to her friend and fellow writer, who died before the two could collaborate on a book about benches commemorating slavery in America. A Q&A session with Giovanni rounded out the event as she shared insights about her creative inspiration, fashion sense, and advice for future generations of activists. Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 BUILDING COMMUNITY: SHARPLES IS REIMAGINED Preliminary designs for a new Dining and Community Commons were shared during campuswide town-hall meetings this fall. The project, which was approved by the Board of Managers in December, will bring to life the College’s vision for a reimagined central dining experience complemented by social space to foster and encourage community. Informed by extensive input from the campus community, including more than 500 student interviews and an additional 575 survey responses by students, faculty, and staff, the project also will significantly expand space for students to relax, socialize, and connect with one another and with faculty and staff—helping fulfill the College’s mission of educating the whole student. Such space has been missing since 1983 when a fire all but destroyed Old Tarble. The new addition will also enable the College to increase the variety and availability of food options, lead to shorter lines, and better accommodate the size of the student body, which has grown from 1,064 students in 1964, when Sharples first opened, to 1,647 students today. The design aims for the Dining and Community Commons to be a netzero building. It is also a strategic piece of the College’s energy master plan: The design of the building includes a basement that can house a geothermal exchange plant to service the entire campus and enable the College to transition away from the use of fossil fuels for heating and cooling campus buildings. The new facility will be completely accessible to all members of the community. To improve delivery and emergency access to the site, the building that formerly housed the Phi Psi fraternity will be torn down; the stone will be saved and used in future projects. The building formerly housing Delta Upsilon will be used as a construction office for the duration of the project work. The Dining and Community Commons project has already received significant donor support, including through the allocation of a $7 million gift from Gil Kemp ’72 and Barbara Guss. If you’re interested in supporting the project, contact Senior Director of Individual Giving and Donor Relations Mike Gillum at mgillum1@swarthmore.edu or 610-328-8334. DLR GROUP IN COLLABORATION WITH RAYFORD LAW Celebrated writer and poet Nikki Giovanni spoke on campus in the fall. Dean of First-Year Students Karen Henry ’87 was one of many to get an autograph from Giovanni. LAURENCE KESTERSON LAURENCE KESTERSON A CCLAIMED poet and essayist Nikki Giovanni gave a wideranging, moving, insightful, and often uproarious talk this fall entitled “Grit, Grace, and Glow: Celebrating Black Excellence” at the Lang Performing Arts Center. Giovanni read multiple poems and fielded questions from the audience, before signing copies of her books. After listing Giovanni’s extensive accolades, which include an Emmy nomination, “Woman of the Year” honors from numerous publications and associations, and the keys to more than two-dozen North American cities, Provost Sarah Willie-LeBreton introduced her as a “poet and a pilot.” “We’re unsure exactly where [Giovanni] will land with metaphor or rhyme, taking us on a bumpy ride, because at some point we must fly through the storm,” Willie-LeBreton The Dining and Community Commons project— shown in architect renderings with an inset photo of the existing structure—was made possible by a significant gift from Gil Kemp ’72 and Barbara Guss. The project is part of the Changing Lives, Changing the World campaign. WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 11 common good WENDY CHMIELEWSKI, the George R. Cooley Curator of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, received the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Peace History Society (PHS) for outstanding service to the society and for exemplary scholarship. Chmielewski has served as president, vice president, and board and committee member of PHS and published on the topics of women’s peace activism, political activity, and diplomacy from the 19th through the 21st centuries. Her current projects include a monograph with Jill Norgren on women who campaigned for political office before they could vote, and a digital database of the biographical records of nearly 4,000 U.S. women who ran for public office before 1920—a crucial contribution to future generations of peace researchers. Chmielewski has greatly expanded the archive’s manuscript collections; won grants to digitize audio-visual recordings on women’s peace activism, the anti-nuclear movement, and the movement against the Vietnam War; and, along with other Peace Collection staff, developed websites, databases, and an award-winning research guide. “I am deeply honored to have received the award and the recognition of my colleagues in the profession,” says Chmielewski, who has worked at Swarthmore for 33 years. “It affirms my own scholarship and what I have accomplished in the Peace Collection over many years.” 12 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 May 29–31 alumniweekend.swarthmore.edu Come home to Swarthmore! Reconnect with former classmates, celebrate with friends, and enjoy a full weekend of activities as we honor milestone reunions for classes ending in 5 and 0—with a special invitation to all Black alumni. Highlights include: • All-Alumni Welcome Reception and Dinner • Black Alumni Art Exhibit • Alumni Musical Performances • Chester Children’s Chorus Concert • Parade of Classes • Alumni Collection • Family Carnival • Reunion Banquets • Special reunion events hosted by the Swarthmore Black Alumni Network Future Alumni Weekends: • May 28–30, 2021 • May 27–29, 2022 • May 26–28, 2023 HELP MAKE A SOCIAL IMPACT The Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility invites interested Swarthmore alumni to apply for the Lang Social Impact Fellowship (LSIF), a program supporting engagement in systemschange activities that close the gaps between social challenges and solutions. Key features of the LSIF include mentoring, training, and funding. For the first three years after its 2016 launch, the LSIF was designed as a postbaccalaureate program to help recent alumni (within 1–3 years of graduation) work on scaling their direct service projects. This year, the Lang Center is opening the fellowship to all alumni, encouraging applicants to propose socialimpact projects and activities that advance systems change. The alumni fellows will be expected to lend their experience and expertise in mentoring Lang Scholars, a cohort of current Swarthmore students working to design and implement social-impact projects in the U.S. and abroad, as well as other Swarthmore social innovators. The deadline to apply is March 31. + LEARN MORE: bit.ly/LangSocialImpact MATTIE WEISS ’01 Preserving Peace ALUMNI WEEKEND 2020 SAMUEL HYNES, a distinguished scholar of British literature who taught at Swarthmore from 1949 to 1968, died Oct. 9 in Princeton, N.J. He was 95. Since 1976, Sam had been a faculty member at Princeton University, retiring in 1990 as the Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature Emeritus. His course material and research focused primarily on 18th-century English literature, modern British poetry, and the literature of war. A Marine Air Corps veteran of World War II and recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, Sam drew upon his military experience in writing a number of popular books, including Flights of Passage: Reflections of a World War II Aviator and The Soldier’s Tale: Bearing Witness to Modern War. Sam returned from the war to complete a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota. After earning a master’s and Ph.D. from Columbia University under the GI Bill, Sam joined the faculty of Swarthmore’s Department of English Literature. Peter Bart ’54, a political science major and former student of Sam, remembered him as “a brilliant guy, a little gruff and remote.” “I was lucky that Hynes taught me in 1951–1952,” Bart wrote in a tribute (pg. 3). “He was then figuring out how to teach, and I was figuring out how to study.” Sam spent eight years at Northwestern University before moving to Princeton. He is survived by two daughters, three grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. BIGGER, BOLDER, BRIGHTER: Mattie Weiss ’01 and Camila Leiva ’09 were among a cohort of 12 artists who collaborated on a 4,000-square-foot mural in the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis, where the American Indian Movement began in 1968. Led by the Power of Vision Mural Project, the mural was developed in collaboration with more than 80 community members to highlight the history, voices, and priorities of neighborhood residents. Friends Weiss and Leiva are longtime organizers and educators, and both balance work in the nonprofit sector with their art. Learn more about the mural at powerofvision.art. MARTIN TOMLINSON ’23 LAURENCE KESTERSON REMEMBERING SAM HYNES SWARTHMORE’S FELIX LANIYAN ’20 (#6) passes the ball as a player from Connecticut College closes in during their Sweet 16 game of the NCAA soccer tournament, hosted at Clothier Field on Nov. 23. The Garnet fell to the Camels in overtime, 1-0, ending their incredible Cinderella story. The men’s soccer team, which finished with an 11-4-5 record, upset two nationally ranked teams in penalty kicks to reach the Sweet 16 for the sixth time in program history (1974, 1991, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2019). After putting away No. 17 Roanoke College in the first round then eliminating No. 23 Christopher Newport University in the second, the Garnet had the privilege of hosting the NCAA Sectionals at home. Senior captain Joey Bradley ’20 had just one word to sum up the season: “Unforgettable.” Meanwhile, Swarthmore women’s soccer reached the NCAA tournament for the sixth straight year and advanced to the second round after a thrilling 1-0 OT victory over Arcadia. WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 13 common good Frederic Pryor, a professor emeritus of economics known for the broad scope of his interests, the vitality of his scholarship, and his keen wit, died Sept. 2 in Newtown Square, Pa. He was 86. Reared in Mansfield, Ohio, with his twin brother, Millard, Fred (above, left) received a B.A. in chemistry from Oberlin College in 1955. After spending a year living and working in South America and Europe—including a three-month stint on a commune—he enrolled at Yale University to pursue a Ph.D. in economics. Focusing his doctoral thesis on communist foreign trade, Fred moved to West Berlin. After finishing his dissertation in 1961, he drove to East Berlin to deliver a copy to a professor. By then the Berlin Wall was under construction, and Fred was arrested by the Stasi (the East German secret police) on suspicion of espionage. After nearly six months in an East German prison, Fred was released as part of a prisoner exchange. The experience was later dramatized in the Steven Spielberg film Bridge of Spies. Fred had hoped that, after earning his Ph.D., he could work for the U.S. government. But those jobs, along with those in the private sector, were closed to him because of his espionage arrest. “The only places that didn’t pay mind to my prison experience were colleges and universities,” he said. “Swarthmore didn’t care. In fact, I think the students kind of got a kick out of having an ex-con teaching them.” Fred joined the Swarthmore faculty in 1967 and attained the rank of full professor. After retiring in 1998, he maintained a campus office for many years, noting in 2015 14 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 Thompson Bradley, a professor emeritus of Russian admired for his devotion to justice in all of his pursuits, died Sept. 22 in Rose Valley, Pa. He was 85. Tom (above, right) was born in New Haven, Conn. In high school, he was introduced to Russian, an encounter that ignited his love of the language and its literature. This passion took on literary and historical dimension at Yale University, where Tom earned a B.A. in Russian, and later at Columbia University, where he pursued graduate work in Slavic languages and literatures. In 1956, Tom married Anne Cushman Noble, graduated from Yale, and was drafted into the U.S. Army. He served for two years at an American base in Germany, where he had been recruited for military intelligence for his language skills. After completing his service, Tom resumed his academic career at Columbia and then spent a year in Moscow as part of a cultural exchange. Tom joined Swarthmore’s faculty in 1962, finding students whom he described as having a “real commitment” to living the intellectual life. His Russian novel class became legendary, invariably drawing the most students of any Modern Languages & Literatures course at the time. Throughout his career, Tom never separated his teaching from his social and political activism. He spoke of this when he retired in 2001: “I think there are fewer and fewer people in academia today who think of their lives as having to do with a practice outside of academia. I can’t imagine only doing activism, or only teaching. To me they seem as indivisible as literature and history.” His political activity included mobilizing the College against the Vietnam War, mentoring conscientious objectors, and participating in Veterans for Peace. He was also instrumental in organizing College events for the first Martin Luther King Jr. Day, developing a faculty exchange program with a university in El Salvador, and creating the Chester-Swarthmore College Community Coalition, among other initiatives. Tom is survived by his wife of more than 60 years, Anne; their three daughters; and two grandchildren. The Name Game An extinct leviathan gets an update ODE TO TRUTH, FAIRNESS Bill Ehrhart ’73, a celebrated poet and veteran of the Vietnam War, first became friends with Tom Bradley in September 1969, when Bill arrived at Swarthmore after three years in the Marines; the two later worked together with Veterans for Peace Philadelphia, Chapter 31. In tribute to his friend, Bill wrote the following poem, which was read at Tom’s funeral Dec. 21. by Ryan Dougherty THOMPSON BRADLEY (1934–2019) He looked like Lenin. Really. I’ve never forgotten the first time I saw him, fifty years ago; I had to do a double-take, knowing Lenin had been dead for nearly fifty years. He’d pace back and forth, gesticulating to a classroom full of college kids while rolling a cigarette, explaining Russian Thought and Literature in the Quest for Truth. What Lenin took for truth, I’ve no idea, but through the years I came to know that truth meant justice, peace, honesty and fairness, decency and generosity to Tom. You name the issue, Tom was always on the side you wanted to be on: wars in Asia, the Americas, the Middle East; civil rights, prisoners’ rights, women’s rights, gay rights, the right to live with dignity. He looked like Lenin, but he lived a life that Lenin would have envied, or certainly should have. If Tom had led the Revolution, I’d have followed him to hell and back and on into heaven. ALEX BOERSMA 2019 HONORING TWO FRIENDS: PROFESSORS FRED PRYOR & THOMPSON BRADLEY that it “keeps me happy.” Fred loved to experience new cultures, and he often combined service and vacation. For many years he served as a trustee at historically Black institutions including Miles College, Wilberforce University, and Tougaloo College. He also worked as a research director for the Pennsylvania Tax Commission and twice served as judge of elections. Fred’s wife of 44 years, fellow economist Zora Prochazka Pryor, died in 2008. He is survived by a son, Daniel Pryor, and three grandchildren, Kathleen, Thomas, and Zora. A research team led by Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Matt Leslie recently redescribed and renamed an extinct whale species, capping a journey of personal and professional resonance for Leslie. The newly described Norrisanima miocaena was first noted in the early 1920s and thought to be an ancient relative of the modern humpback whale, within the genus Megaptera. But in their research, published this fall in the scientific journal PeerJ, Leslie and his co-authors show that Norrisanima came from a group of ancient baleen whales that branched away from those we know today. “We estimate that this whale was 12.5 meters long, or around 41 feet,” says Leslie. “That is really big for a whale from the Miocene, a time before whales truly became the giants they are today. In fact, Norrisanima is the largest whale species ever found from this early time period. Although it is hard to be certain, we are pretty sure Norrisanima fed much like modern-day whales that engulf a huge volume of prey-laden water into their mouths and then strain out small fish and crustaceans through baleen.” Thanks to advances in evolutionary understanding over the past 100 years, the research team—which also included Carlos Mauricio Peredo, paleontologist at the University of Michigan, and Nicholas D. Pyenson, curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History—knew that the link between Norrisanima and the modern humpback whale didn’t hold water. “We had to do something about it,” says Leslie. “We couldn’t just let one of the most important pieces of evidence for the recent evolutionary history of whales just sit around with a lackluster description and misleading name.” + READ MORE: bit.ly/SwatWhale WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 15 common good QUIZ’MORE LEARNING CURVE HOME BASE She looks at links between incarceration and academics How well do you know your alma mater? Give this the ol’ College try! MONICA AHANONU ? Who was the first Black faculty member to receive tenure? This Swarthmore professor also served as the first coordinator of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program. Discover his identity in the Answer Key. by Lauren McAloon 1 2 3 4 What folk legend headlined the studentorganized Swarthmore Folk Festival in 1958? What was the Robinson House before it became the Black Cultural Center? Who was the Baccalaureate speaker in 2005? What do Cynthia Jetter ’74, Keith Reeves ’88, and Delvin Dinkins ’93 have in common? 5 When did the Alumni Gospel Choir issue its first CD? Know any fascinating Swarthmore trivia? Send your question/answer to quiz@swarthmore.edu. If we use it, we’ll send you a prize! Learn more about Black Excellence at the College on the timeline at swarthmore.edu/blackexcellence 2. It was a women’s residence hall until the spring of 1970. 1. Odetta, the singer-songwriter, actress, and human rights activist known as the “voice of the Civil Rights Movement.” She returned to the College in 1997 as a visiting professor of music; her class, Music as Social History, blended folk music with discussions on how the genre makes connections among diverse peoples and societies. 5. In 1996. Hallelujah! Amen was followed in 2000 by Star Gazer, a collection of Advent music. The net proceeds of their sales fund two College scholarships. 4. All three participated in Swarthmore’s Upward Bound. The program, which continued for more than 40 years, provided year-round, rigorous academic instruction from College faculty members, assessment of individualized needs, counseling, and exposure to a variety of cultural and historical enrichment experiences. (1919–2010), the Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot Professor Emerita of History, joined the faculty in 1970. She was granted tenure after a contentious period and with the support of students. WINTER 2020 3. Professor Charles “Chuck” James, the first Black faculty member to receive tenure. James expanded Black studies and served as the first coordinator of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program. During his speech, he reflected on the changes he had experienced in his time at the College. The first Black professor, Kathryn Morgan Swarthmore College Bulletin / ANSWER KEY 16 TAYLOR TUCKER ’20 and her mother, Tracy, agreed on one thing before either of them ever said it out loud: Tucker belonged at Swarthmore. “I remember visiting the school and sitting with her in an admission meeting where we heard about the Black Studies Program and clubs like Swarthmore African-American Student Society (SASS), and the Black Cultural Center,” says Tucker, who moved to Pennsylvania from Delaware when she was in elementary school. “After that meeting, we both agreed I needed to come here.” At the small private high school she attended, Tucker was often the only Black student in the class. The experience was alienating. “I’d feel like I had to answer any questions relating to being Black, no matter what the question was,” says Taylor, now co-president of SASS with Wrenn Odim ’20. But Swarthmore felt different as soon as she arrived. “SASS made me feel more at home here, and made transitioning to Swarthmore easier,” she says. “The BCC was a home away from home. I didn’t feel like I was the only one anymore. I could be myself with a steady group of people and just hang out.” In the classroom, faculty, including LAURENCE KETSERSON by Kate Campbell Assistant Professor of Sociology Nina Johnson (see p. 76) and Assistant Professor of Educational Studies Edwin Mayorga, inspired Tucker’s creativity and scholarship. This led to her senior-year research, “Into the Masters’ Hands: The Carceral Captivity and Exploitation of Black Female Bodies in Schools and Beyond,” which she presented at a Welcome Back Black Studies event in the fall. Tucker plans to continue her exploration of the ways in which Black girls’ experiences of education are affected when they have a family member in the criminal justice system. As part of her research process last summer, Tucker spent time exploring youth-led movements in Philadelphia, and she hopes to formally work in a youth advocacy environment after she graduates. “These groups are very concerned with the well-being of Black and Brown kids in Philadelphia schools and the importance of access to arts,” says Tucker. “It’s definitely something I would want to be a part of.” “The BCC was a home away from home. I didn’t feel like I was the only one anymore.” WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 17 common good LIBERAL ARTS LIVES GARIKAI CAMPBELL ’90 PETER BAILLEY “I was pushed hard and challenged throughout all my time at Swarthmore, but that was precisely what made the experience so great,” says Garikai Campbell ’90, one of the first participants of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program (along with Sean Decatur ’90, pg. 61). “I really am tremendously fortunate to have had so many opportunities to grow and develop.” LIBERAL ARTS LIVES HIGH STAKES IN HIGHER ED Swarthmore was a proving ground— and he’s grateful by Kate Campbell 18 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 Garikai Campbell ’90 has kept a piece of Swarthmore tucked away in his files for decades. The paper is one he wrote for a Literature of Conscience course he took with Professor Nathalie Anderson. Her hand-written notes line the margins. It’s a reminder, he says, of the singular nurturing quality of his Swarthmore education. “I’ve always held her thoughtful critiques in that course as a model and a symbol of what I got from Swarthmore,” says Campbell, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina Asheville and professor of mathematics. “Swarthmore pays incredible attention to the development of its students, in all aspects of their lives.” Through demanding work, high expectations, and a community of care and support, Swarthmore raised the bar, he says. The former Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow and Academic All-American wrestler has spent most of his career in higher education leadership working to diversify the sciences and “improve the conditions that allow for greater student success, whatever a student’s passion,” and strengthen the liberal arts institutions at which he worked. “The lessons I learned at Swarthmore have been as much about the values of community and academic excellence generally, as anything about my particular major,” he says. “I give the faculty who mentored and guided me a healthy portion of the credit for any success I claim now.” Still, articulating the strengths of higher education—and in particular, a liberal arts education—a critical component of his work, is increasingly challenging. “The stakes are incredibly high, making it all the more imperative to be clear about the value of what we do at liberal arts institutions—to think creatively about our work, how higher education is structured, with whom we partner, and how our institutions have the impact that we claim to have and ought to be having.” BYTE BACK Leader in Education “I hope we are able to move the needle so that eventually there are fewer adults who need our training,” says Elizabeth Lindsey ’02. As executive director of the nonprofit Byte Back, Lindsey advances digital equity for Americans who fall under the radar. ROOTED IN EXCELLENCE She wants to open doors to technology-based careers by Elizabeth Bryant ’13 WHEN ASKED about her definition of Black excellence, Elizabeth Lindsey ’02 doesn’t hesitate: “I was just listening to Beyoncé’s Homecoming album earlier today,” she says. Perhaps not surprisingly, this isn’t Lindsey’s only interface with the star as of late. As executive director of the nonprofit Byte Back, Lindsey is advancing digital equity for the thousands of Americans often excluded from an increasingly techbased society—by and large lowincome adults, folks over age 50, those without college degrees, and people of color. For Lindsey, social and economic prosperity is defined by universal access to technology. Byte Back offers free tech training and workforce development to adults as a pathway to living-wage careers. Lindsey’s passion for fostering inclusion in tech is rooted in her experience at Swarthmore. As an undergrad, Lindsey held leadership positions in the Swarthmore African-American Student Society and the Swarthmore Queer Union, and engaged in anti-death penalty activism. She credits the financial support she received from Swarthmore for her ability to participate fully in her education. “I am a first-generation college student,” says Lindsey. “That I was able to go to school for free really changed my life.” Lindsey strives to re-create that experience of full access through her work at Byte Back, and her vision is aligning with conversations happening on a national level. Just this year, lawmakers introduced a Digital Equity Act in the U.S. House. Days later, Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington, D.C., proclaimed Oct. 9 Byte Back Day. “There are a number of cities and states and organizations across the country who have reached out to us, to learn from us,” says Lindsey. “I hope we are able to move the needle, so that eventually there are fewer adults who need our training.” In September, Lindsey was honored among the Root 100’s most influential African Americans, a list that includes the likes of Serena Williams, Colin Kaepernick, Stacey Abrams, and, yes, Beyoncé. As for the way Homecoming embodies Black excellence? “It’s a combination [of ] believing in ourselves, knowing what we love and what our passion is, and investing all of us into it,” says Lindsey. “That’s why I do what I do.” ELIZABETH LINDSEY ’02 Tech Entrepreneur WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 19 DEDICATED SPACE As the Black Cultural Center marks its 50th anniversary, a reflection on what makes ‘the House’ a cornerstone of Swarthmore’s Black community L OCATED IN the 140-year-old Robinson House, the Black Cultural Center is just minutes away from the flow of Parrish Hall and McCabe Library. With its kitchen, carpeted floors, armchairs, and art depicting Black life at Swarthmore, “the House,” as it’s often called, is something of an oasis. 20 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 It exudes comfort, community, and a space to negotiate the complexities of Black identity free from misunderstanding and hostility. “It is definitely a sanctuary in many ways,” says Delvin Dinkins ’93, an assistant headmaster at a private school in New Jersey. “It was true for me and a lot of people, given that Swarthmore is such a wonderful community, but also a challenging one.” Engaging with so many different backgrounds at Swarthmore, while fun, can be taxing, says Woodjerry Etienne ’20. “People ask questions that often display a level of ignorance,” says Etienne, a psychology major. “It’s nice to be able to go to the BCC and be with people who understand me more intimately.” Since 1970, the House has been a hub for Black life at Swarthmore and Fifty years after the birth of the Black Cultural Center, there’s still work to be done, says Associate Dean of the Junior Class and BCC Director Dion Lewis. WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 21 LAURENCE KESTERSON by Roy Greim ’14 served as an educational space, both formal and informal, for the entire community with its academic offerings and extensive library. And yet, there is often a perception that the BCC is separate from campus, reserved exclusively for a specific group and closed off entirely to others. “In a sense, this was our home,” says Davirah Timm-Dinkins ’93, an associate director of college counseling who connected with her husband, Delvin, through the BCC. “And like a home, there are times when you want to spend time with family and unpack the day, and other times when it’s fine to have ‘company’ come over to share the space.” ‘BROUGHT TO A HALT’ Since the 1960s, accusations of “selfsegregation” have been levied against similar institutions across the country. The BCC has not escaped criticism. In 1970, a Delaware County Daily Times editorial argued that “the races will be kept apart” because of the center and that Black student protesters at Swarthmore contributed as much to racial division as White rioters THE BCC: 50 YEARS IN THE LIFE OF “THE HOUSE” opposing desegregation busing in Lamar, S.C. Who were these student protesters and what were their goals? In January 1969, roughly 20 members of the Swarthmore Afro-American Student Society (SASS) took over the admissions office, starting a sit-in that lasted for eight days. The protest highlighted their frustrations over the low number of Black students, faculty, and administrators at the College, a lack of a Black studies program, and institutional indifference toward these issues. “We have brought to a halt the admissions process which in decision-making has refused Black participation,” reads a letter from SASS dated Jan. 9, 1969. “Until the college submits to us an acceptable program with specific plans for the inclusion of Black interests on all levels, there will be a discontinuation of the college’s ruthless activities.” The death of President Courtney Smith after a heart attack led SASS to end the sit-in as the shocked campus community mourned his sudden passing. Though there was a moratorium on dialogue regarding 1969 Students lead a sit-in to protest low numbers of Black students and faculty, the lack of a Black studies program, and the need for a Black cultural center. 22 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 1970 the demands, tensions remained, as many blamed the protesters for causing Smith’s death. A few months later, the College addressed one of the group’s demands by hiring two Black administrators—Assistant Dean of Admissions William P. Cline and counselor Horace Woodland—in an effort to identify and enroll more Black students. There was, however, much left to be done. But still paramount was a physical space in which Black students could define and assert their identities in the context of Swarthmore, and the students led the efforts to claim one. In the summer of 1969, SASS member Don Mizell ’71 wrote about the need for a dedicated Black cultural center on campus. Calling it an “anchor in a White sea, a psychological and geographical point of reference,” he argued that a center would not prevent Black students from integrating, but rather make them feel more involved and less isolated. For Mizell and other BCC supporters, it was more about selfpreservation than self-segregation, especially in the face of “powerful SASS members identify the Robinson House as the only acceptable location for the BCC. James Michener ’29, H’54 pledges support. 1986 Students charge administrators with doing too little to increase the number of Black students and faculty members. LAURENCE KESTERSON —WINDSOR JORDAN JR. ’07 deculturation forces at work on the Black psyche,” he wrote. SASS members like Mizell felt that Black students on predominantly White campuses were expected to downplay their Black identities, and responded by demanding from the College a pluralistic, institutionally supported environment in which these identities could be nurtured. At the height of the Civil Rights Era, student protests with similar demands were being staged across the country. In December 1968, 65 Black students at Brown University walked off campus in protest of the institution’s low enrollment of African Americans, who comprised less than 3% of the student body. At Columbia University, students occupied an administrative building as they protested university construction of a segregated gymnasium in nearby Harlem. “The desire on the part of Black students to have a culturally relevant social space on Swarthmore’s and many other elite, White college campuses is tied directly to the effort to expand the College’s curriculum, to grow the number of Black students in the student body, and to recognize the transformation in our national identity as part of the Civil Rights Movement,” says Professor of History Allison Dorsey. In 2014, Dorsey taught a course, Black Liberation 1969: Black Studies in History Theory and Praxis, in which Swarthmore students created an archive of documents, correspondence, and interviews—“as a bulwark,” she once said, “against the College losing or forgetting the story of Black student activism.” In March 1970, SASS members identified the Robinson House, a women’s dormitory housing 15 students at the time (see sidebar), as the only acceptable location for the BCC after the temporary site, Lodge 4, was deemed inadequate. SASS demanded from President Robert Cross that Swarthmore’s Black community have control over the center’s programming and participants, while guaranteeing that it would be open to the entire College on a regular basis. A March 13 sit-in by 50 students LAURENCE KESTERSON “THE HOUSE IS A PLACE WHERE YOU’RE SURROUNDED BY THE HISTORY OF THOSE THAT CAME BEFORE YOU AND PAVED THE WAY.” In 2014, Professor of History Allison Dorsey (top) led a course in which students created an archive of documents and interviews “as a bulwark against the College losing or forgetting the story of Black student activism.” For Woodjerry Etienne ’20 (bottom), the BCC has been a space to unwind “and be with people who understand me more intimately.” WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 23 and employment arbitrator and mediator. “We didn’t trust the College to maintain it until it became more viable. There was always a crunch for dorm space, and we felt that if it became logical for the College to use the house for some other reason, they would do so.” Kathryn Morgan, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot Professor Emerita of History, was the first Black professor at Swarthmore. led Cross to authorize a steering committee—consisting of five Black administration members and five SASS leaders—to direct and coordinate BCC programming and access and to develop an operating budget. By the fall of 1970, organization of the BCC was underway, but there was no guarantee that it would become a permanent fixture on Swarthmore’s campus. “Every student was very concerned about how long this was going to last,” says former BCC director Alan Symonette ’76, who is a labor 1992 The Intercultural Center is created as a result of student activism in support of students of color and queer students. 24 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 SOLID FOUNDATION The transformation of the Robinson House from a women’s dormitory into the BCC was made possible by a $100,000 gift from Pulitzer Prizewinning author James Michener ’29, H’54. Michener pledged the money to the College in 1970 for the express purpose of improving “race relations” through the development of the BCC and a Black studies program. These developments corresponded with a drive by the Black community to institutionalize the BCC into the life of the College, through the transferring of McCabe Library materials, the teaching of seminars, and the centering of performance groups in that space. Among those was the Gospel Choir, which began in 1971 to fulfill a need not met by the College chorus, 1996 In the admitted Class of 2000, 40% of students identify as a racial minority, including 11% as African American. 2009 whose repertoire consisted almost exclusively of Western European music. The group was initially composed of 10 members who would gather and sing in the BCC or anywhere else a piano could be found. “The Gospel Choir was really necessary to ground me and a lot of other students,” says recording artist Vaneese Thomas ’74, H’14, one of the group’s “Founding Mothers,” along with Lynette Hunkins ’71 and Chiquita Davidson Hayes ’74. “Not only in a religious sense, but culturally, too.” Much like the BCC, the Gospel Choir’s policy of excluding nonBlack students was criticized as discriminatory and divisive. (The policy was eventually phased out.) By 1986, the Student Council and the Budget Committee actively debated whether to continue funding the choir. Proponents argued that the policy was necessary because it situated the choir as a cultural and emotional refuge from the challenges faced at a predominantly White institution. By this time, it had grown to include alumni, faculty, dormitory housekeepers, and other members of the Black community. The number of student organizations affiliated with the BCC increases to 11, up from seven in 1997. 2019 The Celebration of Black Excellence lifts up the BCC as one of its primary focal points. CENTER OF DIALOGUE The BCC also served as an important meeting place to organize around addressing wrongs on campus and beyond, recalls Linda Echols, retired director of the Worth Health Center and former interim director of the BCC. “There were issues around discrimination, harassment, and things that we had to take a position on,” she says. “A lot of times, the faculty and the staff and the students would plan from the BCC.” As the center grew and became ever more intertwined into the fabric of the campus, Black students continued to express frustration over a perceived lack of understanding of racial dynamics by College leadership. An open letter published in The Phoenix in 1986 charged administrators with doing too little to increase the number of Black students and faculty members, and to involve Black community members in that process. Socially, some Black students were tired of being expected to answer for the phenomenon of “Sharples Syndrome,” by which they were accused of isolating themselves by sitting together in the dining hall. “No one ever asked, ‘Why are all the white students sitting together? Why are all the football players sitting together?’” says Dean of First-Year Students Karen Henry ’87. “For me, it was really important to know that I could go to Sharples at any time and LAURENCE KESTERSON —MARISSA COLSTON ’00 Like the choir, the BCC did not just serve the student population; faculty and staff members were also deeply involved in the center’s day-to-day. “Faculty and staff would often get together with students for dinners at the BCC,” says Jane James, who worked at the College for 30 years, primarily in Information Technology Services, while her husband, Chuck James, professor emeritus of English literature and the first Black professor to receive tenure at Swarthmore, taught and mentored students. “We would also make care packages for the incoming students and connect them with older students who helped them to adjust to the community.” LAURENCE KESTERSON “THE BCC WAS A SPACE WHERE YOU COULD ORGANIZE AROUND MAKING REAL CHANGE, AND YOU WOULD FEEL SUPPORTED AND SAFE.” Top: Students relaxing and studying at the Black Cultural Center. Bottom: Former BCC Director Alan Symonette ’76. find a group of Black people there who would welcome me and who I would have fun with.” Nearly 20 years after the creation of the BCC, these accusations persisted. Race-relations workshops and open events at the BCC, including social gatherings, lectures, and exhibitions of Black art, helped address the divide. And non-Black students, such as Elizabeth Campbell ’92, a native of the West Indies, began to feel welcome at the BCC thanks to encouragement from their friends and peers. “My first-year roommate, Christina Bolden [Smith] ’92, reached out and invited me to the BCC when I was still trying to adjust to a new environment,” says Campbell, a research associate professor in molecular biophysics at the Rockefeller University. “I really admired the BCC community; the students were compassionate, smart, and fun.” WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 25 THE HOUSE ON A HILL Many know the Black Cultural Center simply as “The House,” a reference to the Robinson House in which it resides, but few know that the official title is the Caroline Hadley Robinson House. The first resident of the building located at 411 College Avenue was not its eponym, a member of the Class of 1906, but rather Professor of Civil and Mechanical Engineering Arthur Beardsley. Built around 1880, it served as Beardsley’s residence and appeared in photographer Charles Doron’s 1881 “Views of Swarthmore” series. (See photo above.) Hicksite Quaker Alice Paxson Hadley moved to Swarthmore from New Mexico with her only daughter, Caroline, after the death of her husband in 1896. She purchased the house from Beardsley sometime between 1902 and 1909 and lived next door to her older brother, Charles, and his in-laws. Caroline, who later wrote a survey and analysis of 70 birthcontrol clinics in the U.S., married Louis N. Robinson, Class of 1905, at Swarthmore Monthly Meeting in 1908. Louis was a prominent economist who taught the subject alongside Caroline at the College and then pursued a career in criminology, advocating for prison reform in his 1921 work Penology in the United States. Caroline died in 1946 and was followed by her husband in 1952. The latter’s will bequeathed the house to the College on the condition that it be named in honor of Caroline. By the fall of 1955, it was a dormitory for 15 female students, and it fulfilled that purpose until the formal establishment of the BCC in 1970. 26 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 “OUR COMMUNITY WOULD BE MISTAKEN TO THINK THAT HAVING THIS IDENTITY CENTER FOR 50 YEARS HAS FULLY RESOLVED ISSUES OF RACIAL EQUITY AND MEANINGFUL INCLUSION AT SWARTHMORE.” —DION LEWIS, BCC DIRECTOR what extent this discussion occurred at Swarthmore, but the vision of a postracial world in which the BCC or even the would-be IC would no longer be necessary was not far from the minds of some community members. It was, however, far from reality. A mock lynching, defacement of a Malcolm X portrait, chalking of a racial slur on Magill Walk, and presence of racist skinheads near campus all contributed to a hostile climate for Black students in the 1990s. Simultaneously, Swarthmore admitted its most diverse group ever in the Class of 2000, with 40% of students identifying as a racial minority, including 11% as African American. “It sometimes felt as though the College wasn’t ready for us, even though they accepted us,” says Marissa Colston ’00, now a dean for diversity and inclusion at the Westtown School in Pennsylvania. “The BCC was a space where you could organize around making real change, and you would feel supported and safe. We could do that and not be interrupted or have to explain ourselves.” WORK TO BE DONE Over the next decade, the BCC grew both figuratively and literally. By 2009, the number of affiliated student organizations had increased to 11, up from seven in 1997, reflecting greater diversity within the community and an effort to engage students from African and Caribbean backgrounds. Renovations included updates to the kitchen, a one-story addition at the rear, and other modifications that made the House more accessible. Though certain areas of Black life at Swarthmore underwent positive change, other aspects were static. A study of Black social life conducted in 2009 found that students felt Swarthmore misled prospective students by purposefully downplaying racial tension on campus. Respondents often felt they had to choose between proudly expressing their Black identities and pursuing friendship with White peers who might perceive involvement with the BCC as threatening. Even now, there’s work to be done, LAURENCE KESTERSON FRIENDS HISTORICAL LIBRARY Hicksite Quaker Alice Paxson Hadley purchased the house from Professor Arthur Beardsley sometime between 1902 and 1909. Events of the next decade, however, would bring about intense conversations about diversity, multiculturalism, hate speech, and more that strained relations and reinforced the need for the BCC. In 1990, students proposed the creation of an Intercultural Center (IC) to reflect and serve the needs of the growing number of minority students. It was meant to coexist alongside the BCC. However, students accused administrators of using tactics to divide groups by regularly suggesting “that the BCC be converted into the IC when they are clearly aware that IC supporters strongly rejected this idea,” according to an IC proponent writing in The Phoenix. Fears that an IC would ultimately replace the BCC were not unfounded; across the country, college administrators debated whether race-specific affinity centers were a cost-effective method of promoting inclusivity, and whether such centers were the product of a bygone historical moment. It is unclear to Swarthmore faculty and staff members have long been involved in the BCC’s day-to-day. Above, at the House: Dean of First-Year Students Karen Henry ’87 (left) and Shá Duncan Smith, assistant vice president and dean of inclusive excellence and community development. says Associate Dean of the Junior Class and BCC Director Dion Lewis. “We have not arrived,” Lewis says. “Our community would be mistaken to think that having this identity center for 50 years has fully resolved issues of racial equity and meaningful inclusion at Swarthmore.” “These questions remain in America at large,” he continues. “There was a time when our society had a desire to confront a history that made it challenging for many to be an American, but these past few years have seen increased division and hatred that prevent such healing.” The emboldening of White nationalists by elected officials, political commentators, and other influential figures—both national and international—has reinforced the importance of the BCC as a safe, supportive space perhaps more than ever before, students and alumni say. It endures not only because of these pressing external circumstances, but also because of its significance to those who have passed through its walls, sat on its couches, and found comfort in its sense of community. “The House is a place where you’re surrounded by the history of those that came before you and paved the way,” says Windsor Jordan Jr. ’07, senior assistant dean of admissions and director of multicultural recruitment at Swarthmore. “It’s a place of belonging, and its legacy is the continued feeling of home when you return.” “Black students and alumni who understand the relevance of the BCC will come to its defense—anytime, on any day,” echoes Keith Benjamin ’09, founder of the student group Achieving Black and Latino Leaders of Excellence (ABLLE) and current director of the Department of Traffic and Transportation for Charleston, S.C. “Because the truth is, without the BCC, we wouldn’t have survived Swarthmore. And so we defend it, and we uphold it, and we honor that space because of what it did for us.” WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 27 ORIGIN POINT Black Studies provides an academic home for urgent discussions on race by Elizabeth Redden ’05 illustrations by Monica Ahanonu 28 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 29 inequity. “Once I identified that there’s a system around it, then I became empowered to do something about it.” ROWING UP in a racially segregated town in Maryland, Patrice Berry ’06 says her public school education lacked any meaningful exploration of Black history, stories, or experiences. That changed when she got to Swarthmore. “I read the catalog and saw all of these exciting courses that resonated with my interests and also my personal identity,” says Berry, a political science major and Black Studies minor. For Berry and others, experiences in the Black Studies Program were eye-opening and helped set the course for their careers. Celebrating 50 years at Swarthmore, Black Studies has offered an academic home for Swarthmore students to consider urgent questions of race, representation, and power, and to study the contributions of Black people the world over. “The first passion I discovered at Swarthmore was education, but one of the reasons I was drawn to education was because I was actually learning for the first time how systemic some of the barriers and gaps I experienced or observed as a student were,” says Berry, a FUSE Corps executive adviser in the mayoral office of Oakland, Calif., where she is focused on college affordability and completion. “To become aware that my experience, my observation, was ‘a thing’—there’s so much power in that discovery,” adds Berry, who has spent her career disrupting education 30 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 FORGING A PROGRAM The interdisciplinary Black Studies Program started in 1969, thanks to the efforts of activists who saw that the perspectives and contributions of Black people were largely unrepresented in Swarthmore’s curriculum. Indeed, the first students to graduate with what was then a Black Studies concentration had to build a program on their own. “It really was a process of self-education,” says Marilyn Allman Maye ’69, one of the nine original Black Studies concentrators. “We petitioned to have a student-led course—I guess you could say it was our version of an honors seminar. We petitioned for more opportunities to bring in visiting professors. We went to Haverford College, Lincoln University, and other colleges that may have had one course on African history or politics, and we petitioned the College to give us credit for those off-campus courses.” Before the program launched, Swarthmore’s curriculum was not addressing the stories or voices of Black people—and neither were its activities, says Maye, who recently retired as an associate professor of educational leadership at New Jersey City University. “I was active in the choir, and all the things we sang were European,” she says. “There was absolutely nothing, nothing that would suggest that Black people had any musical heritage.” Harold Buchanan ’69, a math major with a concentration in Black Studies, was longing for classes that could speak to Black people’s experiences. “I grew up in Long Island, in a small Black community, so I had very little exposure to Black anything,” says Buchanan, who went on to co-found the Swarthmore Black Alumni Network. “We didn’t have any Blacks in government. Throughout high school there was one Black teacher, the only Black teacher I ever encountered. I felt that I was missing something. I was missing so much of my heritage, so I was really hungry for filling in those gaps.” FINDING THEIR WAY TO BLACK STUDIES The Black Studies Program, formalized over the years, now includes a number of its own classes, as well as courses cross-listed with dance, history, sociology & anthropology, and multiple other departments. Students who minor or special major in the program are required to take Introduction to Black Studies, and honors students must also complete a two-credit thesis. “Black Studies at Swarthmore is distinctive because it brings students and faculty together from across the campus blST 50 “To become aware that my experience, my observation, was ‘a thing’—there’s so much power in that discovery.” —Patrice Berry ’06, executive fellow, mayoral office of Oakland, Calif. “I was missing so much of my heritage, so I was really hungry for filling in those gaps,” says Harold Buchanan ’69 (top), one of the first to concentrate in Black Studies. Adds Patrice Berry ’06 (bottom): “I read the catalog and saw all of these exciting courses that resonated with my interests and also my personal identity.” WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 31 A LANDMARK APPOINTMENT blST 50 “The Black Studies Program was the origin point for what I’m doing now in terms of fusing my commitment to social justice with my intellectual ambitions.” — Cecilia Márquez ’11, assistant professor of history, Duke University to study and speak about race—and, in particular, about Black peoples, cultures, and histories—in thoughtful and critical ways,” says Carina Yervasi, an associate professor of French and a member of the Black Studies Program committee. “The program engages with race, but also the specific and important ways global Black diasporas have shaped and continue to shape our world,” she adds. “Speaking about Black diaspora opens up dialogue about ancient and modern mobilities, artistic and cultural representations, social movements, transnationalism, economic issues, political stakes, and the practice of art-making.” Ja’Dell Davis ’06, who earned a Black Studies minor, took sociology and history courses and an introductory jazz course under the program’s umbrella, in addition to studying Umfundalai, an African dance technique. She also participated in weekly noncredit seminars at the Black Cultural Center. “At a place like Swarthmore,” says Davis, “a very White, elite institution, it was important for me to be in classes with knowledge that was being disseminated that resonated with me, but also helped me understand and be in dialogue with other people about Blackness, especially in that context, [to consider] what did it mean for me to be a Black woman at Swarthmore College.” As a sociology Ph.D. student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Davis researches the transition from high school to college for students who are racial minorities, and the ways in which college advisers prepare them for the racial dimension of that transition. “Because of the professors who were leading the courses, Black Studies was a space where we could ask good questions,” Davis says. “Those were the places where people who cared about the topic were. There were always people who were there to be antagonistic, or who weren’t actually interested in understanding the nuances of Black life, but they were few and far between. “They were places where we could genuinely show up ... and get some deeper understanding about representations of Black life in different disciplines.” FROM CLASSROOM TO CAREER Black Studies alumni have gone on to careers across a variety of fields, including law, public policy, and education. For Cecilia Márquez ’11, the program helped set her on a course for academia. “The Black Studies Program was the origin point for what I’m doing now in terms of fusing my commitment to social justice with my intellectual ambitions,” she says. Now an assistant professor of history at Duke University, Márquez remembers a class she took with Professor of History Allison Dorsey about the Black freedom struggle, from civil rights to hip-hop. 32 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 As the Black Studies Program commemorates its 50th anniversary, it marks an important first: a tenure-track line. Swarthmore has long hired faculty in other departments who also teach courses in Black Studies, but this academic year is the first time the College will hire a faculty member based in Black Studies. The position will concentrate on African American and African-diasporic music and culture, especially jazz. “This is a real landmark for us, having a faculty member whose curricular home is wholly in Black Studies to anchor the program,” says program coordinator Anthony Foy, an associate professor of English literature. Provost Sarah Willie-LeBreton, a former head of Black Studies, says the new hire is “unprecedented, and it’s thrilling.” “To hire somebody in the program is a signal to students that the College is investing in the program,” she says. “The College sees how many students are minors and special majors and acknowledges that the program needs greater stability and more faculty resources.” Students in the Black Studies Program take a range of classes across the humanities and social sciences. Although a regular major is not offered, students can minor in Black Studies or design a special major around their interests. “What’s special about our program is the interdisciplinarity of it,” says Professor of Studio Art Syd Carpenter, a Black Studies committee member. “That’s the key to the program—that students themselves can create and structure this with the insights of the range of faculty who are making offerings that become part of the Black Studies Program.” In recent years, Black Studies has also begun offering classes with a study-abroad component. “The future of most interdisciplinary programs is with embedded study and experiential learning,” says Associate Professor of French Carina Yervasi, a Black Studies committee member. “Black Studies has benefited from experiential learning by taking students to Brazil and Cuba, and continuing support for this kind of programming is crucial to helping students understand Black diasporas.” However, that Black Studies remains a program, as opposed to a department, is a source of disappointment to some. “The question is, why is Black Studies still a program 50 years later when, in my time here, I have watched programs move from programs to departments?” asks Allison Dorsey, a professor of history who coordinated the program from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2008 to 2010. “I find that a failure of imagination and will on the part of the College.” Program committee member Nina Johnson, an assistant professor of sociology, hopes the tenured position will be an important step in terms of the College making a commitment to the long-term sustainability and viability of a thriving Black Studies program. “Swarthmore’s Black Studies Program has been able to thrive because of faculty who have been committed to it, but those faculty are also in their home departments required to do all kinds of work and service,” she says. “We do great with what we have, but it would be amazing to do more.” Among those committed faculty members is President Valerie Smith, who holds appointments in Black Studies and the English Department. An opportunity to teach a cross-listed course on Toni Morrison this spring is especially important to her, she says. “Black Studies faculty have contributed in a variety of significant ways to the intellectual and cultural life of the College,” Smith says. “I am delighted that with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, we will be adding a new faculty position in Black Studies and music that will enhance our cross-disciplinary curricular offerings.” “Black Studies offers a cross-disciplinary approach to some of the most urgent, persistent and intractable challenges we have confronted over time,” adds Smith. Through curriculum, research, performance, and forms of creative expression, she says, Black Studies explores “the complex interplay between the political, economic, and cultural forces that shape our understanding of the historic and contemporary achievements and struggles of African-descended people in this country and around the world.” The opportunity to explore Black culture, history, music, and literature is an ever-expansive journey for all Swarthmore students. Participants of Black Studies have expanded on the wealth of information and knowledge they absorbed as students, sharing it in their own organizations, communities, and classrooms. The original stories reverberate, enriching each new generation and the world as a whole. —ELIZABETH REDDEN ’05 WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 33 blST 50 “We really didn’t know that much about African American history and culture, even in our most elite institutions. There was just a lot of ignorance.” —Andrea Young ’76, executive director, ACLU of Georgia “It was mind-blowing,” Márquez says. “The urgency with which she taught that class really shaped me. “Working with her, I realized that scholarship could be really meaningful and powerful, and could shape not only how we think about the past, but how we approach our current moment—all the questions of power and inequality that we are dealing with today and have always been dealing with.” In 2010, Márquez joined Dorsey and others on a field trip to North Carolina for a conference on the 50th anniversary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Márquez’s dissertation—a history of Latino/as in the South since 1940—emerged out of that trip and the interviews she conducted at the SNNC conference. Michael Jeffries ’02 also traces a direct line between his Black Studies classes at Swarthmore and his academic career. The program “taught me that anything I wanted to study was intellectually viable,” says the Class of 1949 Professor in Ethics and associate professor of American studies at Wellesley College. “I remember reading Tricia Rose’s Black Noise, which I think remains the best academic book written on rap music,” he says, fondly recalling Sarah Willie-LeBreton’s Intro to Black Studies class. “I never knew you could write an academic book on hip-hop. I was so fascinated and captivated by that book, and the first book I wrote was a book on hip-hop.” He has since written two other books on race and class— one that uses President Barack Obama as a lens to look at race in America, and another on inequalities in the world of professional comedians—and is working on a book about Black LGBTQ+ students. Monica Patterson ’97 says one of the first classes that captivated her at Swarthmore was a course on the Harlem Renaissance taught by Chuck James, the Sara LawrenceLightfoot Professor Emeritus of English Literature. “I just fell in love with the writing,” says Patterson, a Black Studies Program alum. “It was so lyrical and evocative, and that got me very interested in Africa. Of course the Africa that is written about in a lot of that Harlem Renaissance literature is almost a fantastical one. It was a mythological abstraction that ran counter to some of what I was starting to learn in anthropology, which focused on the thick and fine detail of everyday life.” Patterson, now an assistant professor at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies at Carleton University in Canada, researches the experience of childhood in apartheid South Africa. She spent her junior year at Swarthmore studying abroad in Zimbabwe. “It was a really powerful experience,” she says, “that shaped the rest of my life to come.” PAST AND FUTURE Though just one student earned a special major in Black Studies in the Class of 2019 and five students earned minors, about 40% of 2019 graduates took a course that was eligible for Black Studies Program credit, College data show. Black Studies was not always infused into the Swarthmore curriculum in this way. “The African American studies classes were about me in a way that other classes were not,” says Andrea Young ’76, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, where her work centers around issues of voting rights, reproductive rights, and free speech. “To the extent to which African American history, literature, and so forth are a part of classes that people take today, that was not true then. We really didn’t know that much about African American history and culture, even in our most elite institutions. There was just a lot of ignorance.” Young recalls her classes with Kathryn Morgan, the Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot Professor Emerita of History and the first Black woman to earn tenure at Swarthmore, after initially being denied. “One of the great things about Kathryn Morgan—I was a part of the student movement to get her tenure—is that she was one of the early proponents of how you use primary sources to reclaim this kind of hidden history,” Young says. “That’s been so essential to reclaiming women’s history, to reclaiming African American history—going back to the primary sources because the so-called official record left us out.” That’s something that will be needed as long as there is a power imbalance in society, says Maye, one of the original Black Studies concentrators from 1969. “The winners in these power struggles get to tell the stories, they get to write the books, they get to be honored and venerated,” she says. “The people who are on the margins, their stories always get buried, and their truths get buried. “Once we broke the door open to say that the European canon was not the sole thing that was worth studying, other groups started saying, ‘What about our history?’ Now you have a lot of diversity—that was won through what the Black students did.” Black Studies “taught me that anything I wanted to study was intellectually viable,” says Michael Jeffries ’02 (top), a professor at Wellesley College. For Andrea Young ’76 (bottom), “the African American studies classes were about me in a way that other classes were not.” 34 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 35 B UNITED IN SONG Alumni Gospel Choir expands musical possibilities at Swarthmore “There were a lot of misconceptions among the faculty and staff about who we were and what we could achieve,” says Vaneese Thomas ’74, H’14, a founding member of Swarthmore’s first gospel choir. 36 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 LAURENCE KESTERSON by Queen Muse OTH a connecting point and a fundamental expression of faith, gospel music brought together some of the first Black students who arrived at Swarthmore in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Beyond the joy of a shared experience, the energy and emotion of singing gospel music connected students to their faith and to fond memories of home. “It became a reason to gather,” says Cynthia Hunter Spann ’75, a Swarthmore College Alumni Gospel Choir member, reflecting on her first singing experiences at the College. “The choir became the corporate worship experience that I missed. It was more than singing—it was spiritual.” Over the past 50 years, the Swarthmore College Alumni Gospel Choir has recorded two albums, toured five countries, and held concerts in cities across the United States and the Virgin Islands. But the choir’s beginning and the enduring bond among its roughly 100 members remain connected to the struggle and transformation that came before them. The gospel choir wasn’t formed, members say—it was born out of necessity. In January 1969, a protest and occupation of the Admissions Office ultimately resulted in Black students securing a place of their own on campus, the Black Cultural Center. Swarthmore at that time was one of many places across the country embroiled in a national debate over civil rights and racial inequality. Tension and uncertainty lingered on campus in fall 1970 when members of the Class of ’74 arrived—still very much struggling to find solace in the wake of much unrest. “We were the largest class of African American students that they had ever had, and it was as traumatic for us as it was for them,” says Vaneese Thomas ’74, H’14, a renowned jazz vocalist and founding member of Swarthmore’s gospel choir. “There were a lot of misconceptions among the faculty and staff about who we were and what we could achieve.” Despite being among a growing Black student body, Thomas says she and her Black peers often felt as though they didn’t fully belong. “People always wanted to know why Black students sat against the wall in the dining hall,” Thomas says. “It was because we were uncomfortable in the general population at Swarthmore, just as we were uncomfortable in the general population in the United States. It was just a microcosm of what was going on at the time.” On a campus that had only recently gained a meeting place for Black students, others, like Spann, felt the gospel choir became an additional place of refuge. “I wouldn’t say it was a culture shock, but it was a very unique experience for me,” she says about her early days at Swarthmore. “I still needed a place on campus where I could feel relaxed and be myself without worrying about political correctness.” Spann discovered that singular place around the piano in the Black Cultural Center, where she bonded with Thomas and other Black students over a shared love of gospel music. Many of them had been raised in Baptist, Methodist, or Pentecostal homes and had grown up singing gospel music in their hometown church choirs. But they felt the dominant vocals, strong harmonies, and vibrant spiritual lyrics of gospel music did not yet have a place at Swarthmore. At that time, the College chorus was the only option for students who wanted to sing and—as Thomas learned when she briefly joined—the music they performed was strictly Western WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 37 LAURENCE KESTERSON The Alumni Gospel Choir has performed in cities across the U.S. and the Virgin Islands, including in 2000 (top). Above: Sam Brackeen ’68 attends a rehearsal on campus this fall. “AS FAR BACK AS I CAN REMEMBER, I HAVE SUNG IN CHURCH CHOIRS. IT’S WHAT I DO. IT’S WHO I AM. IT’S A PART OF ME.” —CYNTHIA HUNTER SPANN ’75 38 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 new members, including NiYa Costley ’97, who despite having joined many years after the choir’s inception, found it still met a critical need for Black students. “The choir was a safe space, emotionally and socially,” Costley says. “It was a place where you could find people who understood your story.” In 1986, Thomas and other members returned to Swarthmore for a reunion concert. Reunited, they rediscovered the joy and connection they’d forged long ago and made a plan to carry it forward with the formation of the Swarthmore Alumni Gospel Choir. News of the group spread quickly, attracting alums like Sam Brackeen ’68 to join. Brackeen came to Swarthmore in 1964 as one of fewer than 20 Black students in his class and as the only Black student in his civil engineering program. When he first heard about the Alumni Gospel Choir, he thought it might be a hoax. “I was probably in disbelief because that was not the kind of thing you’d find at Swarthmore back then,” Brackeen says. “But the one thing you do find at Swarthmore is that one or a few people can make a difference.” For many members of the gospel choir, Thomas made that difference. As director, she’s been the driving force that not only redefined the musical possibilities at Swarthmore but also helped countless students explore and perfect their passion for song. Members like Joan Cargill ’89 say it’s what has kept the choir going strong for so many years. “The thing that inspires me most is that, despite what’s going on in our lives, when we get the call to perform, we jump up and come, and many of us do that because Vaneese is leading us,” Cargill says. “We’re in her vortex when we get there because we know we’re going to have a good time, we’re going to be cared for, she’s going to be helping us as we are growing and learning, doing something that we love and with a leader that is so dynamic.” Under Thomas’ tutelage, the Alumni Gospel Choir recorded and released its first album, Hallelujah! Amen, in LAURENCE KESTERSON European. Driven by the need for a musical outlet of their own, the Black students who wanted to sing gospel turned their informal gatherings around the piano into rehearsals. Those singers—Karen Shropshire Yancey ’75, Carolyn Mitchell ’74, Beth McMillan-McCartney ’75, Patrice Harris Pompa ’75, Lynette Hunkins ’74, Cheryl Sanders ’74, Chiquita Davidson Hayes ’74, James Batton ’72, Terry Hicks ’73, Thomas, and Spann— became the founding members of Swarthmore’s first gospel choir. They began hosting concerts that attracted wide audiences from the Swarthmore community, their songs of spirit and faith helping the choir to form a bridge on a divided campus. “We were ministering to members of the campus who were not African American, but who appreciated and accepted our form of ministry,” Spann says. “That was an affirming experience for a lot of our members.” In the years that followed, the choir’s founding members graduated and went back to their respective hometowns. Thomas, the daughter of the musical legend Rufus Thomas, returned to Memphis and launched a successful career, earning invitations to perform in concerts and festivals around the world, including several Pavarotti & Friends concerts in Modena, Italy, and the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. She went on to write and produce songs for well-known artists such as Patti Austin, Freddie Jackson, Melba Moore, and Diana Ross. Meanwhile, the student gospel choir continued performing and recruited Choir members including Lynette Hunkins ’74 and Joan Cargill ’89 manage to travel to Swarthmore several times a year for performances and rehearsals, like this one in October at the Black Cultural Center. “It’s an intergenerational bond,” says Cargill. “The choir brings us together in ways that other activities just don’t.” 1996, and another, Star Gazer, in 2000. Proceeds from the album sales funded two student scholarships. The choir performed concert tours in China, Hungary, Austria, the Czech Republic, and South Africa. In 2014, Swarthmore honored Thomas’s “faith and commitment to those in need of musical uplift” with an honorary doctor of arts degree. The alumni choir continues to rehearse and perform, with members across the country managing to travel to Swarthmore several times a year. They’ve fostered a depth in their relationships across generations—a rarity in alumni organizations where affinity can wane with distance and time. “It’s an intergenerational bond,” Cargill says. “It creates this connection that otherwise would not exist. We sing together; we’ve traveled together. The choir brings us together in ways that other activities just don’t.” They don’t just sing together—they share life’s joys and sorrows together, too. When the choir learned of the 2010 death of Kathryn Morgan, the Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot Professor Emerita of History and a dedicated supporter who “had never missed an Alumni Gospel Choir performance,” they returned to Swarthmore to sing for her Celebration of Life ceremony. They commemorate milestones in each other’s lives, too. It’s all part of using gospel music to express the love of God to others. “This experience resonates with me very personally because my father’s philosophy on ministry was to emulate the love that God has shown us and to try to give that back to others. And that’s what this choir is all about,” Brackeen says. “It’s a ministry that’s founded on love.” When longtime choir member Beth McMillan-McCartney ’75 got married in California, Spann and Yancey trekked across country to attend her wedding. And recently, when McMillan-McCartney’s daughter got married, five gospel choir members attended the ceremony, four sang and one officiated. “We’ve maintained contact,” McMillan-McCartney says. “We maintained those friendships we developed in college because those relationships really meant a lot to us— and still do.” After leading the gospel choir as her labor of love for more than four decades, Thomas plans to pass the torch to a new director by 2021. She hopes the choir will continue to thrive because she believes it’s as vital now as it was 50 years ago. “We still live in a very disturbing world,” she says. “The friendships that we made during those times were really important to keeping your head on straight. When we started, it was filling this great need, and I don’t think that need ever went away. I don’t think it ever will.” WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 39 VOICE, MIND, SPIRIT Chester Children’s Chorus celebrates 25 years of love and strength by Ryan Dougherty 40 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 LAURENCE KESTERSON T WENTY-FIVE YEARS is a significant anniversary, but Chester Children’s Chorus Director John Alston H’15 isn’t counting years. He’s counting measures and listening for just the right note. “I want the children to sing wonderfully,” says Alston, an energetic director who isn’t afraid to use humor to encourage the students, who range from third-graders to high school seniors. “I want them to have the best time when they’re in rehearsal, to have a blast when they’re on stage, to continue to grow and teach people that Chester children have the same extraordinary abilities as your children and my children, and that, with the right combination of love, humor, and rigor, they can become the best versions of themselves.” It’s an ambitious plan. And it’s working. Since 1994, the CCC has embodied its mission: Strong Voice, Strong Mind, Strong Spirit. It opens its doors to all Chester students with the aim to create a vigorous and joyful choral music experience. Aside from a fine music education, students have the opportunity to learn from Swarthmore College faculty, staff, and students in the arts, athletics, science, and math. “I want them to have the best time when they’re in rehearsal, to have a blast when they’re on stage, to continue to grow and teach people that Chester children have the same extraordinary abilities as your children and my children,” says John Alston H’15, director of the Chester WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin Children’s Chorus. 41 LAURENCE KESTERSON The Chester Children’s Chorus represents family to Director John Alston H’15, who has a “CCC” tattoo and last year let the kids vote on the naming of his son, Nathan Jay. 42 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 “Family-style music making,” he says, smiling widely. “As informal as possible.” That balance of seriousness and inclusiveness appeals to the students, some of whom navigate chaos in their daily lives. “I used to get really nervous when we’d perform, but now I feel fine—I know I’ve got my people behind me,” says A’Najah Jones-Dowling, a soprano from Archbishop Carroll High School. “We really are one big family.” That mindset has fueled the chorus since its start. Recalling those early days, Alston laughs. “I had no idea what I was getting into,” he says. He wanted to start a boys’ chorus in Chester, like the one he had been part of in Newark, N.J., and considers the brightest light of his childhood. Alston, then an associate professor of music, visited the office of Maurice Eldridge ’61, then vice president for community and college relations, who helped him procure a keyboard and other necessities. Within a week, Alston had seven boys in the choir. He knew that without the experience of teaching music to elementary-age kids, there would be a learning curve. But as it is with most grand visions, it took the required leap of faith. “The kids and I loved each other almost immediately,” Alston says. “We were coming from the same place, recognizing so much in each other.” Before long, girls were welcomed to rehearsals, too, and it dawned on Alston that Swarthmore could have a children’s chorus. A place not of charity, but discovery. “And so it went,” Eldridge says, “and here we are, 25 years later, celebrating its success. It has done so much good in the lives of the youngsters who have participated, and their families.” Among them is Deondre Jordan ’19, who spent 10 years in the chorus and will soon embark on a research position with the National Institutes of Health. “The chorus was the anchor,” Jordan said in a video that delighted the crowd at the chorus’ 25th anniversary gala in October. (See the video at swarthmore.edu/ chester-childrens-chorus.) Reveling in the response that night was Dana Semos, the chorus’ managing and education director, whose top takeaway in her first year on the job is the eagerness of the entire College community—from the President’s Office on down—to do anything it can for the chorus. “You just can’t help but be inspired and impressed by the kids,” says Semos. “It’s beautiful to be a part of the community that is the CCC.” That community is on full display at rehearsals, too, which begin with the students and Alston catching up over pizza and teasing (or “burning”) one another. The banter reverberates through the lesson, as the students sway side to side while they sing and Alston pops up and down from LAURENCE KESTERSON The goal is to empower the student singers to improve their communities and the world, achieved through a rigorous, by-audition-only program. Weekly rehearsals involve an intricate van route that collects each student as it winds through Chester and then delivers the kids to the CCC office in the Ville of Swarthmore. Alston knows the role that poverty plays in many of the children’s lives, and the sacrifices that their families make to keep their kids in the program. He favors a light approach to coax the best out of every singer. The Chester Children’s Chorus has grown from an ensemble of seven boys to a large coed organization with students in third through 12th grades. “Every time they step on stage, these children get the opportunity to be excellent,” says Alston—including at their 25th anniversary celebration gala (above), held at The Matchbox in October. behind the keys. He’s explaining a fine point of Handel’s Messiah one moment and taking—or dishing—a playful jab the next. “Go ’head, girl,” he teases one soprano who gets a little carried away on the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love.” “That’s your gift.” Other nights, the mood is tense. The children at times carry struggles, from typical school and family issues up to losing loved ones to gun violence. Sometimes Alston stops rehearsal to take a child aside or to hash something out as a group. It’s not the high note of the job, but it’s one he embraces. “The children are so, so important,” Alston says. “There’s so much humanity and wonder and humor and wit and sorrow and anguish. It’s all there. They deserve to be seen and appreciated.” That’s especially true at the chorus’ public performances across the Delaware Valley each year. Last summer, they shook the room with a version of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, among more traditional choral selections. “That’s a night I will never forget,” says My’Rell Stone, a soprano from Chester Charter Scholars Academy. “How many people from somewhere like Chester can say they sang Mozart’s Requiem with a full orchestra?” “Every time they step on stage, these children get the opportunity to be excellent,” adds Alston. “And the audience gets the opportunity to see that with the right structures in place and barriers broken down, all children can flourish.” WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 43 FAMILY IN FOCUS Black alumni leave a lasting legacy on Swarthmore’s campus and culture by Michael Agresta Clockwise from top left: The Lawrence sisters and their mother, Margaret, then and now; Cecily Bumbray ’12 and her mother, Sherry Bellamy ’74; the Dinkins family: Davirah ’93, Delvin ’93, and Bria ’21. 44 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 SARA LAWRENCE-LIGHTFOOT ’66, H’89 attended Swarthmore at a time just before the institution made its first serious commitments to diversity and inclusion. She recalls a campus with no Black professors and a Black student population that could be counted on one hand. A place where her freshman roommate had received a letter asking if she’d mind rooming with a “Negro.” “Tokenism is distorting, the paradoxical experience of being both hyper-visible and invisible,” says Lawrence-Lightfoot, the Emily Hargroves Fisher Research Professor of Education at Harvard University. “Although I made close friendships and felt deeply embedded in the Swarthmore community, there was always this nagging feeling of loneliness, isolation, and marginalization. My involvement in the civil rights and social justice movements—both on and off campus— was central to my education, identity, and sense of belonging.” Lawrence-Lightfoot’s sentiments get to the core of the institutionaltering events of 1969, which called for an increase in Black admissions and creation of a Black Cultural Center at Swarthmore. The paths forged by activist groups of the late ’60s—and by Black students like LawrenceLightfoot who came even earlier— cleared the way for younger family members and others to experience a more inclusive Swarthmore. Over the past 50 years, Black family connections have grown and continue to be nurtured at Swarthmore. Those relationships have rippled out, inspiring legacy and community. An important solace for LawrenceLightfoot as she navigated her education was the presence on campus of her sister Paula LawrenceWehmiller ’67, who followed her older sibling to Swarthmore at the encouragement of their parents, Charles Radford Lawrence II and Margaret Morgan Lawrence H’03. The elder Lawrences were devoted civil rights and peace activists. Growing up, Lawrence-Wehmiller says, family stories centered on Black people who were committed to education and who were deeply rooted in the struggle for justice. Their home was a hub and haven for humanists, activists, and artists— leaders and luminaries of the time, like the Rev. Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, Dr. John Hope Franklin, Dr. Kenneth Clark, A.J. Muste, and Philip and Dan Berrigan, the sisters say about the home they grew up in. The family was active in local, national, and international movements. “We all marched, picketed, and raised our voices for social justice and peace,” says Lawrence-Wehmiller. The Lawrence sisters’ 105-year-old mother, Dr. Margaret Lawrence, was the first Black psychoanalyst trained in the United States, served as chief of the Developmental Psychiatry Service for Children at Harlem Hospital, and became professor at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. The sisters also made names for themselves: Lawrence-Lightfoot as winner of a 1984 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and the first AfricanAmerican woman in Harvard’s history to have an endowed professorship named in her honor, and LawrenceWehmiller as an educator, Episcopal priest, and consultant to communities of faith, learning, and service. Lawrence-Lightfoot and Lawrence-Wehmiller have remained connected to Swarthmore, serving in various advisory capacities since their graduations. Paula and her husband, John Wehmiller ’66, have been major supporters and mentors of the Chester Children’s Chorus for most of its 25 years. Sara served on the Board of Managers and received an honorary degree in 1989, and in 1993 the Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot endowed professorship was established at the College. Their mother’s 2003 honorary degree further deepened the family’s ties to the College. The choice to go to Swarthmore reflected their parents’ dedication to education, Lawrence-Wehmiller says. “But it was their having raised us in the ways of justice and peace that were the gifts that my sister, Sara and I brought with us when we came to Swarthmore,” she says. “The stories we had learned, and the stories we had lived, sustained us at this place that at the time did not have the capacity to acknowledge the struggle.” Having her sister at Swarthmore (and their brother Charles Lawrence one year ahead at Haverford) was a constant reminder that “our parents had raised us to know both the strength and the joy in the struggle—a gift I believe Sara and I passed on to the Black students who came after us,” says Lawrence-Wehmiller. Black alumni of the late ’60s recall “the Lawrence sisters” who went before them and on whose shoulders they stood. As the number of Black Swarthmore “I was fortunate to have a lot of great mentors who played a role in my increasingly deep interest in education.” —Delvin Dinkins ’93 WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 45 legacy families has grown over the past five decades, the Black Cultural Center has become a touchstone that connects generations. Such has been the experience of singer-songwriter Cecily Bumbray ’12 and her mother, Sherry Bellamy ’74, a lawyer with the Washington, D.C., law office of Parker Poe. Bellamy’s class, admitted in 1970, was the first with a relatively sizable Black student population of 20 men and 20 women. “My mom’s experience as a Black student on campus was really a unique one, because it was a time of a lot of change,” Bumbray says. “When I came along, the strong community was something that was really attractive to me—having the Black Cultural Center, a place to get together to laugh and do homework and volunteer work. I feel really blessed that my mom was part of that effort to have a strong community at Swarthmore that I could eventually benefit from.” The values that Swarthmore helped to instill, says Bellamy, are ones of liberal thinking, acceptance of everybody, and “being a lot less judgmental.” “One thing that was great about Cecily and I having Swarthmore in common was her first reaction when she first visited Swarthmore: ‘I don’t know, Mom. I’m not a big a nerd as you are. I might not like it,’” Bellamy says. “Then she spent a weekend, and she loved it.” Swarthmore, to Bellamy, was an open, diverse, and comfortable place. The BCC especially was a “home away from home.” “Whenever I felt overwhelmed by the Swarthmore environment, or just needed a place to be, that’s where I went,” she says. “I can’t imagine having spent my four years there without the BCC. We needed that space to re-energize and regroup and be together.” For Delvin Dinkins ’93 and Davirah 46 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 Timm-Dinkins ’93, who met outside Sharples as freshmen and later married, being a Swarthmore family has meant carrying values learned at the College on to other institutions. Davirah has worked at Penn State and elsewhere on student support and faculty relations surrounding multicultural issues, while Delvin has held leadership roles at private and public K–12 schools. “At Swarthmore, I was fortunate to have a lot of great mentors who played a role in my increasingly deep interest in education—people who gave me a sense of how dynamic and honorable a profession it could be,” Delvin says. “They really played a part in awakening me to not just opportunities, but also a lot of the work that education has to do, in terms of the social mission.” Their daughter, Bria Dinkins ’21, chose to attend Swarthmore as well, sealing their fate as a legacy family. Like her parents before her, Bria has been active with the Swarthmore African-American Student Society, serving on the executive board. Though they’ve been careful not to give their daughter too much advice about navigating college life, trusting her to find her own way, the elder Dinkinses sometimes observe in Bria’s campus life both a reflection and a carrying-forward of their own earlier Swarthmore stories. “When she shares the experiences she’s had with people, or challenges, we listen to them with an open mind, but we also can relate,” Davirah says. “While some are specific to this time and her journey, some are universal. What matters is, at Swarthmore, you can find your own experience, however it looks. That’s the beauty of it—that you are around people as engaged and passionate as you are, and at the same time, there’s support from students, from faculty, and from staff.” “I feel really blessed that my mom was part of that effort to have a strong community at Swarthmore that I could eventually benefit from,” says Cecily Bumbray ’12, with her family. class notes A TREASURY OF ALUMNI-RELATED ITEMS ALUMNI EVENTS SWATTALKS Feb. 19, March 3, April 22 SwatTalks is an Alumni Council initiative to engage the broader Swarthmore community in live, online seminars featuring professors, students, and alumni excelling in their fields. bit.ly/SwatTalks CELEBRATING “THE HOUSE” March and April Stay tuned for campus and regional celebrations in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Black Cultural Center. swarthmore.edu/ blackexcellence ALUMNI WEEKEND May 29–31 Reconnect with former classmates, celebrate with friends, and enjoy a full weekend of activities as we honor milestone reunions for classes ending in 5 and 0— with a special invitation to all Black alumni. alumniweekend.swarthmore. edu MARTIN TOMLINSON ’23 ALUMNI COLLEGE ABROAD Trips to Sicily, Berlin, and Iceland and on the TransSiberian Railway from Mongolia to Moscow are booking now. bit.ly/SwatAbroad Swarthmore fans cheered on the Garnet in November as the men’s soccer team took on Connecticut College at home during the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA tournament. Read more on pg. 13. 1941 Libby Murch Livingston lizliv33@gmail.com Happy birthday to us! Barbara Ferguson Young just told me that she is 100 years old! This led me to realize that we ’41ers are all celebrating our big one sometime around this year. Barbara was thrilled with a big bash put on by family and friends. We, too, cheer Barbara and all the rest of us. Another phone talk with Walt Steuber’s son revealed that Walt (at age 103) still lives in his home of 68 years, now with said son’s help and that of his other son, who has built a home next door. I would like to hear from other ’41ers about their homes and management. For me, there have been other family celebrations. Two weddings: one on a gorgeous September day in Maryland, in the beautiful countryside by a lovely lake. And there were all those handsome young people—my gorgeous granddaughter, dressed in lace, dancing with the little boys and girls. Then a couple of weeks later, another gathering of the clan, in Denver, for another wedding— another granddaughter to her Peruvian groom. I am fortunate to have both my daughters and one of my sons living nearby. They do so much for me! That and our views of the ocean and all that Maine air … I’ll settle for all this! 1943 Betty Glenn Webber bettywebber22@yahoo.com 616-245-2687 I’m sorry to say that I have received zero feedback from you dear remaining ’43ers. Our editor might frown on creative fiction from me, so give thought to contributing next time. It would be interesting to hear from the seldom-or-never responders about their lives and interests. WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 47 class notes 1945 75th Reunion! Our reunion is just a few months away! May 29–31 is Alumni Weekend, when all classes return for reunions. Please mark your calendar and save the date! Join us in planning a memorable reunion at Swarthmore with much reminiscing and seeing life on campus today. Co-chairs: Margie Slocum Bearn (mbearn1@gmail.com) and Mary Stewart Hafer (maryhafer24@ gmail.com) have agreed to co-chair the event and look forward to being in touch with everyone in the hope that we can enjoy an enthusiastic final hurrah together. Hard to believe we are all in our mid-90s, but travel, though difficult, is possible, especially in the company of a son, daughter, or grandchild. All things considered (i.e. the passage of time), Mary and Margie are still active. Mary has lived in a retirement community in Lexington, Mass., for 15 years. In September, Mary joined family members to camp in northern Maine. She attended a granddaughter’s wedding in Idaho with plans to attend a grandson’s wedding in Colorado in November. Margie lives in New York, adjacent to the U.N., and regularly attends the opera and other musical events. She spent last summer in England and France, as she has for many years. Husband Alick, a medical scientist, was English, so Margie has not only friends in the U.K. but an array of nieces and nephews there, as well. She also travels to Florida in the winter for warm weather—and some serious croquet. Reunion plans: Early plans include conversation and coffee with President Valerie Smith on Saturday morning, with our class and perhaps some others near our vintage. That’s followed by our lead position in the Alumni Parade. After Collection, we plan to have students join us for lunch to give us a picture of life on campus today. We think they may be interested, 48 Swarthmore College Bulletin / too, in hearing about campus life as we knew it in the long-ago ’40s. Saturday evening, we will join fellow Garnet Sages for dinner after some special class activities in the afternoon. We will have golf carts at our disposal to keep walking at a minimum, and, inasmuch as possible, door-to-door service will be supplied. Swarthmore has guaranteed us priority housing with air conditioning. Please plan to come. We all want to see you! 1947 Marshall Schmidt kinmarshal@aol.com Greetings, ’47ers. I asked the College for a class list and found about 60 names, half of which showed email addresses. An email experiment produced two responses, from Barbara Norfleet and Marilyn Rosen Oliensis. My remaining challenge is to reach the half of classmates with no listed email. Two had addresses only, and three showed neither an address nor a phone number. The rest all showed addresses and phone numbers. I would like to communicate with you by email, if possible. Bobbie’s note included a photo of herself and her son at the beach: “Right now I’m on Martha’s Vineyard waiting to see if ferries are running again. Lovely summer of daily ocean swimming and being with my children and grandchildren.” Lyn shared this wonderful update: “I am happy to hear so many of us are still alive! I am now 92, and feeling OK if not exactly athletic. My son, who is a computer vision person, and two grandsons have lived with me for about 10 years. (He has been a mostly single father.) The boys are 16 and 18, so you can imagine that life continues to be eventful. I retired as a lawyer 17 years ago when my husband died, and have kept quite busy ever since with book clubs, opera, and WINTER 2020 all the usual, plus pushing people’s furniture around (no charge … in fact it is hard to protect oneself from my determination to do it). “I have heard with sadness over time about the death of many old friends. I particularly mourn Claire Croft Dudley ’49, but her children kindly treat me as a substitute grandmother and visit when they come to town. One of my daughters and her husband live in Berkeley, Calif., where she is chair of classics/comp lit, and he is a poet and creative writing teacher. Their filmmaker daughter lives in New York, to my great pleasure and delight. My middle daughter lives in Assisi, Italy, and her elder daughter lives in Bologna. My daughter is also a poet (!) who supports her habit in various creative ways. Her younger daughter is a senior at Sarah Lawrence. “My New York apartment is called the Oliensis Hotel by my children, grandchildren, and many of their friends. It is only a couple of blocks away from the Metropolitan museum, and I usually have a spare bed for visitors. This is probably more news than you care to hear, but I was so pleased to get your unexpected communication!” Speaking for Kinnie Clarke Schmidt ’46 and myself, we have enjoyed life in a hybrid (no medical) senior community near Princeton for 20 years. Dick Esrey ’50, Naomi Lichtman Rose ’54, and Helen “Greenie” Green Neuburg ’48 reside here also. (Ned Neuburg ’48 lives in a nursing home nearby.) As we have no upfront medical expense, our monthly fees would appear to be half of the monthlies at a CCRC. We own our own villas and apartments (which will go in due course to our kids), and we are the trustees managing our daily lives. I’m sorry to report the death of two friends. Virginia Butts Cryer ’48, a psychology major at Swarthmore, died Sept. 3. Postwar classes had veterans coming home, getting married, having babies, and socializing in homes in Swarthmore, Rose Valley, Media, and Drexel Hill. Included in this bunch besides Kinnie and me were the Dick Cryers, the Charlie Cryers, the Haydens, the Leimbachs, the Ungers, the Barclay Whites, the Mifflins, the Willises, and so on. The poker nights and dinners at Howard Johnson’s in Media were inexpensive but favorite social outings. Ginny and Dick Cryer were a big part of these happy times. Nancy Fitts Donaldson ’46 died in September. Kinnie writes: “For many years, Fittsy was our class secretary and president, and was always helpful in planning reunions. On the occasion of our 50th, she was instrumental in establishing our ’46 scholarship ‘in recognition of the Swarthmore tradition that so influenced its members.’ It was often awarded to a junior majoring in peace & conflict studies. Fittsy would visit with the student and then give a report in the ’46 class notes. “Fittsy’s daughter is Signe Wilkinson, a Pulitzer-winning cartoonist with the Philadelphia Daily News. Again for our 50th, Fittsy asked Signe to draw a cartoon of Life at Swarthmore that we could put on our T-shirts. That is what we proudly wore in 1996 and for the reunions that followed. “Fittsy was a longtime Quaker school educator throughout the Philadelphia area. This included supervising Swarthmore education student-teachers. She also tutored pupils in Chester and supported the Chester Children’s Chorus. “It has been our good fortune that Fittsy was a classmate and friend.” 1949 ALUMNI COUNCIL NEWS Greetings from your Alumni Council! We hope that you had a terrific fall and that many of you were able to join us in October for Garnet Weekend (above), where we welcomed new members Ted Abel ’85, Twan Claiborne ’07, Natalie Flores Semyonova ’19, Emily Mindel Gottlieb ’95, Ayanna Johnson ’09, David Kaufman ’94, Maria Mello ’08, Jim Sailer ’90, Peter Schoenbach ’62, Jamie Stiehm ’82, Charlie Sussman ’05, and Dina Zingaro ’13. Alumni Council hosted several events throughout Alumni Weekend, including our terrific annual Career Networking Reception, with Council members and current students plus alumni, parents, and other Swarthmore volunteers. Student attendees were able to connect with even more diverse professionals than in years past. Other news: • We are seeking donations for students as part of our annual Professional Clothing Drive in March. Contact Anne Richards ’97 at aer9cornell@yahoo.com for details. • Know an amazing Swattie who deserves recognition? Alumni Council is seeking nominations for the annual Eugene Lang Impact Award and the Arabella Carter Community Service Award (bit.ly/ SwatAwards). Presented during Alumni Weekend (with primarily classes ending in 0 and 5 returning this year), the Carter award honors an alum who has been an unsung hero working for peace and justice, and the Lang award one who has made an impact on society at large through their vocation. Send nominations to LShafer1@swarthmore.edu by March 1! • Although the full Council meets on campus every March and October, we stay connected with alumni, students, and faculty between meetings in many other ways. We look forward to seeing you around, whether on campus or through a virtual SwatTalk (bit.ly/ SwatTalks). As always, if you have any questions about Council, please contact us at acpresident@ swarthmore.edu. alumni@swarthmore.edu Marjorie Merwin Daggett mmdaggett@verizon.net Bill Hirsch, now living in a continuing-care community in Haverford, Pa., has been musing on the wonderful mix that was at Swarthmore for the Class of ’49; it included vets like Walt Carel, Bill Will, Katashi Oita, Herb Kaiser, Chris Pedersen, Jack Chapman, and others; European refugees like the Wertheimers, brothers Rolf ’48 and Heinz Valtin, Rudy Hirsch ’50, and professors Hans Wallach, Wolfgang Köhler, and Wolfgang Stolper; and the V-12 still on campus. He remembers a lively campus, meals in Parrish, fun thrown in (especially the annual Hamburg Show), and that the people are now more memorable than class content. Bill has been in touch with Chris Pedersen, who lives in a continuing-care community near Oxford, Pa., and also with Lise Wertheimer Wallach, who writes from Durham, N.C., that she and her family are “OK and active.” Bill also had a long email from Lise’s brother, Michael Wertheimer ’47, who is in reasonably good health and living with his wife in a retirement community near Boulder, Colo., where he taught for 40 years. Mike, a professor emeritus of psychology at CU–Boulder, reflected on his rewarding career. He has published more than 40 books, mostly on psychology, and is almost finished with a memoir and a “little textbook” on the history of psychology. Our sympathies to the family of Michael Fabrikant, who died in July at his NYC home. His years at Swarthmore were interrupted when he was drafted during World War II and stationed in Panama to guard the canal. Mike earned a history degree from Swarthmore and an MBA from Columbia. He spent the majority of his career in IBM’s White Plains office. For more than 50 years, Mike and his family were summer residents of Martha’s Vineyard in the home he had bought in Chilmark; an avid bike rider, he was often seen on his yellow bicycle there. Our sympathy also to the family of Elizabeth Disney Baker, who died in July at her home in Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, Wash. Beth was born in Oklahoma, and after graduating from Swarthmore she earned an English literature master’s from the University of Oklahoma. She married Donald Baker in 1952, and together they had six children. Beth raised the children and occasionally taught classes. She and her husband loved to travel; they took their entire family to Finland, England, and Ireland, where they lived for extended periods. Their children fondly remember summer road trips across America and Europe in their beloved Volkswagen vans. After Donald’s retirement, the couple traveled widely and taught in China, Macau, Jordan, and Tunisia. Throughout her life Beth loved art, architecture, and design, and she enjoyed painting. 1951 Elisabeth “Liesje” Boessenkool Ketchel eketchel@netscape.com Anne Ashbaugh Kamrin wrote with the sad news that her husband died in August. Her family is well, and she is at the Quadrangle in Haverford, Pa., where she sees other Swarthmoreans. Ralph Lee Smith writes: “Long ago, in the 1960s and early 1970s, I lived on Jones Street, in the heart of Greenwich Village. On Saturday afternoons, I often stepped across the street to the Allan Block Sandal Shop, where folkies gathered to jam. I played dulcimer and harmonica, and Allan played the fiddle and banjo. In the early 1970s, a little record company called Meadowlands issued an LP of me WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 49 class notes and Allan, simply called Allan Block & Ralph Lee Smith. … I have been notified by Smithsonian Folkways, the recording subsidiary of the Smithsonian Institution, that they plan to reissue the record on their label. Smithsonian Folkways keeps the records on its label in print permanently. This little product of the folk revival will live!” From Clarkson Palmer: “In June, Andrea Wilcox Palmer moved into the skilled-nursing part of our Crosslands retirement community, for better help with her aging and low vision. In May, she and I visited our son Carl ’86 and Andrea’s sister Caroly Wilcox ’52, sightseeing the ‘Grand Canyons’ of Pennsylvania and New York on the way. Then in July we celebrated our 60th wedding anniversary with all four children, plus a luncheon with Barbara ‘Bunty’ Marshall, widow of late engineering professor Carl Barus. Bunty had attended our wedding.” Eleonore Zimmermann writes: “‘Traveling’ will be to a great beyond sometime soon. Yes, fortunately, the many ‘great books’ I have read still are around me, sometimes but not always digitized, and I do my best still to think ‘creatively.’” Eleonore, so sorry to have misspelled your name in the past! Hope I got it right this time. Unfortunately, my fonts don’t include accents. Dick Frost: “Central New York is lovely this time of year, rich in early fall colors. In Hamilton, I had a glass of wine with an old friend, formerly rector of the Episcopal parish here, at the Colgate Inn. I taught for 30 years in Colgate’s history department. We talked mostly about the presidential candidacy of Elizabeth Warren, for whom I have been a donor and self-appointed adviser for a year and a half. It’s time we had a woman to replace the Trump nightmare. … With Elizabeth Warren as president, we will have a different view of what the federal government is for.” Nancy Robinson Posel writes: “I’ve been in touch with dear friend Jack Hoffmeister, in the throes of Alzheimer’s. He can no longer walk or speak, but his devoted caregivers would read a 50 Swarthmore College Bulletin / message or hold the phone to his ear (845-613-7238). I have moved to Foulkeways at Gwynedd, Pa., where our new CEO is Phil DeBaun ’85.” Nancy is involved with the League of Women Voters, focusing on juveniles in the justice system, voter suppression, and lobbying against gerrymandering. “And worst: Pennsylvania is the only state that does not fund public defenders!” Miriam Strasburger Moss and husband Sidney “will again participate in the Annual Conference of the Gerontological Society of America—our paper will be presented in a symposium of retired long-term gerontological researchers about personal experience in making choices of how we are living in old age. (We’re the only ones now up in the 90s.)” They’re involved in a weekly peace vigil in Northampton, Mass., and groups against nuclear weapons. Gerald Pollack “went on a Road Scholar tour to Glacier National Park with wife Pat in September. I had been there once before, in 1951, when Don Blough, Bob Eisinger, and I took a postgraduation tour through the Southwest, up the West Coast, and to the northwestern national parks. Fewer glaciers now. Steeper trails, though. Now back, working on coming municipal elections.” And some poesy from Lew Rivlin: Having defended Alabama / from the forces of Nature / By sheer power of will, / The King said “send me more of a challenge; / Something I would be proud to Kill.” / His trolls and Moscow Mitch / Scratched where there was no itch / but couldn’t find a super worthy trophy. / “Do I have to do EVERYTHING myself? / I will go to war (for a fee or for no fee) / against my own Army and Air Force and Space Force and Navy / to steal from their budgets enough to start building my wall / that NOBODY wants at all at all at all. … / I am the very FIRST President in all of History / To steal the power of appropriation from the Congress and the voters, / and I did it all myself, Dad, without the help of my sons and of my doters.” Sadly, we have lost classmates Patricia Meyer Batin, Wallace WINTER 2020 Francis, Ariel Cahill Hollinshead Hyun, David Wesson, and William Saul Jr. Please see their obituaries in “Their Light Lives On.” 1953 Carol Lange Davis cldavis1105@gmail.com When I sold my home this summer, I put most of my belongings, including files, into storage. I expected to move shortly thereafter. That has not happened. As you can see, my email address has changed. At the moment, I am living with my daughter in Stratford, Conn., with every intention of moving back to Norwalk soon. When my next Bulletin column appears, my new address should be there. Please keep the news coming. Tedd Osgood writes: “About seven years ago, Bruce and Mary Sloat moved into Kendal at Hanover, the continuing-care retirement community in New Hampshire at which my wife, Dorothy, and I had settled in 2001. The Sloats soon proved to be a delightful addition to Kendal; and, most importantly for this narrative, they were inveterate travelers. Since Dorothy had lost interest in foreign travel at this point (we had lived abroad for many of our married years) and was rapidly approaching the point when she would move into assisted living, I was delighted when the Sloats invited me to join them on a trip to Indonesia in 2013. That proved to be such a happy adventure that we went together to Mongolia a year later, and to Iceland the following summer. “Dorothy moved into Kendal’s JOIN THE LEGACY CHALLENGE Learn more on pg. 54 or at swarthmore.edu/ legacychallenge health center the year of our 65th [high school] reunion. She was happy there and frequently came up to our independent living apartment for the day. Also, despite her gradually worsening cognitive condition, we continued to dine together with our Kendal friends and to enjoy many of the programs (lectures, concerts, films) offered here. Early in 2017, Dorothy came down with a severe cold, which led to pneumonia and a brief hospitalization. Following her discharge, Dorothy’s recovery proved short-lived; she died peacefully in her own bed at Kendal shortly before what would have been our 60th wedding anniversary in April 2017. “By the time Dorothy died two years ago and Bruce later that same year, Mary and I were well-acquainted. We both enjoy travel. Consequently, we have had no difficulty in finding places to go together. Our foreign trips have included a week on Bonaire; two weeks in Germany, Russia, and Finland; and, more recently, 10 days in Britain, where we joined the spring gathering of the British World Bank retirees. In between trips abroad and to my summer cottage on Silver Lake in Madison, N.H., we have struggled (successfully for the most part) to combine our most treasured possessions into one Kendal apartment. Also, when the Sloats came to Kendal, they sold their Snowmass, Colo., condominium to their son, who has generously allowed his mother, an excellent skier, to use that pad for weeks at a time. Although I no longer ski, Mary has kindly taken me west with her these past two winters. And, hopefully, we shall go on living and loving together for many more.” Barbara Jackson Hazard died July 28 in Berkeley, Calif. Her marriage to Geoffrey Hazard ended in divorce in 1971, after which Barbara moved back to California to pursue a career as an artist. For many years she summered in the Thousand Islands. She traveled to Russia in the 1980s as an antinuclear activist and befriended many unofficial artists in St. Petersburg, learning the Russian language. Her brilliantly colorful paintings, quilts, and needlepoints have been shown in the U.S. and Russia. She published books of her poetry and drawings, as well as a memoir of her association with the Russian artists during Glasnost. Bob Fetter’s wife of 58 years, Susie Hutcheson Fetter, died March 21 at Broadmead in Cockeysville, Md. The sister of Eleanor Hutcheson Epler, Susie had visited Swarthmore for our 65th Reunion and also attended a November 2018 talk on campus given by Ramina Abilova on research based on the letters, papers, and photos of Bob’s father, Frank Whitson Fetter, Class of 1920. Joan Price Spencer died April 7 in Santa Fe, N.M. A beloved teacher of remedial reading and ESL, Joan was committed to making the world a better place: She had been a caseworker for U.S. Rep. Morris Udall and was instrumental in the N.M. Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty. Joan was predeceased by husband Steve ’51 and brother Doug ’53, and is survived by four daughters and seven grandchildren. 1954 Elizabeth Dun Colten 36 Hampshire Hill Road Upper Saddle River, N.J. 07458 lizcolten@aol.com Autumn 2019 as I write these notes; winter 2020 when you read them. Ed Wallach was the recipient of the 2019 Suheil J. Muasher, M.D., Distinguished Service Award of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, in recognition of his “outstanding achievements … as a scientist, teacher, editor, administrator, and teacher.” When Bill Armstrong was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as an associate director of the Peace Corps (1966–68), Fisseha G. Demoze taught him Amharic, and together they began to collect and translate Ethiopian proverbs. Their new book, Ethiopian Amharic Proverbs (pg. 7), gives useful insights into customs of that country. Bill, a retired Protestant minister, lives in Ohio. Ann Holt, David Rubinstein’s wife, informed Tom Greene that David died peacefully at their home July 28 in York, England. He was a social historian who wrote on education, housing, the labor movement, and women’s history, and also was an inspiring teacher. He had a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and, after leaving Hull University in 1988, taught at three French universities. Survivors include Ann, three children, six grandchildren, and two step-grandchildren. Dolores Webster Clark died June 28. Dee met husband Steve ’52 at Swarthmore. Married for 64 years, they had three children, five grandchildren, and three great-grands. Dee taught English at Severn School in Maryland and coached girls’ lacrosse and field hockey. She later obtained a master’s in counseling from Johns Hopkins. In retirement, she and Steve traveled extensively; Steve died in 2018. Dee will be remembered for her energy, positive attitude, love of friends, devotion to family, and zest for life. The Classes of 1955 and 1956 are planning a joint 64th/65th Reunion in May, and we are invited to join them! Stay tuned for further information. 1955 Bernard Webb 71 Johns Brook Lane Keene Valley, NY 12943 bethel4684@gmail.com My freshman-year roommate, Paul Resnick, claims he has not changed a bit, and a picture taken during a trip to China in 2018 seems to confirm. He and Deborah (wife of 52+ years) live in Alexandria, Va., across the river from D.C. He wants to write an expanded version of his story at a later date, since he does not rush into things quickly. It was good to hear from Janet Bushman Spencer: “Doug ’53 and I live at Kendal, a Quaker-based retirement community in Kennett Square, Pa. We love it here—lots to do, and wonderful people to do it with. I am ‘manager’ of the pottery studio, and Doug is active in Democratic politics. We each have an ESL student from Mexico. We moved here from Carlisle, Pa., our first retirement location, where we had rescue horses and enjoyed country life. Plenty of work, which became too much eventually, and so we moved to Kendal in 2008.” Tom Preston writes: “I’m doing fairly well, except for some little things, like forgetting too many names. [Isn’t this true of all of us.] My good wife, Molly, and I moved into a CCRC (everything available, when/if needed, as far as full nursing care), which is good insurance. The place is about a quarter-mile up the hill from center Seattle, to which we can walk easily. I walk about 3 miles a day, and often take a local bus to a park away from the tall buildings.” Congratulations to Gerd Rosenblatt, who scored a major accomplishment on his beloved recumbent (reclining) bicycle. He successfully completed the socalled Grand Tour in California—a “double century” event (oldest in America) involving 200 miles and major ascent, all in one day. With the support of a cycling partner, he had gone to France for preparatory training, including cycling along a famed Robert Louis Stevenson Trail. Gerd acknowledges some physical limitation here in his mid-80s but continues to engage in competitive cycling. Keep it up, Gerd. You are the pride of your classmates! Nice to get your response, Paul Baumgarten, and your reassurance about my aged appearance. Do think about something you can share: good books read or travels made? Nice to hear from Mike Dukakis, who still teaches at Northeastern in Boston for much of the year and heads west for the winter months to teach at UCLA. He expects to work hard to see the right results in the next presidential election. The current challenge for me, Bernard, is to find senior housing here that replicates in a small way what the typical retirement communities are like. This is such a fine town where everybody seems to know and like each other. The thought of leaving it is unbearable. We have been trying for a decade to develop such a project. The plan’s being completed—all we need now is funding! Have some of you gone through this, or are you “aging at home”? Let’s create some dialogue about this. Thanks. It is with sadness that we honor three classmates who have passed: Susan Lepper died in May. She received a doctorate from Yale and went on to be an economist for the U.S. Treasury Department in D.C. Her Quaker friends were said to be warmly supportive at the time of her passing. Jane Woodbridge Sieverts died in July from natural causes. A resident of D.C. for 60 years, she enriched her life through broader education, foreign languages, and extensive traveling, including a visit to the caves of Lascaux. She also had a long ministry to homeless people in her city. Nancy Sturtevant Burleson died in September after a short illness. Her life was rewarded with family relationships and many interests, and she had a lengthy career in book editing. She was well-known as a good conversationalist and had a wonderful sense of humor. There will be a joint reunion for the Classes of ’55 and ’56 in May. Among other reunion events, Mike Dukakis and Carl Levin ’56 will lead us in a discussion of the state of U.S. politics. Please put it on your calendars and consider attending. 1957 Minna Newman Nathanson jm@nathansons.net The Classes of ’55 and ’56 are planning a joint reunion (it’s the WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 51 class notes 65th Reunion for the Class of ’55) during Alumni Weekend in May and are inviting the Class of ’57 to participate. If you are interested in attending this three-class reunion or have suggestions about activities to add to the schedule, contact Gretchen Mann Handwerger ’56, ghandwerg@aol. com, for more information. The College sent word of the death of classmates Wesley Argo, Louis Rowley, and Sara Coxe Levi. The second recipient of the McCabe Achievement Award, Wes later served as chairman of the award’s selection committee for 31 years and was also a lifelong member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Marjorie Thom Argo; children Deborah, Sharon, and Carolyn; four grandchildren; and a greatgrandchild. Employed by Scott Paper Co. his entire professional career, as vice president of international affiliate services, Wes combined his passion for engineering with his love of travel. Later, he formed two engineering and research consulting ventures. He was a longtime Presbyterian Church elder and served his community as judge of elections. In pursuit of his lifelong hobby of genealogical research, Wes authored several books on family history, including The Argo Family in America and The Argo Family Revisited. He dearly loved organizing vacations that brought family together for fun, learning, and creation of special memories and traditions. His most treasured writing, Remembrances, was a collection of short personal stories. Lou Rowley is survived by his wife of 56 years, Mary Lou; sons James ’85, John ’87, and Peter; seven grandchildren; and brothers Robert ’61 and David ’65. Lou attended Drew University Theological School and served as pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Astoria, N.Y., from 1960 to 1975, and the First UMC of Mount Vernon, N.Y., from 1975 to 2004. In retirement, Lou moved first to Drexel Hill, Pa., where he volunteered pastoral duties and organ playing at Garden 52 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 Church Lansdowne, and in then in 2017 to Simpson House, a Methodist community in Philly, where he continued his volunteer activities. A strong believer in community involvement, he participated in or chaired many organizational boards, including antipoverty programs, Meals on Wheels, Council of Churches, Mount Vernon Hospital, and the Salvation Army. Following her Swarthmore psychology B.A., Sara Coxe Levi continued her education at the University of Kansas, where she met future husband Mark. They settled in Utica, N.Y., where they raised five boys. In 1978, she received a J.D. from Syracuse and began working at a private law firm. Sara later worked for the Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York and opened an estate law practice, becoming one of the few female attorneys who appeared in court in rural upstate New York. A member of Grace Church Utica, she served on the vestry and, with her sons, was involved in the choir and musicals. She was also active in the Utica Chamber Music Society and Utica Opera. In retirement, Sara and Mark moved to Richmond, Va. Sara is survived by sons Andrew, Daniel ’85, Michael, David, and Alan, and nine grandchildren. 1958 Vera Lundy Jones 549 East Ave. Bay Head, NJ 08742 verajonesbayhead@comcast.net I received a lovely letter from Nancy and Tex Wyndham. They enjoy seeing home movies and travelogues among unidentified films. They will definitely, of course, be seeing more. I usually get a message from Tex, but I received a lovely letter from Nancy, too! I hope more of you get in touch with me. Your classmates like to hear from you! 1960 Jeanette Strasser Pfaff jfalk2@mac.com Plans for our 60th Reunion are being fine-tuned. Our class is sponsoring an “Intergenerational Discussion on the Growing Inequality in Wealth.” Michael Westgate reports that Professor Ben Berger, director of the Lang Center for Civic & Social Responsibility, will participate. He will be joined by several students and, possibly, one or two other professors. John Harbeson has agreed to moderate the discussion, which will be divided into three segments: 1) How did we get where we are? 2) What are the current impacts of the disparity in wealth? 3) What can we do going forward? Mike adds: “We had a good turnout for our panel at our 55th Reunion, not just from our class, but from every generation of alumni including some current students. We will not solve the problems of the world in 90 minutes but will hear and discuss a range of points of view.” He invites you to share your thoughts: vickgate@aol.com. Last summer, Sara Bolyard Chase and Elise Landau heard Heli Spiegel Meltsner speak about her latest book, The Arts and Crafts Houses of Massachusetts: A Style Rediscovered. “Heli has couched her architectural history in a wider and deeper social frame, as she did with her book on the poorhouses of Massachusetts,” Sara writes. “She sets architectural history in its social context, giving it an added dimension.” Sara included the last line of Heli’s introduction, which followed a comment about these houses sometimes being described as charming: “Most look inviting rather than intimidating, and thus democratic instead of aristocratic, suggesting the hominess and freshness of approach that were the goals of the Massachusetts Arts and Crafts architects and their clients.” As another critic put it: “The Arts and Crafts home was a treasure hiding in plain sight, and this book provides the eyeglasses to see it for what it is: the American realization of ‘a longing for a new architecture to go with a new century.’” Andries van Dam received the 2019 Distinguished Educator Award from ACM SIGGRAPH (the Association for Computer Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics). The annual award recognizes outstanding pedagogical contributions to computer graphics and interactive techniques. “He has helped define what computer graphics means through his pioneering research contributions and the research contributions of the many students he has mentored. He also had a tremendous role in defining how we teach computer graphics.” Congrats, Andy! Sue Willis Ruff writes: “There’s a scholarship in Chuck’s name at Columbia Law School (The Charles F. Carson Ruff Scholarship), and the law school does something wonderful: The recipients have all (or almost all) been Swarthmore alums. The current recipients are Joseph Catalanotto ’14, and Hung Due Ho ’13. Congratulations to them, and way to go, Columbia.” I had a surprise message from Reinhart Wettmann, who was a Fulbright student with our class our freshman year. He wrote to ask if I remembered Bridget Hayward. He had only recently heard of her death in 1960, and he related fond memories of working with her in the College snack bar: “We produced the finest doubledip black-and-white milkshakes on campus, mixing vanilla and chocolate ice cream with syrup from the coffee machine.” Reinhart and his wife live in the German Black Forest area during the skiing season and in Paris for the rest of the year (unless they are called to babysit grandchildren in London or Barcelona!). He kept up a years-long correspondence with the late Chuck Miller ’59, who was his roommate. They exchanged “hundreds of letters, mails, essays, books, and phone calls over 60 years.” Visits from all Swarthmoreans are welcome: rwettmann@gmail.com or 0049.172.77.306.77. He adds that he always reads our class notes. I, Jeanette, attended a show at a Hillsborough, N.C., gallery featuring the work of Lolette Sudaka Guthrie. As always, I was struck by the beauty of her paintings. She captures the color and light and, seemingly, even the humidity of her scenes. Especially wonderful is her rendering of sky and clouds, for which, she says, she has a special fondness. She transfers this same luminous color and light into her abstract paintings. At the exhibition, I had the added pleasure of seeing Georgetta Harrar Denhardt, who had driven from Greensboro to see the exhibit. The three of us chatted for a short time, before Lolette was called away to gallery duties. It saddens me to report the death of Donald Tucker. Please see “Their Light Lives On” for an appreciation of Don’s life. 1961 Pat Myers Westine pat@westinefamily.com As we get closer to our 60th Reunion, two years from now, I continue to report a plethora of classmates’ activities, both in and out of retirement, but this round of notes celebrates the lives of two classmates who recently died. Katharine Nicely Emsden’s daughter Pamela wrote that the entire town of LaVeta, Colo., poured into Kathy’s house after her death in November 2018. Her family never realized how many lives she had touched in the 20 years she had lived there, doing such things as reading her own poetry (even in old English), having poster nights at her house for fracking protests, and hosting a Quaker meeting, a traveling Buddhist, and Latter-day Saints, all within two days. At Swarthmore, Kathy was a history honors major with minors in English, art history, and philosophy, and she earned an English literature M.A. from the University of Denver. In her 50th Reunion yearbook write-up, she wrote of 34 years of teaching and administration in public and private elementary schools, and then becoming director of LaVeta’s Francisco Fort Museum, where she “turned tours into a painless hour’s history lesson in the West.” We send our sympathy to her three children and five grandchildren. Ellie Wehmiller Fernald died in July in Seattle. A St. Louis native, Ellie majored in psychology at Swarthmore and earned a master’s in education at Harvard. In the ’60s, she taught at Swarthmore Elementary and the School in Rose Valley, and at the same time was herself a pottery student in Wallingford and the Philly area. She moved to the West Coast in 1971 and then settled in Seattle, where she established her own studio and taught art. I asked Bill Stell, who’s on sabbatical from the University of Calgary’s medical school, to share his thoughts about Ellie, as I’ve enjoyed seeing her art through the years through his Facebook contact with her. Bill’s tribute: “As her brother John ’66 wrote, ‘She lived her life as an artform.’ She mastered many media, often using them to create stunning but outrageous artistic puns. She wrote, ‘I attend to what’s beautiful or what’s moving but also to what’s absurd in the world around me and in my own skewed imagination.’ She lived her life undaunted, full of sass, imagination, and bravery. She died this summer, leaving us, as she wished, without being a bother. Although slowed recently by illness, she created new work right to the end.” I had the opportunity to tour Singer Hall, the new biology, engineering, and psychology building at Swarthmore, when my granddaughter began her senior year over Labor Day weekend. It is state of the art, very large, and was named for Maxine Frank Singer ’52, a world-famous biologist. Hicks is no more, and physical changes to the campus are planned to continue in the future. Please send me your news, updates, travel summaries, holiday letters, etc. I had knee replacement (my second) in September; anyone else dealing with replacements? We’ve all used our joints for a long time. My next deadline will be in the early New Year; I look forward to hearing from you. 1963 Diana Judd Stevens djsteven1@verizon.net Through class emails, most of you are aware of the deaths of our friends Terry Spruance, CPA, CFP, chess and bridge enthusiast; Edwenna Rosser Werner, ESL teacher, community activist, devoted family member; and Marty Weitzman, pioneering environmental economist, economic theorist, and free thinker. Read more about them in “Their Light Lives On.” After reading about Terry’s passing, Abby Pollak wrote: “I know we’re all at an age where these kinds of deaths happen with sad and increasing frequency, but all the more reason to stay in touch and continue to remember one another.” Our class notes are one way to stay in touch, as are class emails I send. If you are not receiving these infrequent emails and want them, please provide me with your email address. After reading Dick Kittredge’s obituary, Alison Archibald Anderson realized they had been in the same department at Penn. She finished a Ph.D. in formal linguistics in 1966 while Dick received a Ph.D. in formal linguistics and mathematical logic in 1969. John Cratsley, Beth Welfling King, Sunny Handwerk Noragon, and Abby Pollak attended their 60th high school reunions. John enjoyed seeing John Thurman’s widow, Claire, at his reunion. Gail MacColl stays connected to Garfield High School, her alma mater, as she gathers historical material at the Seattle Public Library for its 100th anniversary in 2020. The library has also provided Gail with books of popular, folk, and Broadway songs, which she plays along with classical music for supported-living residents of Horizon House, her retirement community. Gail and Seth Armstrong are members of the Seattle-area Swarthmore book group. On the move: Jack and Sunny Handwerk Noragon to a retirement community in Orange County, Calif., that is close to their daughter and grandchildren; Marty McKee Keyser and husband Raymond Wheatley to Tucson, Ariz.; Pius Igharo to NYC; Maria Russell Warth to Nashville, Tenn.; and Jack and Nancy Hall Colburn Farrell to a retirement community in Boulder, Colo. Nancy has great piano teachers and digital pianos in both Boulder and Fort Myers, Fla., their winter home. Last May, Bruce Leimsidor lectured at two Russian universities on EU asylum, human rights law and practice, and the Caspian Sea accords, which will probably have a significant influence on migratory flows between Iran and Russia. While in Russia, Bruce also investigated the effects of the 2013 anti-gay propaganda law on the lives of gay men and women in Russia, especially the law’s prohibition of gay groups’ reaching out to adolescents struggling with their sexual and gender identity. Bruce spent the summer in Paris, Venice, and Vienna. Pat and Kevin Cornell celebrated their 18th anniversary in Paris. On iTunes, David Gelber launched his weekly podcast, Climate 2020, which focuses on climate and the 2020 election. Al and Helen Rees Lessner’s daughter and son-inlaw’s musical, Einstein’s Dreams (based on Alan Lightman’s book), had an off-Broadway run. After Alice Handsaker Kidder oversaw the move of Solutions at Work to Cambridge, Mass., she and husband Dave ’62 visited son Steve and his family in Guam. Jerry Gelles remains committed to helping build a movement capable of getting rid of this capitalist system before it destroys our beautiful planet. Phil Wion notes there is a lot of musical talent in his family as his grandson has started violin studies at WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 53 class notes the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. On Facebook, Phil regularly posts news of daughter Jennifer’s musical accomplishments. Polly Glennan Watts took a cruise to Grand Cayman and Cozumel in January 2019. She still walks, swims, bakes, and sings. “Life is good!” I continue to love our small world. The July 4 edition of the Lincoln County News in Maine had an article announcing that Arlie Russell Hochschild ’62 would speak at the Damariscotta library’s weekly Chats with Champions. The focus of Arlie’s talk was her book Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. Despite the standing-room-only crowd, I was able to say a quick hello to Arlie and learn that she, too, has the good fortune to summer in Maine. At various times during our summer, Paul ’65 and I saw Abbie and Dave Rowley ’65, Nate ’65 and Geri Kelly Smith ’64, Penny Berrier ’89, our daughter Kathy ’89, and Libby Murch Livingston ’41. Let me know your small-world stories and how you stay in touch with Swarthmore friends and classmates. 1965 Kiki Skagen Munshi kiki@skagenranch.com smore65.com By now, you should have received a letter from the College about our 55th Reunion. We hope you are planning to come. Ron Hale has agreed to lead an informal folksinging session one evening, similar to the one we had at our 50th, and we’re thinking of doing a memorial again for our lost classmates. We also have an opportunity for semistructured discussions. Please write me with your suggestions or thoughts about topics. Another class initiative is a “visitors’ list” of classmates who would like to meet or host other 54 Swarthmore College Bulletin / JOIN THE LEGACY CHALLENGE Roy Shanker ’70 and Linda Gibson have generously pledged $2 million to inspire you to consider the legacy you can leave to Swarthmore. Each gift you make that matures in the future qualifies the College to receive up to $10,000 in matching funds from Roy and Linda through their generous bequest to benefit financial aid. Gifts by will count toward the Legacy Challenge and will be included in the Changing Lives, Changing the World campaign for those who are 60 and older by June 30, 2020. + LEARN MORE: swarthmore.edu/legacychallenge S’more ’65 members passing through their areas. Some are only equipped to meet for coffee or a meal while others have room for overnight visits, so the list has two categories. If you would like to be listed or would simply like to receive a copy, write me. Some of our politicians talk about universal health care, but David George lives with it in British Columbia. “Growing older in Canada may present fewer challenges” than in the U.S., he writes. Their health care “is free to lower income people, and free to all in the province of British Columbia. Dental care usually is part of heath care packages from employers. Our extended medical and dental plan … also covers prescriptions and purchase of walkers, etc. We are a little short of family doctors, but our local health clinic has three doctors who are there one day a week each. Emergency care is good, and local hospitals have been upgraded recently. David has also “been writing a column for our local monthly newspaper here on the East Shore of Kootenay Lake. The paper is the East Shore Mainstreet, and my column, Hidden Taxes, has appeared for more than six years. I am about to begin writing memoirs.” In her retirement, Linda Townes Rosenwein is “assistant producer/ reporter for a radio show on the environment, Planet Philadelphia WINTER 2020 (planetphiladelphia.com). We interview people of local, national, and sometimes international scope, plus give environmental news and context. This is an all-volunteer and nonprofit operation on a community-based radio station. Only two of us, Kay Wood [the host and originator] and I, work on the show, and we’re both seniors. The show has been broadcast since September 2015. “Recently, Planet Philadelphia had the opportunity to interview Anthony Rodgers-Wright, an environmental justice advocate plus community organizer and member of the Climate Justice Alliance, when he was in town from Seattle. It turned out that Anthony had been at Swarthmore earlier in the year to give talks, and it happened to be a time when the students were working to resolve the issue of whether to shut down the fraternities. Anthony said he provided assistance to students in thinking about how to deal in a nonviolent and social activist way with this situation. “Planet Philadelphia is always looking for new interesting stories and angles on environmental issues and people who could speak knowledgeably about these issues. Please send ideas and/ or speaker suggestions to me at lr.planetphiladelphia@gmail.com.” Some emails on volunteerism came in too late for the last Bulletin. Cindy Wilbern Wilmoth has a wonderful neighbor “who drags me to the Seattle airport USO … where we try to help traveling military and their families. We cook (mostly hot dogs), make sandwiches and serve lots of food donated by local businesses and airport restaurants. We then take any oversupply to food banks to be distributed.” Cindy has also volunteered for several years with the Seattle Opera. “We coordinate the meet, greet, and buffet for the artists coming in from out of town to perform in the various operas through the season.” Joyce Klein Perry has led a book discussion group at her library in New Hampshire going on four years. She is also beginning her second term as president of the Hancock Woman’s Club, which raises money for local charities and provides scholarships for women in need of career or academic advancement. And Elizabeth “Elly” Rosenberg Rumelt volunteers as a community representative on Massachusetts’s foster care review panels. “It is a limited but interesting role representing the best interests of the child in foster care from the perspective of someone involved neither with the family nor with the department. … My experience as director of child-abuse treatment services for a mental health agency can be useful in this role, despite its limitations, and I have been enjoying this way of keeping up with my field of social work.” Finally, Diana Burgin’s latest book, Double Concerto, “a real-life love story in letters; the personal correspondence of Ruth Posselt and Richard Burgin,” is now out and available. Kudos! 1967 Donald Marritz dmarritz@gmail.com swarthmore67.com Mark Sherkow is moving into a new condo (same building) with husband Bob. He still serves as condo board president, sings in a chorus, and attends a monthly book group, where he has read and highly recommends There There by Tommy Orange, a novel about urban Native Americans living in Oakland, Calif., and Circe by Madeline Miller, an imaginative re-creation of the life of this Greek goddess. Mark and Bob plan to visit Kent Sate in 2020 for programming on the 50th anniversary of the shooting of the four students by the National Guard. Marc Hofstadter’s eighth and newest poetry book, Autumnal, is available on Amazon. Randall Warner (helped by husband Barry Feldman ’68) will serve through the 2020 election as the Thessaloniki, Greece, representative of Democrats Abroad (DA), a global network of U.S. citizens in 55 countries who are registered Democrats and who elect delegates to the Democratic National Convention. The nonpartisan voter registration tool developed by DA—votefromabroad. org—makes it easy to request a ballot and vote absentee from any place on the planet. Know any Americans living in Greece? Or anywhere else? Have them contact randallvictoriawarner@gmail. com—she’ll take it from there. Last summer, Bill Jacobs selfpublished his first book, Whence These Special Places?, on the geology of an area in western North Carolina where he has lived or visited for many years. It’s part layman’s geology text, part guidebook to features of geological interest, and part coffee-table book. Bill is “having fun with talks at area clubs and nonprofits, somewhat less fun figuring out how to sell enough of a ton (almost) of books to recover outof-pocket costs. Picked up lots of new skills along the way, including print-quality layouts and website design. (If curious, you can learn more about both the book and how I came to be its author at GreatRockPress.com.)” Jane Lang wrote from the balcony of her new apartment, in the heart of D.C.’s Capitol Hill. “I’ve never before lived in an apartment—it is a gift from the gods who repair plumbing and replace lightbulbs at the drop of an email. With a Trader Joe’s in the basement, metro and bus stops on my corner, an abundance of restaurants, flea market and farmers market on the weekends, and historic Eastern Market across the street—well, life is good” for her and partner Bob Kapp. “Bob is sweet and generous and close to a soulmate. He reads the papers in silence at breakfast, a critical element of compatibility. … We have between us 24 grandchildren and nine children, so we don’t lack for occasions to celebrate. I am so lucky!” Jane is adjusting to being the oldest in the Lang family—an “unfamiliar vantage point. The challenge I still have is to figure out what making the most of these years looks like. At the moment, I’ll defer considering existential issues and return to an FDR biography, which is an exhilarating reminder that there once were great men and women leaders in this country and there is reason to hope there are more to come.” Ellen Churchill Murray thanks Class Notes Editor Elizabeth Slocum for her profile as a bus driver (bit.ly/EllenMurray). Ellen is “still looking for revolution. The political life at Swarthmore and the mass movements of the day started me down this road.” Edward Fei is “anticipating big events in my financial and social life that will finally trigger” his retirement. “I talk regularly with Jan Vandersande about investments. At work I continue to foster international cooperation in nuclear forensics and try to be healthy. I eat keto (almost no carbs), and my weekly routine includes workouts with a trainer, swing dance, boating, and tennis. My dance partners now say I’m too thin! I’m keeping the faith and rediscovered Rod Stewart, Bruce Springsteen, and Billy Vera via iTunes for my commute!” Warren Gifford and co-author David Turock have published Driving Tomorrow: Our Roadmap to Sustainable Transportation, Infrastructure and Cities. More information, including results, is available at DrivingTomorrow. net. The book posits a system of “continuous convoys” and “autonomous ways” using “enroute sequencing techniques” that make transportation faster, easier, safer, cleaner, and more affordable. … Does this sound like science fiction? In fact, all the technologies needed to realize this vision either exist, or are on the drawing boards and within reach. “We show how such a transportation system would work and how you can be part of creating this future.” 1969 Jeffrey Hart hartj@indiana.edu Thanks, everyone, for updates to the class mailing list. Last column, I failed to credit Ron Thomas and Felix Rogers for organizing the reunion session “Tracking Our Spiritual Journeys.” My apologies. I also neglected to mention that Fran Hostettler Putnam organized an activism session. She’s committed to supporting divestment from fossil fuels at Swarthmore and hopes to work with likeminded classmates. At the reunion, wife Joan Goldhammer Hart and I spent a few hours with Carl Kendall and wife Ligia Kerr. Carl divides his time between New Orleans and Fortaleza, Brazil. We also chatted with John McDowell and wife Pat Glushko. John returned to Indiana from his sabbatical in Berkeley. It was a pleasure, too, meeting Class of 1969 Scholarship recipient Lee Martin ’19. Joan and I hiked with Kristin Wilson this summer in California’s Redwood Regional Park. Kristin retired from Kaiser, where she dealt with health-care IT challenges. I also lunched with John Wong-Rolle, who retired from the President’s Office at UC–Berkeley but still backpacks in the Northern California wilderness. Sadly, Richard Laquer died Jan. 2 after a short battle with cancer. Marilyn Holifield received the 2019 David W. Dyer Professionalism Award, the Dade County (Fla.) Bar Association’s highest honor. Anaïs Mitchell, daughter of Don and Cheryl Warfield Mitchell ’71, won a Tony Award for Best Original Score as the composer of Hadestown. Congrats! Frank Weissbarth and wife Randy moved to a co-housing community in Santa Fe, N.M. When he isn’t seeking out native trout, Frank works part time with the law firm Brennan & Sullivan and occasionally serves as a New Mexico Medical Board hearing officer. Terry Drayman-Weisser enjoys retirement after 46 years at Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum, where she was director of conservation and technical research. Terry now gardens, takes classes, teaches, works with a university program combining science and art, and serves on an advisory council for the Iraqi Institute for Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage. Janet Kennedy and husband Howard live in beautiful Gap, France, and recently visited England’s Lake District. Darwin Stapleton had a kidney transplant June 18 at Penn. He is doing well, as is the gracious living donor. Ellen Daniell’s granddaughter Brydie started a nursing program at St. Olaf College. “One of the most gratifying texts I have ever received was, ‘Grandma, could we go backpacking together before I start college?’ So in late August, I introduced her to my favorite outdoor activity, with two nights out in California’s Desolation Wilderness and some pretty strenuous hiking. Being a grandparent keeps on having unexpected joys.” Cathy and Tom O’Donnell are new grandparents to Ellie Grace O’Donnell, born Dec. 5 to son Dave and wife Kami. Tom enjoyed seeing familiar faces at the reunion. It’s been a busy travel year for the O’Donnells: They visited Orkney and Shetland in July; Tom joined Alan Hollister in August to play music with friends in Scottsdale, Ariz.; and Tom and Cathy were WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 55 class notes on a Swarthmore-sponsored Aegean cruise when he wrote. They house-hunted this fall in Las Vegas, where they plan to winter. “We have an en suite guestroom in our English home and will have the same in Las Vegas. All are invited!” Sarah Barton followed reunion events online as she tended vegetables on an Alaskan mountainside, 100 miles northeast of Anchorage. She still experiments in the hyperlocal in a community of about 300. In June, Ron Thomas completed a five-year program of study and meditation retreats in the Karma Kagyu lineage of Vajrayana Buddhism, receiving the title of “Drupon” (Master of the Practice). Kristin Camitta Zimet’s work was featured at the photography show InSight X 3, which opened to a packed crowd at the Lawrence Gallery in Winchester, Va., and ran through Nov. 3. In July, Belle Brett had a solo exhibition of artwork—inspired by her novel, Gina in the Floating World—at the Great Bay Art Gallery in Somers Point, N.J. Fred and Karen Spitulnik Peiffer, George Caplan, and Bruce Draine and wife Dina attended one of Belle’s book talks. Seven Sisters and a Brother, celebrating the Swarthmore African-American Student Society’s 50th anniversary, debuted at the 2019 Miami Book Fair in November. The choral memoir was authored by Marilyn Allman Maye, Harold Buchanan, Jannette Domingo ’70, Joyce Frisby Baynes ’68, Marilyn Holifield, Myra Rose ’70, Bridget Van Gronigen-Warren ’70, and Aundrea White Kelley ’72. Join them at the official launch Jan. 15 at NYC’s 92nd Street Y. Mary Schmidt Campbell’s An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden won the Hooks National Book Award from the University of Memphis. Mary (pg. 10) was also a finalist for Georgia Author of the Year in the biography category and for the Stone Book Award from Boston’s Museum of African American History. Her grandson recently signed with the Atlanta United pro soccer team. 56 Swarthmore College Bulletin / 1971 Bob Abrahams bobabrahams@yahoo.com swarthmore71.org In the summer notes, Skip Atkins was looking for advice to navigate a course to retirement. Sadly, Skip died in August. He had a long, busy life, helping people as a medical doctor and in so many other ways. We also lost Rick Reitze in August, following complications from a bicycling accident. Rick was an avid book collector, a biking enthusiast, and a successful inventor and entrepreneur. Read more about Rick and Skip in “Their Light Lives On.” Now on to happier news: The American Studies Association (ASA) created an award named for Shelley Fisher Fishkin: the Shelley Fisher Fishkin Prize for International Scholarship in Transnational American Studies. The ASA noted that Shelley’s “leadership in creating crossroads for international scholarly collaboration and exchange has transformed the field of American Studies in both theory and practice.” David Inouye writes: “The National Science Foundation is contributing to support my long-term research at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, to pay for a postdoc who will help keep the 47-yearlong study of wildflowers and their responses to climate change going for another year. We have a 10-year record of bee pollinator abundance, too: There are about 150 species of native bees visiting those flowers.” Jinx Kuehn called turning 70 “a blast!” Daughter Laule’a got married in June to Teddy Tablante and lives in Boston, teaching seventh-grade math to students in a low-income neighborhood. Jinx writes: “For 18 months I filled in for someone ill at my old work, covering engineering on stormwater cleanup and fish passage for Oregon DOT.” She also attended demonstrations in WINTER 2020 Portland, Ore., where they stood up to protest the “Proud Boys” (White nationalists). Tina Tolins and her husband are acquiring an apartment near Philly’s Rittenhouse Square, while keeping their other places in Wellsboro, Pa., and NYC’s West Village. “I realize this is a bit much, but our youngest dentist daughter has asked for help with her new young family. We like Philly so far and would enjoy being contacted by people in the area.” (Email her at tinatolins@gmail.com.) Barbara Atkin “retired at the end of 2011 as the deputy general counsel for the National Treasury Employees Union and immediately started volunteering as a docent at the Supreme Court. It’s been great fun.” She and husband John Hornbeck have two grandchildren in Chicago, so they split their time between D.C. and Illinois. Barbara would love to connect with Chicago-area Swarthmoreans. In March, she helped Barbara Boardman, her freshman-year roommate, celebrate her 70th birthday and retirement from active practice as a pediatrician. Other party attendees included Robin Potter ’72, Linda TsuWong, and Karen Simmons Gillian. “We are all holding up pretty well, we agreed.” Sonny Dorlan and his wife are also both retired now, and moved to Texas to be closer to their kids. Part of that included downsizing and “the problem of what to do with all the stuff we have collected through the years.” So they are doing attic storage and charity donations. “Probably a normal rite of retirement passage.” Don’t forget our 50th Reunion, May 27–30, 2021. Save the dates! Many of us will be 71 that weekend. 1973 Martha Shirk swarthmore73@gmail.com swarthmorecollege73.com Grandbabies galore! More and more of us are entering that stage of life and enjoying it. Hugh Stephenson’s granddaughter, Florence Luna Stephenson, was born Sept. 3, and both of his twin sons, Adam and Daniel, married nontwins this summer in San Diego. “I am overjoyed by all of those events,” he writes. As many of you will remember, Hugh was a runner during college; he is now in his 53rd year of running, though “it may not technically be called running anymore.” He plans to work as a psychologist at San Diego Juvenile Hall for two more years and then retire. Joe and Lana Everett Turner ’74 welcomed second grandchild Everett Turner in April, the first child of son Dave. “Our daughter, Patti Smith, has a wonderful, rambunctious 4-year-old daughter, Zoë,” Joe reports. “With two happily married kids and two healthy grandkids, we are truly fortunate.” Since retiring, Joe has served on boards, mostly in biotech but including Swarthmore’s Board of Managers. His Swarthmore service ends in June, and he is winding down other board roles to devote himself to his and Lana’s current passion, photography. Angela Mercer and husband Regi Corinaldi ’75 were in San Francisco on Aug. 26 for the birth of their first grandchild, born to their middle son Taj and his wife. “This truly begins a new chapter in our lives,” Angela writes. “I am retired from my internal medicine practice and have become used to living a more balanced life. I am still president of a local medical society that mentors minority medical students at Eastern Virginia Medical School and am also serving on various nonprofit boards, such as the United Way of South Hampton Roads.” Bill Yarrow welcomed two grandchildren, Sadie and Dean, born nine days apart in August. “Exciting month for us!” Bill still teaching and publishes books of poems. Nixes Mate Books published his latest, Accelerant, last March. Ann Lindsay and Alan Glaseroff ’74 are lucky enough to have their son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter living in the guesthouse of their Humboldt County, Calif., home. Ann and Alan moved back there two years ago after six years as professors at Stanford School of Medicine. “I am setting my sights on staying in this rural community where we have built up social capital (i.e., lots of good friends and connections) for the rest of my life,” Ann writes. “Since there are no continuingcare retirement communities for 200 miles, I am looking into getting a Kendal-type (Quaker) nonprofit community going. It may take a number of years, but I have time! The goal is to plan a community so fun and communityconnected that people will want to leave their homes and join up.” Jeff Schon obtained financing for Akili Network, which will bring free educational TV programming to Kenya’s 18 million children, and will relocate to Nairobi by January, with a launch date of March. Visit akilinetwork.com. Bill Ehrhart retired after 18 years at the Haverford School, though he plans to continue writing. “The school’s senior crew captains chose to name the school’s newest racing shell ‘W. D. Ehrhart,’ which was way cool.” Ann Benjamin is a staff director at Thirteen, the PBS station in New York, directing Firing Line With Margaret Hoover, Amanpour & Company, and many original productions for the station’s new All Arts initiative. Ann recently bought an apartment on the Upper East Side. And in what is surely one of the more unusual life developments, Steve Rood-Ojalvo has filed the paperwork to become a dual citizen of Spain, taking advantage of the country’s Law of Return, which welcomes citizenship applications from Jews whose ancestors were treated badly during the Inquisition. The process was arduous and involved obtaining a “certificate of Sephardic heritage,” taking a Spanish immersion course in Costa Rica, passing a Spanish civics and culture test, hiring a lawyer knowledgeable about Spanish immigration law, and going to Spain. “All of this was expensive in time, effort, and money, so why do it?” Steve writes. “For me it GARNET SNAPSHOT From left: Matt Reckard ’76, Henry Floyd ’74, Chris Melson ’74, Bob Haring-Smith ’74, and Whitney Saunders ’75 met up in Alaska, where they made a visit to Denali. meant reclaiming a little of my heritage and acting as a model for my children.” For his six children, all of whom are completing the process, it means the right to work anywhere in the EU. For more details about Steve’s journey, visit swarthmorecollege73.com. 1975 Sam Agger sam.agger@gmail.com Barb Sieck Taylor reports that husband Mark released Embody the Skeleton: A Guide For Conscious Movement (bit. ly/EmbodySkeleton), useful for anyone interested in mindful movement. “The book draws upon Mark’s years as a somatic movement educator, a choreographer and dance teacher, and a dancer—which all began in the basement studio of the former Hall Gym.” Learn about Mark’s trainings at bodymindmovement. com. Mark Schwartz succeeded in his bucket-list case, “freeing Robert Wideman from a life sentence without parole—a case I began in 1984. Now I can get hit by a bus. The problem is that there are more and more civil rights and whistleblower cases coming across my desk. The relationship between Robby and his writer brother John Edgar Wideman was memorialized in the book Brothers and Keepers. He was in jail for 43 years. Now I am writing about what has transpired during my watch, which includes prosecutorial misconduct and threats to a judge who ruled for us 20 years ago and was reversed within days thereafter. Lots of intrigue, but ultimately the right outcome.” Curtis and Caroline Butler Roberts’s daughter Jane ’19 works in Warner Bros.’ creative services postproduction department in Burbank, Calif., while living in Hollywood. Curtis writes: “We’re really proud of everything she accomplished in college (both her coursework and lots of internships focused on different aspects of film and television) and amazed at her industriousness, which far surpassed my own at her age.” Curtis practices law, working mostly on TV productions, and he and Caroline live in Berwyn, Pa. “We visit [Swarthmore] pretty regularly with our dog Edie, who enjoys it and doesn’t seem to mind seeing new buildings added and old buildings subtracted from campus.” David Gold writes from Napa, Calif., for his youngest son’s wedding. “Our fourth grandchild arrived four months ago. After three boys and three grandboys, finally a girl. First Gold girl in 33 years!” Tom Casey and wife Beth “downsized (mostly yard) in May and moved into a rowhouse in the middle of Baltimore. She can walk to work, I take the subway, so we are feeling quite liberated. All our children are nearby, but no grandchildren yet. I am still practicing architecture and the violin.” David Briggs and his partner for the last 20 years, Elizabeth Wiesen, “will make it official this fall. It’s good to tend to these things. I have started the first year of a phased retirement plan at the University of Southern Maine. Looking forward to more time for other interests.” John Deshong moved from San Francisco to D.C. last year when Bechtel moved its headquarters, and he now spends more time on tax policy. “My wife, Fran, chaired the Orange County, Calif., Democratic Party, which captured all seven congressional seats in 2018.” John’s grown kids remain in California, and he will likely return to O.C. when he stops working. Whitney Saunders, Henry Floyd ’74, Chris Melson ’74, and Bob Haring-Smith ’74 finally visited Matt Reckard ’76 in Ester, Alaska, after many years of unfulfilled promises. “We gathered together previously in Sandbridge, Va., with Rod Mebane ’74, who will undoubtedly join us again for future adventures,” Whitney writes. “I leave any description of our activities entirely to your discretion.” Annette DiMedio performed as a soloist and with opera singer Sara Catarine at the Teatro de Bogatá, Colombia, and gave master classes at the Universidad Central in July. Steve Dichter is based in Santa Fe, N.M,., but now has a small place in Marblehead, Mass., “to be ‘closer’ to work in Switzerland and get a taste of salt air. Biggest preoccupation is November 2020 and the stresses on our lives and society. If there is one key to turning things around, it is fighting voter suppression and turnout in a few key states. If anyone knows WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 57 class notes Stacey Abrams (Fair Fight 2020), please let me know. Been trying to get in touch and help!” Steve Stutman’s son is studying aerospace, while his daughter enjoys her first year of high school, especially math and science—as well as music and some unique environmental activism. “I am doing a good bit of intellectual property work and building a system to provide memory support to people with Alzheimer’s and related conditions.” Larry Schall will end his service as Oglethorpe University president, effective June 30. Larry has been in the role since 2005 and is the longest-serving sitting college or university president in Georgia. In October, the 1974 men’s soccer team was inducted into the Garnet Athletics Hall of Fame, including classmates Gary Albright, Ken Andres, David Bachman, Dave Dougherty, Dan Gordon, Dave McElhinny, John McKitterick, Larry Schall, and me. Please plan to join our 45th Reunion this spring! 1977 Terri-Jean Pyer tpyer@montereybay.com Greetings, everyone! I write while counting off the days to retiring as chief human resources officer at a California community college, ready for a different creative adventure. Little did I know that the skills and perspectives earned from all these disparate jobs I’ve held—eighthgrade history teacher, lawyer, mediator, writer, library associate, newspaper editor, communications director—would combine to inform the way I approached labor negotiations, employee relations, and the challenges of administering a human resources program in an institution whose mission is nothing short of transforming lives and communities. What a wonderful capstone experience! The highlight of my summer was 58 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 a surprise visit from Mary Lou Dymski and husband David Boyce, their grandson Leon, and his friend Gabriella. Their California coast vacation was a great opportunity to reconnect with a more youthful perspective on the natural beauty of this state. Lou Ann Matossian is a financial adviser with Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. In addition to her professional designation as a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy, she also earned a designation as a Certified Fundraising Executive. Look for her co-edited volume of Armenian immigrant short stories from the Press at California State University Fresno. Robert George wrote that he would be receiving a Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) degree from Oxford University in November. “It’s one of Oxford’s ‘higher doctorates,’ that is, doctorates above the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D. or, in Oxford parlance, D.Phil.). In 2016, I received a different one of these, the Doctor of Civil Law (D.C.L.). Since my D.Phil. is from Oxford, the D.Litt. will be Oxford doctorate No. 3.” As a bluegrass banjo picker, of course, he’s aspiring to a “better” doctorate No. 4: the Doctor of Music (D.Mus.). Finally, I know that so many of us were devastated to hear of the death of Eva Travers (bit. ly/TraversDarkow) in July, a master teacher, mentor, and friend. Like many of you, I feel so fortunate to have had her wise and compassionate guidance as I embarked on my lifelong journey as an educator. Sincere condolences to her family and friends. 1979 Laurie Stearns Trescott sundncr88@comcast.net John Bartle, Brenda Perkins, Andy Schultz, and Jeff Toner were instrumental in the success of our 40th Reunion. (My apologies if I’ve left any committee members out.) John very kindly shared some appreciative words from a few of the 90-plus in attendance and some news from a few classmates unable to attend. Sabina “Beaner” Brady has been in China for nearly 40 years and had a speaking engagement in Manila that conflicted with the reunion. She sends greetings to all. Alan Ford teaches at American University in D.C. and volunteers with a number of environmentally oriented groups. Those who wrote to John included Leslie DeLong Duncan, John Etter, Christiana Figueres, Steve Labrum, Cynthia Miller, Gretchen Miller, Paula Goulden Naitove, Roy Parvin, Peter Plocki, Mary Rubin, Lee Quinby, and Lesley Wright. If you have stories to share, please write me so I can include them in our next column. After 31 years, Darryl Gore retired from State Farm and joined the Dennis Farm Charitable Land Trust as VP of development, working with his sister, the trust’s president, Denise Dennis ’72. They continue to develop their ancestor’s 200-plus-year-old-homestead in northeast Pennsylvania as a historical, educational, and cultural site. Last March, the trust was awarded a matching grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to transform the 195-year-old farmhouse into a museum. Public tours are offered, and Darryl encourages visits. Visit thedennisfarm.org. Sadly, Margaret Thomas Redmon died peacefully Aug. 22. After Swarthmore, she obtained an MBA from the University of Louisville. She was well-known for her work with organizations in Louisville, and had a special admiration for the Lincoln Foundation and Peace Education Program, serving on their boards. She was also the director at Friends School and an avid ballroom dancer. Margie attended Louisville Friends Meeting JOIN THE LEGACY CHALLENGE Learn more on pg. 54 or at swarthmore.edu/ legacychallenge for many years. Our condolences to her family and friends. That’s it this time around—hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. 1981 Karen Oliver karen.oliver.01@gmail.com Beau ’82 and Susan Perkins Weston spent a month in May, a week in July, and a week in August with their glorious grandbaby. I’m guessing that between this note and publication there have been several more weeks. Susan gave him a full briefing on the fight for women’s suffrage, starting (of course) with Lucretia Mott. Cathy Srygley and husband Gary Evans look forward to the “Expedition to Antarctica” tour organized by Swarthmore Alumni College Abroad (Jan. 28–Feb. 10). It will be a bucket-list trip! Leslie Baker ’82 and Tom Ribadeneyra returned to the U.S. in summer 2018. Tom, my freshman neighbor in Willets, says they are in Tampa, Fla., at Berkeley Preparatory School, where Leslie is the lower-division librarian and he coaches middle-division soccer. “We love being 20 minutes from the Gulf beaches in Dunedin and Clearwater and the wonderful Florida state parks system.” David Ochroch is retired in Claremont, Calif., where he teaches bridge to seniors in support of the American Contract Bridge League’s efforts to combat the impact of Alzheimer’s and dementia—“and besides, bridge is wickedly fun! Claremont is widely known as the ‘City of Trees and Ph.D.s,’ and there’s plenty of both in this charming L.A. exurb.” In Haverford, Pa., Ken Leith is CEO of an international family office helping develop its institutions and grow its private equity portfolio. Ken dons a kilt occasionally as president of St. Andrew’s Society of Philadelphia, one of North America’s oldest charities. The society sends college students in the region to Scotland to attend universities there—Howie Muir was the recipient of a St. Andrew’s Society scholarship as an undergrad. Ken has a daughter doing nursing in Seattle, a son in his final year of cybersecurity studies at the University of Miami, and enough extended family around Philly to give him a house full of kids, grandkids, and dogs. Ken sends a shout-out to John Fischer for sharing his connections at the Culinary Institute of America, who helped Ken’s team win first place for Best Tiki Bar at the Muddy Chef, a competitive Land Rover tailgate competition. Sadly, Scott ’82 and Elaine O’Connell Jordan’s daughter Vicky died in April 2018. Elaine says the past year has been one of adjustments—trying to figure out what she wants to do when she grows up. Last spring, she was an election judge for the primary and the general election, and she started volunteering at a food bank. “Our other two children are fine. One is still at home, and the other has moved to Brooklyn—and yes, he is a hipster.” Elaine is also working for the Census, getting paid “for walking.” She doubts she will ever go back to full-time work as she has found too many other things to do, including helping her brother move to Arkansas by volunteering(?) to sell his house after he left Maryland. Jeff Gordon sent an update from the NYC wedding of Adam Emmerich’s daughter Sarah. Also in attendance was Steve Kargman ’82. Jeff is still at Duff & Phelps, now 35 years, with no end in sight! In November 2018, first grandson Elliot was born—Jeff says there is nothing more rewarding than being a grandparent. He’ll share photos if you ask! Jeff also looks forward to his son’s wedding in May. Alan Gordon and Judy Downer’s son, Robert, is engaged to his longtime girlfriend, Adriana. Alan hit 35 years at the Legal Aid Society and has a new mystery series under a pseudonym. He’s signed through Book 4, which would give him 13 in print lifetime. Lili Cole left the East Coast for the Bay Area in summer 2018, following partner Mark Cohen, who resigned from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to teach Chinese intellectual property law and trade policy at the University of California School of Law. “I never get tired of wandering around Berkeley and San Francisco on foot. I found a job after some looking (thanks for the encouragement and suggestions, Karen!) at a small human rights organization that focuses on political and religious prisoners in China. It’s been great to reconnect with Becky Joseph in Berkeley. If any classmates come through the Bay Area, I’d love to get together.” Stephen ’84 and Sharon Roseman Buckingham’s daughter, Sophie, is a senior at Tufts, majoring in environmental engineering. The couple have finally adjusted to being empty nesters—trying to downsize rather than continue to collect things. (Me, too!) Sharon saw Ben ’84 and Julie Lewis Langhinrichs twice last year, once near Philly, and again when the Buckinghams visited the Langhinrichses in Cleveland to celebrate daughter Sara’s marriage. Finally, Elizabeth Anderson was named a 2019 MacArthur Fellow— what an opportunity! Learn about what she’s been up to and why she qualified for a “genius grant” at bit. ly/LizGenius. 1983 John Bowe john@bowe.us Robert Frumkin, who lives in a giant brownstone in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, retired from teaching English—and “reading James Joyce’s Ulysses”—at NYU. His kids and stepkids are at Emerson College and GWU, while his wife works at the World Bank on global tourism projects. They have a Labradoodle, Laska— “points for identifying where the name is from!” Congrats to Andrea Davis on getting married last year to Steve Salinda! She now has two wonderful stepdaughters. Her son finished UC–Davis vet school (did he know Patty Pesavento?) and is interning at Ohio State Veterinary Hospital, while her daughter works toward an architecture master’s at Harvard. Anna Reedy Rain: “Eva Travers’s death (bit.ly/TraversDarkow) brought me some tender conversations with people I care about. … I recommit to keep in relationships with cool folks in my life.” Anna teaches Iyengar yoga and is nearly recovered from a shattered vertebra—done in Upper Tarble in 2014! Best buds Diane Wilder, Diane Dietzen, and Sara Tjossem enjoyed a weekend together in Philly at the Fringe Festival. Leslie Johnson Nielsen is taking a leap and going back to playing cello in her local symphony—hoping her fingers will be able to hack it! Donald Twomey joins us empty nesters. Both freshman sons are off to college—Seth flying planes in Florida, and Luke riding his motorcycle to the North Shore (from Boston) IT. I, John Bowe, was thrilled to join their graduation party in June. Don is a tax lawyer for Massachusetts. Alexandra Troy Beattie says “life is basically still the same, owning Culinary Architect Catering and creating fabulous parties for two to 2,000 people in New York area. It is always a pleasure to cater to fellow Swarthmoreans.” Last summer, Shoshana Kerewsky walked the 500-mile Camino Francés route of the Camino de Santiago (St. James Way) from France and across Spain. She got “a lot of reflective time and good meditation practice.” Beth Varcoe happily works at SOWN (Supportive Older Women’s Network) in Philly, assisting clients from home-bound older adults to grandparents raising their grandchildren. Husband Rod Wolfson is happy as Swarthmore’s in-house architect. Chris GoGwilt is in his 30th year of teaching at Fordham, and Siu Li GoGwilt “is about to re-retire.” Their elder son, 30, and is cofounder of the legal tech startup Ironclad, which does contract management for corporate legal departments. Their younger son, 28, is finishing an integrative studies Ph.D. thesis at UC–San Diego and playing violin. U.K. resident Ellen Singer is a private orthopedic surgery consultant for horses, after years at the University of Liverpool. “Don’t ask about Brexit …” She met up with Suellen Heath Riffkin and Sue Kost in the summer. About 10 years ago, Diane Carle started a second career as a veterinarian, and finished training in veterinary dentistry. “I mostly see dogs and cats, but have done root canals on a few tigers and a bear.” She moved to Seattle and would love to hear from anyone in the Pacific Northwest. Dave Gertler started his third career, as an editor for a popular math curriculum published by the nonprofit Great Minds. That combines his first two careers of teacher and editor. “It’s stimulating work, but I do miss interacting with students—sometimes.” Dan Werther’s new partnership purchased famous N.Y. boxing brand G&S Fight Supply and is trying to break into the “boxing-forfitness category” with gloves and newly designed apparel. His wife is on the board of Penn’s Institute of Contemporary Art—“a great, small museum for Swat students to visit when on Penn’s campus.” Heidi Goldstein and husband Richard Thomason ’84 celebrated 28 years of marriage. Their elder daughter graduated from Bryn Mawr last year, while the younger one is at Scripps. Heidi joined the board of Stop Sexual Assault in Schools, to improve Title IX protections and sexual assault protocols on K–12 campuses. Deb Felix moved back “home” to Wellfleet, Mass., and loves it! She keeps Cape Cod safe from sharks. Husband Dave Hawver ’85 splits time between there and their former home in Maryland. Deb still helps kids pick and get into the right colleges. Kathie Clark Hager is in her sixth year as a school counselor and was honored to be named Albuquerque Public Schools Elementary School Counselor of the Year last spring. Her daughter is a Dartmouth senior, son is a 10th-grader, and husband, WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 59 class notes Doug, works for the Air Force. Dan Mont’s NGO, the Center for Inclusive Policy, was awarded a grant from the Open Society Foundation to help governments and other organizations build capacity to develop and monitor inclusive policies. 1985 Tim Kinnel kinnel@swarthmore.warpmail.net Maria Tikoff Vargas maria@chrisandmaria.com Our class’s 35th Reunion is May 29–31. Mark your calendars! As we watch current events, we can’t help but think of the job security for the newly minted Swarthmore grads who go on to do poli sci and history Ph.D.s. And although we’re older, future concerns are still firmly in mind and action—as is the Swarthmore way. To raise awareness about environmental threats to Bristol Bay, Alaska, “the largest wild sockeye salmon fishery on Earth,” Seattle resident Zachary Lyons spent much of his summer organizing Bristol Bay Salmon Week in D.C. As part of a larger awareness campaign, Zach encouraged restaurants to serve Bristol Bay sockeye. Learn more at savebristolbay.org. Another Seattleite, Sarah Hufbauer, writes: “We’re trying to figure out, like many of you, how to live life productively and happily while acknowledging and acting on the climate emergency in which we’re living. In that context, it was poignant to celebrate the marriage of my eldest daughter, Naomi, with nearby friends and Mexico City family of her beloved.” Sarah is a family physician in a community clinic, often serving the “disenfranchised and desperate.” And yet the life events that are familiar to us continue to flow. Laura Markowitz reports that Volume 1 of a textbook she coauthored, Voices on the Economy: 60 Swarthmore College Bulletin / How Open-Minded Exploration of Rival Perspectives Can Spark Solutions to Our Urgent Economic Problems (thevotetextbook. org), came out last summer. “For someone who never took an econ class, it was an eye-opening experience to work on this project, which compares economic policies from the conservative, liberal, and radical economic perspectives in an unbiased way.” Work on Volume 2 is upcoming, but meantime Laura will be kayaking, hiking, and traveling with her wife, and finishing a term on Alumni Council. Ted Abel, on the other hand, just became a member of the Alumni Council. “Let me know if [you] have any suggestions about what we might do to build the Swarthmore alumni community and support current undergraduates.” Ted is chair of the University of Iowa’s Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology. In other academic news, Marian Evans is in her next phase of teaching in public health as a full-time tenured professor, as well as the master in public health graduate coordinator for Southern Connecticut State University. In big life events, “Drew ’86 and I celebrated 30 years of marriage and the end of (new) college tuition bills,” writes Jen Wilson Newitt, “by taking a dream trip to Austria, Switzerland, and Italy in the summer.” Their kids also found matches at non-Swarthmore colleges, “carrying on the tradition of their parents, who fell in love in Willets 36 years ago!” And Joan Differding, who retired Sept. 26 from NASA’s Ames Research Center, also won NASA’s Silver Snoopy award “for outstanding achievements related to human flight safety or mission success.” Congrats, Joan! We’ll certainly be reporting more retirements as time goes on. But not everything is momentous: “Paula Rockovich Cannon Gable here. Nothing of importance to report except that I’ve been in Denver for almost a year now and I’m enjoying concerts at Red Rocks and serving as the volunteer president of Denver’s startup chapter of Conscious Capitalism. “And, we’ve been exploring the West. I caught up to Kristen Kann WINTER 2020 Yawitz in Santa Fe, N.M., this summer, and that was very fun.” Please let us know about the things momentous and not, fun and not, that you’d like to share. We regularly hear that people love to see what classmates are up to. 1987 Sarah Wilson swarthmore87@gmail.com After a yearlong hiatus, our class is back! Mini-reunions seem more popular than ever as we get to the age when many of our children are heading off to college themselves. Sarah Shirk enjoyed live jazz with Nancy Lehman and Ellen Walsh, who helped celebrate her big 55th birthday while rolling on the Chicago River. She happily reports that the dance moves learned at Swarthmore are alive and well. Jenny Olson Putnam was in Chicago with Jodi Rosenblatt Galin, and from there they set off on a road trip to visit John Davine and wife Kathleen. Together, they saw Hamilton, caught up, and reminisced. Abby Feder-Kane’s 1994 article on overdetermined femininity in ladies’ figure skating was cited in the February 2018 issue of The Atlantic (bit.ly/AbbyAtlantic). Abby, too, is keeping her Class of ’87 friendships alive: “Not long ago, I called on Julia Stein for her professional point of view on the challenges faced by college counseling centers. Carolyn Rouse and I have delved into the nitty gritty of higher ed politics at Princeton and Sarah Lawrence, our respective places of employment. Margaret Huang— who started her career on the opposite end of the world (in Hong Kong) from me, working in the for-profit world while I was always in nonprofit—has for the past few years been working in my arena, raising funds for mission-driven work from foundations. We talk shop frequently. “Even more than the professional advice, I find myself turning again and again to Swarthmore friends for emotional support. We have seen each other through the illness and death of spouses and parents and siblings and children, through cancer and concussions, through upheaval and career changes. We’ve enjoyed great meals and late-night talks; we’ve harmonized and reminisced and laughed. We’ve laughed a lot.” Abby accompanied Julia Stein and John Goldsborough ’88’s college-age daughter on a tour of Barnard, where Abby was formerly employed, and their 13-year-old spent a week at her house to attend Dungeons & Dragons camp with her son. “Margaret’s teen and mine share a passion for cosplay and bold hair-dye choices, and she’s given him great advice about navigating the treacherous waters of middle school. I had a great talk last year with Carolyn’s daughter about the practical steps she can take to pursue a theater career (although I suspect she was far more excited by the talk she had with Darko Tresnjak ’88 the day after his Met Opera debut!). And I can’t get over that Pauli Amornkul, my sister in harmony from the Grapevine, dances regularly in Bay Area theater productions. Or that Nancy Lehman is a long-distance bicycle rider.” Julie Shay has lived near Annapolis, Md., for 17 years. “A number of years ago, I realized how we are all drowning in our ‘stuff,’ and I started a group to give people an opportunity to help one another, build up our sense of community, reduce waste, and have an environmental impact.” In 2017, the initiative blossomed into the nonprofit Good Neighbors Group. “Focusing on what each of us can do to make a difference has been a good consolation in recent times. My son is a high school sophomore, and my daughter [Olivia ’23] is a Swarthmore freshman. It has been fun to share this with her, but I couldn’t have anticipated the deluge of memories about my time there since moving her in.” Susan Swearer has migrated west since college, having completed a master’s degree at Penn State and a Ph.D. at UT–Austin. She and husband Scott Napolitano KENYON COLLEGE ALUMNI PROFILE “The most effective mentors were folks who took interest in me as a person and were willing to share their own experiences,” says Sean Decatur ’90, president of Kenyon College. LIVING THE LIBERAL ARTS He knows the meaning of mentorship by Holly Leber Simmons SEAN DECATUR ’90 credits his intellectual awakening to Swarthmore. “I got incredibly excited about learning as a student there,” he says. “I left with the notion that I wanted to be in a liberal arts environment and have the opportunity to influence the lives of students.” And that’s precisely what he did. First as a professor and associate dean at Mount Holyoke College, then as a dean at Oberlin College before taking his current position in 2013 as president of Kenyon College, Decatur has devoted his career to higher education. His Swarthmore experience continues to shape his perspective. A biology and chemistry major and Black studies minor, he says his science courses taught him the importance of persistence and close observation, while his Introduction to African American Studies class was a “transformative” experience. “It was the first time I began to make deep personal connections between texts and personal experience,” says Decatur, one of the first participants (with Garikai Campbell ’90, pg. 18) in the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, which supports minority students who wish to enter doctoral programs and pursue professorships. “The Mellon Mays scholarship was a wonderful opportunity that introduced me to what academic life could be,” he says. “The program supported my summer research in the Chemistry Department, and connected me with others on campus and at other institutions who were considering graduate study.” As an undergraduate, Decatur founded a volunteer literacy program in Chester. The program was a rich learning environment, he says, that pushed him out of his comfort zone: “It was powerful to build relationships with folks that were different from my classmates.” His relationships with mentors, too, have been essential to his life experience. “You need to collect mentors who can impact different aspects of your life,” he says. “The most effective mentors were folks who took interest in me as a person and were willing to share their own experiences.” One particular influence at Swarthmore was Chuck James, now the Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot Professor Emeritus of English Literature, who taught a course on the Harlem Renaissance that Decatur called “fantastic.” James was also Decatur’s first adviser in the Mellon Mays program. “[Dr. James] and his wife, Jane, were incredibly gracious and supportive to me and the other Mellon fellows,” Decatur says, “and his advice was very important to my future career choices.” Decatur recalls, as a student, how much he relished getting to know professors, like James, outside the classroom. Those types of connections are something he’s worked to continue with student leaders at Kenyon. Decatur is dedicated to making Kenyon a “truly inclusive” place where all students can thrive—identifying places of hidden bias and unfair advantage that serve as barriers to student success. “The biggest challenge for higher education today is cost and accessibility,” he says. “Many very talented students are finding themselves shut out from financial opportunities to get a quality education. “There is a huge value in the basics of a liberal arts education,” he adds. “The ability to solve problems, to understand information from a range of different sources, to write effectively, and communicate well: These are things that serve students well regardless of where they find themselves in the future.” WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 61 class notes completed internships with the Nebraska Internship Consortium in Professional Psychology—Scott at the medical center in Omaha, and Susan at Boys Town. In 1997, they moved to Lincoln, Neb., where Susan is the Willa Cather Professor of Educational Psychology and Director of Faculty Development at the University of Nebraska– Lincoln. Daughter Catherine is a junior in Brown’s Program in Liberal Medical Education, and daughter Alexandra is an 11th-grader. Susan was selected as a fellow in the Big 10 Academic Leadership Program for 2018–2019. In spare time, she jogs half-marathons and spends as much time skiing as she can (without getting fired) in Colorado. Thomas Jones and wife Sara celebrated 26 years of marriage on July 31. Eldest son Tom is a Bowdoin senior, middle son Shane ’22 is a Swarthmore sophomore, and youngest son David is an 11thgrader. Thomas retired and enjoys time as board vice chairman at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Hartford, Conn. “I just completed a hike of Vermont’s Long Trail, a long-held ambition that delivered all the challenge I sought and more—a truly awesome experience.” 1989 Kathy Stevens stevkath@gmail.com Martha Easton measton@elmira.edu Many classmates enjoyed catching up at our 30th Reunion in June. I am sure a lot was shared during the time on campus. I, Kathy, caught up with Steve Toy at the ProLiteracy conference in San Diego. Steve is on the organization’s board, and I was there as an attendee for the work I do as executive director of the Montgomery Coalition for Adult English Literacy. Steve caught me up on a few classmates, including Steve Sell, who writes: “We are almost 62 Swarthmore College Bulletin / two months into a sabbatical/ adult gap year in Madrid. Five of us—Molly, Emma, 22, Luke, 14, Lucy (our dog), and I—are here. Our middle two boys—Jackson, 20, and Lance, 18—are in college on the East Coast. This has been a long-planned dream to live in Europe. It’s early, but so far we are quite enjoying the food, culture, and walkable nature of the city while ramping up our Spanish. There are definitely some transition challenges, but it only makes it that much more of an adventure.” Lee Fineman received a Bronze Medal for superior performance at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, where she has worked for 17 years. She and wife Alison Smith keep busy shuttling their two boys to baseball games and violin lessons. Gretchen Alger Lin’s whole family is now scuba certified. Gretchen met her husband of 20 years through scuba, and now—after a family trip in June—her two sons are certified Open Water Divers. It was a special summer trip for the Lins, as son Jason started at Rensselaer Polytechnic this fall. Bob and Betsy Witt Bein write: “Our older son, Charley, graduated from Juniata College in May with a computer science degree. He just started work as a programmer with Acumen Solutions in Cleveland. Our younger son, Will ’21, is a Swarthmore junior, majoring in political science. We’re having a wonderful time vicariously reliving our own college experience.” Betsy completed an MLIS and is a userservices librarian at Gettysburg College. Bob is a VP in the legal department at Select Medical in Mechanicsburg, Pa., overseeing transactions. Hannah Galantino-Homer and Dave Homer ’86 are at Swarthmore regularly these days because daughter Dana Homer ’21 is a junior. Hannah writes: “It’s been great to have firsthand news from her about life at ML (where she’s been since freshman year), classes, and last spring’s protests to remove the fraternities, and to go see wind ensemble concerts.” Hannah does equine laminitis research at Penn Vet’s New Bolton Center, and son Davy is a 12th-grader. WINTER 2020 1991 Nick Jesdanun me@anick.org We’re old enough to have kids in college—or even finished. Sertaç Yeltekin’s daughter Dafne graduated from Barnard and works at B Lab, which certifies for-profit companies with a mission for social good. Daughter Leila is a UC–Davis sophomore. Two of Thad Wengert’s children are full-fledged adults. Each has a kid, making Thad twice a grandparent. He insists he doesn’t do diapers, though. Thad runs a data science consultancy in Charlotte, N.C. Hannah Watkins ’21, daughter of Sandy ’93 and Maeve Juran Watkins, is a Swarthmore junior. Three other children are in seventh to 12th grades. Maeve and Sandy are in Alaska, the one state I have yet to visit—unless you count the airport. “A mind-bending experience” is how Kirsten Wild describes bringing daughter Sophie Works ’23 to start at Swarthmore. Kirsten is a principal at an architectural firm and gets up for 5:30 a.m. rowing—early enough to enjoy it, without questioning her sanity. Jennifer Yeoh Schneller’s daughter, Grace, is a Mount Union sophomore and wants to major in Japanese. Son Christopher is a 12th-grader who competes in underwater robotics and takes AP physics “just for fun.” A landscape architect in Columbus, Ohio, Jen speaks on the intersection of people and plants. Please send healing vibes to husband David, who is struggling with his health. Chris Lyford runs triathlons and, with Matt Murphy, seeks out protest rocker Billy Bragg on tour. Matt and wife Susan are empty nesters, with both sons in college. In L.A., David Loughran became head of product for the insurance tech company Praedicat. Alison Carter Marlow is director of programs and operations at YouthBuild Boston. Her mom lives with her and her husband, while son James is at college. As her daughter checked out D.C.area colleges, Alison saw Robin Bennefield and Tamara King. Bill Karunaratne passed 25 years in NYC, between stints at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Heather Rigney Shumaker reached 20 years in Traverse City, Mich., where she writes and her husband “timber-frames,” old-style construction using wooden pegs. An author of four books, Heather visits schools to inspire kids to write and read. Her sons are in sixth and 10th grades. Georgia Rucker designs and illustrates books in the Generation Girl series. Kirsten Wild and Jennifer Ruth—PPR roomies— visited her and hung out “as if no time or centuries had passed.” Julie Plastino runs a biophysics research team at Paris’s Institut Curie. Her kids are 11 and 15. UChicago economics professor Michael Greenstone received a Carnegie Fellowship. Karen Hales started her 20th year as a Davidson biology professor. She adopted dogs Huxley and Darrow, named after Charles Darwin’s defenders. Karen’s parents moved near Sacramento, Calif., after their Santa Rosa home burned down in the Tubbs wildfire. They are now closer to Karen’s nieces. Josh Room and his wife split amicably after 20 years together. He and current partner Beth Houghton run Yama Kids Yoga in Berkeley, Calif. Beth’s daughter is applying for college, while Josh’s two middle-school sons are on the verge of growing taller than Josh. Growth charts project 6 feet 5. Josh works in the California attorney general’s office. Josh celebrated his 50th birthday with Beth in Kauai, Hawaii. David Loughran, Dave Philhower, Roger Jansson, and Kevin Hood celebrated with hiking and backpacking in Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness. The group has hiked together since 1997. “We enjoyed wiffleball and libations in the shadow of the Continental Divide, with lots of wildflowers and liberal arts-fueled conversation,” Dave Philhower writes. Catherine Rich, Johanna Davis Werbach, Marcia Landesman, and Sandy Falk ’90 celebrated with a boat ride down Boston’s Charles River. Catherine’s daughter, secondgrader Emily, started ukulele lessons, while Catherine took up the mandolin. Catherine enjoys watching Emily “do crazy things on the monkey bars.” Johanna’s children are both at Lower Merion High, which Johanna and her mom attended. How’s that for legacy? She often sees David Zaring ’92, a Wharton colleague of Johanna’s husband, Kevin. Johanna left Moody’s to focus on the “last call for parenting,” while tending an organic vegetable garden. Naomi Zikmund-Fisher ran her first four 5Ks and signed up for two more. She also was arrested for the first time, as her activism group protested immigration policy by blocking a tunnel between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. Naomi is a therapist specializing in trauma. Ali Usman lives in Northampton, Mass., and brunched with Laurel Hester. He’s also seen Martin Krusin-Elbaum, Karan Madan, Rustom Khandalavala, Bill Karunaratne, Anu Murgai ’90, Arbin Sherchan ’96, and Mel Okudo ’03 during New York visits. Jim Ellis lunched with Mark Duckenfield ’92, a fellow military school professor. Jim is at National Defense University, Mark at Army War College. Helder Melendez will soon have two kids in college, two to go. He got a modeling gig—appearing with his wife in an online ad for a mouthpiece to help with sleep apnea. See it at bit.ly/HelderM. 1993 Andrés Versage andres_versage@hotmail.com Noah Salamon nbsalamon@gmail.com After a brief hiatus, we are back, brimming with exciting news from all corners of the world—or at least a handful of states. Many moons ago, Eli Spevak wrote to us from Portland, Ore., where he lives with wife Noelle Studer-Spevak and kiddos Ozora, 8, and Sidney, 4. (Editors’ note: The kids may be a year older now, so plan accordingly if you are buying clothes for their birthdays.) Eli is “building small communities of homes through my company, Orange Splot LLC; wonking out on the zoning code (serving on Portland’s Planning and Sustainability Commission); helping locally and across the country to make accessory dwellings more broadly available; and playing cello for the past few years following a 30-year break.” Brigitte Fink also checked in from Oregon. She and James Martin celebrated their 25th anniversary by going to Hawaii for a week, “leaving all three kids at home.” Brigette is “still in full-time OB-GYN practice (for 15 years now), and James passed the Oregon bar and has an office again after a 15-year hiatus from law. He ran the campaign that got our $54 million school bond passed last spring, by 1%!” Brigette and James’s twins are now at Whitman and Bowdoin, with one child home to help their parents stave off empty-nest syndrome. Last year, Micheline Murphy McManus and husband Tom moved their clan from the island paradise of Hawaii to the landlocked paradise of Swarthmore. (Way to trade up, McManus clan!) “Tom is a founding member of a new high school in Philadelphia, The Revolution School. I am back teaching English at Wilmington Friends School. Our oldest is now at—wait for it—Swarthmore. He adores living blocks away from parents he thought he was moving 5,000 miles away from, or at least that’s how our theater-major son would have us believe.” Also dropping off a child at Swat was Lani Horn, whose daughter Naomi ’22 is a sophomore. Lani “got to be an honors examiner last May, which made me feel like I ‘made it’ in my field more than almost any other thing I have done. The most exciting thing I got to do this summer was make an audiobook of Motivated, a book I wrote for math teachers. Academia has never felt so cool!” Michelle Ostrander Potter reports that the Quaker matchbox is still working its magic, as she and Whitney Potter ’92 celebrated 21 years of marriage this summer. Michelle followed Hadley Wilson Horch’s lead and dropped her eldest daughter off at Occidental College this fall. Michelle and Whitney remain busy with teaching (Michelle is an adjunct instructor for early childhood development at a community college), writing, podcasting (3D Printing Today), and parenting their two younger teenagers in Northern California, where they have lived for 18 years. Back in the “moving closer to the alma mater” category, Ryan Roderick announced: “I’ve been traded! I accepted a teaching position at West Chester University from Hofstra University. Still working with international students in ESL.” Davirah Timm-Dinkins and Delvin Dinkins, who live nearby, have already paid Roddy a visit, making sure “I at least put some curtains up and wasn’t using milk crates as seating.” Dorm-room chic not accepted! Roddy acknowledges the move “eliminates any excuses for missing reunions since WCU is basically a tri-campus shuttle bus ride away from Swat!” Meghan Clancy-Hepburn Hayes released her latest album, Seen Enough Leavers, which made it onto the folk charts. “Anyone wishing to contribute to the care and maintenance of the beloved rescued greyhound of a recently divorced singer-songwriter can purchase my CDs (or download them) at meghanhayes.com/ shop.” She has been touring and released a music video (cameo by Scott Field ’90). Her side hustles include sitting for her Healing Touch certification, starting a landscaping company (OCD Weeding and Landscape Design), and advocating for decent mental health care in Tennessee. “Proud to be putting that Swarthmore degree to excellent use these days!” Meghan added: “Being on tour is usually a lot of stress interrupted by moments of sheer bliss and connection. Imagine a family vacation, only with no family, a trunk full of CDs and gear, and a front seat full of mini carrots and trail mix. Get to the venue, set up. Wish you’d remembered to go over the lyrics to that new song one more time before you have to get on stage, but what the hell—no one will know the difference if you change the lyrics anyhow. Introduce yourself, test the audience a little, start slow, and build. … “Some nights are without fanfare, but you luck into good acoustics or the wind coming through the door is a reminder that you are, in fact, doing this damn thing and loving it. Some nights are pure sorrow—total strangers spill their secrets all over me because one of my songs has touched a part of them that they can no longer bear to hide. … I’m home now about to dive into the chaos that is Americana Fest in Nashville, learning a new song I’ll duet on with a songwriter I met two days ago. I recorded a couple demos of songs I’m real proud of. I have a friend who is teaching me new guitar licks. And I’m back to booking the next round of shows.” Keep up the great work, Class of ’93, and keep the notes coming! 1995 Erik Thoen erik_thoen@alum.swarthmore.edu Sally Chin sallypchin@gmail.com Congrats to Rebecca Katz, who was promoted to full professor at Georgetown, where she is director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security. Her youngest plays soccer with the son of two other Swarthmoreans. Perhaps we have some Swarthmore soccer stars in the making! Lisa Hibler is in her 10th year as a licensed professional counselor with a private psychotherapy practice in Asheville, N.C., where she’s lived for 13 years. She WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 63 class notes graduated from Naropa University with a master’s in transpersonal counseling psychology. Lisa studies body-centered and mindfulnessbased forms of therapy and loves her work with adult clients on relationship and attachment issues. She spends time hiking in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, practicing yoga and mindfulness, listening to Tara Brach podcasts, reading Daniel Siegel, and spending time with friends and community. Beyond working as a sociology professor at Drew University in New Jersey, Caitlin Killian has been consulting for the U.N. on gender mainstreaming in livelihood initiatives for Syrian refugees. She’s traveled to Turkey to interview local NGOs and U.N. entities, and is now working on a report of recommendations. Outside of work, her family vacationed in Canada, visiting Ottawa, Niagara Falls, and Montreal, where she highly recommends jet-boating on the Lachine rapids of the St. Lawrence River. Elder son Gabriel started at American University, and Caitlin is “finding it odd to be a college professor and the parent of a college student.” On that note, don’t forget to come reminisce about when we were new college students at our 25th Reunion, May 29–31! 1997 Lauren Jacobi laurenjacobi@hotmail.com A short column this round as I recover from back surgery. Lara Estroff was named a full professor in Cornell’s Materials Science and Engineering Department—the first woman to achieve that position in department history. Way to go, Lara! Congrats, too, to Vlado Bilčík, who was elected to the European Parliament as a representative of Slovakia, part of the coalition of Progressive Slovakia and Spolu. And Ben Henwood, an associate professor of social work at USC, 64 Swarthmore College Bulletin / was interviewed by L.A.’s NBC news station in connection with his work on homelessness. View the segment at bit.ly/BHenwood. 1999 Melissa Morrell melrel99@hotmail.com Edward Gonzalez, after taking a 15year hiatus from writing updates, finds himself working for USAID in North Macedonia, where he has been for the past three years; he had previously worked with USAID in D.C., Pakistan, Guatemala, Afghanistan, and El Salvador. In 2009, Edward completed a politics Ph.D. at the New School for Social Research. Despite these accomplishments, the highlights of these past years, and his life, are his boys, Santi, Nico, and Lucca. Mason Astley visited Michael Schall at Mike’s restaurant Locanda Vini E Olii in Brooklyn. Mike has also been part of opening another restaurant, Camillo. In a Man’s World, which premiered on Bravo in October, was executive produced by Kate Bernstein. The limited series follows four women as they temporarily morph into men to see how the other sex lives. Ed Cohn is an associate professor of Russian history at Grinnell College, where he taught a new course on the history of surveillance this fall. “I spent a month in Lithuania and Latvia this summer doing research on the KGB in the Baltic republics.” As Grinnell is in Iowa, Ed has enjoyed being a resident of the first caucus state—“I’ve seen 17 presidential candidates so far, and I’m volunteering for the Elizabeth Warren campaign.” Ed writes on Facebook about his encounters with each of the candidates and I, Melissa, have found him more insightful than many paid reporters. Lynne Steuerle Schofield, Swarthmore associate dean of faculty for diversity, recruitment, and retention, and associate WINTER 2020 professor of statistics, was written about in the Chronicle of Higher Education for her work in fostering an interdisciplinary approach to community engagement. Specifically, Lynne has her students use their budding statistical knowledge to solve realworld problems in their community with great results for both the students, who learn the impact they can have, and the groups that they work with, who get the benefit of their hard work. One example analyzed data from an asthma research study, where students’ analysis showed there were significant improvements when carpets and cleaning products were changed. Lynne’s approach showed the students that data is often messy and introduced them to the privacy and ethical issues around big data. If you haven’t read about her work, especially if you are in education, I highly recommend it. Jonathan Pyle was written up as a “Legal Rebel” in the American Bar Association Journal in September for his work on an open-source platform, Docassemble, which automates guided client interviews and document assembly for complex legal cases. This project started when Jonathan found he was spending a lot of time interviewing family-law clients and he felt more could be done than what was offered. His program is being used in a variety of legal applications, including divorce, eviction, and Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and has applications beyond the legal realm. Check it out! Ashwin Rao had an enjoyable summer, with visits from Bob Griffin, Stephanie Herring, Carl Wellington, and Jenny Briggs. Ashwin is the editor-in-chief of a new textbook on mental health in athletes and is in his sixth year as program director of the University of Washington’s Sports Medicine Fellowship. Julia Berkman lives near Boston, working as a barista at Starbucks and as a nanny/ home-organizer extraordinaire for her three nephews. “I’m also doing my artwork; check me out at juliaberkman.com.” Darragh Paradiso completed a four-year assignment in Hong Kong and will spend this school year in the D.C. area learning French. After 12 years at the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience, Margaret Su took a job at the University of Washington doing marketing and communications for their fundraising campaign. Stacey Bearden enjoyed seeing everyone at the reunion. Son Glen, a kindergartener, keeps saying he wants to go back. Stacey chalks that up to playing with Maria Krisch’s son and the feeling of freedom on such a green, spacious campus. Stacey is pursuing selfemployment as a consultant and interim leader in human resources and total rewards. “Staying home seems like it would give me lots of free time, but it feels like I get home from dropping him off, eat breakfast, shower, do dishes and laundry, and then it’s time to pick him up.” She is working on her balancing act—aren’t we all! If you’d like to see your name in print or if you have news to share, please write me! 2001 Claudia Zambra claudiazambra@gmail.com Upon reading Darren Wood’s note in the summer Bulletin—that “he welcomed son Owen Harcourt Wood on Oct. 4”—Caitlin SchlappGilgoff Wood privately offered some reasonable objections to this characterization. Darren would like to present this clarification and apology: Caitlin, too, was quite involved in the act of welcoming Owen into the world. Kate Fama and Alexander Tzschentke delightedly announce the arrival of daughter Hannah Margaret in January 2019. They look forward to welcoming more Swatties to Ireland for visits and introductions. Ryan Neiheiser’s architecture firm, Neiheiser Argyros, completed the first phase of the Tide, a large CHRIS CRANFORD ALUMNI PROFILE “It has been a joy to do this work because of the positive impact it has for people and for communities,” says Karama Neal ’93. POWER LIFT She’s an advocate for Arkansas landowners by Alexandra Sastre ’05 IN WHAT WAYS—large and small—can we each have a positive impact on the world around us? Karama Neal ’93 is devoted to answering this question, and to helping others make positive changes in their communities. Neal serves as president of Southern Bancorp Community Partners, an organization that economically empowers communities in rural Arkansas and Mississippi through public policy, development lending, and financial services. She is also the founder of Heirs of Arkansas, an advocacy group that collaborates with attorneys, development organizations, and government agencies to help families retain the land and properties they have inherited. From 2004 to 2010, she authored the popular blog So What Can I Do?, which promoted “ethics in action” by offering information and resources on service opportunities locally and globally. By helping people “generate funding for a rural library, start a small business, purchase their first home, or achieve a savings goal” through Southern Bancorp’s development lending, Neal encourages others to lift themselves up by looking for opportunities to invest in their communities. Neal came to Swarthmore with a passion for research in genetics and soon “became intrigued by the connections between science and society, and how each influences the other.” Through her studies in biology, she found herself drawn to scholars who “put their research in the context of their social positions in American society.” That the work of science could be entwined with the work of social justice was eye-opening, she recalls: “It revealed new ways of thinking for me.” This insight eventually led her to a Ph.D. in genetics and molecular biology from Emory University, more than two decades “in and around biology labs,” and “many years of volunteering with humanitarian, community, and child development organizations.” It also led to an eventual career change—away from the lab and toward more immediate work in her community. Neal founded Heirs of Arkansas in 2013, in response to a challenge faced by her family and her community. Growing up, Neal remembers her grandmother discussing her own formerly enslaved grandfather, Griffin Henry Belk, who purchased the land in Arkansas where multiple generations of Neal’s family were born and raised. Although the land is still collectively owned by her family, Neal says, “because it has been informally passed down for multiple generations, it has a legal status known as ‘heir property.’” Heir property, Neal says, “can be a very unstable form of real property ownership, often associated with unintentional, predatory land loss.” Low-income communities and communities of color are particularly vulnerable to losing such inherited assets, she notes, “because of a lack of access to trusted legal services and estate planning.” Thanks in part to the work of Heirs of Arkansas, the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act was successfully passed in 2015, helping families maintain land ownership, and ensuring that property that is sold is done so at a fair market rate so that family wealth isn’t lost. As she inspires others to apply their skills to a common good, Neal sees “a direct line” from her Swarthmore experiences to her current work. “I learned how to identify and transfer skills across disciplines, refined my ability to ask and answer questions independently, and demonstrated how academic and related work could (and often should) be rooted in social justice,” she says. “I expect whatever is next for me will again be connected to my formative experiences at Swarthmore.” WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 65 class notes elevated linear park in east London near the O2 arena. The 1-kilometerlong project (of a planned total of 5 kilometers for the full project) stitches together culture and nature, creating a kind of charm bracelet of cafes, performance spaces, art, and gardens along the Thames. Learn more at neiheiserargyros.com. Julie Levin Russo has settled in Olympia, Wash., as a faculty member at the Evergreen State College. She and partner Melissa welcomed first child Vega on Aug. 1. Kristen Panfilio was tenured as an associate professor at the University of Warwick, England, yet still keeps lab and life running in Cologne, Germany. With so much back-and-forth travel, she occasionally forgets which type of bike and helmet she’s using for her daily commute in each place. Lynne DeSilva-Johnson returned from showing their work as part of Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria. They have forthcoming performance/work in many exciting new shows and publications, including Matters of Feminist Practice, Choice Words: Writers on Abortion, and Performing Knowledge at NYC’s Segal Center this fall. Perhaps most exciting is that the Operating System, the arts nonprofit Lynne founded/ runs, signed a long lease on a new project hub, Liminal Lab (in Bushwick, Brooklyn), and has brought on brilliant partners to create future programming. NYCarea folks interested in radical pedagogy, DIY making, collective organizing, publishing, disability, LGBTQ community, the arts, healing trauma, and more should follow @liminallab and @the_ operating_system on Instagram. In early 2018, Laura Farra Myers became audience engagement coordinator at the Heinz History Center, and she’s been tackling the challenge of museum accessibility. In 2019, Eben Myers joined an autonomous vehicle safety startup, Edge Case Research, as product manager. The couple have had two foster kids in their home since December 2018, along with daughters Lucy and Sadie. A kitten, Henry, also joined the family. 66 Swarthmore College Bulletin / Reporting from Hotlanta, Lisa Adler, Marisa Chavez, and Cristina Cardemil went yurt camping in the North Georgia Mountains with kids Eli, Emma, Luis, Jonas, Nicolas, and Lucas, ranging in age from 5 to 8. When not chasing their rambunctious families around, Lisa fights the good fight at the ACLU, Marisa works as an OB-GYN, and Cristina researches and tracks viral gastroenteritis in the U.S. and abroad with the CDC. Rich Aleong and Terry sent their youngest, Christian, off to Coe College in Iowa this fall, and they are feeling a bit of empty-nest syndrome. Finally, on a recent layover in Istanbul, I, Claudia, caught up with Yasemin Sirali after many years and shared a delightful Turkish dinner overlooking the Bosporus. 2003 Robin Smith Petruzielo robinleslie@alum.swarthmore.edu John Anderson moved into a new quality-support position at the World Bank in D.C., which will allow him to travel less. He’s excited to be home more with his three elementary-school-age kids, especially as his wife gears up to cover the presidential election. The news from Seattle is that Jack Hébert and Nori Heikkinen had second son Étienne Max Hébert in April. Everyone is happy and healthy, though Nori is a bit surprised by just how much of a circus it is to have two kids. Stella Cousins and Jeff Regier were married Aug. 10, with Michael Morse in attendance. Three days later, Stella and Jeff moved from Berkeley, Calif., to Ann Arbor, Mich., where Jeff started as an assistant professor in the University of Michigan’s statistics department. Veronica Herrera and Ben Wiles relocated last summer from the bucolic New England pastures of Storrs, Conn., to the L.A. area. Veronica accepted a tenure-track position in UCLA’s WINTER 2020 Luskin School of Public Policy, and Ben joined the partnership of LKP Global Law, a venture capitalfocused boutique firm. Along with their kids, ages 8 and 5, they live in Culver City and are gradually readjusting to city life. Kate Hurster and husband Al Espinosa welcomed son Gustavo Tomas on May 30. Like sister Esperanza, Gus was born at home in Ashland, Ore. Kate and Al are actors at the Tony Award-winning Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Joan Javier-Duval started her fifth year as minister of the Unitarian Church of Montpelier in Vermont. Son Liam, 5, started kindergarten. Joan enjoys seeing Jenny Lunstead on her visits to Vermont, and it’s great to have Becca Van Fleet Webb just down the interstate in Bethel, where she has built a beautiful pottery studio and home with her partner. Amid Hong Kong’s social upheaval, Hofan Chau is returning to her roots as a peace & conflict/ education major. Stepping away from theater work for a bit, she is teaching tai chi, energy healing, and heart-imagery meditation. 2005 Emiliano Rodriguez erodrig1@gmail.com I’m covering for Jessica Zagory for a bit, and it was great to hear from so many ’05ers. We’re well into adulthood and overall having a good time of it. After graduation, Bpantamars “Sang” Phadungchob completed a plant biology master’s at UC–Davis. Upon the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Sang joined the science education department at Bangkok’s Dhonburi Rajabhat University to train science teachers for Thailand’s future generations. Rachel Thomas is founding director of the University of San Francisco Center for Applied Data Ethics, which works to address racial and gender bias, surveillance/privacy issues, disinformation, and other harms due to data misuse. The New York Times featured Sam Bell for his work on the Federal Reserve as founder of Employ America. Matt Wallaert’s book Start at the End: How to Build Products that Create Change debuted in June. Son Bear is now 4. Raghu Karnad spent early 2019 as bureau chief at The Wire in New Delhi. In the fall, he lectured across the U.S. on India’s national election. Carmen Barron, Anna Morgan ’04, Andrew Sniderman ’07, and Professor James Kurth attended his Swarthmore talk. Jake and Kristen Lee Berger moved to Williamsport, Pa., after five years in Idaho. Jake is a professor at Lycoming College, and Kristen teaches middle school. They’re busy working and parenting their kindergartner and 2-year-old but excited to catch up with Northeast folks. Rachel Scott, Aaron Wasserman, and son Nathan, 2, moved to Rachel’s hometown, Columbus, Ohio. Rachel kept her management-consulting job, and Aaron started an affordable housing development position at Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing. Any Columbus-area alums? Drop a line. Tanya Aydelott received an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts and moved to Houston to join the Kinkaid School’s college counseling team. She published a short story in Foreshadow, an online anthology. KD Davenport is the School District of Philadelphia’s director of science and visited Professor Emerita Rachel Merz while vacationing in Washington state. KD taught a science methods seminar for a Swarthmore studentteacher last fall. Jesse Young was promoted to associate at BuroHappold Engineering in NYC. He still woodworks in a basement shop in Alphabet City. Julie Lindenberg is senior therapist at BronxConnect, an alternative-to-incarceration program for young adults with felony charges. She spent the summer playing softball in Central Park and Westchester leagues. Jason Mui is in Chicago figuring out his acrobatic future while relearning magic. He has two kids, Harley and Kai. Wife Elizabeth Gorgas is recovering well. Jody Fisher is the dual-language coordinator at a Chicago elementary school. With spouse Jessica Petertil and son Judah, 1, he moved to a house in Portage Park. Jody also joined thousands of teachers striking for the schools Chicago’s students deserve. Richard Ocampo enjoys life with wife Luzmary and daughter Jaslynne, 2. He teaches in Miami, opening minds and planting seeds of rebellion among youth. In the fall, he traveled to Chicago with his union to support striking teachers. In Texas, Jacob Cortes owns Vagomundo Adventure Ecotours, is the Austin region representative for Source Coffee Traders, and cofounded the nonprofit Worldwide Nomads. Nicola Wells Chin opened a community art and power-building space, Co-Lab Create, in Lewiston, Maine. She’s dancing up a storm with husband Ben and kiddos Anju, 4, and Rari, 2, and welcomes folks to stop by. Former Wharton quadmates Britta Ingebretson, Elisabeth Oppenheimer, Hannah Carney, and Sarah Cohodes enjoyed a weekend in the woods last summer with spouses (including Elisabeth’s wife, Cat Vanderwaart ’03) and children. Sarah was promoted to associate professor of economics and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Britta and family moved to NYC, where she started a sociolinguistics and Chinese faculty position at Fordham. Eugene Palatulan is a physical medicine and rehabilitation resident at N.Y. Presbyterian– Columbia/Cornell. He bought a house in the Bronx with a little backyard, something he never had growing up. Matt Draper is in his fifth year as a farmer at North Valley Organics in Albuquerque, N.M., trying to figure everything out next to an acequia. He met his wife in Ecuador in 2010. They have two children, Adela, 6, and Elias, 2. In October, Joy Mills married Daniel Worth, her partner of nine years, atop a mesa in Chimayo, N.M. Joining in the festivities were Zach Pezzementi, Nick Guerette, Elizabeth McDonald, Susan Wilker, Katie McAlister, Kate Groner, Ben Carlisle, Matthew Draper, Josh Hudner, Thomas Showalter ’06, Caroline Carlson ’06, Autumn Quinn ’04, Emily Thomforde ’04, Sarah Crane Newman ’04, Maria Alvarez ’04, and Elinore Kaufman ’04. Joy finished a psycholinguistics master’s at the University of York and is moving back to Melbourne, Australia. 2007 Kristin Leitzel Hoy kleitzel@gmail.com Katie Crawford Cohen lives in L.A. with husband Nim ’06. She has worked at RAND for two years and loves it—it’s a great place for Swatties! This summer, Katie and Nim welcomed a second matchbox baby, Ronan Alexander. Son Ilian is happy as a toddler can be to become a big brother. Sonya Reynolds and her wife had a baby! She doesn’t know what time or day it is. Luckily, the folks at the Movement Cooperative, where she’s a senior data and technology strategist, have been very understanding of this inability. Hopefully, by the time you read this, her situation will have improved. The family is spending the first half of 2020 traveling the U.S. and Canada. Significant stops include Atlanta, New Orleans, Texas, California (Palm Springs and Oakland), Portland, Ore., British Columbia (Victoria and Vancouver), Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, Toronto, and Amherst Island, Ontario. If you have queer-familyfriendly recommendations on this route, let them know! They happily reside in Brooklyn, N.Y. Juliet Braslow, Carlos Villafuerte ’08, and 1-year-old Orion moved to Bangkok in August. Juliet works at the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, where she supports the use of space applications and digital innovations to help countries achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. They look forward to exploring the region and welcome Swattie visitors. James Kalafus moved to the Detroit metro area, where he began his tenure in software development at Thomson Reuters. Samantha Graffeo Gardner graduated from the University of Colorado School of Dental Medicine in May and moved with her family to Naples, Fla., for a twoyear pediatric dentistry residency with the University of Florida. They’re adjusting to the humidity, enjoying the beach, and looking forward to moving back to Colorado just as soon as they’re able. They welcome any Swatties visiting the Sunshine State! After living in his home state of New Jersey since 2007, Timothy Johnson III relocated to sunny Southern California for a new job in July. He lives in Orange County and is adjusting to the perpetual summer weather. Timothy would love to reconnect with ’07ers in the area. Sarah Cotcamp McGrew finished an education Ph.D. at Stanford in June and is now an assistant professor at the University of Maryland–College Park. She and Dillon McGrew are happy to be back living in D.C. Kayley Whalen was featured on MCV Media in Vietnam in a halfhour episode of the show “Come Out” (bit.ly/KayleyW), where she shared her story of coming out as a transgender woman and her work interviewing transgender people for her blog, TransWorldView. com. Kayley is in Saigon and has conducted interviews in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore. Caleb Ward is in Berlin, where he splits his time between dissertation writing and adventuring through the toddler lifeworld. Maria Maciá finished a federal clerkship in Phoenix in July. Although she didn’t clerk for Judge Mary Murphy Schroeder ’62, she enjoyed working a few doors down from her office and hearing stories about her time at Swarthmore. Maria graduated with an economics Ph.D. in August from UChicago—thanks to a lot of help from Eric Zwick, who was on her committee—and started a two-year position as a visiting associate professor at Notre Dame Law School, researching and teaching corporate law. She and her family—which now includes Hector, 2—enjoy the slower pace of life in South Bend, Ind. Maggie Elwell finished a religion and society Ph.D. in May and is now an assistant professor in the University of Maryland Honors College. She teaches topics related to truth, memory, and authority in literature and religion, and would love to meet up with D.C.-area alums to discuss. 2009 Melanie Spaulding maspauld1@gmail.com Some ’09ers are going back to school! Shandra B.P.-Weeks began grad school at the University of Michigan. Philip Issa started law school at Stanford, where he’s the second-oldest (read: wisest) student in his class. “Sure, there’s a lot of reading, but it’s a nice change of pace from my previous line of work, reporting the news from Iraq and Lebanon for the Associated Press.” Tom ’07 and Reina Chano Murray bought a house in Baltimore in April. It’s walking distance to Reina’s job at Johns Hopkins, and it’s a cool rowhouse in a national register historic district, which makes the historic preservationist in her happy. Reina writes: “The old owners unfortunately loved vines (I think they were going for an English country home look, which an urban rowhouse in Baltimore most decidedly is not), and we’ve ripped off, dug out, and killed over 60 giant bags of wisteria, English ivy, clematis, and grapevines that were crawling on the facade and damaging the brick. That’s been WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 67 class notes fun. But we’re relatively settled and welcome any Swatties to come visit!” Cristian Nunez and wife Heather moved to Greensboro, N.C., ending their five-year adventure in Anchorage, Alaska. Heather accepted a position with UNC– Greensboro, and Cristian manages the private equity portfolio for the tribal organization of the Prince William Sound region of Alaska. They bought an old home so have been dabbling in historic preservation work on the weekends. Katherine Hicks-Courant and husband Aaron Schwartz welcomed daughter Dina Schwartz in April. Katherine finished an OB-GYN residency, and in June, she and Dina moved to the Philly area for Katherine to start a gynecologic oncology fellowship at Penn. Aaron is in Boston but will join Katherine and Dina next year; they’re excited to get reacquainted with Philly! In other news from our medical contingent, Aleta Hong graduated from emergency medicine residency this June and is now an attending at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. She frequently looks around for the attending before remembering that she is the attending. When not working, Aleta can be found hiking, planning her next vacation, or coordinating trips to D.C. to hang out with Peter Evangelakis, Lin Gyi, and Eric Loui. Teddy Pozo, in Providence, R.I., is in their second year of teaching modern culture and media at Brown: “Come say hi if you are in New England!” Christopher Compton has been “bouncing around NYC, moving from Harlem to Brooklyn to Queens. Just this month I started studying social work at Hunter College in Manhattan. I still spend a lot of time with Niccolo Aeed ’10 and keep in close contact with Brendan Work ’10.” After graduation, Louis Rosenberg earned a J.D. from Georgetown, clerked for a federal judge in Delaware, studied ethics in a yeshiva in Jerusalem for two years, structured real estate transactions at a Manhattan law firm for four years (and counting), married wife 68 Swarthmore College Bulletin / Aliza, and is the proud father of the cutest angel, Rafael (“Rafi”), born on Mother’s Day 2019. Mazel tov! 2011 Debbie Nguyen dnguyen616@gmail.com Ming Cai mcai223@gmail.com Sarah Pearlstein is in her last year of clinical psychology grad school in Long Beach, Calif., where she passed her dissertation defense and is doing a rotation in women’s mental health and trauma. Amber Kavka-Warren started her seventh year at UCLA. She finished her law degree and is working on completing a philosophy Ph.D. Candice Nguyen finished a clerkship with Judge Allyson K. Duncan of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Raleigh, N.C., and started as an associate at the law firm Keker, Van Nest & Peters in San Francisco. Rebecca Woo entered her fifth year of graduate school, trudging away through a school psychology Ph.D. program. She is still married to a nonSwattie. Kathryn Stockbower moved to Denver for a primary care sports medicine fellowship at Children’s Hospital Colorado. She loves the proximity to the Rockies and outdoorsy culture—maybe she will even get over her fear of downhill skiing! Jake Mrozewski finished a neurology residency at the University of Colorado and started a fellowship in behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry. His second fellowship, in epilepsy, begins in July. Karen Shen is finishing an internal medicine residency at Washington University in St. Louis and will be a hospitalist next year! Jonah Bernhard completed a physics Ph.D. at Duke and is now a data scientist at Lowe’s in Mooresville, N.C. Jonathan Jaquette received a mathematics Ph.D. from Rutgers in 2018. WINTER 2020 Cecilia Marquez left her NYU job to teach Latinx history in Duke’s history department. Bill Beck got married and started as a visiting assistant professor of classics at Indiana University Bloomington. Scott Weiss started teaching in the classics department at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. Shilpa Boppana is (still!) in graduate school in Oxford, Miss., working on her dissertation. She is learning about beekeeping and made her first hive visits last summer. She also caught up with Zoe Davis and Lucas Janes in NYC in August. Ray Zuniga teaches in Virginia Tech’s Center for Public Administration and Policy. He still wears Kansas City-related things most days (nice KC dress socks when he is in the classroom). After working in electrical engineering in Boston for a few years, Trevor Rizzolo entered Carnegie Mellon for an M.S. in circuit design. He graduated and moved to the San Francisco area to job-hunt. Brendan McVeigh is completing a statistics Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon and lives only a few blocks from former Wharton EF co-RA Summer Miller-Walfish. Dan Hwang is finishing school at Johns Hopkins, studying cryptography and researching distributed systems. He started a blockchain onboarding platform in Korea and has been building a decentralized exchange. Eva McKend moved to D.C. to cover Congress for Spectrum News. She misses the community and the outdoors that her old home in Burlington, Vt., afforded, but she is slowly discovering good hiking in the mountains in Virginia. Calvin Ho enjoys life in the D.C. area, where he designs clinical trials. Nell Bang-Jensen was named the new artistic director of Theatre Horizon in Norristown, Pa. She lives in Philly. Dina Kopansky just bought a house in West Philly. Stephan Lefebvre is still in his economics Ph.D. program, but he is on fellowship for the year teaching undergrads at Ithaca. Since graduating from Penn Dental Medicine in June, Joanie Jean has moved to Hartford to start a pediatric dental residency program at the University of Connecticut Health Center. Brian Ratcliffe graduated last year from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry with an applied ecology master’s and from Syracuse’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs with a master’s in public administration. He is completing a Presidential Management Fellowship at the U.S. Forest Service’s D.C. headquarters in the Recreation, Heritage, and Volunteer Resources office. Brian lives in Arlington, Va., with partner Rachel Camp. Niki Machac married Andy Lim in NYC, and Amelia Kidd was among the bridesmaids. Also in attendance were Eva Amessé, Althea Gaffney, Arik Davidson, Abe Bae, Sally Chang, Amlan Bhattacharjee, and Jason Bronstein ’05. Niki is generally surviving an OB-GYN residency at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark. Eva Amessé is manager of learning and development at Sony Music. In April, she was a facilitator for the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation’s Leadership Development Institute. Amelia Kidd, Peter Liebenson, Sara Lipshutz, Niki Machac, and Dante Fuoco ’12 celebrated Eva’s marriage to Matt Diogenes Hamilton. Alex Hollender lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and is a designer for Wikipedia. He hopes to move to the Hudson Valley in the next few months to experiment with non-city life and learn about farming. Ruby Bhattacharya was elected the International Association for College Admission Counseling’s vice president for admissions and enrollment practices. After graduating from law school and moving from Massachusetts to L.A. to clerk for two years, Noah Marks got married, moved to Brooklyn, and spent the past year working on grant-tax compliance at the Open Society Foundations. In September, he started as an associate at Paul, Weiss in NYC. He would love to reconnect with area Swatties. Andrew Loh started a dual degree program: a master in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and an MBA at Stanford. Susanna Mitro started what she hopes to be the last year of an epidemiology Ph.D. at Harvard’s School of Public Health. She’s crossing things off her Boston bucket list and looks forward to finishing! Law student Sam Barrows spent last summer working for Judge Indira Talwani and will work at Latham & Watkins next semester. Laura Keeler has worked in acquisitions at MIT Press for four years and still moonlights as a quasi-caterer for large groups of hippies convening in woods. Josh Abel started a new job at Analysis Group in Boston in August after receiving an economics Ph.D. And I, Debbie Nguyen, started a new job at Foster America, a nonprofit recruiting cross-sector leaders to help transform the child welfare system. Josh and I live in Cambridge, Mass. 2013 J. Paige Grand Pré jpgrandpre@gmail.com Another season, another round of exciting announcements from our peers! First, it’s time to celebrate a few newly minted graduates: Becca Roelofs graduated from UC– Berkeley with a computer science Ph.D., so she’s now Dr. Roelofs! She is looking for opportunities. Lucas Zullo graduated from UT Southwestern Medical Center with a clinical psychology Ph.D. He started a postdoctoral fellowship in UCLA’s Youth Stress and Mood Program, where he conducts research on adolescent suicide prevention. Elliot Padgett finished a Ph.D. at Cornell and moved to D.C. for a fellowship in the U.S. Department of Energy Fuel Cell Technologies Office. Elliot would love to meet up with Swatties in the area. Farther north, Ariel Finegold graduated from Harvard Business School. Congrats to all of the above! Meanwhile, classmates continue to make exciting career moves. STAY CONNECTED! Swarthmore alumni have complimentary access to three leading academic resources through the Online Community: JSTOR, Project Muse, and Mango languages. Log in or activate your account to continue learning, find former classmates, or connect with alumni in your area. + GET STARTED: swarthmore.alumniq.com Vishaal Chhabria moved to San Francisco for a job as senior engineer at SafelyYou, an earlystage startup that prevents falls in dementia patients. Kyle Erf left his job at Google to make video games for a living. His company’s first game, Dodo Peak, is available on Apple Arcade. Moses Harding left his job at Agio, a managed service provider, and started as a solutions architect at Neota Logic, a no-code software platform empowering clients to create their own web applications without the need for developers. Brian Huser moved to his hometown of Cleveland and is happily teaching high school mathematics again. Taryn Colonnese moved to southern Vermont and is teaching a third-/ fourth-grade combo class at a tiny public school in Marlboro. She would love to connect with other Swatties in the region. Throughout the country and beyond, classmates celebrated exciting milestones and look forward to future opportunities. Eugenia Tietz-Sokolskaya welcomed daughter Sophia on May 21. Sophia is doing fine, but Eugenia notes that parenting is by far the hardest class she’s ever taken. Kai Tucker is a third-year med student at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine in Flint, helping to care for and volunteer with the families affected by the water crisis. Sydni Adler has become Rabbi Sydni Adler Rubinstein, as she married (now Rabbi) Feivel Rubinstein in April and was ordained at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in May. Swarthmore guests included Joanna Venator, who was a bridesmaid. Sydni and Feivel moved from L.A. to Shreveport, La., in June for Sydni’s new position at Agudath Achim Synagogue. Alejandro Sills celebrated five years with his virtual communications company and is training for his third marathon. In between, Alejandro still plays cello and composes. After his equity vested, Andrew Greenblatt phased himself out of his New York startup to harvest dates on a kibbutz in Israel. His trip is delightfully open-ended. And last, but certainly not least, Anna Shechtman was featured in the Daily Beast article “She’s One of the Youngest Puzzle Designers in America. Can She Save Crosswords?” (bit.ly/AShechtman). Stay tuned to find out! 2015 Abigail Frank abigail.cr.frank@gmail.com Nate Cheek nathan.n.cheek@gmail.com Chelsea Matzko got married in July in Miami with more than 20 Swatties in attendance! She is a clinical research coordinator in orthopedic surgery in NYC, and is applying to medical school. Danielle Fitzgerald started as an assistant director of admissions at Penn on the marketing and communications team. She is the territory manager for South SF Bay and Central Valley in California. Tally Erickson spent the past two years in the Twin Cities, working at College Possible as an adviser for low-income students, and just moved to California with Scoop Ruxin, who started an MBA program at Stanford this fall. Despite disliking almost every second of it, Ruth Talbot watched the entirety of Falling Inn Love and then cried herself to sleep wondering why she isn’t living a more fulfilling life. Kate Wiseman is in her fifth (!) year as a teacher. In addition to teaching an amazing literature class to 140 sophomores, she is living her dream of teaching improv to high schoolers. She still dabbles in triathlons and performs onstage about four times a month. Lauren Barlow is alive and well in Chicago, despite not responding to her best friends’ call for class notes. When not enjoying theater with Kate Wiseman or pretending to know what Julia Murphy does in medical school, she is traveling to her territories for her UChicago admissions job and promises to be better at fulfilling her friendship obligations in the future. After a few sunny years teaching English in Spain, Natalia Choi is back to winters with her new job in Minnesota as a family programs educator at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Hannah Armbruster lives in D.C. and is a federal regulator of individual and small-group health insurance plans (aka Obamacare). She is heartbroken that Netflix’s Tuca & Bertie was canceled. Karl Barkley moved back from Chengdu, China, in April and landed in San Francisco. In August, he had the distinct pleasure of marrying two of his best friends, Matt Sharma and Ellen Bachmannhuff. Danielle Delpeche lives in Osaka, Japan, and hopes to enter grad school in 2020–21 for a master’s degree. She got into Japanese archery after a trip to Tamba, WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 69 class notes Hyogo, and is looking to join a good dojo. Patrick Ross is a speechwriter at West Wing Writers and lives in D.C. After completing a business master’s in India, Shashwati Rao moved to London for a yearlong assignment with Apple. Aside from selling phones, she hopes to explore Europe and meet Swatties in that part of the world. Neil Macfarland married Michelle Etchison and planned to tour Tuscany before returning home to their cat in Detroit. Channeling Elle Woods, the Class of 2015 is thriving in law school! After four years of wallowing as a D.C. swamp creature, Natalie Giotta moved to New Haven, Conn., to attend Yale Law. She encourages everyone to go to law school, because the fancy firms sponsor keggers, the profs drop F-bombs in morning lecture, and all the pizza is free. Ray Lefco graduated from Boston University with a neuroscience M.A. in August and moved to Cambridge, Mass., to start at Harvard Law (where they plan to get involved in bioethics research). Ray just adopted three pet rats, and is watching Star Trek TNG on Netflix, reading The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle, and doing laundry right now. Amanda Epstein started her second year of law school, after spending the summer working at the New Orleans public defenders’ office. She looks forward to a year of studying the (fascinating) federal rules of evidence, and spending many a long night thinking about how to abolish prisons/whether progressive federalism is really a thing. Cole Turner is a 2L at Northwestern Law and lives in Chicago, where he plans to practice when he graduates. Sabrina Singh is in her final year at Harvard Law. Swatties are also doing great things in grad school! Ari Gewirtz is in her fifth year at Princeton and gives a loving shout-out to Martin Mathay in Seattle for late-night commiserating over Ph.D. journeys. Peter Amadeo is completing an organic chemistry dissertation at Penn. He is in desperate need of warm wishes—and also a job. 70 Swarthmore College Bulletin / Alexander Noyes is finishing a Ph.D. at Yale, studying developmental and cognitive psychology. His research can be read paywall-free at AlexanderNoyes.com. Josh Gregory graduated from Harvard Divinity School and began as an instructor of record in the University of Houston’s English lit department, where he’s also a poetry MFA student in the creative writing program. Sofia Gabriel completed a marine biology master’s at UMass– Dartmouth on the movement and behavior of white sharks and will continue her study off the coasts of eastern Australia and Mossel Bay, South Africa, as a Ph.D. student at the University of Tasmania. David Lin moved back to L.A. to pursue an MBA at UCLA Anderson School of Management. Andrew Karas moved back to Philly from New York to start a two-year MBA at Wharton, focused on real estate development. As per Wharton custom, he lives in Center City and reports it is almost as good as Crown Heights. Joe Hagedorn defied predictions, moved to Scranton, Pa., and started at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. So far, class has definitely and extensively established that the mitochondrion is the powerhouse of the cell. Last in more ways than one, Abigail Frank and Nate Cheek continue to thrive (depending on how you define “thrive”—let’s not get technical). Abigail has thrilling adventures in the Big Apple, and Nate has thrilling adventures buying big apples from the ShopRite in Princeton, N.J. 2017 Isabel Clay isabelmarieclay@gmail.com Emily Wu emilywu1456@gmail.com Many classmates began their law careers this year. Patrick Holland WINTER 2020 finished hiking the Appalachian Trail in August and started his first year at Yale Law School. He is joined at Yale by Irene Kwon and Timmy Hirschel-Burns, who just finished a two-year Peace Corps commitment in Benin. Michael Rubayo began at Georgetown Law this fall. If anyone is in D.C., feel free to reach out to him! Drew Langan began Duke Law School this fall. Peter Daniels is in his second year at Harvard Law; he will pursue an environmental law career in the Bay Area next summer and, hopefully, after graduation. Also pursuing advanced degrees, Tushar Kundu started an economics Ph.D. at Columbia, while Joshua Goldstein started a mathematics Ph.D. program at Texas A&M. Briana Cox is studying speech-language pathology at Purdue, where she received the Students Pursuing Academic Research Careers scholarship and a position in the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Minority Student Leadership Program. She is also finalizing the staged reading for her first theater piece, Big Dry Run, premiering in Nashville, Tenn. Drew Mullins began at Penn State College of Medicine this summer. He is thankful to be close to Philly, where he stays in touch with Robert Abishek and Tyler Alexander. Outside of academia, Olivia Cheng lives in San Francisco and is a product manager at Earnin. She spends a lot of time watching The Great British Bake Off. Amit Schwalb works with teenagers, farmers, and the great outdoors at Saul Agricultural High School in Philly. In spare time, Amit is organizing for a more powerful teachers’ union alongside many fellow Swatties in the district. Isabel Clay completed a master’s in urban education policy from Loyola Marymount and is the ESL program coordinator at University Prep High School in L.A. In November 2018, Margaret Hughes finished 17 months of organizing on Massachusetts’s Yes on 3 campaign, the first to successfully uphold a statewide trans-nondiscrimination law at the ballot. A big shout-out to Canaan Breiss ’16, Christen Boas Hayes ’16, Aaron Wagener, Wesley Han ’18, Gabe Benjamin ’15, Caroline Batten ’14, Lang Haynes ’12, Ben “Books” Schwartz ’13, Shelly Wen ’14, and Jay Wu ’15, who all phone-banked and canvassed! Margaret, Jay, and Malt the cat moved in together in D.C. in February. Abroad, Maddy Feldman visited Heitor Santos in São Paulo (and watched him teach his middle schoolers!) during her year as a Fulbright English teaching assistant at a federal university in Goiânia, Brazil. Eduard Saakashvili and Adina Spertus-Melhus moved to Berlin, where Adina is pursuing a public policy degree from the Hertie School of Governance while Eduard works as an editor for Coda Story, a crisis reporting outlet. If you’re passing through Berlin, visit them. (Email eduardsaakashvili@ gmail.com.) This summer also marked milestones for new Swarthmore households. Rebecca Mayeda and Jonathan Saltzman got married in Kauai this summer with Katherine Ianni and Ursula Monaghan as co-maids of honor, Sierra Spencer ’18 and Nicole Phalen ’18 as bridesmaids, and Dylan Gerstel as best man. Jon’s mom, Audrey Newell ’74, brother David Saltzman ’12, and friend Chris Bourne were also present to celebrate with the newlyweds. Two months later, Becca started medical school at Temple. Meg Bost and Isaac Little visited Iceland this summer and adopted a black Lab/German shepherd mix named Bo (short for Bilbo Waggins). Congrats, Class of 2017, on the achievements made in academic, professional, and personal lives! 2019 Editor’s note: Your class needs a scribe! If you’re interested in becoming 2019’s class secretary, please contact Class Notes Editor Elizabeth Slocum at classnotes@ swarthmore.edu. their light lives on our friends will never be forgotten expanded tributes at bulletin.swarthmore.edu Johanna Davies Freiler ’45 Johanna, whose career included secretarial positions in law, government, and corporate research, died Aug. 2, 2019. “Jon” left Swarthmore to assist with the war effort as a secretary in New York and later earned a degree from the University of Connecticut. Her interests included history, world and national news, cats, and family, and she learned to dance as a child in a studio run by Gene Kelly. Edmund Jones ’39 Edmund, a military veteran, lawyer, bank founder, and public official, died Sept. 14, 2019. A Swarthmore resident for almost nine decades, Edmund served in numerous elected roles, including mayor, state representative, and Delaware County Council member. Patricia Montenyohl Bostian ’46 Patricia, a scientific librarian who dedicated much of her time to serving others, died April 27, 2018. A Spanish major at Swarthmore, Patricia later worked at the Forrestal Research Center, drawn by her love of reading. An avid traveler and gardener, Patricia also enjoyed volunteering with the Junior League, Meals on Wheels, and other groups, through which she typed braille, taught English, testing hearing, and repaired hymnals and prayer books. Nancy Fitts Donaldson ’46 A longtime Quaker school educator and mentor known to Swarthmore friends as “Fittsy,” Nancy died Sept. 26, 2019. Nancy began her career as a fourthgrade teacher and later took on administrative roles in Philadelphiaarea Quaker schools, including Lansdowne Friends, Abington Friends, and the Shipley School. A proud supporter of the Chester Children’s Chorus, she also supervised student-teachers in Swarthmore’s Educational Studies Department. William Wright NV William, a veteran and surgeon who enjoyed golfing, skiing, and sailing, died July 26, 2019. A Penn grad, William received an M.D. from Temple Medical School and WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 71 in memoriam later earned a Ph.D. for his work with the development of an early heart-lung machine. He was also a single-engine, multi-engine, and instrument-rated pilot, and spent many enjoyable hours flying. Dale Shoup Mayer ’47 Dale, an economics major and entrepreneur committed to bettering her community, died Oct. 2, 2019. Dale received a master of international affairs degree from Columbia and worked as an economic analyst for Standard Oil before opening the independent bookstore Paperbacks Plus in Riverdale, N.Y. She also co-founded a mail-order clothing craft business, served two terms as selectman of Sandwich, N.H., and took part in numerous civic committees. Volkert Veeder ’47 A Navy veteran of World War II who ultimately graduated from Rutgers, Volkert died Aug. 23, 2019. Volkert taught physics at Admiral Farragut Academy in New Jersey and then worked for Poultrymen’s Service Corp. for many years. He was also a Life Master of the Master American Contract Bridge League and an avid Philadelphia Eagles fan, with the distinction of being the longest seasonticket holder. Virginia Butts Cryer ’48 A homemaker, psychometrician, and mother of three, Virginia died Sept. 3, 2019. Ginny was a psychology major at Swarthmore, where she met husband Richard ’49, and had served as class treasurer and class agent. Michael Fabrikant ’49 A political science major who received an MBA from Columbia, Michael died July 27, 2019. Michael was drafted into World War II during his sophomore year at Swarthmore and stationed in Panama to guard the canal. He spent the majority of his career at IBM and was an avid bike rider, often seen tackling tough hills on Martha’s Vineyard on his yellow bicycle. 72 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 Kathryn Wolfe Roether ’49 David Rubinstein ’54 Kathryn, an English literature major who went on to receive a master of education from Temple, died Oct. 28, 2019. A mother of two, Kathryn was onehalf of a Quaker matchbox marriage to Hermann Roether ’50, who died in 1999. Heinz Valtin ’49 Heinz, a revered professor emeritus of physiology who had long, stellar career in academic medicine, died Oct. 11, 2019. Born in Germany, Heinz fled the Nazis with his mother and two brothers (including Rolf ’48) just before Kristallnacht in 1938. He majored in biology at Swarthmore, where for many years he held the Garnet pole vault record. As a faculty member at Dartmouth Medical School, which he joined in 1957, Heinz made pioneering kidney observations and wrote three highly influential textbooks on renal function that were translated into several languages. Warren Geary ’50 Warren, a Navy commander who served during World War II and in the reserves, died Feb. 28, 2018. An avid ham radio operator, Warren received a chemistry degree from Rutgers University. Wallace Francis ’51 Wallace, who had a long career at the U.S. State Department heading the Information Systems Office, died Sept. 3, 2019. Wally served in the Navy as an ensign and earned a master’s from Columbia University Graduate School. In his later years, he brought wit, intelligence, and hard work to bear on many projects in New Hampshire, chief among them the conservation of forested land to protect the state’s watershed. Dolores Webster Clark ’54 Dolores, an English teacher who lived life with joy, exuberance, and gratitude, died June 28, 2019. An athlete at Swarthmore, where she met her husband of 64 years, Steve ’52, “Dee” later coached the girls’ lacrosse Ariel Hollinshead Hyun ’51 Ariel, a pioneering cancer scientist and professor emerita of medicine at George Washington University, died Sept. 10, 2019. A former national president of Graduate Women in Science, Ariel carried out groundbreaking clinical research on tumor antigens, cancer vaccines, and immunotherapy, much of which is of ongoing foundational significance today. Among many honors, she was named the USA Bicentennial Medical Woman of the Year in 1976 by the Joint Board of Medical Colleges. and field hockey teams at Severn School in Maryland. She loved to snow ski, especially in Breckinridge, Colo., and enjoyed traveling, dancing, and playing tennis and bridge. Jared Darlington ’54 A computer scientist and logician with a keen wit and skill for writing, Jared died Oct. 25, 2019. After receiving a Ph.D. from Yale in 1957, Jared taught philosophy at Connecticut College and Wellesley before eventually moving to Bonn, Germany, where he spent 33 years as a computer science researcher. Jared enjoyed scenic drives in the German countryside, fine cuisine, classical music, and books from his large and varied library, and his Quaker upbringing instilled in him a strong sense of justice. A social historian who wrote on education, housing, the labor movement, and women’s history, David died July 28, 2019. Born in Ohio, David completed a Ph.D. at the London School of Economics, and became a British citizen in 1964. While teaching at Hull University, David was also active with the walkers’-rights organization the Ramblers, serving on its executive committee from 1967 to 1988 and pioneering the route of the Wolds Way national trail. Jane Woodbridge Sieverts ’55 Jane, whose professional career took her into editing and publishing, bookselling, and nursing, died July 23, 2019. A lifelong reader with wide-ranging interests, including history, archeology, and geology, Jane earned a degree in history from Swarthmore and in nursing from American University. Writes daughter Lisa: “She was known for her unending intellectual curiosities, her Christmas cookies, her passion for dance, music, theater, and the arts, her devotion to her family, and the joy she took in being a grandmother. … She drew added enjoyment from her travels, as they went in tandem with her intellectual passions, visiting the cave paintings in Lascoux, archaeological digs in Italy and France, and the Vasa ship in Stockholm, Sweden.” Elizabeth Murphey von Frankenberg ’55 Elizabeth, a social worker who gave her time to numerous social service organizations, died Oct. 18, 2019. A psychology major at Swarthmore, “Bettie” received a master of social work in psychiatric casework from Bryn Mawr and worked for numerous agencies in Philadelphia, Ithaca, N.Y., and Delaware. She was an active member of the New Castle County Master Gardeners, the Newark Area Welfare Committee, the Arthritis Foundation, and other groups, and in 1993 received the University of Delaware Women’s Club Woman of the Year Award. Craig Ash ’56 A literature lover who taught English for more than 35 years, Craig died Oct. 11, 2019. Craig, who spent most of his career at Adelphi University, also had a passion for music, playing piano and organ for almost his entire life. An avid train enthusiast, he enjoyed building model railroads and visiting any location that had a steam engine, subway car, or trolley. Wesley Argo ’57 Wesley, a recipient of Swarthmore’s McCabe Achievement Award who later chaired its selection committee for 31 years, died Aug. 11, 2019. Employed by Scott Paper Co. his entire professional career, Wes rose to become vice president of international affiliate services, which combined his passion for engineering with his love of travel. He later formed two engineering and research consulting ventures and pursued his lifelong hobby of genealogical research. Donald Tucker ’60 A retired economist who worked for the Federal Reserve Board and Congress, Donald died Aug. 28, 2019. Don received an economics Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and, after working at the Fed, served as chief economist of the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer and Monetary Affairs until 1994. Katharine Nicely Emsden ’61 Katharine, an educator, adventurer, and advocate for many, died Nov. 25, 2018. Writes daughter Pamela: “Though I knew she was always busy, I did not know she read at the poetry reading each month, that she had postermaking nights at her house for fracking protests, that she would host a Quaker meeting and a traveling Buddhist and Latter-day Saints at her house all within two days, that she helped dig a trail system, that she volunteered each week to take out the trash for the local gallery, that she wrote articles for the paper, that she tutored some of the most challenging students, and on and on— each one of equal importance to her.” Eleanor Wehmiller Fernald ’61 Eleanor, a former teacher who lived her life as an art form, died July 19, 2019. A psychology major, Ellie received a master’s in education from Harvard and taught in Swarthmore public schools and at the School in Rose Valley in Pennsylvania. Though she enjoyed many rewarding years of teaching, she would come to feel that her greatest love was using her hands “to make stuff,” including pottery, papier maché, ceramics, and paintings, which she created in her own studio in Seattle. John Oglesby II ’62 John, a pioneer in interventional radiology and co-inventor of the WillsOglesby Percutaneous Gastrostomy Set, died Oct. 3, 2019. Nancy Sturtevant Burleson ’55 A freelance editor and development director for the Wardlaw-Hartridge School in New Jersey, Nancy died Sept. 6, 2019. Nancy was committed to supporting nonprofits, serving on the boards of Wardlaw-Hartridge, the Skidompha Public Library, the Genesis Community Loan Fund, and the Inn Along the Way. She was a lay leader in the Methodist Church and enjoyed opera, classical, and sacred music. WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 73 A history major and conscientious objector to the draft during his time at Swarthmore, “Skip” later earned a medical degree from the University of Connecticut and a master of public health from Harvard. Proficient in five languages, Skip was a fierce advocate for immigrant and refugee patients at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Chelsea Healthcare Center, where he spent most of his career. In 2009, he received a Partners in Excellence Award for Outstanding Performance and Commitment to Excellence. Palin Spruance III ’63 Palin, a certified public accountant and financial planner, died Aug. 13, 2019. A psychology major and football player at Swarthmore, “Terry” went on to receive a master’s in medieval English history from the University of Delaware before studying accounting at UNC–Asheville. He enjoyed chess, bridge, and sports, and completed at least one Sudoku puzzle a day. Edwenna Rosser Werner ’63 Edwenna, a wife, mother, grandma, and friend, died Sept. 11, 2019. “She lived a full life of family, music, friendship, and service to her community,” her obituary reads. “All of us who were lucky enough to know her miss her terribly. We will never forget how she touched our lives, and how she brought us together.” Richard Laquer ’69 A passionate lawyer who lived by the motto “Nothing in moderation,” Richard died Jan. 2, 2019. Richard finished his undergrad at Temple University, then received a joint J.D. and MBA from the University of Oklahoma. He practiced law in Oklahoma City for almost 40 years as both a prosecutor and defense attorney, where one of his proudest accomplishments was the litigation of a class action lawsuit that benefited thousands who’d had their driver’s licenses unfairly suspended. Alexandra O’Karma ’70 Alexandra, an actress who appeared in plays across the U.S., Canada, and Britain, died Sept. 6, 2019. An English literature major at Swarthmore, Alexandra could also 74 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 Martin Weitzman ’63 A lauded economist who warned of the threats of climate change, Martin died Aug. 27, 2019. Martin taught at Yale and MIT before joining Harvard in 1989 as a professor of economics. He published widely, was elected as a fellow of the Econometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, served as a Faculty Fellow at the Harvard Environmental Economics Program (HEEP), and for more than 25 years cohosted the Harvard Seminar in Environmental Economics and Policy. be seen in films such as Terms of Endearment and Refuge. “She was a woman of rare beauty, wit, and intellectual curiosity,” her loved ones wrote, “and bore a long illness with unimaginable courage.” Elisha Atkins ’71 Elisha, a physician whose commitment to social causes led him to primary care and community medicine, died Aug. 7, 2019. Submit an obituary Rick Reitze ’71 Rick, a successful inventor and entrepreneur, died Aug. 24, 2019. A biology major at Swarthmore, Rick served in the U.S. Army and participated in several archaeological digs in England. He was also an avid book collector and a bicycling enthusiast. Donald Roberson ’74 Donald, a political science and engineering major at Swarthmore, died Nov. 29, 2018. Margaret Thomas Redmon ’79 A Quaker who served as director at Friends School of Louisville, Ky., Margaret died Aug. 22, 2019. Margie received a master’s in business from the University of Louisville and was well-known for her work with numerous local organizations, including the Lincoln Foundation and Peace Education Program, on whose boards she served. A loving mother and doting grandmother, Margie was also an avid ballroom dancer. “She touched the lives of many with her generosity and compassion,” loved ones wrote, “and will be remembered for her easy friendship and giving spirit.” To report the death of an alum, email obituaries@swarthmore.edu. Please provide the class year (if known), the date of death, and a short biography or link to a published obituary. Newspaper obituaries may also be mailed to Elizabeth Slocum, Swarthmore College Bulletin, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore, PA 19081. looking back GIFTED ARTIST. Devoted educator. Cherished wife, mother, and friend. When Debra Pinder Symonette ’78 died of endometrial cancer in 2009, her husband, Alan ’76, sought to memorialize her on Swarthmore’s campus, where the pair met as students through the Black Cultural Center. Rather than dedicating a tree or bench, Alan— the second director of the BCC—envisioned an artful tribute to his creative late wife, an art history major and trained architect with a talent for crafting. This memorial was manifested through a ceramic pot marking the front of the Robinson House. Lovingly created by Professor of Studio Art Syd Carpenter, the Symonette Vessel aims to recognize the life and spirit of Debra, as well as the supportive family that is the BCC. “Our best relationships came out of that community in particular and Swarthmore in general,” says Alan, who has since remarried. “This piece is my honor and memory to Debra, and it’s our honor to what that community represented to both of us.” After Swarthmore, Debra earned a master’s in architecture from Rice University and worked at several Philadelphia-area firms. She later became a teacher in Friends schools, a return to the Quaker education of her youth. Though it all, Debra crafted—drawing, knitting, crocheting, quilting, and generally working with her SYMONETTE FAMILY A graduate of Temple Medical School, “Tom” was part of the Berry Plan as an inactive lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve. He was elected a fellow of the American College of Radiology in 1990, and retired in 1999 from the Medical Center of Delaware, where he had served as section chief of the Vascular and Interventional Radiology Department since 1975. “If there is anything that I hope both of us are remembered for, it’s that spot in the House,” Alan Symonette ’76 (with sons Matthew, Andrew, and Jason in 2011) says of his late wife, Debra Pinder Symonette ’78. hands. She made shawls as part of a ministry program and taught crafts through her church-based Paper Crane Studio. These details and others are highlighted in her memorial piece. “In many African cultures, the ceramic pot has powerful symbolic meaning,” says Carpenter, who completed the artwork in 2011. “The handles are in the form of the lower half of a seated figure, as seen on an Egyptian statue. The absence of the upper body is evocative of a physical but not a spiritual absence.” Debra is present in the form of the vessel—and in its embellishments, Carpenter adds: Carvings of folded paper cranes adorn the surface, representing good fortune and longevity. It’s a fitting tribute to a matchbox love, and to the House where it all began. —ELIZABETH SLOCUM LAURENCE KESTERSON in memoriam “The vessel has been sited at the entrance to the BCC to signify the House as a protected space of creativity and peace,” says Professor of Studio Art Syd Carpenter. “It was my intention that the Symonette Vessel embody this message, and I hope that it will be joined by other creative works representing the vitality of the Black Cultural Center on Swarthmore’s campus.” WINTER 2020 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 75 spoken word CHANGING PERSPECTIVES by Kate Campbell AN ASSISTANT PROFESSOR of sociology and a 2019–2020 Engaged Scholars Initiative Fellow, Nina Johnson researches the impacts of mass incarceration and public policy on Philadelphia neighborhoods. She talked with the Bulletin about her studies of race, class, and inequality, her role in the Black Studies Program, and who inspires her. You’re a member of the Graterford Think Tank and a newly formed think tank at the State Correctional Institution in Chester, Pa. Why is this work on mass incarceration important? In the United States, 2.2 million people are incarcerated—a 500% increase over the last 40 years. These numbers are not evenly distributed across the population. Though people of color are 37% of the U.S. population, they are 67% of the incarcerated population. Low-income African American men and women are more likely to be 76 Swarthmore College Bulletin / WINTER 2020 arrested, once arrested more likely to be convicted, and once convicted more likely to be given a harsher sentence. This program changes their perspectives. We train faculty in a pedagogy that foregrounds peer-to-peer learning and facilitate workshops for new DAs in Philadelphia. Most of these prosecutors have never been inside a prison and have never spoken to nor heard the stories of the people on the other side of their case. Similarly, many voters and supporters of punitive carceral policy have no idea of the devastating impacts it has on communities and families. That is our work—to educate us all toward a reduction of suffering in the present and a better, more equitable, more humane future where we can all be free. What do you mean when you talk about creativity as a strategy with your students? My time as coordinator allowed me to think through the questions around experiential learning. We’ve had more and more students interested in going abroad and interested in learning about the global Black political community beyond the boundaries of nation state. They explore questions of culture and meaning-making around Do your students ever change your views or surprise you? My students challenge me all the time. What strikes me the most is the pace at which they work. I’m struck by their sense of urgency. They’re deeply committed to making a more just, fair world. Part of what I try to encourage them to do is to prioritize joy, take time to rest and reflect, think about how we can all work together and how they can best use their time, talent, and resources to create the world they envision. Tell us about your upcoming book Black Privilege: The Paradox of Status and Stigma in the Lives of Black Elites. Everyone who I interviewed for the book attended elite institutions, and they were often part of a very small community of Black students. They went on to high levels of income and occupational prestige, but they have complicated relationships with their own success, and with the elite institutions that educate and employ them, and they still navigate the isolation and the social distances within their own families because they were the ones who “made it.” Through my observations and interviews with them, I was able to uncover the impacts of the Brown v. Board ruling and other desegregation policies and programs at the level of interaction, within relationships, families, neighborhoods, and political communities. TRISTAN ALSTON ’22 LAURENCE KESTERSON Blackness in its multiplicity of forms. Students like Brandon Ekweonu ’20, who presented his work “Hip Hop Influence: The Fluency of Hip Hop as a Language for Communicating Consciousness and History,” along with Taylor Tucker ’20, who looks at questions of childhood development with “Into the Masters’ Hands: The Carceral Captivity and Exploitation of Black Female Bodies in Schools and Beyond.” Those are just two examples of students who are researching Black folks in cities and Afrofuturism—they are looking at creativity as a strategy, and where they see themselves in the future.