FALL 2021 Non Profit Org U.S. Postage PAID Permit #129 19464 TREE TOPS p36 FOOD MATTERS p46 SEED STRATEGY p48 500 College Ave. Swarthmore, PA 19081–1306 www.swarthmore.edu CLIMATE OF CHANGE THE BULLETIN’S FALL ISSUE is dedicated to SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN stories of Swarthmoreans making strides in helping to sustain the planet. We are hopeful, hard at work, and energized for change. LAURENCE KESTERSON Give back like Mwangangi by mentoring current students. Learn more at swarthmore.edu/alumni. navigating new waters together Whales and other species critical to ocean health. Story, p.24. WHALE ILLUSTRATION © ELENNADZEN–STOCK.ADOBE.COM FALL 2020 1 “Last year was my first time as a teaching assistant for the Math Department. This role, however trivial it may look on the outside, has actually been one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had. Guiding students through math homework problems and seeing some of them develop an interest in math has been an extremely fascinating process. Surprisingly, it has not just been a one-sided relationship; I have learned much more about the problem-solving process through guiding others to solve their problems.” — Mwangangi Kalii ’23 in this issue 36 Pick a topic and dive in: The Color of Trees By looking at agricultural problems in new ways, John Leary ’00 is building biodiversity — and community, too. LANDFILLS The Post-Landfill Action Network is a student-led zero-waste movement that equips students with the necessary skills and resources to implement solutions to waste in their campus communities. by Tara Smith + WASTE NOT: postlandfill.org CORAL REEFS The Coral Reef Alliance partners with local communities and takes a multipronged approach to restoring and protecting coral reefs. + RESTORE: coral.org OCEANS Oceana works to make our oceans more biodiverse and abundant by winning policy victories in the countries that govern much of the world’s marine life. + GO DEEP: oceana.org AGRICULTURE Trees for the Future works with thousands of farmers across sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the implementation of “Forest Garden” programs in Cameroon, Kenya, Senegal, Uganda, and Tanzania. + PLANT THE FUTURE: trees.org CLIMATE POLICY LAURENCE KESTERSON Leary looks to a future when sustainable agriculture practices are the norm. “We need to be able to grow food on this planet for a long time to come,” says Leary, at Kimberton CSA, a Pennsylvania community-supported agriculture farm, this summer. Today, Trees for the Future has 68 employees in Senegal and more than 200 across Africa. Climate Analytics combines science and policy analysis to support countries — especially those most vulnerable — in the fight against human-induced climate change. + ANALYZE: climateanalytics.org 20 THIS SIDE UP Just as funny upside down, a treasured Monty Python poster makes the cut for Move-In Day on Aug. 23. Creating a New Climate Moving past pessimism and paralysis, a studentled workshop series encourages participants to critically engage with the climate crisis. by Roy Greim ’14 24 In Deep At the ocean’s edge and into its deepest waters, Swarthmoreans are invested in the mechanisms of marine life, working out how animals solve the problems of their worlds and exploring how they function in their environment — however it changes. by Kate Campbell 42 The Company of Trees In appreciation of our ever-changing, deeply rooted, and highly communicative campus friends. LAURENCE KESTERSON SWARTHMORE’S STEWARDS ARE AT WORK IN THE WORLD AND GAINING GROUND GROWING TOGETHER FEATURES 46 2 9 FEATURES DIALOGUE COMMON GOOD The Shadow of Hunger Editor’s Column Swarthmore Stories personal reflection by Qian Julie Wang ’09 48 Letters Liberal Arts Lives Ciara Williams ’16 Ken Meter ’71 Sarah Bedolfe ’11 Community Voices Patrick Houston ’17 Studentwise Maxwell Finkelstein ’22 Books 53 CLASS NOTES Global Thinking Helen Fox ’94 From the Ground Up Buy local produce. Eat less meat. Reduce your carbon footprint. From seed power to the inner life of cows, Swarthmoreans discuss some of the environmental work to be done. Alumni News and Events Their Light Lives On Looking Back by Elizabeth Slocum 84 SPOKEN WORD ON THE COVER A keystone species, the air-breathing, song-singing humpback whale eyes us up. LAURENCE KESTERSON Lynne Steuerle Schofield ’99 HONORING A LEGACY: James Hormel ’55, H’09. Tribute, p.79 FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 1 dialogue ON OUR RADAR EDITOR’S COLUMN Define What Is Possible SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN Editor Kate Campbell Staff Writer Roy Greim ’14 Class Notes Editor Heidi Hormel Designer Phillip Stern ’84 Photographer Laurence Kesterson Administrative Coordinator Lauren McAloon Editor Emerita Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49 swarthmore.edu/bulletin Email: bulletin@swarthmore.edu Telephone: 610-328-8533 We welcome letters on articles 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. Read the full letters policy at swarthmore.edu/bulletin. Send address changes to records@swarthmore.edu The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN 0888-2126), of which this is volume CXIX, number I, is published in October, January, and May by Swarthmore College, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore, PA 19081-1390. Periodicals postage paid at Philadelphia, PA, and additional mailing offices. Permit No. 0530-620. Postmaster: Send address changes to Alumni Records, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore, PA 19081-1390. Printed with agri-based inks. Please recycle after reading. pr inted w i th FALL 2021 I was disappointed by Professor Mark Kuperberg’s interview regarding the economics of the pandemic (“Ripple Effect,” Spring 2021). He wrote that “this whole thing was really a medical problem, not an economics problem.” Like most natural disasters, the human suffering is caused by the human economy. It is not random that the first two COVID-19 hot spots were a nursing home in Washington and a meat-packing plant in South Dakota. These are two industries with the lowest-paid and least-benefited workers. If the choice is working while symptomatic versus missing a paycheck, going to work is required. Losing pay means losing food, missing rent, and possibly becoming homeless. The same dynamics made COVID hit communities of color much harder than white communities. This is the ugly face of capitalism. In a rational economy, a global health emergency means all hands on deck for health workers. Yet, due to the exigencies of profit, hospitals, having too few beds, were unprepared for the crisis and clinics actually laid off workers. When economists shirk their responsibility, they pave the way for future suffering in the next natural disaster. ­— ROBBIE LIBEN ’83, Missoula, Mont. WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE I am wondering if the implementation of this plan (“Roadmap to Zero Carbon,” Spring 2021) means that Swarthmore will give up its investments in fossil fuel companies. … On a related subject, is any consideration being given to reducing water use? I was at a conference in Ireland, at a boarding school, where in the shower one would press a button, and out would come a measured amount of water, at exactly the right temperature. The button could be pressed again, I don’t know how many times, but the arrangement was a valuable reminder that water is not an unlimited resource. — JUDITH LEEDS INSKEEP ’60, Gwynedd, Pa. ©2021 Swarthmore College. Printed in USA. e Swarthmore College Bulletin / I was delighted to find two items in the recent (Spring 2021) Bulletin. One was the feature on the Pterodactyl Hunt. Good to hear this zany tradition is alive and well. The main reason I decided to go to Swarthmore in 1987 was because I saw a poster advertising the Pterodactyl Hunt on a campus visit. I figured any college that hosted such a bizarre activity must be an interesting place to be. The Hunt’s tradition may have spread. I introduced it to a summer camp up in Maine one year. Who knows how many Pterodactyls are flying around the world now? Besides having yearly fun with the Hunt, once I arrived at Swarthmore, I was extremely thankful for the Student Activities Fund. Not many schools had this fee wrapped into tuition. By making the Student Activities Fund part of tuition, it opened up all campus concerts, movies, and other events to everyone for free. I’m extremely pleased to see the Textbook Affordability Program fund following the same tradition for textbooks and college supplies. Getting into Swarthmore is one thing. Being able to live, interact, and thrive on campus without social and financial barriers is absolutely essential. Bravo for instating TAP! — HEATHER RIGNEY SHUMAKER ’91, Traverse City, Mich. Sarah (’07), my wife, and I really enjoyed the texture on the front cover (Spring 2021). The digital editions are convenient, but that was an especially nice touch! ­— DILLON McGREW ’07, University Park, Md. Send letters and story ideas to bulletin@swarthmore.edu nd 2 COVID AND CAPITAL TEXTURED TREAT ly H-UV in DANIELA FERA Editor Senior Editor Ryan Dougherty ks RICHARD COLLINS KATE CAMPBELL Managing Editor Elizabeth Slocum e c o-fri WE ARE IN DEEP WATER and looking for answers. Yet in these most extraordinary days, Swarthmore alumni, faculty, and students continue in a fierce pursuit of solving problems and, just as importantly, a creative approach about what questions to ask. In this Bulletin issue, as the campus welcomes all students back after a prolonged absence due to Doliolids, a type of sea squirt that’s rarely studied, COVID-19, Swatties share go through a very complex life history in which they change body plans four times. A critical part of our own ways they approach the evolutionary story, we urgently need to know more work and care of planet about them as their environment is under pressure. Earth. A tremendous task. Through the collective crises of climate change, the continuing pandemic, humanitarian relief needs, global terrorism, and a blistering, hyperpoliticized culture war in the United States, Swarthmoreans continue to work through the ringing noise and define what is possible for an enlightened world. Two takeaways: Start small and listen closely. John Leary ’00 literally begins with seeds in his quest to expand the presence of trees, collaborating with communities in sub-Saharan Africa to cultivate forest gardens. “We need a great-big reset in our food systems,” Leary says. Bradley Davidson ’90 works at the cellular level, with his research on sea squirts and the possibility by of discovering how the evolutionary secrets these marine organisms hold might someday help to cure diseases, such as cancer. “Diversity is much richer and more fragile than we realize, and we have a mission to document this diversity before it is lost,” says Davidson, associate professor and chair of biology at Swarthmore. As a guide in the fight against environmental threats, Sarah Jaquette Ray ’98 is providing an existential toolkit for a generation of young people carrying the metaphorical weight of the world on their shoulders. Leading the way is Patrick Houston ’17, who makes an impassioned call for climate action in New York, urging others to follow and “blaze new paths to transformative solutions.” We share their stories and many more with the aim that they leave you as inspired — and hopeful — as they have us. Together we can reach the surface. Pterodactyl Sighting ALL TOGETHER NOW: Summer research was in full swing for students working in the lab with Daniela Fera, assistant professor of biochemistry. FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 3 “We ought to put down our hyperanalytical thinking caps and hit the streets with a cardboard sign, armed with the awareness that radical action is increasingly imperative for our collective survival,” says Patrick Houston ’17. COMMUNITY VOICES ALL HANDS ON DECK Radical climate action is imperative for our collective survival by Patrick Houston ’17 IN 2010, a Queens, N.Y., resident paid a mortgage on her house. Nearing retirement, her savings were meager. Her modest home would be the greatest asset she’d pass on to her then-14-year-old son. But in 2012, Hurricane Sandy destroyed it. The NYC Build it Back program stepped in and eventually constructed a new house on the same plot of land. Unfortunately, by the time her son is her age, it’s possible the neighborhood could be underwater. Sandy was just one in a barrage of recent record-breaking disasters related to climate change. Each of the past four decades has been hotter than the one that preceded it, and the seven hottest years in recorded history 4 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 occurred within 2014–2020. The climate emergency is merciless and rapidly advancing. It requires all hands to fight against the systems and institutions exacerbating it, and to work for the measures to mitigate it. As the climate and inequality campaigns associate at New York Communities for Change (NYCC), I play a role in engaging communities in this advocacy and direct action to advance solutions. When I graduated from Swarthmore, I had a respect for the activism that enabled the paradigmatic shifts of the civil rights era, but I didn’t fully appreciate its necessity today. Sure, grassroots activism was cool, I reasoned, but it was professionals in government agencies, consulting firms, and think tanks who made the big decisions. However, for all of the valuable climate-action work carried out by institutions, they’re fundamentally incapable of ushering in the scale, speed, and scope of change that the climate-science clock requires. Until, that is, the ground beneath them shifts. Since Sandy, as that Queens homeowner has fought to fend off preforeclosure and to secure additional income, she’s somehow also made time to fight alongside NYCC to advance climate action. Through rallies, lobby meetings, marches, calls to representatives, and electoral primaries, she’s had an outsized impact on climate action in New York. Singularly, her relatively simple steps might appear futile. But as part of strategic, collective actions, this 67-year-old, high school-educated, Black child-care provider is helping move mountains, both ideological and tangible. In the past five years, she has played an integral role in our victories, including rejection of permits for a proposed gas pipeline, city and state pension-funds divestment from fossil fuels, and passage of the landmark NYC law to cut pollution from the city’s biggest source of emissions, buildings. All grassroots climate campaigns aren’t created equal. But the analytical skills imbued in our College educations should help guide most Swarthmoreans into smart, strategic, coherent campaigns. Join an organization in your locale to support action at scale. This often requires striking fear in the hearts and minds of culpable decision-makers: those whose allegiance to quarterly earnings or fossil fuel contributions inhibit action on the most consequential challenge humanity has ever faced. The emergency grows more dire, and we must not leave it to the most marginalized and vulnerable to blaze the path to transformative solutions. STUDENTWISE: WHEN I COULDN’T GO HOME i20 club helped alleviate the isolation brought about by the pandemic by Maxwell Finkelstein ’22 T HROUGHOUT my three years as a Swattie, and especially in light of the global pandemic, no community has impacted my journey more than i20, Swarthmore’s international student club. I grew up in Singapore, and my first experience at Swarthmore was at International Student Orientation, way back in 2018. Entering that warm, welcoming, understanding environment created by other international Swatties set the perfect first impression of “I tried my best to emulate the warmth I felt when I was welcomed as a freshman,” Swarthmore. It made me feel like I says Maxwell Finkelstein ’22. belonged, that this was somewhere I wanted to be for the next four years. I made fast friends and stayed involved with the i20 not so loud that it impeded my daily activities, but it was community throughout freshman year. always there, a weight at the back of my mind. If my little The following summer, I volunteered to be an orientation sister had a rough day at school, I missed home more — I leader and was privileged to welcome the next incoming wanted to be there to support her, along with my parents. class of international Swatties. At the end of sophomore There was no way for i20 to fix that sense of isolation, but year, I was elected co-president of i20, just a few months we tried to alleviate it as much as possible. I worked with a after the COVID-19 lockdown began in the U.S. dedicated team of orientation leaders to organize a remote International students faced unique challenges International Orientation program for the Class of 2024, throughout the pandemic. Many of us were unable to travel and tried my best to emulate the warmth I felt when I was to campus and instead studied remotely from our home welcomed as a freshman. We held online events to bring countries, often at the expense of our sleep schedule. Others, together the i20 community worldwide, and we welcomed like me, have remained on campus, unable to return home the i20 freshmen who were able to come to campus with ice and see family. pops, tours, and weekly dinners. It’s rare that I actively miss my family during the semester While our i20 community has certainly suffered greatly — I call them at least once a week, and I have a great group due to COVID-19, it has also grown closer. Even though of friends who make Swarthmore a home. But during the I remain eager to return to Singapore when I can, i20 pandemic, especially after the first year, it became different. has provided a second home for me, and for many other Missing my family was a silent feeling of incompleteness, Swatties. LAURENCE KESTERSON ERIK McGREGOR dialogue FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 5 dialogue Submit your publication for consideration: books@swarthmore.edu HOT TYPE: New releases by Swarthmoreans F. Harlan Flint ’52 From There to Eternity: Alzheimer’s and Beyond Sunstone Press This is the story of the end-of-life journeys of two dissimilar but treasured people: Flint’s wife, Chris, and his friend Baudelio, the last of a long line of pioneers who found a home in the high country of northern New Mexico. The story has its final act for Chris and Baudelio at close to the same time but in far different ways: hers from the anguish of Alzheimer’s, his from a slow decline after a lifetime of hard work. Jeremy Mack ’59 Phantoms of the Hotel Meurice: A Guide to the Holocaust in Paris Tandem Lane Editions Though World War II occurred more than 70 years ago, mourning for the loss of national self-esteem in France is hardly essayed. Silence on the defeat, the collaboration, and the knowing participation of the French government in the extermination of 73,000 Jews living in the country is deafening in Paris. Mack examines this phenomenon and offers some ideas as to its origin and continuation. Steven Riskind ’65 Art | Commerce: Four Artisan Businesses Grow in an Old New Jersey Industrial City Steve Riskind Photography Over a period of eight years, Riskind photographed four small businesses in or near Paterson, N.J.: a specialty textile firm, a jewelry manufacturer, a pipe organ builder, and a stained glass studio. Accompanied by introductory essays based on interviews with the owners, Riskind’s images capture the intensity of skilled artisans engaging with the materials they use, caught in the process of creation. Margery Post Abbott ’67 and Carl Abbott ’66 Quakerism: The Basics Routledge In this primer, the Abbotts offer an accessible and engaging introduction to the history and diverse ideas associated with the Religious Society of Friends. With helpful features including suggested readings, timelines, a glossary, and a guide to Quakers in fiction, the book is an ideal starting point for students and scholars new to Quakerism, as well as those interested in deepening their understanding. Eleanor Morse ’68 Margreete’s Harbor St. Martin’s Press Margreete’s Harbor is the story of 10 years in the history of a family, a tale of small moments, intimate betrayals, arrivals, and disappearances that coincide with America during the late 1950s through the turbulent 1960s. Attuned to the seasons of nature, the internal dynamics of a family, and a nation torn by its contradictory ideals, this literary novel reveals the largest meanings in the smallest and most secret moments of life. Jeffrey Haydu ’75 Upsetting Food: Three Eras of Food Protest in the United States Temple University Press Battle lines have long been drawn over how food is produced, what food is made available and to whom, and how best to protect consumers from risky or unhealthy food. In Upsetting Food, Haydu resurrects the history of food reform and protest, showing how activists defined food problems, articulated solutions, and mobilized for change, while considering how each movement reflected the politics, inequalities, and gender relations of its time. Peter Cohan ’79 Goliath Strikes Back Apress Capturing the e-commerce edge in customer growth and retention has been a decades-long battle between online startups and traditional retailers. The two face different sets of challenges that are constantly evolving in our digital world. By looking at how they are facing off, Goliath Strikes Back aims to help executives gauge the landscape to create an effective strategy in the modern e-commerce realm. Diane Wilder ’83 Leap Thirty June Road Press Across 30 poems in this visceral debut collection, Wilder recasts midlife as a second coming of age: a time of new vulnerabilities and strengths, of breakdown and renewal, of constraint and release. In the process, she lands on sources of affirmation — in being a parent, in becoming comfortable with one’s body, in letting go, in claiming new kinds of agency. Pamela Haag ’88 Revise: The Scholar-Writer’s Essential Guide to Tweaking, Editing, and Perfecting Your Manuscript Yale University Press Writing and revision are two different skills. Many scholarwriters have learned something about how to write, but not all of them know how to revise their own writing, spot editorial issues, and transform a draft from passable to great. Drawing on before-and-after examples from more than a decade as a developmental editor of scholarly works, Haag tackles the most common challenges of scholarly writing, offering practical, user-friendly advice written with warmth, humor, sympathy, and flair. Jenna Tiitsman Supp-Montgomerie ’99 When the Medium Was the Mission: The Atlantic Telegraph and the Religious Origins of Network Culture NYU Press While the advent of a telegraph cable crossing the Atlantic Ocean was viewed much the way the internet is today, religious framing dominated the interpretation of the technology’s possibilities. With lively historical sources and an accessible engagement with critical theory, When the Medium Was the Mission tells the story of how connection was made into the fundamental promise of networks, illuminating the power of public Protestantism in the first network imaginaries. Erica Turner ’99 Suddenly Diverse: How School Districts Manage Race and Inequality University of Chicago Press This ethnographic account focuses on two school districts in the Midwest as they respond to rapidly changing demographics at their schools. While suggesting some ways forward, Suddenly Diverse shows that, without changes to managerial policies and practices and larger transformations to the whole system, even school leaders’ best efforts will continue to undermine the promise of educational equity and the realization of more robust public schools. Rhiannon Graybill ’06, ed. “Who Knows What We’d Make of It, If We Ever Got Our Hands on It?” The Bible and Margaret Atwood Gorgias Press In the nightstands of hotel rooms, kept under lock and key, in the poetry of a pre-apocalyptic environmental cult, and quoted by children, atheists, and murderers alike — the Bible is omnipresent in the work of Margaret Atwood. This volume, co-edited by Graybill and Peter Sabo, assembles cutting-edge literary and critical readings of Atwood and the Bible, employing a variety of theoretical approaches to explore both the ancient and modern corpus of texts in dialogue with each other. Krys Malcolm Belc ’09 The Natural Mother of the Child: A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood Counterpoint For Belc, a nonbinary, transmasculine parent, giving birth to his son Samson clarified his gender identity. And yet, when his partner, Anna ’07, adopted Samson, the legal documents listed Belc as “the natural mother of the child.” In this memoir, Belc moves past societal expectations to take control of his own narrative, with prose that delights in the intimate dailiness of family life and explores how much we can ever really know when we enter into parenting. Molly Fennig ’20 Starvation Immortal Works Wes McCoy is not the favorite child. He does not have a wrestling scholarship to Stanford, nor does he live up to the family legacy as an athlete, unlike his brother, Jason. But when Jason dies in a car accident, Wes turns to food for a control over his life he didn’t have before. Wes must confront his eating disorder as he learns more about himself and the mystery surrounding Jason’s accident, before he loses his life and those closest to him. The Bulletin receives numerous submissions of new publications from the talented Swarthmore community and can feature only a fraction of those submissions here. Please note that work represented in Hot Type does not necessarily reflect the views of the College. 6 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 7 common good dialogue SHARING SUCCESS AND STORIES OF SWARTHMORE COURTESY OF HELEN FOX ’94 BELOW THE SURFACE An in-depth understanding of ocean life by Sherry L. Howard HELEN FOX ’94 was supposed to be on a research boat on the surface off the coast of Key Largo, Fla. But instead, she found herself with five other people in a capsule a tad larger than a school bus anchored to the sea floor. In 2001, her adviser from the University of California, Berkeley, was to be the one near the bottom of the sea studying the habitat of the stomatopod, or mantis shrimp. But he couldn’t get medical clearance for the saturation dive. Although Fox’s interest was in coral reef conservation, she couldn’t say no to the amazing opportunity. Fox felt conflicted about taking his spot, but grateful. “I would never have gotten to go otherwise,” she says. Today, Fox is the conservation science director at the Coral Reef Alliance, headquartered in Oakland, Calif. For nearly 20 years, she has worked to ensure that coral reef conservation programs are based on scientific evidence and has designed research projects to understand the social and ecological impact of marineprotected areas. “Coral reefs are so beautiful — that’s the biodiversity,” says Fox. “The corals themselves form Helen Fox ’94 majored in biology and learned about the natural and human threats to coral reefs. “The corals themselves form the ecological, structural, and biological foundation for the whole ecosystem,” she says. the ecological and structural and biological foundation for the whole rest of this ecosystem. There’s fish swimming in and among them. There’s all kinds of invertebrates, little creepy crawlies hiding in the holes.” Global warming is a real threat to coral reefs, she says, because it has led to bleaching. Corals secrete calcium carbonate, creating a limestone-like skeleton whose surface is actually the live animal. Algae live inside the corals in a symbiotic relationship and give them their color. When the water heats up, the algae move out, leaving the corals white and stressed but still alive. If the algae don’t return, the corals eventually die. “A lot of the Great Barrier Reef has died,” Fox says, “because of some of that major bleaching.” The Coral Reef Alliance developed a theoretical model to show the impact of warming on the reefs 300 years in the future and how to save them today. Fox first became enamored with coral reefs in Australia the year after her high school graduation. Her HELEN FOX ’94 Marine Biologist “Climate change is a very big threat and very pervasive.” 8 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 family lived near the University of Queensland, and her mother suggested that she take a course on coral reefs. Fox did and learned “what an amazing ecosystem they are.” Her appreciation was solidified when she returned as a Fulbright Scholar soon after graduating from Swarthmore. Fox’s work as a coral reef conservationist no longer calls for saturation diving ­— so named because the body gets saturated with nitrogen at that depth and decompression is needed. But she fondly remembers that formative experience aboard the research vessel Aquarius decades ago. On that expedition, Fox spent about nine days 45 feet below the surface. She and a team member donned double scuba tanks for daily dives guided by a line attached to the capsule. They mapped the stomatopods’ hangouts with plastic paper and pencil tied to a string. Though the dive was a side project for Fox, who was doing her Ph.D. work on coral reefs damaged by dynamite fishing off Indonesia, its importance still resonates today. “In many developing countries’ remote coastal communities and villages, coral reefs provide the sources of food and income and shoreline protection,” she says. “They’re a very important ecosystem for people.” ON THE WEB POINT OF PRIDE Tiffany Thompson, associate director of gender and sexuality initiatives, discusses the history of LGBTQ+ activism at Swarthmore. + ADVOCATE bit.ly/SwatLGBTQ GOING GREEN Ten students will tackle sustainability challenges through the President’s Sustainability Research Fellowship. + IMPLEMENT bit.ly/SwatPSRF IN FULL BLOOM A rare “corpse flower” bloomed on campus this spring, giving off its characteristically rancid smell. + SEE IT bit.ly/SwatFlower GLOBALLY MINDED Ryan Arazi ’21 and Madison Snyder ’21 were awarded Fulbright grants to continue their studies abroad. + TAKE OFF bit.ly/FulbrightSwat LAURENCE KESTERSON GLOBAL THINKING POWER LIFT: A rite of passage was renewed as students returned to campus for Move-In Day and Orientation in August. WELCOME BACK! Students Return to Campus by Ryan Dougherty AT LAST: The College community celebrated a return to (mostly) normal late this summer, beginning with International Student Orientation. With the classrooms and athletic fields and performing arts spaces reopening, excitement was high. Those who had been away for upward of 18 months had much to take in, from the progress on the Dining and Community Commons project to the restoration of Kyle House to an increasingly electric Singer Hall. While vigilance for COVID-19 remained high, the College regained its rhythm. FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 9 common good COUNTING SLEEP: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU MIX A FINANCIAL ENTREPRENEUR AND AN INSOMNIAC? 10 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 ENERGY MOVEMENT Following the announcement of the College’s ambitious energy plan this spring, Rosamund Stone Zander ’64 made a $5 million gift to help fund the geo-exchange plant that will be housed in the basement of the forthcoming Dining and Community Commons. In addition to the gift, Zander will also support a challenge: If the College community raises $1.5 million for the geo-exchange plant by June 30, 2022, she will match the sum to fully fund the $8 million project. “What we have done to our environment since the Industrial Revolution stands out as the most critical issue of our time,” says Zander, a family therapist and executive coach who also serves on the board of Climate Reality, a nonprofit group headed by former Vice President Al Gore. “I am thrilled to support this amazing project, having experienced that Swarthmore’s commitment to reducing carbon in the air, and sustainability overall, runs very deep indeed.” Learn more: bit.ly/GeoExchangeDCC We Are Humans HAYDIL HENRIQUEZ ’14, an arts educator and cultural worker from the Bronx, has been named the first-ever Bronx Poet Laureate. During her two-year term, Henriquez will promote the inclusion of and passion for poetry across the NYC borough, looking to inspire a new generation of writers and poets, and to educate Bronx residents about the history of poetry. “It’s something so basic, but we often forget we’re humans,” Henriquez told the Bulletin in 2017. “In order for us to fill voids within us, we need to speak, we need to feel community, we need to share our stories.” Henriquez is the NYC Scholastic Art & Writing Awards manager at the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers. “Regular, powerful citizens can be involved in the process and have an impact,” said Eric Holder, the 82nd U.S. attorney general. Democracy and Civil Rights We should never underestimate the power we have by Kate Campbell E RIC HOLDER, the 82nd U.S. attorney general, spoke to more than 500 College community members as part of the inaugural event in a virtual series sponsored by the President’s Fund for Racial Justice and the Social Responsibility Committee of the Board of Managers. Holder, the first African American in that role (he served from February 2009 to April 2015), discussed a wide range of topics, including the state of American democracy, civil rights, and voting rights. “Eric Holder was a natural choice to kick off this series on the challenges of citizenship in a multiracial democracy,” said James Snipes ’75, chair of the Social Responsibility Committee of the Board of Managers. “Throughout his career, as a lawyer, judge, and attorney general, he has shown an extraordinary commitment to civil rights, and voting rights in particular. He set the bar high for the programs that will follow.” The remote event featured a conversation with Holder and Professor of History Allison Dorsey, with questions moderated by Tristan Alston ’22, Sonia Linares ’22, and Daniel Torres Balauro ’23, and an introduction from President Valerie Smith. Holder acknowledged the psychological toll that the events of 2020 and the historic realities of race in America have taken on Black citizens. Despite the past year’s events relating to police abuses, Holder said he remains optimistic that the energy behind the growing social-justice movements will continue to inspire change for the better. Holder urged audience members to increase their engagement in their communities and in government organizations. “Regular, powerful citizens can be involved in the process and have an impact,” said Holder. “We should never underestimate the power we have and young people especially. … The largest voting bloc in this country is young people.” Gathering together as citizens to demand change and participating in the process is crucial, he said. “There’s no question that 2020 was a moment,” Holder said. “But the question really is going to be, does the moment lead to a movement.” + MORE: bit.ly/HolderSwat COURTESY OF THE HAITI CLINIC The College community has been challenged to raise $1.5 million for the Dining and Community Commons. COURTESY OF ERIC HOLDER “Jason, stop. Go to sleep!” It was 4 a.m. Once again, Jason Jin ’20 was clacking away on his keyboard, disturbing his roommate’s sleep. “Jason had a lot of sleep issues,” says Josh Collin ’20. “And I got a front-row seat.” Like many Swarthmoreans, Jin was a self-described overachiever. Stress turned into insomnia. Jin struggled with sleep each night, only to fly awake at 6 a.m. to find Collin doing pushups. “He was a lark with an elaborate morning routine,” Jin says ruefully. Yet the Swarthmore roommates proved a good match. Jin grew fascinated with wearable health-tracking devices that can analyze sleep data, becoming principal investigator on a sleep study in Assistant Professor Maggie Delano’s engineering lab. Meanwhile, Collin founded SWIFT — Savings, Wealth, Investment, Finance, and Trade — a campus organization promoting financial literacy. After seeing Jin’s insomnia first-hand, Collin thought, “Someone has to solve this problem.” Collin’s entrepreneurial instincts and Jin’s fascination with sleep devices combined. They launched Bioloop, a sleep-coaching company, Jason Jin ’20 from their dorm room, receiving mentoring and early funding from Swarthmore’s Center for Innovation and Leadership. Bioloop interprets data from devices like the Apple Watch, Fitbit, and Oura Ring. Those devices are cool, says Collin, but too much data can be overwhelming. The pair’s idea was to add a human element to all the data — a sort of personal sleep-trainer — Josh Collin ’20 to help people stop bad habits (eating before bed, too much blue light from screens) and develop and maintain good ones (meditation, healthy wind-down routines). “Sleep is something we brush aside,” says Collin. “But we’re hurting our own longevity. Sleep is this missing pillar of health.” As for the former roommates? They’re currently housemates in San Francisco, sharing a house with 12 other founders and seven newly hatched companies. And they’re both sleeping a healthy 7–8 hours a night. — HEATHER RIGNEY SHUMAKER ’91 VOICES WE TURN TO On the Ground in Haiti Neil Heskel ’74 and Kevin Browngoehl ’78 established the Haiti Clinic in 2007 and were on the ground to help when the 2010 earthquake devastated the island nation. The two doctors again coordinated relief efforts in 2021 when a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck the Tiburon Peninsula in Haiti on Aug. 14. “The death toll is over 2,100, with more than 13,000 injured and an unknown number of people missing,” says Heskel (pictured above with a young patient and his mother). “Hurricane Grace swept over Haiti, hampering the complicated search-and-rescue mission. The Haiti Clinic provided medical care and supplies in several of the hardest-hit areas.” Hiring Haitian physicians, nurses, and other health care workers to help with their efforts also helps local families have a source of income. “The permanent clinic in Cité Soleil is open and seeing patients daily while offering telemedicine visits for those who cannot safely travel,” says Heskel. “The Haiti Clinic’s remote team is collaborating with other organizations in efforts to care for as many sick and injured as possible.” Water and food are desperately needed, Heskel adds: “Our team had to drive over two hours — each way — to fill water buckets. Our volunteers in the U.S. are assembling and shipping supplies.” FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 11 common good CAMPUSQUICKLY The College celebrated the retirement of 11 esteemed faculty members, who combined for more than 370 years of service to Swarthmore. Though they will be missed on campus, each leaves behind a legacy, fostered through their notable scholarship, devoted mentorship, and lasting commitment to the liberal arts. The 2020–21 retirees are: Nathalie Anderson, English Literature; Caroline Burkhard, Chemistry and Biochemistry; Joy Charlton, Sociology; Arthur McGarity, Engineering; Braulio Muñoz, Sociology; Marjorie Murphy, History; Carol Nackenoff, Political Science; Helen Plotkin, Classics; Micheline Rice-Maximin, French and Francophone Studies; Allen Schneider, Psychology; and Faruq Siddiqui, Engineering. Strengthening Indigenous Studies MORE: bit.ly/SwatRetirees2021 BLOOMING IMPRESSIVE: This summer, the Chester Children’s Chorus returned to camp on campus. Highlights included a photography class with Jeremy Polk of the College’s Media Center. This beautiful image of a bee resting on a flower was taken by Makayla Davis, 13, an eighth grader who sings in the chorus’s Festival Choir. MAKAYLA DAVIS James Fenelon a scholar of urban inequality, Native Nations, race and racism, and social movements, joined Swarthmore this fall as the 2021–22 Lang Visiting Professor for Social Change. Fenelon, who is Lakota/ Dakota from Standing Rock (Nation), is a professor of sociology at California State University, San Bernardino, and founder and director of its Center for Indigenous Peoples Studies. He is hosted by Swarthmore’s Department of Sociology & Anthropology and will teach one course per semester, the first being Indigenous Peoples and Globalization. Fenelon will also work alongside Assistant Professor Adrienne Benally, an incoming colleague in Environmental Studies specializing in Indigenous humanities, and with Davina Two Bears, a postdoctoral fellow in Sociology & Anthropology, to strengthen Swarthmore’s learning and research opportunities in Indigenous studies, and to forge meaningful connections and partnerships with Native Nations. Benally’s appointment is Swarthmore’s first tenuretrack position fully dedicated to Environmental Studies. + Leading the Way Swarthmore recently welcomed four new members to the President’s Staff: • Elizabeth Boluch Wood, vice president for advancement, brings to Swarthmore 35 years’ experience in higher education and nonprofit fundraising, including nearly two decades at Princeton University. • Brad Koch, the Marion Ware Director of Athletics, Physical Education, and Recreation, joins the College from Cabrini University, where he had spent nine years as athletic director. • Beth Glassman, vice president for human resources, brings more than 25 years of experience as an attorney and chief human resources officer, including five years at Widener University. • Erin Brownlee Dell, chief of staff and secretary of the College, comes to Swarthmore from Guilford College, where she had served in multiple roles during her 18-year tenure, including as an associate academic dean. CAPPING OFF AN UNUSUAL ACADEMIC YEAR by Ryan Dougherty Swarthmore’s 194th Commencement ceremony on June 6 was held virtually, as a result of COVID-19. But the online tribute followed a celebration at Swarthmore’s Mertz Field on May 30, during which the seniors shared their achievements with family and friends. The events represented the culmination of four years of exploration and growth for seniors, spirited instruction and collaboration with the faculty, and multifaceted support of staff members from across campus. Reflecting on one of the most unusual academic years in College history, let’s examine these celebrations of the Class of 2021 by the numbers. LAURENCE KESTERSON Farewell to 11 Retiring Faculty Members FOREVER BE PROUD: “You are venturing into a world of extraordinary uncertainty, but also of great promise and infinite possibility,” President Valerie Smith said in her Commencement address. “You will leave here and form a union with purpose. And we will forever be proud to call you graduates of Swarthmore College.” 1,150: Approximate number of chairs (color-coded for faculty, students, and guests) and program cards at the in-person celebration. 800: Approximate number of ponchos distributed during the rainy event. 342: Graduating seniors, each of whom received a package containing a diploma, a T-shirt, an alumni decal, and a congratulations packet from the Swarthmore Libraries. 320: Approximate number of students who elbow-bumped President Valerie Smith upon crossing the stage at the in-person celebration. 292: Seniors who submitted photos for the Commencement video. 65: International and permanent resident students from 30 countries. 66: Students who were first in their family to graduate from college. 61: Students receiving honors. 60: Students with the most popular major, economics — one more than computer science. 43: States represented by students, in addition to Washington, D.C. 27: Students with at least one parent who is an alum. 1: Playing of Semisonic’s “Closing Time,” to conclude the campus celebration (which had its own Spotify playlist). A Point of Honor President Valerie Smith awarded 2021 honorary degrees to three distinguished recipients: Elizabeth Anderson ’81, a philosopher who examines how evolving concepts of freedom and equality are experienced in our daily lives. (bit.ly/EAnderson81) Dr. Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary of health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the first openly transgender federal official to receive Senate confirmation. (bit.ly/RLevineSwat) Dawn Porter ’88, an award-winning filmmaker and the co-founder of Trilogy Films, a production company that specializes in social-justice documentaries and independent feature films. (bit.ly/DawnPorter88) + 12 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 FULL COMMENCEMENT COVERAGE: bit.ly/SwatGrad2021 FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 13 common good A FEW NEW FACES JOIN THE BOARD OF MANAGERS CREATIVE BONDS The Board of Managers welcomes five new members: auren Glant ’83, L a litigator who taught at New York University Law School, Pace University School of Law, and Brooklyn Law School, and now consults with nonprofits. dgar Lee ’98, E a private investor with more than 20 years of finance and alternativeinvesting experience; he served as a portfolio manager at Oaktree Capital Management from 2007 to 2020. Asahi Pompey ’94, global head of corporate engagement at Goldman Sachs and president of the Goldman Sachs Foundation. Brian Wong ’96, founder and chairman of RADII Media and former vice president of Alibaba Group. Winston Zee P’07, a transnational business lawyer who is a member of the faculty of Shanghai Jiao Tong University KoGuan Law School. + 14 MORE: bit.ly/SwatBOM Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 Alumni, families, and friends were unable to gather in person during the 2020–21 academic year, but nearly 4,000 community members attended 141 individual virtual events hosted by the Advancement Office. Swarthmore celebrated its first virtual reunion with trivia nights, interactive workshops, class happy hours, and musical performances, thanks to the efforts of dedicated volunteers. One workshop focused on creating handmade volvelles, like this piece (left) created by Jen Yeoh Schneller ’91. “What great fun that class was!” Schneller says. A special series of SwatTalks, sponsored by the President’s Fund for Racial Justice, focused on racial identity, representation, access to resources, and the structural changes and solutions necessary to moving forward. The Alumni & Parent Engagement Office is planning creative ways to bring as many alumni together as possible for Alumni Weekend 2022. The latest information about upcoming events — whether in person, hybrid, or virtual — is available at swarthmore.edu/alumni. Check it out: Friends Historical Library, circa February 1968. HAPPY 150TH, FHL! The Friends Historical Library is 150 years young this year! The Anson Lapham Repository (as it was then known, named for its initial donor) opened its doors in 1871. Activist tendencies within the Religious Society of Friends make FHL an extraordinary resource not just for the study of Quakerism but also for abolitionism, women’s rights, Native American history, and more. With more than 50,000 books and approximately 10,000 linear feet of manuscripts and archives, FHL functions not solely as an important educational resource for the Swarthmore College community but also as an international research facility. FHL launched its 150th anniversary on World Quaker Day, Oct. 3. — JORDAN LANDES, Curator of Friends Historical Library The Life of a Teacher-Scholar SWARTHMORE AND THE JOHAN SKYTTE PRIZE THREE CONSECUTIVE WINNERS of the Johan Skytte Prize — the equivalent of the Nobel in political science — are friends who had been classmates as undergraduates. David Laitin ’67, Peter Katzenstein ’67, and Bryn Mawr’s Margaret Levi recently discussed their connection in a podcast at the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford (bit.ly/SwatSkytte) in which they reflected on the value of their Swarthmore education and how it shaped the course of their careers. Laitin, a Stanford professor and Immigration Policy Lab co-director, was named this year’s winner. He followed Katzenstein (2020), his Swarthmore roommate, and their friend Levi (2019), Laitin’s colleague in Stanford’s Department of Political Science. The three became friends when they studied political theory in parallel Swarthmore seminars in 1966 and reflected on politics and political science in postseminar suppers. Robert Keohane, who taught at Swarthmore while the trio were students, received the Skytte Prize in 2005, and was followed in 2006 by Robert Putnam ’63, H’90, the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor Emeritus of Public Policy at Harvard University. ROBERT F. PASTERNACK, the Edmund Allen Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry, died June 5 at age 84. With his passing, Swarthmore has lost one of its most respected and influential scholars, who inspired students and colleagues alike. Known as one of the world’s leading bioinorganic chemists, Pasternack joined Swarthmore in 1982 from Ithaca College. Pasternack also frequently collaborated with Peter Collings, the Morris L. Clothier Professor Emeritus of Physics. A conversation about a possible overlap in their research ultimately led to the now widely used technique of resonance light scattering, and it changed the trajectory of their work for years to come. “Bob loved the life of the teacher-scholar, and saw no separation between the two,” Collings says. “In the research laboratory, he mentored and instructed students to accomplishments they never envisioned for themselves. In the classroom, he utilized examples from research to illustrate and explore course content. Bob was both proper and kind, serious and friendly — a wonderful class act.” + DATA & DEMOCRACY Sorelle Friedler ’04 has been named the assistant director for data and democracy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Friedler, who graduated with a degree in computer science and is an associate professor of computer science at Haverford College, focuses her work on the fairness and interpretability of machine-learning algorithms, with applications from criminal justice to materials discovery. She will be the first person in White House history with a job title focused specifically on data and democracy. MORE: bit.ly/BPasternack FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 15 common good She Led by Example during difficult discussions among faculty colleagues, often deploying her wry humor to break the tension. In 2001, she became the College’s sixth provost. In her 10-year tenure, the longest of any to hold the position, Film and Media Studies expanded and Islamic Studies was established. In recognition of Hungerford’s dedicated service as provost and for her outstanding contributions to Swarthmore’s educational program, Eugene Lang ’38, H’81 established a fund for faculty THIS SPRING, President in her honor. The fund allows Valerie Smith shared the the provost to make grants to sad news that Constance individual faculty members to Cain Hungerford, the Mari S. support their professional and Connie Hungerford served as interim president Michener Professor Emerita scholarly efforts. for the 2014–15 academic year. Never one to seek the of Art History and Provost In a moment of College spotlight, she was admired and respected by all. Emerita, died May 12 after transition, Hungerford took on suffering a stroke. She was her most significant College role: 73. With her passing, Swarthmore lost one of its most interim president for the 2014–15 academic year. distinguished, influential, and beloved figures and one “Connie is best known for her thoughtful, highly who served the College confidently as provost and interim collaborative leadership style, which will serve us very well president. in this transitional year,” then-Board of Managers Chair “Connie took her training and talents as an art historian Gil Kemp ’72 said in announcing her appointment. “I know and translated these gifts for detail, visuality, and context, you will find her to be a steady, guiding, and imaginative cultivating the ability to see uniquely issues that faced influence.” Indeed, in reflecting on her long service, Kemp the faculty and the College,” says Provost and Dean of the says: “Connie’s intelligence, scholarship, caring, and vision Faculty Sarah Willie-LeBreton. touched in many positive ways the lives of all members of Hungerford joined Swarthmore’s Art Department the College community.” faculty in 1975 as an instructor to teach classes in 19th- and Hungerford met her husband, Hans Oberdiek, at 20th-century art, American art, Picasso, modernism, and the Swarthmore; an emeritus philosophy professor, he retired in history of photography, which was well-timed to coincide 2014. with the College’s first studio arts photography course Hungerford was self-effacing and never one to seek the in 1977. Within two years, and in her first as an assistant spotlight, so on the occasion of her retirement, the Art and professor, she also served as acting department chair while Art History Department planned the only event that ensured still teaching a five-course load that included survey classes her attendance: the re-dedication of the Hicks Murals and honors seminars. She would chair the department again in their new home in the Old Tarble Drawing Studio — for six years in the 1980s and from 2017 to 2019. something for which she had long advocated. “She always taught and led by example: imparting wisdom, “[Hungerford’s] tenure at Swarthmore was extraordinary embodying generosity, and modeling discernment,” says List not just for her longevity as a scholar, administrator, and Gallery Director Andrea Packard ’85, a former student. mentor to generations of students and colleagues alike, or Hungerford was the author of Ernest Meissonier: the myriad ways she served the institution,” President Smith Master in His Genre (Cambridge University Press, 1999) in says. “It was remarkable also because of the way she served addition to numerous articles and chapters on the French — with grace, humility, a deep reverence for the College’s painter. She curated a 1993 retrospective of his work for the mission, and genuine care for the individuals who comprise Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, France, and was a longtime our community. I know I am not alone in finding it difficult consultant on Meissonier for Sotheby’s and Christie’s. to imagine Swarthmore without her.” Hungerford was known for her equanimity, especially + MORE: bit.ly/CHungerford MOUNTAIN MOVER CIARA WILLIAMS ’16 Environmental Activist 16 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 LAURENCE KESTERSON LAURENCE KESTERSON Swarthmore mourns the loss of art historian and College leader Connie Hungerford “It’s building awareness of the whole complex system in which waste operates,” says Ciara Williams ’16, co-executive director at PLAN, the Post-Landfill Action Network. UNTANGLING THE WEB Taking an intersectional approach to waste and environmental justice by Ryan Dougherty CIARA WILLIAMS ’16 always felt connected to nature and the environment. But when she began studying the theories of the Principles of Environmental Justice in her late teens, that holistic view deepened. “It blew my mind,” Williams says of the document born out of the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991. “It showed me that environmental justice is really more of a lens that forces us to challenge the distinction between humans and the environment and think about how the health of the environment reflects the health of the people, and vice versa.” That informs Williams’s efforts as co-executive director of PLAN, the Post-Landfill Action Network, which comprises a network of 700 colleges across the U.S. as well as dozens of partners active in local, national, and policy-based movements. Started by college students in 2013 as an extension of the zero-waste movement, PLAN helps students to look beyond the conventional approach to zero waste and also offers organizing and leadership training. Key efforts include getting people to pay attention to not only the unpleasant sights, smells, and health dangers of landfills or incinerators, but also their tangled web of problems: from trash trucks roaming residential neighborhoods unnecessarily to public-education funding cuts caused by depressed property values. “It’s building awareness of the whole complex system in which waste operates,” she says. Williams’s environmental activism started in high school, organizing against the incinerator in her hometown of Chester, Pa. At the time, budget cuts to public education caused her school to slash courses. “The principles of environmental justice offered an approach to understand how those budget cuts were not an isolated event, but rather an ongoing pattern of disinvestment and environmental racism,” she says. “I started thinking in terms of selfdetermination — the people’s ability to shape the environment around them.” Williams previously worked for the nonprofit Mural Arts Philadelphia, supporting projects aimed to help redefine public space, and in the City of Philadelphia’s Office of Sustainability. There, she learned to effect change within the constraints of institutions. At Swarthmore, she helped raise the environmental literacy of Chester through a Lang Opportunity Scholarship, and reframe racial and juvenile justice as a volunteer with Chester Youth Courts. For her thesis project, Williams explored how education can be leveraged to spur environmental justice and civic particaption for students. “My Swarthmore education developed the ways I’m able to talk about environmental justice,” she says, “to see it as not just a set of principles, but something that’s living with and influenced by all of my experiences.” FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 17 common good COMMUNITY BUILDER FEEDING HOPE SARAH BEDOLFE ’11 Marine Scientist A sustainable-food pioneer makes changes built on trust 18 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 COURTESY OF OCEANA As Ken Meter ’71 surveys the landscape of sustainable-food movements, he is thrilled to see an emerging generation of young people forging bold initiatives. “They’re launching farms among marginalized communities so people can feed themselves and build support networks,” he says. “It’s gratifying to see that energy crystallize after so many years of laying the groundwork.” Meter hopes his new book, Building Community Food Webs (Island Press, 2021), will advance their efforts. In it, he shows how industrial, commoditycentered food systems drained wealth from communities, and he “highlights some of the most innovative projects I’ve worked with.” Soon after graduating from Swarthmore, Meter emerged as an early, and often ignored, voice calling for community food systems in both rural and inner-city settings. Now he serves as president of Crossroads Resource Center, a nonprofit that partners with communities to bolster their selfdetermination. In that role, he has developed economic analyses for local food networks in 41 states, two Canadian provinces, and four tribal nations. The path has been both prodigious and arduous. “The most effective work emerges through the heavy process of building trust: coming together to heal some of the wounds and inequities we suffer from,” Meter says. His focus has been documenting the DODD DEMAS by Ryan Dougherty “It’s very easy when you work in community settings to feel marginalized,” says Ken Meter ’71, author of Building Community Food Webs. extraction of wealth from communities and working with community groups to reverse it. Even during the tragedy of the global pandemic, Meter sees hope. “People experienced a tremendous change in mindset when they couldn’t buy flour and weren’t sure if farmworkers or meat cutters were healthy,” he says. “I’m hopeful that people realize the donations they gave to alleviate this crisis can be applied to fashioning food systems that work for everyone over the long term.” Meter credits his time at Swarthmore and engagement in Chester, Pa., for advancing his analytical skills and catalyzing his commitment to low-income communities. After Swarthmore, he moved into a marginalized neighborhood of Minneapolis and helped launch locally owned businesses. He then co-founded a magazine to foster dialogue among community groups. That led to reporting, which introduced Meter to farmers, bankers, and business leaders struggling to establish independent operations amid this extractive economy. It also helped him to reflect on his family’s background with public service and farming: “My father was born on a Nebraska farm to a family that had farmed for generations.” “Learning more about where my people came from posed new challenges as I tried to define how I could make a difference,” he says. “I’ve found a more impassioned voice and, hopefully, a more effective life by looking internally and expressing my own heritage.” “When we protect habitat, that almost always has to do with making sure there are areas where fish can regenerate their population without interference of harmful fishing practices,” says Sarah Bedolfe ’11, advocating for legislation to reduce plastic pollution. CURRENT SEEKER SEA CHANGE Helping to find and fix problems in marine habitats by Sherry L. Howard KEN METER ’71 Fair Food Pioneer SARAH BEDOLFE ’11 grew up on the beach near her hometown of Dana Point, Calif. As a student, she volunteered at a local ocean institute, dived in the waters off Australia, and even came across the small and brilliantly colored nudibranch marine slug on the ocean floor. “The ocean is a beautiful, amazing place, and I reconnect with it whenever possible,” she says. “It’s definitely a place where I feel happy and at home.” Now a marine scientist at the nonprofit Oceana, Bedolfe wants the ocean to retain its appeal as a place for recreation and aweinspiring creatures — and as a source of livelihood. Oceana has offices around the world and coordinates with conservation groups globally to find ways to sustain the oceans and implement national policies to protect them. Bedolfe is part of the organization’s science and strategy team at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. The team’s goal is to provide scientific research for conservation projects in 10 countries. Their efforts include evaluating potential new projects based on threats to marine biology, government systems, and the feasibility of solving their problems. “What I love about my job is that I get to collaborate with my colleagues around the world and connect them with one another and provide resources,” she says. Oceana’s campaigns include fisheries management, habitat protection, and anti-plastics pollution, with a primary aim of ensuring that oceans are managed sustainably, Bedolfe says. “The focus of our fisheries-management campaigns is to make sure those fisheries can endure and continue to feed the people who need and rely on that food source,” she says. Bedolfe’s writing and scientific skills were nurtured at Swarthmore, where she graduated with a biology degree. She earned a master’s in marine biology from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, where she was born. Bedolfe says Swarthmore Professor of Biology Rachel Merz, now retired, helped strengthen her understanding of the scientific method. “Several of [her] courses involved designing and carrying out our own experiments and writing our results in a paper,” she says. “That prepared me for the field work and lab work I had to do in grad school. “The skills are still important to me — even if I’m bound to a desk now.” FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 19 CREATING A NEW CLIMATE Moving past pessimism and paralysis, a student-led workshop series encourages participants to ‘critically engage with the climate crisis in its many dimensions’ G ROWING UP in rural Kansas, Martin Tomlinson ’23 experienced the effects of the climate crisis firsthand. “I saw my neighbors’ crops failing and the water in the creek behind my house beginning to dry out,” says Tomlinson, a double major in peace & conflict studies and religion with a minor in environmental studies. “As my town became more and more abandoned, I began to realize that this was the death of a way of life and of a community.” Such evidence of the existential threat posed by the climate crisis continues: This summer alone, the 20 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 United States experienced heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods that claimed hundreds of lives. A recent report authored by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that global climate change is accelerating due to insufficient reduction of humancaused greenhouse gas emissions. Described by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres as a “code red for humanity,” the report suggests that limiting global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, a tipping point for increased risk of irreversible climate disaster, is no longer possible and that further warming can only be avoided by rapid and large-scale reductions of all greenhouse gases. Faced with the enormity of the crisis, many students, including Tomlinson, feel overwhelmed and paralyzed by the seeming inevitability that things will only get worse. Social isolation caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has also done little to alleviate the fear that the time for decisive, collective action has passed. In this reality, it is critical to have a space for discussing the climate crisis and formulating action at both the individual and community level. At Swarthmore, a student-led workshop series, Climate Essentials, aims to fill this role by encouraging participants to “critically engage with the climate crisis in its many dimensions.” FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin BETH WALROND by Roy Greim ’14 21 AN EXISTENTIAL TOOLKIT FOR CLIMATE ANXIETY by Elizabeth Slocum 22 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 the all-encompassing nature of the climate crisis and intersectionality within. “It’s important to continually emphasize the interconnectedness of environmental, social, and racial justice,” says Interim Director of Sustainability Elizabeth Drake, one of the project’s mentors. “If you care ATZIRI MARQUEZ ‘22 covered topics such as “Indigenous Environmental Justice,” “Climate Science and Policy,” and “Planning for the Future,” and featured such speakers as Indigenous activist Enei Begaye Peter of the Diné and Tohono O’odham nations. The broad range of topics was designed to help participants understand NINA TIPTON The series of lectures and virtual meetings works to draw participants into community and build on an awareness that actions can be taken to combat climate anxiety. Climate Essentials began in 2020 as a five-session pilot program under the direction of Atticus Maloney ’22 and Declan Murphy ’21, students in the President’s Sustainability Research Fellowship (PSRF) who developed a syllabus with guest speakers and recommended readings related to the climate crisis. “​​Many of us at Swarthmore are grappling with the same concerns and questions about the climate crisis,” says Murphy. “We wanted to create opportunities for community members to talk about these things, hear other thoughts, and then work to translate conversations into action.” This year, Tomlinson and fellow PSRF participant Maya Tipton ’23 took the reins of the now-virtual Climate Essentials course with help from Murphy and Terrence Xiao ’20, a sustainability and engaged scholarship fellow in the Office of Sustainability. Although the move to Zoom initially presented challenges, the virtual format allowed for double the number of participants of the pilot program; this year’s series had more than 100 registrants, consisting of students, staff, faculty, community members, and alumni. “The virtual environment actually helped create a strong sense of community because it made the course accessible to people who normally wouldn’t be able to join,” says Tomlinson. “We had alumni from all over the country calling in and students in different parts of the world participating as well.” Over six sessions, the workshop LAURENCE KESTERSON of California Press, 2020). Pulling from psychology, sociology, and even Ray’s Swarthmore degree in religious studies, the book addresses the burnout and guilt felt by many of her students, and equips them to push forward in the fight against environmental threats. Ray calls it an “existential toolkit for the climate generation.” Much of the guidance Ray offers in the book is also employed in her classroom. “I’ve shifted a lot of my orientation toward things like building community over individualism,” she says. “And that goes everywhere, including how you arrange the seats in the class, who builds the syllabus. I also try to prioritize solution stories over negative stories and have students participate in radical imagination creation, without necessarily giving them the whole rationale behind why that’s important.” Perhaps the biggest change, Ray says, is giving students the space to acknowledge their feelings. By encouraging them to journal their thoughts or check in with fellow classmates, they recognize they’re not alone. It’s not therapy, she says, though it’s certainly therapeutic. “American culture is so fetishizing of happiness that students never get permission to just have negative feelings and not have to make them go away,” she says. “If there’s anything that we can do, it’s to actually validate negative feelings. We don’t have to fix them, make them happy, therapize them, pathologize them, take medication, distract ourselves away from them, or even use the intellect as a solution. They’re a reasonable response to the reality we live in.” ANNABEL DUPONT WHEN SARAH JAQUETTE RAY ’98 sensed the pervasive hopelessness in her students, she knew it was time for a change of course. Her environmental studies classes had once been full of upbeat nature lovers hoping to make careers of protecting the Earth. But something had shifted, Ray says, leading to long lines for her office hours and lots of tears. “The students were despairing about how the Anthropocene has hit, and we are in this moment where humans have irreversibly affected nature,” says Ray, a professor at Humboldt State University in California with a background in the humanities and social justice. “This is no longer about protecting something. This is about human survival in a radically altered future.” Ray’s syllabus had never shied away from these facts; for years, her courses offered a critical perspective of nature as situated in human activity, leading some students to reckon with their own complicity in environmental justice. Over time, however, the students had grown more hip to these realizations before even entering the classroom, Ray says. With each critical discussion, they drove closer to “What’s the point?” “The students themselves were so overwhelmingly despairing that they couldn’t even learn this material,” says Ray. “The more I told them how bad things were, the more that just piled on this overwhelming intractability and interconnectedness to all the problems of the climate crisis and environmental degradation in general.” The experience inspired Ray to write A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet (University “It’s important to continually emphasize the interconnectedness of environmental, social, and racial justice,” says Interim Director of Sustainability Elizabeth Drake (top left). Clockwise from top right: Atticus Maloney ’22, Maya Tipton ’23, and Martin Tomlinson ’23, students in the President’s Sustainability Research Fellowship who have led Climate Essentials. A spring course is planned. about social justice issues, you also need to care about the climate crisis because they are one and the same in many ways. “Ultimately, the goal is to build a critical mass of community members who understand the crisis and its urgency,” Drake adds. “Hopefully, that awareness will influence the way they approach their lives and there will be many impacts, however small, that result.” Translating knowledge into action was the focus of the final session, which provided participants with an opportunity to reflect on their own impacts. For example, climate activist Fran Putnam ’69 planned to educate herself further on environmental issues faced by Indigenous people, while others planned to get involved with local organizations such as Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living. Holding Climate Essentials during this unique time led several of its organizers to reflect on the similarities between COVID-19 and the climate emergency, and what can be achieved through collective responsibility. “I believe both crises result in part from a widely held belief that we exploit the planet, animals, and others without significant consequences,” says Tipton. “Climate change and COVID show us that we are not separate from our environment and other people — in fact, we are all deeply interconnected.” “Gone are the days where we imagine we cannot sacrifice some aspect of our daily lives for the good of the whole,” adds Maloney. “Hopefully, we can channel this energy to make similar sacrifices for the survival of the human species in the face of climate catastrophe.” FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 23 Crabs dance in hysterics, fleeing the waves. A beetle darts on business unknown. Gulls and terns stoically observe. In the fine, rhythmic balance at the water’s edge, life unfolds in both frenzy and meditative urgency. Maybe such existence in and around the ocean evokes mystery, myth, and drama in what we dream is an exquisite orchestration in the place of our origins. But Swarthmoreans are invested in its mechanisms, working out how animals solve the problems of their world and exploring how they function in their environment — however it changes. by Kate Campbell 24 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 AYANG CEMPAKA IN DEEP T HE SEA ABOUNDS with show-stealers. Dolphins burst like rockets through the wave crests. An octopus’s lyrical suctioned army of arms transfixes. The blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus, weighing up to 330,000 pounds, sends its whistles, moans, and calls through water for thousands of miles. And when the giant marine mammal gives birth, mothers nimbly nose newborns to the ocean’s surface for their first breaths of precious air. Consider, too, the ruthless stealth of the lowly mantis shrimp. This 6-inch ocean citizen releases a jaw punch to its prey with a strike force so ferocious it can delimb a crab. The blow, measured at 15,000 newtons, equals the acceleration of a .22-caliber bullet. For Swarthmoreans at work in the world’s (now five) named oceans, the water’s inhabitants — both behemoth and near invisible — captivate. It wasn’t only the mantis shrimp’s power that first fascinated Rachel Crane ’13. It was also the crustacean’s technique. “I left Swarthmore with a deep love of invertebrates, biomechanics, and marine systems,” says Crane, who studied “beautiful lugworms” with Professor Rachel Merz at the College before graduating to the mantis shrimp as a lab manager at Duke University. “They’re really interesting, with the most amazing mouth parts. Their jaw is like a bullet in the muzzle of a gun,” she says. “It has a super-fast, amazing strike.” When Crane noticed how masterful mantis shrimp were at cracking open shells, she began to wonder if they approached each prey differently. “I fed them small snails, and they FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 25 would work on a shell for hours and hours,” she says. “Here’s a species the size of your thumb, not much brain there, but it turns out if you give them snails of different sizes, they would strike in different ways.” By watching the charismatic predator’s feeding behavior, Crane started to think about what it took to withstand the assault. “I pivoted,” she says. “I got interested in mollusk shells, thinking of the accumulated damage of the mussels that live on the rocky coast where waves bombard them. If a shell survives one encounter, how does it repair damage?” For Crane, who earned her Ph.D. at Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine 26 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 BUMPING INTO STRANGERS IN THE DARK Searching for octopuses at night in an area renowned for tiger sharks, marine scientist Heather Ylitalo-Ward ’06 had her wits about her. “When you dive at night, all you can see is the small area illuminated by your flashlight,” says Ylitalo-Ward, who works in Hawaii for the Division of Aquatic Resources, a branch of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources. As part of a team monitoring fresh and saltwater in each of the main Hawaiian Islands, most of COURTESY OF RACHEL CRANE ’13 answer fundamental questions from a biological perspective. “There are a lot of questions that can be answered by looking to the ocean, but those answers often loop back to us.” Humans have the knowledge and technology to make good choices, says Merz, the Walter Kemp Professor Emerita in the Natural Sciences. “But political and societal pressures, the lack of education, and pressures from the burgeoning human population can all lead to bad choices for ocean health.” One point of light, “is the capacity of marine species and ecosystems to recover if given relief from what is limiting them,” says Merz. If fishing pressure is relieved, she says, species can rebound. “Ecosystems have resilience if disruptors — pollution, overfishing, development — are halted,” she says. “We live on this small, finite planet hurtling through space, and against great odds life has and is evolving here. That process has produced extraordinary beauty visible in the intricacies and the whole of every organism and ecosystem,” says Merz. “The living world feels vast, but, like us, it is mortal.” COURTESY OF RACHEL CRANE ’13 — RACHEL CRANE ’13 Station, invertebrates and bivalves all have an “unseen charisma.” “They’re extremely important and cover huge expanses of the California coast,” she says. “The mussels’ beds provide a home to diverse life, and the bed provides protection for these animals.” The animals experience massive temperature fluctuations, can face thermal stress from sunlight at the peak heat of the day, and are bombarded by waves and boulders that can crush them. For the past six years, Crane has been studying the mechanics of what makes an effective shell armor. “The shell is constrained by its evolutionary past,” says Crane. “And evolution is acting across deep time. The hurdle comes in understanding what is still effective” for the shell, she says. As new threats emerge, Crane asks: Do the shells change in ways that make them stronger? “Mussels have all different kinds of predators: Otters and crabs will hammer on shells, birds who will pick them up and drop them.” If that’s not enough, meet the drilling predators. “Octopuses and snails drill holes through the shell to eat the mussel,” says Crane. Starfish are another menace — Crane often witnesses the “extended fight” that occurs when a starfish eats a mussel. “The starfish will need to retreat with the tide, with its hunched posture wrapped around the mussel,” she says. The coastal environments where Crane works are “really accessible as opposed to the deep ocean, but there is really amazing stuff to see.” The ocean holds mysterious life and “things that push your understanding of what an animal is,” says Crane. “But in the end, it is still biology — not a totally different dimension. We can TIMOTHY LEICHLITER “[THE OCEAN HOLDS] THINGS THAT PUSH YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT AN ANIMAL IS. BUT IN THE END, IT IS STILL BIOLOGY — NOT A TOTALLY DIFFERENT DIMENSION. WE CAN ANSWER FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS FROM A BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE.” Grateful to be able to spend so much time underwater for work, Heather Ylitalo-Ward ’06 says it can be a meditative experience. “You can hear the songs of the whales so loudly, it sounds like they must be right on top of you,” she says. “Their songs are complex and oddly melodious — a perfect soundtrack to data collection.” her work is below the surface. “Suddenly, I turned and there was a huge animal right next to me. It turned out to be a sleeping turtle that was equally startled,” she says. “I think we were both relieved to see one another instead of a large tiger shark. “Really, every day in the water is a treat, and I see something incredible every time I dive. I feel very lucky to be able to do this job.” Ylitalo-Ward, who studied octopuses for her dissertation “Pay a little more attention,” says Rachel Crane ’13. “There is so much to see and there’s a lot of wonder in small things. The slow-paced can be equally dramatic as the fast-paced.” research at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, agrees with Crane that science requires patience. “It can be very hard to find octopuses in the wild, even with a trained eye, so it is important to spend time looking for little hints in the environment,” she says. “They taught me a lot about taking time to really look at things.” The species she studied, Octopus oliveri, lives only 12–16 months. “It was a reminder to try to make the most of each moment,” says Ylitalo-Ward. “They capitalize on the time they have on this planet: searching for food, exploring the reef, finding mates, having thousands of babies. Their capacity to solve puzzles and escape their enclosures was remarkable. They never stopped exploring, which is something I hope to emulate.” Working primarily in Kauai, YlitaloWard scuba-dives on the reefs, collecting data to characterize the health of the fish populations and benthic substrate. “We have a small FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 27 “OCEANS ABSORB CARBON DIOXIDE, PROVIDE OVER HALF THE PLANET’S OXYGEN, REGULATE TEMPERATURE AND WEATHER PATTERNS. NOT ONLY THAT, THEY PROVIDE FOOD, MEDICINE, TRANSPORTATION, AND RECREATION. OUR HEALTH, AND THE HEALTH OF THE ENTIRE PLANET, IS DEPENDENT ON THE HEALTH OF OCEANS.” — HEATHER YLITALO-WARD ’06 28 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 of runoff coming from the watershed,” she says. “There are some coral species that are more tolerant to temperature change, and those may start to be the dominant colonies we will see on reefs moving forward. It doesn’t mean the reefs will be gone; it just means they will be different.” Another key to reef resilience is fish populations, says Ylitalo-Ward. “We can have a positive impact by minimizing the amount of herbivore species removed from the ecosystem. Those herbivores help remove algae from corals, which in turn can help the corals recover from bleaching events. We have to focus on what we can do to help, rather than feel defeated by the things we have already lost.” From November to April, humpback whales come to Hawaii to have their calves and mate. Researchers arrive to tag the whale populations and study their migratory behavior. Other whale species can also be spotted around Hawaii, Ylitalo-Ward says, including false killer whales, melon-headed whales, short-finned pilot whales, and sperm whales. “I’ve often been out on boats to get to our dive locations and had humpbacks breaching around us,” she says. “It’s a pretty magical feeling to be driving out to a site and suddenly having a gigantic humpback whale surface right next to the boat. We always try to keep our distance and give them their space, but sometimes they come right up next to you without any warning.” The constant song of the whales accompanies the dives. “You can hear the songs of the whales so loudly, it sounds like they must be right on top of you,” says Ylitalo-Ward. “Their songs are complex and oddly melodious — a perfect soundtrack to data collection.” ANCIENT LINKS IN OUR EVOLUTIONARY STORY: SEA SQUIRTS HOLD IMPORTANT SECRETS If spooked by a sudden move or touch, sea squirts, so perfectly named, will contract their little muscles and forcefully “squirt” out the sea water they’ve consumed. These hermaphroditic animals also produce sex glands with both eggs and sperm. And, says Bradley Davidson ’90, associate professor and department chair in developmental biology, “they use their “squirt-gun” siphons to spray out their eggs and sperm.” But because sea squirts (also called tunicates) tend to be self-sterile, “they need to squirt next to another individual in order to reproduce.” Davidson says the famous geneticist T. H. Morgan was intrigued by this self-sterility mechanism, “realizing that it must involve some sort of molecular or genetic basis for eggs and sperm to recognize self from non-self ­— like our immune cells do.” And as if one more extraordinary trait were necessary — sea squirts also “eat” their own brains. Sort of. RICHARD COLLINS team dedicated to working with the local community to conserve and restore the unique ecosystems of Kauai,” she says. Hawaii has been a leader in ocean conservation in many ways, Ylitalo-Ward says, including through the establishment of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world. “The area provides a refuge for many marine species that might otherwise be targeted by fisheries or affected by other human impacts,” she says. The state also established a CommunityBased Subsistence Fishing Area in Kauai, the first of its kind. “This designation allows for strong community involvement and natural practices to guide management decisions,” she says. “Since its designation, there have been significant positive trends in fish populations within the managed area.” The chance to study coral reef ecosystems draws researchers who help to initiate responsible management decisions. Ylitalo-Ward collaborates with them to help identify trends. One trend emerging in Kauai is an increase in algae growth during times with high temperatures and slowmoving water. “We’re also seeing increased algae growth and changes in nearshore community structure after strong rain events, when there are high amounts Doliolids, a poorly characterized group of sea squirts, “go through a very complex life history in which they change body plans four times,” says Bradley Davidson ’90, associate professor and department chair in developmental biology. “This is partially accurate,” says Davidson. “Some tunicates go through a dramatic metamorphosis, similar to caterpillars and butterflies. In squirts, they start out as a tiny tadpole-like larva that is able to swim, but not to feed. These larvae attach the front of their heads to a rock or other subtidal structures — they like the bottom of boats — and then they transform into a vaselike young adult that can no longer swim, but is able to filter feed,” he says. It is during this transition, says Davidson, that sea squirts “reabsorb portions of the larval brain, specialized for swimming, and remodel the remainder to generate a new, juvenilespecific organ, presumably specialized for feeding and reproducing.” The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded a grant to Davidson and his collaborators, Danelle Devenport, associate professor of molecular biology at Princeton University, and Christina Cota, assistant professor of biology at Colby College, focused on how signal receptors are moved around in dividing cells, including mammalian cells. “Although sea squirts are close cousins to vertebrates, including humans, sea squirt embryos have extraordinarily low cell numbers,” explains Davidson. “The embryonic stage we study only has 200 cells while a vertebrate embryo at this same stage would have roughly 10,000 cells.” This allows Davidson and his colleagues to study how individual cells “communicate with their neighbors in an intact embryo at very high resolution.” His work with sea squirts is helping to discern some fundamental rules of how cells communicate as they divide, and ultimately how errors in this process may contribute to human diseases, including cancer. “Because these cells communicate through chemical signals that are extremely similar to the signals exchanged between human and other animal cells, we can leverage our findings to help us address questions relevant to human health along with the development of embryos,” says Davidson. In order to receive these signals, cells must produce an antenna-like protein called a signal receptor. “We’ve found that embryonic cells ‘shut down’ these antenna-like receptors when they are dividing” he says, “and this appears like it might be a general feature of dividing cells that was never noticed before.” Davidson explores how receptors are moved around in dividing cells, including mammalian cells. “This is an urgent question,” he says, “because cancer is primarily caused by misregulation of cell signaling, FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 29 THE WORLD BELOW THE BRINE by Walt Whitman and some for reproduction. The reproductive zooids detach and grow their own tails containing clusters of another distinct reproductive body type.” This last body type makes both eggs and sperm, he says, squirting them out to make a new generation of nurses. “What’s really fascinating to me is the capacity for a single genome to encode four different bodies,” Davidson says. “That’s what I’m hoping to investigate — how does a single set of genes instruct the formation of not just one body but four distinct bodies.” “Along with being incredibly beautiful, almost like an art piece in their construction,” says Davidson, doliolids are also important ecologically and evolutionarily. “They are especially good at filter feeding and COURTESY OF BRADLEY DAVIDSON ’90 and so understanding the interplay between division and signaling is crucial for understanding the origins of cancerous cell behaviors.” The NSF also recently awarded Davidson an Early-Concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) to work with collaborators Marc Fischer and Joe Ryan at the Skidaway and Whitney marine stations to investigate a fascinating and poorly characterized group of sea squirts called doliolids. “Individual doliolids go through a very complex life history in which they change body plans four times,” says Davidson. “They start off as a large nurse that grows a long tail on which two different body types grow in grapelike clusters called zooids. Some of these zooids are specialized for feeding Sea squirts are part of our own evolutionary story, says Associate Professor Bradley Davidson ’90 (bottom right), with (clockwise from top left) Guillermo Barreto Corona ’19, Hriju Adhikari ’20, former postdoctoral researcher Christina Cota, Cameron Tumey ’21, Twan Sia ’21, and William Colgan ’19, all wearing sea squirt paper hats while on a lab outing. “What I tell my students is that diversity is much richer and more fragile than we realize, and we have a mission to document this diversity before it is lost.” 30 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 they convert what is unavailable into available nutrients,” he says. When sea squirts die, or excrete, they produce marine snow that drifts down and provides essential nutrients in deeper waters. “Sea squirts are also part of our own evolutionary story” he says. “They are considered a ‘missing link’ between vertebrates like ourselves and the many animals without backbones, the invertebrates. The sea squirts are at a critical juncture, and they represent a part of this story that we don’t understand yet. We need them to understand our own history.” As he continues to witness the changes to a range of marine life where the sea squirt lives, Davidson is deeply concerned. “I’m not optimistic about the health of the environment of the animals that I study,” he says. “With warmer temperatures, some animals are going to thrive, but overall, it’s clear that diversity is going way down.” At the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories where Davidson has spent time for his research, there has been a “gigantic decrease in diversity.” “I would say it’s unprecedented,” he says. “In the 10 years I have been collecting, the marine organisms are crashing. It’s just flat instead of rich and diverse.” Focusing on his role as a scientist and on the role of his students has helped him cope with understanding the loss. “What I tell students is that diversity is much richer and more fragile than we realize and that we have a mission to document this diversity before it is lost,” says Davidson. “We can direct our efforts positively to really understand what we are losing in terms of species and hopefully find ways to preserve what is left, including the often overlooked sea squirts.” He hopes others will recognize the critical importance of the sea squirt. “Each species of sea squirt is the end point of millions of years of evolution,” says Davidson. “When you lose these things, you’re losing something that can never be regained. You’re losing a story that took millions of years to tell and that no one will ever hear.” But there are also reasons to remain hopeful. “There is time for us to preserve what is left,” says Davidson. “If we give it a chance, life comes roaring back. Marine organisms are unstoppable, they will find a way to thrive. All we need to do is open the door and they will come pouring through. “That’s the hope — that life finds a way,” he says. “All these organisms are incredibly resilient if they are just given the chance.” STARTING WITH LOVE This desire to help the planet begins with an emotional connection to it, says Mark Wallace, professor of religion. “All of the religions consider nature in balance with itself a divine gift that we humans are to love and steward,” he says. “We are fundamentally aquatic creatures and we come up for air, but we yearn to get back to water. In this model, the world’s oceans, rivers, and wetlands are the circulatory system of Mother Earth; caring for this flow of nutrients and waste is a way of caring for God’s body.” Indeed, in primordial cultures, all beings have personhood, says Wallace, whose book When God Was a Bird: Christianity, Animism, and The world below the brine, Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves, Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick tangle, openings, and pink turf, Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the play of light through the water, Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes, and the aliment of the swimmers, Sluggish existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom, The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes, The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sealeopard, and the sting-ray, Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those oceandepths, breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do, The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us who walk this sphere, The change onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres. Published in 1860 in the “Sea-Drift” section of Leaves of Grass the Re-Enchantment of the World (Fordham University Press, 2018) was awarded the 2019 Nautilus Gold Award for best book in Western religious thought. “There are the tree people, the bear people, the whale people … only some of whom are human beings,” he says. “Whales are especially fascinating. In the Bible, they are symbols of the mystery and beauty of wild nature. Today, we know how similar we are to whales. Like us, they have long lifespans and enjoy deep emotional lives defined by their keen intelligence and rich communication skills.” According to Indigenous religions, “whales are people just like us,” says Wallace, and it’s amazing what other beings can do when we sense the connection. “We start to think we are part of the same family, and develop an emotional connection and care about their habitat,” he says. “We start with love and then we start to feel a connection to nature. For me, much of this begins in the Crum Woods, and then we want to care about these places.” Poets, too, often use the sea and its inhabitants as a muse. In Walt Whitman’s “The World Below the Brine,” the worlds of water and land merge, says Peter Schmidt, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English Literature. In this climactic line, “The change onward from ours to that of beings” in other “spheres” Schmidt says, “Whitman asks us to imagine what things might change in us when our minds are able to inhabit (or as least imagine we experience) not FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 31 MATTHEW LESLIE MATTHEW LESLIE A drone is reflected in the ocean water above the tail of a humpback whale in the Gulf of Corcovado, Chile. “Drone technology will have — and is already having — a significant impact on marine-mammal research,” says Colin Perkins-Taylor ’20, who studied humpbacks and the Chilean blue whale population. Today, he is in graduate school studying the bottlenose dolphin. A blue whale in the Gulf of Corcovado, Chile. “Our data showing that the Chilean blue whale subspecies is intermediate in size between the smaller pygmy blue whale subspecies and the larger Antarctic blue whale subspecies is crucial because it supports the genetic and acoustic evidence that this blue whale population is distinct from the others,” says Perkins-Taylor, who studied with Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Matthew Leslie. “This means that the Chilean blue whale subspecies needs to have its own unique conservation plan developed to allow this population to recover from whaling during the 1900s.” just other species but environments, like moving from land to sea.” In the poem’s final two lines, Schmidt says, Whitman wants the reader “to take another leap, from “our” world, the Earth, to different planets or solar systems. Whitman was convinced that there were many other worlds in the universe beyond our own solar system.” steadily up into the air. A precise collaboration, PerkinsTaylor observed the drone while relaying instructions to Leslie on where to direct its flight. Their goal was to position it above the whales as they swam and breached — capturing their behavior without impacting it directly. “My instructions were instrumental in helping him locate the whales with the drone’s camera and taking the best-quality pictures possible,” says Perkins-Taylor. When the drone flight was complete, Perkins-Taylor would perch in the bow of the ship again and catch the drone as Leslie slowly guided it into his hands. “This is easier said than done because conditions were not always ideal for catching the drone between the wind and the waves,” he says. Kevlar gloves, climbing helmets, LOST THEN FOUND After two summer internships studying sea turtles and shorebirds, Colin Perkins-Taylor ’20 was certain he wanted to pursue a career in marine biology. Narrowing down the specialty was the puzzle to solve. “I was a bit lost because I didn’t know what I wanted to do specifically,” says Perkins-Taylor, a Swarthmore native who graduated with a major in 32 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 biology and a minor in environmental studies. Then came an extraordinary opportunity to research whales in the wild using drone technology to measure their body movements, behavior, and migration patterns. “My experience being in the field was genuinely life-changing,” says Perkins-Taylor, who collaborated with Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology Matthew Leslie. “Everything changed for me when I got to observe the humpback whales breach every day and collect data on them using both a drone and a regular DSLR camera.” “Being exposed to all aspects of the research process and getting to practice them closely with a professor is something that many undergraduate students do not have the opportunity to do,” he adds. “But I, fortunately enough, did.” Working with Leslie’s colleagues at Panacetacea, a research, education, and conservation group in Panama, Perkins-Taylor would help to direct Leslie to position the drone from aboard a ship in the Gulf of Chiriquí. That allowed Leslie to monitor the instrument panels and watch the live digital feed. “Once we identified humpback whales that were behaving in a way conducive to being photographed by the drone, Professor Leslie and I would quickly equip the drone with its propellers and camera,” he says. To launch the delicate equipment, Perkins-Taylor stood in the ship’s bow in safety gear holding the drone above his head. Then he and Leslie would review a preflight checklist before launching the custom-built drone and eye protection were critical to the process. Once safely on shore, Leslie downloaded the photos and data, and Perkins-Taylor calculated the length and width of measurement for each whale. “Drone technology will have — and is already having — a significant impact on marine-mammal research moving forward for a variety of reasons,” says Perkins-Taylor. “In particular, drones offer a new vertical perspective to study animals in a way that has been shown not to disturb them, making this technology appealing for the novelty and ethics of it. Drones are beginning to revolutionize this field, and that is only going to continue in the years to come.” Before drone technology, Leslie notes, two options existed to measure “THE LIVING WORLD FEELS VAST, BUT, LIKE US, IT IS MORTAL.” — RACHEL MERZ, THE WALTER KEMP PROFESSOR EMERITA IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 33 HUMANS HAVE HUNTED WHALES for centuries, but over time the scale, methods, and reasons for whaling have shifted. Initially, coastal communities using small boats harvested limited numbers of cetaceans, mainly for food. In the 11th or 12th centuries, Basques in the Bay of Biscay between France and Spain began commercial whaling; by the early 16th century, they and other western Europeans had shifted the hunt to the North Atlantic. In the 1800s, Americans were chasing whales in the Pacific and Indian oceans, and from the 1920s, Antarctic waters became whaling ground zero for Japanese, Russians, and Norwegians. The constant global movement reflected new demand and a new dynamic that fueled unregulated mass hunting, which resulted in population collapses of targeted species and altered whale migration patterns, driving whalers to search for new areas and new species to exploit. Whaling technology changed, becoming far more deadly. Near-shore rowed or paddled boats gave way to sailing ships with specially designed “chasers,” in turn supplanted by enormous steam- (later diesel-) 34 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 powered “factory” ships, floating slaughterhouses that enabled long voyages and, in tandem with chasers equipped with motorized harpoons, massive harvests. All these developments contributed to inexorably rising kill levels, to half a million annually in 1945–1970. The dangers of such extreme resource exploitation were long known, but agreements to limit harvests date only from the 1930s and — despite some notorious holdouts — effective enforcement only from the 1980s and 1990s. The damage wrought has been immense. Indigenous peoples have seen their livelihoods destroyed and their cultural traditions disrupted. Cetacean species have been decimated. Though populations are slowly rebuilding, warming sea temperatures threaten the survivors. But whales, which continue to fascinate humans for their size, grace, and intelligence, are finding new roles: as symbols of environmental protection and subjects of ecotourism. ­ Robert S. DuPlessis, the Isaac — H. Clothier Professor Emeritus of History and International Relations means that the Chilean blue whale subspecies needs to have its own unique conservation plan developed to allow this population to recover from whaling during the 1900s.” According to their paper, co-authored by collaborators at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Chilean scientists at Fundación Meri, body size, acoustic, and genetic evidence align to support the Chilean blue whale as a third Southern Hemisphere subspecies inhabiting the Pacific Ocean off western South America. Now that this new subspecies is identified, says Leslie, the next steps are to highlight its role in ocean health to those nations that oversee its habitat. By bringing it to the attention of the International Whaling Commission and leaders in Chile, Ecuador, and Peru, the hope is that those countries will value and protect the animals and recognize them as a resource. “We want to get them excited about this and work to protect the Chilean blue whale,” Leslie says. Perkins-Taylor says his research experience was exceptional for the opportunity to interact directly with the animals he was studying. “When I was on the boat, I observed whales for hours every day and became mesmerized by them,” he says. “This surreal environment and these incredible animals made me fall in love with working out on the water, so hopefully I will never look back and can successfully make it in this field.” After graduating in May 2020, Perkins-Taylor completed an internship with the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program in Florida. “I wanted to gain more marine-mammal research experience following KRISTIN RASMUSSEN / PANACETACEA MICHELE AND DONALD D’AMOUR MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, SPRINGFIELD, MASS. GIFT OF LENORE B. AND SIDNEY A. ALPERT, SUPPLEMENTED WITH MUSEUM ACQUISITION FUNDS. PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID STANSBURY. The Whale Fishery “Laying On” by Nathaniel Currier. Before petroleum, whale oil was highly valued for domestic lighting, industrial lubrication, and softening fibers and leather, and as an ingredient of products as varied as soap, paint, perfume, and nitroglycerine. Baleen was the steel and plastic of its day: Pliable, strong, and durable, it was turned into hoop skirts and stays, upholstery and carriage springs, and much more. whales: find dead ones or risk your life in a small, low-flying plane over the sea. Whales are an amazing subject to study, says Leslie, who specializes in conservation and evolutionary mammalogy. “They are mammals, they breathe air, they nurse their babies, and yet they are almost alien in that they exist underwater in this completely different realm,” he says. “You think of them as big and lumbering, but when they look up, and roll beside the ship, they’re very curious. Sometimes you’re not sure who is studying who.” In 1970, the United States listed all humpback whales as endangered under the Endangered Species Conservation Act. In 1985, a moratorium on commercial whaling was enacted. Today, their numbers, though increasing, are still threatened by entanglement in fishing gear, vessel strikes, vessel-based harassment, and underwater noise. In addition to their studies of humpback whales off Panama, Perkins-Taylor and Leslie teamed up to lead a research article on Chilean blue whales published last year in the journal Endangered Species Research. The Chilean blue whale population has only been proposed as a new subspecies in recent years, says Leslie. There were no current statistics that measured the size and shape of this blue whale population in comparison with other blue whales around the globe. “Our data showing that the Chilean blue whale subspecies is intermediate in size between the smaller pygmy blue whale subspecies and the larger Antarctic blue whale subspecies is crucial because it supports the genetic and acoustic evidence that this blue whale population is distinct from the others,” says Perkins-Taylor. “This “My summer research was extremely valuable for me as a student because I gained hands-on experience in the field,” says Colin Perkins-Taylor ’20, who used drones to study whales. “It gave me insight into what the life of a researcher is like in all aspects.” my incredible time working with Professor Leslie,” he says. “My whale research experience at Swarthmore established a strong foundation for me to succeed in the field of marine biology. Beyond observing whales breaching every day and learning vital skills for studying them non-invasively, I got to analyze data and write a manuscript with Professor Leslie that has since been published in a scientific journal.” Now in graduate school for marine biology at the College of Charleston, Perkins-Taylor is applying his knowledge and skills to study coastal bottlenose dolphins using drones. Swarthmore’s scientists continue deeper into uncharted waters, learning more about enigmatic Earth partners. As humans crane skyward to plow new frontiers, the tides around us wait. And those whale calls and songs that travel for so many miles under waves, through currents, across atmospheres. Will we have the chance, in coming years, to decipher their languages with drones and other devices? Will we be listening if the sounds stop? FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 35 LAURENCE KESTERSON 36 By looking at agricultural problems in new ways, John Leary ’00 is working to build biodiversity — and community, too Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 by Tara Smith FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 37 “You can’t just throw trees at this problem and make it better.” — John Leary ’00 38 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 COURTESY OF TREES FOR THE FUTURE ROM THE START, John Leary ’00 was perhaps an unlikely candidate to envision global reforestation. When he brought home pictures of trees he’d colored at school, his mother discovered he was colorblind. The trunks were green, the branches and leaves brown. As it turns out, seeing the forest for the trees was more important anyway. Today, Leary is executive director of Trees for the Future, a nonprofit with a vision to change lives through regenerative agriculture and help farmers “plant themselves out of poverty.” It’s an urgent mission, says Leary: “If you don’t know where your food is coming from, it’s probably causing harm to some family or community somewhere.” When Leary was a Peace Corps volunteer in the early 2000s, the seeds of friendship took root with his homestay brother, a Senegalese farmer. The two began planting trees together. Little did they know that they were preparing the ground for a sweeping movement that would bring tens of thousands of farmers hope, health, and opportunities to create a sustainable future for themselves and their families. For two decades now, Leary has been committed to collaborating with the communities he hopes to empower. This investment in relationships goes a long way toward explaining why the U.S.-based organization he leads — which is dedicated to training farmers in the developing world — is growing, both organically and exponentially. Whether he’s talking about the extraordinary flavor of a carrot grown by a farmer down the road from his Maryland home, the transformation of a lifeless plot of land in subSaharan Africa, or the crushing injustice of the profits made by agribusiness at the expense of the health of the planet and everyone on it, Leary connects the choices to their consequences. Planting trees is one part of a broad response to complex problems. “You can’t just throw trees at this problem and make it better,” Leary says. Neither, he adds, can solutions be imposed on communities. A modern-day Johnny Appleseed, Leary and his U.S. team make up only a small percentage of a global organization that’s nearly 200 strong and has planted more than 220 million trees. Meaningful change begins with a conversation about farmers’ needs and the opportunities they see. Trees for the Future provides resources, including certification in agroforestry, and local staff members oversee projects implemented by the farmers themselves, strengthening agriculture and the food system within their own communities and molding each unique project to their cultural context. Many of these projects involve creating “Forest Gardens,” which require composting, mulching, cover crops, water conservation, and integrated pest management. Trees for the Future’s comprehensive four-year training program, facilitated by local team members, empowers farmers to optimize their land by managing space, time, sun, shade, and water so they can grow enough produce to feed their families, provide fuel and fodder for livestock, and ultimately produce crops to sell. These programs have also made it possible for farmers to provide education for their children and have given new opportunities to young people whose only prospects once lay in dangerous voyages overseas to search for work. As a rule, the organization makes sure that at least 30% of farmers enrolled in any program are women. This is an John Leary ’00 (left) and Omar Ndao first met in Senegal when Leary was a Peace Corps volunteer. Today, they work together for the nonprofit Trees for the Future, planting “Forest Gardens,” which require composting, cover crops, water conservation, and integrated pest management. intentional benchmark, Leary says, because “history tells us we’ll have better outcomes if we prioritize women’s involvement and equip them to be mentors, trainers, and leaders.” Leary says in high school he learned the importance of serving the greater good. “But it wasn’t until Swarthmore — when I began to see fellow students using their wits and talents to make social impacts — that I began to see how I could make positive change,” he says. “My education in this progressive Quaker environment transformed my thinking.” Leary chose Swarthmore for its academic reputation and its highly ranked tennis program. He also loved the beauty of the campus and the Scott Arboretum. But ultimately it was the atmosphere of intellectual inquiry and activism that turned out to be the richest soil for his own growth. He majored in sociology & anthropology, with a concentration in environmental studies. When he wasn’t studying sustainability in the classroom, he was working on campus in some related endeavor. Leary found various ways to be involved, from deconstructing the old straw bale house and collecting recycling to “cleaning up after trees” as he assisted the grounds crew in the Scott Arboretum on the occasional Sunday morning — never guessing that leaf litter would be a critical component of breaking the cycle of hunger and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. The cautionary tale of Easter Island inspired Leary’s senior thesis on ecotourism. “They cut down all of their trees to build boats to search for faraway lands they never found,” he says. “The loss of tree cover led to soil erosion and the extinction of diverse species of fish, mammals, and birds, and the eventual collapse of the society. “At Easter Island, we see in microcosm how quickly humans can degrade and deforest a landscape. At a time when billionaires are investing in interplanetary space travel, history tells us we should be building our natural resource base and protecting our food supply.” Studying abroad in Zanzibar during his Swarthmore years whetted his appetite to see more of the world. After graduation, he arrived in Kaffrine, Senegal, as a Peace Corps agroforestry extension agent. Staying with the family of Omar Ndao, Leary began on-the-ground training in the Wolof language and culture. He also witnessed the ravages FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 39 40 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 COURTESY OF TREES FOR THE FUTURE COURTESY OF TREES FOR THE FUTURE wrought by decades of growing monocultural cash crops such as peanuts. Leary knew that trees could help restore the soil so farmers could grow diverse crops to feed their families, which would in turn restore the physical and economic health of these communities. He and Ndao worked together to establish the first Forest Gardens. They’re a data-driven solution to poverty, Leary says — severe food insecurity of 83% drops to 14% after one year in the program. Forest Garden farmers also harvest more diverse food all year round: “It’s about having more baskets, not more eggs in one basket.” Ndao, who is now Trees for the Future’s plant-it-forward supervisor in Senegal, speaks with a kind of wonder about those years at the beginning of the project. “We had no resources and we had to work very, very hard, traveling village to village by horse cart, and doing all the different steps to grow garab [trees] and plant them with farmers throughout the community to get things started,” Ndao says. When Leary returned to the United States and found a job with Trees for the Future, an organization first founded in 1989 by Dave Deppner, he continued this work with Ndao and others and extended this network of local community leaders. In all, a dozen families across several communities planted about 5,000 trees in the first year Ndao and Leary labored together in Senegal. The hard work of that first generation of families growing Forest Gardens soon began to pay off. As their diverse crops grew, the idea began to spread. “In Kaffrine, for example, there are many people in the community who wanted to work but didn’t know what path to take,” Ndao says. “The jardin-forêt [Forest Garden] is perfect for farmers because their mind and heart are together in the benefits and the system of the Forest Garden. They’re able to work in both the dry season and the rainy season.” They’re also able to optimize the land they have instead of seeking more land or having to work as laborers on other people’s farms. “Vegetable consumption has increased, people are healthier,” Ndao says, “and the knowledge farmers now have will enable them to farm the same land for the next 50 years.” The Forest Garden model is “simple, replicable, and scalable,” Leary says. “Trees are free fertilizer factories. They help the land to be more resilient. Their roots channel moisture into the ground, fix nitrogen in the soil, and prevent erosion. They create thorny, green walls that keep goats and other animals out of the garden they protect, they enrich Collaboration with community members is key to the success of Trees for the Future, says John Leary ’00, speaking at one of the nonprofit’s team meetings in Kaffrine, Senegal. Senegal’s Forest Gardens are a data-driven solution to poverty, he says. the soil, and they dampen the power of storms and make the growing environment calmer.” As the gardens mature, Leary and Ndao have continued to modify the model. “In Senegal, we have a lot of different pests, like nematodes, termites, and locusts, that attack the crops,” Ndao says. And if farmers plant only one species of tree, they become susceptible to worms and other bugs attacking them. “Mixing different types of thorny, really hardy trees together in the green walls makes them resistant to all kinds of different pests,” Ndao says. “The system we have today is helping thousands of families to create very strong barriers around their fields that keep out not just goats but also sheep and cows. They’ve even proven strong enough to keep hippopotamuses out of the fields in Senegal.” Diversity makes Forest Gardens, as well as the living fences surrounding them, stronger. Trees for the Future Marketing and Communications Manager Lindsay Cobb sums it up well. “We’re committed to helping people understand the connections between reforestation and sustainable food systems,” Cobb says. “It’s not just about planting trees.” It’s also, Leary says, about what’s on our plates. Saving the world from the cumulative effects of environmental degradation by food systems requires disruption. “The knowledge farmers now have will enable them to farm the same land for the next 50 years,” says Omar Ndao, Trees for the Future’s plant-it-forward supervisor, with his son, Cheikh Tidiane, and his wife, Fama, near a Forest Garden in Senegal. “We need a great big reset in our food systems,” Leary says. “We need to align our preferences with what our local farmers can grow sustainably.” Leary highlights the striking parallels between food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa as a result of decades of growing monoculture crops with agrochemicals and what’s happening in the U.S. as the effects of agribusiness using the same practices become more and more evident. “When we lose biodiversity, we lose the ability to adapt,” he says. And preserving that precious biodiversity comes down to seeds. “It’s also important to understand the destructive cycle of GMO seeds and pesticides,” Cobb says. “The seeds can survive the chemicals, but none of the flora and fauna can, and so we kill precious plant and animal life.” The good news is that Trees for the Future is providing guidance for many different agribusiness companies that want to change their practices. Leary is also pleading with global influencers to lead by providing “good rigor,” examining food systems and the future of food. “We need to be able to grow food on this planet for a long time to come,” he says, “and right now the carbon footprint of most food is astronomical before the farmer even puts the seed into the ground.” None of this should come as a surprise, he adds: “Studying BSE [mad cow disease] in a microbiology course at Swarthmore in the late 1990s convinced me that harm comes from eating food grown in weird ways.” In losing our connections to local, seasonal food, we’ve also lost connection to community, Leary says. “In Senegal, for example, there’s a beautiful, delicious, and sustainable food culture. If we were all eating locally, we’d be eating what our neighbors eat.” Leary and his wife, who is from Senegal, and their two children, ages 9 and 12, regularly enjoy different cuisines including “a rainbow of vegetables” from the local community-supported agriculture program to which they belong. A CSA, Leary says, is an example of the kind of disruptive system that’s needed to bring about positive change. Today, the boy who colored tree trunks green is leading a movement. As these trees, and knowledge, and the commitment to change practices that degrade the planet take root, there is hope. This year, the program will plant more than 50 million trees across nine countries. “Through the pandemic, we didn’t experience a single interruption in our food supply,” Leary says. “Forest Garden farmers also had a whole grocery store of food available throughout the crisis. These closed local systems have so much to teach us about our own fragility when we depend on a global food system.” FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 41 THE COMPANY OF TREES Swarthmoreans share their appreciation of a few ever-changing, deeply rooted, and highly communicative friends on campus photos by Laurence Kesterson TREES IN FRONT OF PARRISH “They give a very peaceful and countrylike effect to the whole campus. That’s always been part of the charm of the College, this physical aspect of having these purposefully planted trees. I just loved the effect.” — Libby Murch Livingston ’41 TREE NEAR PARRISH AND CLOTHIER “I was sitting at its base, my back against the trunk, when I emerged from the fog I’d fallen into after hearing that John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. I’d been on the second floor of Wharton when muffled tones on someone’s radio conveyed that a monstrous and momentous event had taken place. It’s a stretch to suggest that the tree was a sanctuary, but I used it as one. — Rob Lewine ’67 SEQUOIAS “I am very fond of the sequoias lining the path between LPAC and Kohlberg. They are beautiful in unique ways during each season, and I find them very calming.” — Bennett Drucker ’22 LILAC GROVE NEAR TROTTER “I would study for finals under the intoxicating fragrance of lilac bushes. The weather would just begin to warm, and thoughts would drift towards plans for the summer.” — William Liang ’87 RED OAK, NORTH SIDE OF ENTRANCE DRIVE TO ROSE GARDEN CIRCLE. DEDICATED ON FOUNDER’S DAY BY ISAAC CLOTHIER. 42 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 43 SWAMP WHITE OAK “The majestic oaks lining Magill Walk are the trees that speak to me, so to speak. In honor of ’63’s 50th Reunion, my class had a swamp white oak planted in my honor on Magill Walk ... a particularly meaningful gift because it is an underplanting that will help sustain the walkway of oaks on Magill Walk. I was not aware of ‘underplanting’ until I learned about it at Swarthmore. And, as I have learned more about trees, I am more partial to oaks since they are native, which means they support many more birds and insects than non-native trees.” — Diana Judd Stevens ’63 AMERICAN ELM “Asking the director of the Scott Arboretum for my favorite tree on campus is a bit like asking your grandmother who her favorite grandchild is ... but today my answer is the magnificent American elm along the railroad tracks. I marvel at its sheer size; its fabulous buttressing moss-covered roots and majestic umbrella-shaped broad canopy. Knowing the history of this species in America makes me appreciate the preciousness and rarity of having an American elm of this stature on campus. This tree predates the founding of the Arboretum in 1929 (being accessioned in 1932 as an existing tree), so it is presumably well over a century old. It stands 131 feet tall, and it has survived the ravages of Dutch Elm disease (thus far) that wiped out most American elms planted on college campuses (including those that used to grace the face of Parrish Hall) and throughout city streets of America after the fungus was introduced into the Unites States in the 1930s. This tree has been designated a Heritage Tree in our ongoing assessment of our tree collection to identify our most precious trees among the over 3,000 trees accessioned on campus.” — Claire Sawyer, director of the Scott Arboretum DWARF WHITE PINE “On the walk from Parrish down to the BCC and nearby Cunningham House is a very fine dwarf white pine that I’m a very big fan of. I first came across it freshman year as I walked around campus as a part of my parking-enforcement job with Public Safety. I made it a habit to try to remember the names of all the trees I came across, and the pine was always my favorite to walk by and call out with its distinctive name and coloration over fall, winter, and spring. I no longer have the same job on campus, but as I walk by on occasion, I still call out its name and appreciate its place in my heart.” — Powell Sheagren ’22 44 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 DAWN REDWOOD, METASEQUOIA ALLÉE BETWEEN LPAC AND KOLHBERG HALL OAKS LINING MAGILL WALK AMERICAN ELM BESIDE SEPTA TRACKS DOUBLE DOGWOOD, NORTH SIDE OF KOHLBERG HALL FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 45 “During my undocumented childhood ... I arrived at elementary school every day starving.” © RYAN MUIR COURTESY OF QIAN JULIE WANG ’09 PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE — Qian Julie Wang ’09 “Daily, I fought the urge to rescue perfectly edible meals from the garbage,” recalls Qian Julie Wang ’09. Her new memoir, Beautiful Country, surveys the impact of hunger in undocumented children in the United States. THE SHADOW OF HUNGER personal reflection by Qian Julie Wang ’09 46 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 MY FIRST YEAR at Swarthmore in 2005, I gained 20 pounds. This is certainly not unusual for freshmen, but in my case, it was for atypical reasons. During my undocumented childhood, a period of extreme poverty that I never dared speak of during my time on campus, I arrived at elementary school every day starving, stomach churning toward the free meal that would be slopped onto my tray at lunchtime. For decades thereafter, the shadow of hunger lived in my stomach. It was the thing that commanded me to binge whenever I came upon a buffet, that whispered that the only way to stave off the hunger of my past was to eat all of the free food that ever came before me. The first time I entered Sharples, I wandered from food station to food station with suspended breath. I could hardly believe the range of options, and made my way from the salad bar to the pasta assortment, the entrée section and the ice cream spread. My only concern was the size of the trays, so I left my first visit to the serving section with a sampling on small plates and plans to return for seconds. And during every Sharples outing that first year, I always returned for seconds. And thirds. And sometimes even fourths. I never left behind a single crumb, stuffing everything into my stomach before smuggling some more out the back door and across the field to Mertz. The only thing that astounded me more than Sharples’s offerings was the sheer amount of food my fellow students dumped into nearby trash cans. Daily, I fought the urge to rescue perfectly edible meals from the garbage. The waste I witnessed at Sharples threw into relief the hunger painted on the faces of the homeless lining the streets of Philadelphia, where I worked several part-time jobs. That contrast weighed on me far more than my newfound pounds. It was clear early that my appreciation of Sharples was not widely shared, but I would not realize just how rare it was until one specific incident. After loading a plate with a vegetable I’d never heard of, with a name I could not pronounce (arugula), I approached a table in the side room with my new friends — all of us still in that precarious need-to-impress stage — and marveled in awe: “Can you guys believe the spread today?!” I met silence, followed by a chuckle and then another, before laughter crested down the table. I bit the insides of my cheeks, my appetite gone, while the friend closest to me explained that they had all just been complaining about how horrible the food was. I stayed quiet for the rest of the meal, but cleared my plates nevertheless. It marked the one time I did not dare return for seconds. From then on, I experienced a different Sharples. I observed the disdain with which my classmates surveyed the offerings. The meals that were poked before being tossed. The flippancy with which my peers regarded the many culinary options before them. Something was wrong with my relationship to the food, I figured. I was damaged in some way; I was not normal. And slowly, over the course of my years at Swarthmore, I learned to paint that nonchalance onto myself, to hide my enthusiasm for the feast at every meal, to prod at my tray with indifference, and later, to even — much as it pained me — leave food still sitting on my tray as I walked toward the trash bins. As this mimicry went on, the pounds fell off, but the weight of shame on my shoulders grew. I went on to graduate still pretending that food did not matter as much as it did to me — as my childhood prescribed it always would. It was not until after years of therapy — of struggling to make peace with my past while etching a balanced, ethical relationship with food — that I realized my response to Sharples had been far from abnormal. Nor, alas, were the circumstances of my childhood. It was, indeed, the atmosphere at the Sharples dining room that had been abnormal, problematic. For despite all the campus discourse about anti-racism and wealth equality, there had been so much waste. I’m sure that things have changed — and are changing still — since I left campus some 12 years ago. But it bears stating that one cannot in good conscience stand for everything Swarthmore does while generating the waste I watched its student body, myself included, create in abundance. One cannot be passionate about demolishing systemic barriers of racism and wealth inequality while remaining apathetic to food sustainability and climate change. The brunt of our changing ecosystems falls first upon people of color and the poor, long before it will ever threaten to touch the perimeter of our lush campus. As such, one could argue, perhaps, that it is none of our business, our responsibility. But that has never been the stance of the Swarthmore I know. Nor would it be true to the beating heart of the Swarthmore we love. Editor’s note: Swarthmore has committed to becoming a Zero Waste campus in efforts to reduce environmental harm and promote just and sustainable systems. Since 2016, the College has undertaken a substantial effort to reduce the waste that we generate and to divert waste away from incineration in Chester, Pa., and into compost or recycling. The College has also built a fully campuswide “postconsumer” compost system that offers compost bins in every campus building, managed by our Environmental Services team and the student Green Advisors. FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 47 FROM THE GROUND UP Buy local produce. Eat less meat. Reduce your carbon footprint. These steps sound simple enough, but they barely scratch the surface in the fight to preserve the climate. Adapting to the crisis and reducing its effects requires context and creativity, with major changes to agriculture, advocacy, and policy. From seed power to the inner life of cows, Swarthmoreans discuss some of the work to be done, recognizing that when it comes to the environment, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. by Elizabeth Slocum illustrations by Ayang Cempaka 48 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 THE ROOT OF THE MATTER Eric Bishop von Wettberg ’99 is unearthing solutions to climate change by turning to the earth itself. An associate professor of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont, von Wettberg studies root systems in chickpeas and other legumes to better understand the relationship between crops and carbon. By comparing the roots of domesticated plants with those of wild varieties, von Wettberg and his research team aim to improve the carboncapture process, to the benefit of crops and the surrounding soil. “At some point, we need to take the carbon out of the atmosphere,” says von Wettberg, a biology major at Swarthmore with a Ph.D. in ecology and evolution from Brown University. “Because soils can hold 10 times more carbon than the atmosphere, and because in agricultural soil, putting more carbon into it generally makes it better, the most ethical place to put carbon at scale is into the soil. “If we want to achieve that, we need to understand how our crops came to put less carbon into the soil.” Since the dawn of agriculture, crops have been selected for their output of seeds, with attention focused on their growth above the ground, von Wettberg says. As a result, farmers inadvertently selected for crops that put less back into the soil, with weaker root systems that thrived only in tilled land. Wild chickpeas, meanwhile, grow on mountains and in deep rock in their native Turkey, their roots better suited for unideal growing conditions. By cross-pollinating these varieties with cultivars in the lab, von Wettberg’s team aims to improve genetic diversity while building climate-change resistance into agricultural systems. “Da Vinci famously said that we know more about the celestial bodies than we do the ground beneath our feet,” von Wettberg says. “We have struggled to understand what goes on below, because to assess a root system, you basically have to take a shovel and dig it up, and that’s inherently destructive.” Plant root systems can be compared to the human digestive tract, von Wettberg says, with the microbiome playing a large role in their health. “Plants are taking up water, nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium from the soil,” he says, “and their efficiency at doing that is in large part determined by how well they interact with the millions of microbes in that soil.” Understanding this is important as plant researchers address the needs created by climate change. Beyond his study of chickpeas, von Wettberg is working with seed gene FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 49 HOW TO LIBERATE THAT FROZEN FEELING AND BUILD SOME CLIMATE MOMENTUM AS TEMPERATURES RISE: ALUMNI NOTEBOOK “One of the ways we can protect the crop diversity we value most is to save seeds of our own crops, and that can happen in one’s garden — it doesn’t need to be at a university lab or a seed company. If you have your grandmother’s seeds, her Ukrainian black tomato or just a New Jersey heirloom beefsteak tomato, you can save your own seeds. That is a small step, but it preserves that bit of crop genetic diversity.” — Eric Bishop von Wettberg ’99 “Be an advocate. Give to causes that are getting engaged in lobbying. It’s a really important time right now; with the change in the administration, climate change is way back on the agenda. And be an educated consumer. Read good books, like Michael Mann’s The New Climate War.” — Polly Ericksen ’87 “Some people like being more hands-on, by joining a community garden or meeting like-minded people. That’s always a good start: finding a community that’s interested in the same things and being physically involved in it, to be more connected and rooted.” — Eriko Shrestha ’19 banks to preserve crop genetic diversity, and he’s helping resettled refugees produce crops of cultural significance in Vermont, where the growing conditions are typically far different from their home countries in South Asia and subSaharan Africa. Von Wettberg says expanding the typical Western agricultural rotation to a four-crop system would further benefit plant and soil health and help diversify farmers’ incomes. One plan he’s exploring would round out the corn and soybean rotation with winter wheat and mung bean, a quick-growing legume often used in East Asian and Indian dishes. Though mung beans aren’t widely popular yet in the United States, von Wettberg wouldn’t be surprised if they took off. One food company, he notes, Eat Just Inc., recently created a plant-based egg, catering to those Americans cutting animal products from their diets — often in the name of helping the planet. The product’s main ingredient? Mung beans. RUMINATING ON RUMINANTS The data on bovine flatulence can be hard to stomach. Livestock accounts for 14.5% of global greenhouse-gas emissions, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, largely the result of the methane they produce through ruminant digestion. These findings have led to global calls for reforms on how cattle are raised, as well as to how meat and dairy products are consumed. “IT’S IMPORTANT THAT WE NOT TAKE SOLUTIONS FROM AMERICA AND IMPOSE THEM ON AFRICAN SMALLHOLDERS, WHERE THE RATIONALE AND THE PROFIT MARGINS FOR LIVESTOCKKEEPING ARE REALLY QUITE DIFFERENT.” — Polly Ericksen ’87 50 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 The models driving these demands, however, are typically based on a Western industrial farming point of view. This leaves ranchers from Africa, Latin America, and Asia out of the conversation, says Polly Ericksen ’87, the program leader for sustainable livestock systems at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Not all cattle are raised in the same way, she says — and not all people have the luxury of replacing their protein sources. “There’s a lot of data in Europe and in North America on how cows digest, on where carbon can be stored in agricultural situations, on how people will change their behavior and respond to different incentives,” she says. “None of that applies to smallholder farming situations in Africa, where people keep livestock for different reasons. They’ve adapted to a host of not just climatic but other kinds of stressors as well.” A history major at Swarthmore with a master’s in economics and a Ph.D. in soil science, both from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Ericksen has spent more than 20 years working on agricultural development, naturalresource management, and global environmental change in developing countries. At ILRI, a global nonprofit research organization based in Nairobi, Kenya, Ericksen spends much of her time correcting assumptions about global livestock production while driving home the realities of African systems in climate change discussions. Unlike cows in the U.S., animals in Kenya are often hungry, as the region’s two dry seasons limit the supply of food for livestock, Ericksen notes. And hungry cows digest very differently from well-fed cows. “We’ll never be able to feed every cow in Africa with the resource intensities that you can in the U.S.,” she says. “There isn’t enough land, there isn’t enough money, there isn’t enough fertilizer. One thing we have learned is that you need different solutions for different systems. It’s important that we not take solutions from America and impose them on African smallholders, where the rationale and the profit margins for livestock-keeping are really quite different.” In addition to elevating the agricultural data from underrepresented regions, Ericksen works with public- and private-sector partners in those areas on addressing and adapting to climate change. Improving the quality of cows’ feed baskets can significantly reduce their carbon output, Ericksen says, as can managing manure in confined feeding operations. “We’ve also found that the health of animals has a big impact on their productivity and is another promising opportunity to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions,” she says. “But the challenge for the livestock sector is how will you ever get to total emissions reduction, because ruminant digestion will always produce methane,” she adds. “That’s why we need to look at land-based mitigation options for livestock systems.” MODEL BEHAVIOR The Paris Agreement of 2015 brought the world together in a unified front to confront the challenges of climate change. Through a series of pledges, countries set targets for reducing their greenhouse-gas emissions with an eye toward stemming global warming. But aspirations are different from actions. As an implementation specialist at Climate Analytics, an international organization that advises partner countries on solutions to climate change, Eriko Shrestha ’19 works FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 51 closely with nations to identify measures they can take to reach their emissions goals. “We talk to government stakeholders, sometimes private-sector utilities, and we make recommendations — identifying the lowest hanging fruit for them to tackle, and then moving up from there,” says Shrestha, whose regions include the Caribbean and her home country, Nepal. For a target that focuses on renewable energy, for example, Shrestha’s team might create a scenario combining diesel generators with wind, solar, and geothermal power. Following a series of simulations, the team will devise an action plan, taking into account “what’s feasible financially as well as in the time horizon, and what’s existing on the ground in terms of infrastructure.” Context plays a key role, Shrestha says, especially in developing countries where resources may not always be available. To gain buy-in for their recommendations from national governments and others from their target sectors, Climate Analytics employs workers who live in the individual countries, or who are otherwise deeply familiar with their cultures and complexities. What works in, say, 52 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 “WE WORK WITH DEVELOPING COUNTRIES THAT AREN’T HISTORICALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EMISSIONS, YET THEY’RE THE MOST VULNERABLE TO CLIMATE CHANGE.” — Eriko Shrestha ’19 Germany might not be right for Nepal, Shrestha notes, “because Nepal doesn’t have the same technology, finances, and responsibility.” Though based in New York, as a native Nepali, Shrestha understands the country’s unique circumstances. In her role she works directly with a small on-the-ground team in Nepal as well as with the nation’s Ministry of Forests and Environment. “Sometimes, coming in as an organization, it can be very top-down to be like, ‘Nepal needs to reduce emissions by this much,’ when why should Nepal do that?” she says. “It’s a developing country, and its national grid is mostly powered by hydropower — how can we reduce a lot of emissions from that?” “There’s also an ethical component in that we work with developing countries that aren’t historically responsible for the emissions, yet they’re the most vulnerable to climate change,” she adds. “So they’re more inclined to be more ambitious to pressure more industrialized countries to do the same, and improve their own resiliency against disasters because rebuilding is costly.” A political science and environmental studies major at Swarthmore, Shrestha took an interest in climate policy as a Lang Opportunity Scholar, working on an electronicwaste management project in Kathmandu. Frustrated by the difficulties she encountered surrounding hazardous waste and recycling, she realized the importance of government policy in laying the groundwork for environmental reform. “Now, my take on policy is that we need to work in the private sector, because there’s a lot of nudging that needs to be done,” she says. “It’s an evolution of me learning how things work, and figuring things out from there. “This is clearly a complex issue that one person can’t solve. How can we all be part of the solution?” class notes A TREASURY OF ALUMNI-RELATED ITEMS ALUMNI EVENTS SWATTALKS See a list of upcoming SwatTalks or browse the full catalog of recordings. bit.ly/SwatTalks VIRTUAL ENGAGEMENT OPPORTUNITIES Explore recorded events, upcoming programs, and ways to engage with alumni and students. swarthmore.edu/alumni ALUMNI COUNCIL NOMINATIONS Interested in serving your fellow Swarthmoreans? Nominate yourself or another alum for Alumni Council by Nov. 1. bit.ly/SwatACNoms LAURENCE KESTERSON SWARTHMORE DISCUSSION GROUP Join us in this series, held remotely this fall, to hear knowledgeable speakers and engage in lively conversation with local community members as well as Swarthmore staff, faculty, and alumni. swarthmore.edu/ discussion-group Sky Park ’24 (left) and Paris Shan ’23 assist with check-in at International Student Orientation in August. 1943 Betty Glenn Webber bettywebber22@yahoo.com Those of us physically unscathed by the pandemic and its losses are blessed, and those touched more closely have our concern and sympathy. Many of us are sharing a common experience: the arrival of the century mark. I was glad to hear from Diana Judd Stevens ’63, a Crosslands friend of Connie Spink Fleming, about the celebration for Connie’s 100th birthday April 15. The Zoom gathering included a recap of Connie’s life with photos, personal greetings, appreciation of her community leadership at Crosslands, and family highlights. Diana said Connie reported that each of her three children attended Quaker schools, including daughter Connie Fleming Strickland ’71. Before the pandemic, Diana and Paul Stevens ’65 had several dinners with Connie. My take on my looming birthday was that I am fortunate to be well and active but am functioning with assorted faculties beyond their use-by dates. Mary Stewart Trageser reflected on Swarthmore memories, and I echoed, word for word, her remark on being an English major but one who hasn’t written a novel. During my news-gathering, Mary contributed content and greetings. You all realize, of course, that there is no column without your input. 1949 Marjorie Merwin Daggett mmdaggett@verizon.net Bill Hirsch reminisced about the late economics professor Patrick Murphy Malin, who was a diplomat favored by President Franklin Roosevelt and an early proponent of renting rather than owning a car. Elizabeth Urey Baranger died in May 2019, leaving three children to whom we extend belated sympathy. Elizabeth was an FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 53 class notes honors math graduate, a nuclear physicist, and a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, where she was later associate dean for graduate studies and vice provost; while there, she worked to improve the status of women, especially in the sciences. I remember her confident smile as she told the late Dr. Forster that the mystery liquid she’d been given to test was just distilled water. Our sympathy to the family of Eleanor Lacy Brightman, a member of the Folk Dance club and honors grad with a master’s in social work. She worked at Connecticut Valley Hospital and was married to the late Rev. Robert Brightman ’50. Condolences to the family of Peggy MacLaren Ulrich, who died in May. She was dean of students and admissions at Swarthmore, at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J., and at Wheaton College. In 1997, she married the late Alden Ulrich and lived in Philadelphia, volunteering and endowing a scholarship at the Vocal Arts Academy. I will miss Ted Wright, who faithfully contributed to class notes and with whom I enjoyed conversations about the Dutch settlers of New York. Our sympathy to his wife, family, and friends. He served in the Navy, graduated Phi Beta Kappa, earned his doctorate at Yale, married Susan Standfast in 1967, and taught government and political science at Bates College, the University of Chicago, and SUNY–Albany. He was an active member and past president of the Dutch Settlers Society of Albany. Also in May, Bill Eldredge died in Hudson, Ohio, and our sympathies go to his wife and two children. He served in the Korean War and began his long career with Sherwin-Williams in 1953. Bill married Patricia Sawyer in 1960, and they had two children. He served on the Hudson Planning Board and that of his Unitarian Universalist church and was president of the Hudson Library and Historical Society. He also kept in close touch with College friends and their wives, including the late Dean Peabody, the late Joel Siner, the late Bill and Susan Lurie Lichten, and Dan Beshers. 54 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 1951 Elisabeth “Liesje” Boessenkool Ketchel lizketchel30@gmail.com Gerry Pollack reports: “Don Blough and I traveled to Brookline, Mass., to have dinner (a semi-annual event) with Arthur Mattuck. We were roommates in our final year at Swarthmore. We were joined by Lotte Lazarsfeld Bailyn, Lisa Steiner ’54, and my wife, Pat.” John McIntyre “can still walk a mile, and sing and play the piano at the same time. My wife is a joy and looks up new recipes for dinners chez nous.” Robin Cooley Krivanek reports: “I have finished my second tour of duty on the board of the Sanibel Captiva Conservation Foundation; I still volunteer with our local social services agency FISH and with my United Church of Christ church. I was surprised and honored to be named a Grande Dame for a Fort Myers, Fla., girls school fundraiser.” In D.C., Dot Wynne Marschak “taught a course in July (on Zoom) at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute on E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime. I also continue to organize programs for the Woman’s National Democratic Club on Zoom. I take classes, participate in book clubs, and engage in a weekly trivia contest with my two kids, who live in California. I belong to a Village, which is part of a movement that brings us old folks together in selfhelp groups in order to ‘stay put.’ Through my nonprofit, Community Help in Music Education, I continue to be a strong promoter and supporter of the Chester Children’s Chorus.” Bob McCarthy says: “At 92, I’m still doing the same fitness routine that I was doing 20 years ago. However, memory is another story. I have to say to myself, ‘Be happy. You’re alive.’ And my wife, Marge, is still with me. But I’ve given up woodworking classes. I’ve resigned from the docent program at the Santa Fe Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. I dropped out of the Mesa Prieta Rock Art Survey program to locate and catalog Pueblo-culture rock art. Still, a longtime buddy and I regularly drive 25 miles on tracks across the desert to our assigned site: an old Native village, long unoccupied, though we are told, never ‘abandoned’ — it belongs to the ancestors. Our assignment is to assure that there are no signs of anyone digging in search of old Indian pots. My wife and I are still promoting labyrinth walking as a meditation tool, building labyrinths in backyards and church yards as well as in a public park. Anyone curious can check the World-Wide Labyrinth Locator at labyrinthlocator.com.” We have lost several classmates: Richard Dole Jr., Joy Sundgaard Kaiser, Sumi Mitsudo Koide, and Woodlief Thomas. 1952 Barbara Wolff Searle bsearle70@msn.com A bit late, here are a few highlights from Roger Feldman’s Christmas letter from London, where he and his wife live. “As a former epidemiologist,” he writes, “it has been interesting to be an observer rather than an active participant” in the pandemic. The couple have not seen their U.S. and New Zealand family members for more than a year. “On a more cheerful note, our allotment plot with a close neighbor yielded a modest second-year harvest from two Victoria plum trees, rhubarb, and a cluster of Tayberry vines. The rewards are entirely emotional; these must be the most expensive plums and rhubarb in the world.” The rest of my news, sadly, concerns three people who have died. David Lemke died just after Christmas. He graduated with an engineering degree and worked as a civil engineer in steel fabrication. He is survived by his wife and several children, grandchildren, and nieces and nephews. Robert Ammerman died in May. He graduated with highest honors in philosophy and later was a professor at the University of Wisconsin. He was passionate about teaching and introduced new and popular courses in diverse topics in and related to philosophy. He is survived by his son and grandchildren. Sybil Hillman Pike died in March at the Crosslands Retirement Community in Kennett Square, Pa. The first part of her career was as a Library of Congress research librarian. Later, she and partner Doris Grumbach, an author, opened and operated Wayward Books, a D.C. bookstore. Sybil and I were roommates our first year at Swarthmore and remained friends. Our start was rocky; it took quite a while before we let down our guards and became friends. We didn’t know at the time that all the women on our hall were Jewish. The dean thought she was doing us a favor by housing us with people we’d feel “comfortable” with. Please let me know how you are doing, especially if you have stories you’d like to share about David, Robert, or Sybil. 1953 Carol Lange Davis cldavis1105@gmail.com Paul Kuznets wrote about the cicadas inhabiting his Elm Heights neighborhood, next to the Indiana University campus in Bloomington: “One begins to hear the roar of the cicadas and then sees netted shrubs and small trees. Outside the netting, leaves are covered with the carapaces of cicadas that have emerged from the ground before flying off to find a mate. Go half a mile in either direction and it is quiet. Fortunately, they are here for only two months, after which we can return to worrying about the usual things like COVID-19 and climate change.” I chatted with Nina Felber Streitfeld, who has had several cornea transplants with her sight seriously affected, making reading difficult. Now, the dentist has covered her front teeth with some sort of preservative to keep them from crumbling, so her teeth look better than she does. Nina is on the board of directors of Save Westport (Conn.) Now. Not to be outdone by Nina, Stanley Mills had a cornea transplant last year. When we last spoke, he was not sure whether it had improved his sight. Deane Bellow Schneider died in Bethesda, Md., June 16, 2019. Gail Eaton Renner died Feb. 1. She is survived by daughter Jane and son John, as well as a grandson and granddaughter. Robert Griest died Jan. 29. His wife of 64 years and three daughters, as well as seven grandchildren and greatgrandchildren, survive him. Eleanor Cohn Kane died April 28 in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where she had a private medical practice for many years. I remember Elie as freshmen in Parrish E3. All that studying she did really paid off. See Their Light Lives On for her many accomplishments. Elie is survived by son Michael and grandson Maximillian. Please send me your news; there must be something to share with the rest of the class. 1954 Elizabeth Dun Colten lizcolten@aol.com I need input to make your column more interesting — or I will have to write about me. Bill Armstrong tested positive for COVID-19 in November and spent the next six months recovering. He commented with humor that for the first time in 50 years, he had plenty of time to grow a beard. Peter Van Pelt serves on the boards of the Lathrop (retirement) Community and Valley Classical Concerts, both in Northampton, Mass. He planned a summer visit to Maine to see his son and also a trip to visit longtime friends in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He is in occasional contact with Dick Carle and has had email exchanges with Eric Gillett. Jay Ochroch and his wife and Fred and Elena Sogan Kyle had their first face-to-face get together in 15 months at a Japanese restaurant in Center City Philadelphia. Jay confessed that to survive the pandemic, he and his wife became gym rats at their condo. Although Philadelphia shut down during the pandemic, Fred and Elena survived reasonably well. Franz Allina’s March 30, 2020, death was listed in the winter Their Light Lives On. Son Eric wrote that his Swarthmore friends continued to be an important part of Franz’s life, including Victor Navasky, who was best man at Franz’s wedding and made remarks in his memory at a Committee to Protect Journalists board meeting. Later in life, Franz attended Cardozo School of Law in NYC with a particular interest in First Amendment issues. He had the support of his politically active wife, Marcia, and children Eric and Amy. Alison Griffith Tennyson, an intrepid traveler and longtime D.C. resident, died April 9. She spent her adult life contributing to her community, loved the arts, especially opera, and was a staunch supporter of gay rights, but her first love was Europe. She is survived by daughter Leslie and grandson Luke. Grace Bunker Lowney died April 28. She raised two children while getting a child psychology Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. She worked in education, volunteered at the Unitarian Universalist church and the League of Women Voters, and traveled extensively. Daughter Catherine ’82 would welcome memories of Grace’s time at Swarthmore. Janet Barkdoll ’22 is the 2020–21 recipient of the Class of 1954 Scholarship. She is and honors mathematics major with a minor in studio art. Janet grew up in Vermont, and her rural background makes her unusual on campus. 1955 Bernard Webb bethel4684@gmail.com Many of you may have stories to tell about your experience in dealing with the pandemic; please consider sharing those. Also, be sure to read about those who have passed in the thoughtfully worded Their Light Lives On. We are saddened by the death of Carl “Punky” Fristrom. He was remarkable, having survived polio in his youth and then participating in Swarthmore athletics. He had a noteworthy career in athletic coaching and set a fine example in reporting regularly in these notes. Meanwhile, here in our small town, we appreciated the ability of the local stores to weather the pandemic. Our coffee shop has been thriving; a coffee and a muffin is a regular Friday ritual for Ethel Smith Webb ’58 and me. Hugh Strachan says his senior community in Boca Raton, Fla., handled the pandemic well. Hugh likes to sing and is active in the Master Chorale of South Florida, whose works had been on hold. Ron Decker has not minded being cooped up in an apartment building in Chicago with a gorgeous view of the sunrise over Lake Michigan. Normally, he and his wife travel regularly, but they have “not gone anywhere” during the pandemic. Sara Hall Todd’s “senior community of 1,600 and several hundred staff” steered their way through the pandemic successfully and were edging back to normalcy. She had just returned from a trip to Tucson, Ariz., where she visited old friends. “I am making up for lost time while I can still get around.” Tom Preston is “no longer on Lopez Island, Wash., but we have just had the longest-ever dry and warm weather in April in the Seattle area.” Previously, Ted Phillips and Tom laid out their connections to Lopez Island. Sally Schneckenburger Rumbaugh weathered a health crisis and recovered nicely. At such times, she reaps the benefit of a daughter and granddaughter living nearby. Ron Decker received a note from the wife of Paul Marcus that he “passed away May 8 after a very brief stay in the hospital and due to his heart and lung issues dating back to surgery in 2018.” Paul was a former roommate of Ron and a fellow member of Phi Delta Theta. Also lost to us are Judith AschGoodkin and Alice Lund Norris. Our thoughts are with their loved ones. This update is from Bill Dominick: “Last July, Phyllis Klock Dominick ’57 and I moved to the Cedarfield continuing care retirement community in Richmond, Va. The combination of our ages and our general health brought us to the realization that we no longer could nor should be living on our own.” It took awhile for them to get used to the small apartment and feel like “one of the gang.” All five children and their spouses, as well as 11 grandchildren, used to get together every five years for a family reunion at some warm, exotic location over the winter holidays. Now, the older grandchildren are on their own and employed, and “we’re not as mobile as we once were. So, for the first time in some 40 years, we were at home this past December. Life moves on, as they say.” 1956 Caro Luhrs celuhrs@verizon.net Deven Ayambem ’24 is our 2020–21 class scholarship recipient. Swarthmore has allowed him to understand perspectives unlike his own, giving great meaning to his life. An English major, Deven has three passions: STEM, dance, and powerlifting. He was the first-place winner of the Pennsylvania State Powerlifting Championships. In 1954, Phil Hawes reluctantly left Swarthmore to pursue architecture, and he’s still going strong. In 2020, he taught immersion courses in sustainable design at the Maharishi FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 55 class notes International University in Fairfield, Iowa. This involved developing a new model for 20 acres on which MIU had placed 200 trailers for the last 40 years as “temporary” student-faculty housing. Barbara Troxell and husband Gene Boutilier live at Pilgrim Place in Claremont, Calif., where he is the resident moderator and on the board. Barbara chairs the Napier Initiative Council, a partnership between Pilgrim Place and the five Claremont Colleges to encourage leadership for social change. As ministers, both are deeply involved in two Claremont churches. I hope you were able to participate in our spring class Zoom hosted by Eric Osterweil in Brussels and starring Carl Levin, the longestserving U.S. senator in Michigan history, who sadly died in July. It was a great discussion about the responsibility of elected officials for truthfulness and decency. Carl said his experience on Swarthmore’s student council and Detroit’s city council taught him that “you can’t legislate without compromise.” I am also sad to report the death of Carolyn “Cabbie” Shuler Minionis on Oct. 8, 2020. She always had a bright smile and a happy laugh. A chemistry major, she was on the varsity lacrosse and basketball teams and in the College orchestra. Cabbie was a high school teacher of science, math, and photography on Long Island, N.Y. She also was principal violist in the North Shore (Long Island) Symphony. Cabbie’s husband, Roger, predeceased her. She is survived by four children, Ron, David ’87, Sandra, and Laura ’91, and eight grandchildren. Additionally, I am sad to report the death of Gerard “Gerry” Swope on May 3, 2020, in Woods Hole, Mass. He was only in our class from 1952 to 1954. At 18, Gerry was drafted into the Army and served with the Medical Corps in Korea. He completed his bachelor’s in accounting at Babson College and later earned an MBA from Harvard. He was a manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers and CFO of two D.C. companies. A husband, father, and grandfather with a subtle wit and dry sense of humor, he is survived by wife Mary, sons Timothy and Ian, brother John, and 56 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 three grandchildren. Our thoughts are with all. Christopher “Kit” Lukas is an Emmy winner for his work as a writer and director in commercial and public television. He has also written four novels and seven nonfiction books. His latest is Carrying a Torch and Other Tales of Love, Lust, and Loss, a series of engaging stories available at tamupress.com. By the way, how many of you knew that Kit studied conducting under Leonard Bernstein? 1957 Minna Newman Nathanson jm@nathansons.net Deb Smith Dempsey wrote that on a visit to Maine, her daughter drove her to visit Eleanor “Polly” Witte Wright. They each sat with their children “in decorously masked distance … and felt our way back to a friendship from many years ago. Now, we are free to email back and forth and say some of the things you can’t tell the children.” Maxine Marcus Boshes moved to Sacramento, Calif., 16 years ago to be near the families of her daughter and son. The family has a history of early childhood teachers, including Maxine, her mom, and her daughter. When the children’s center in Santa Monica, Calif., where Maxine taught closed, she enjoyed backyard family picnics, virtual writing critiques, and walks with a masked neighbor. Katherine Applegate, who retired from teaching community college economics, said that since COVID-19, she’s done what she’s always done in trying times: gone back to school. She’s taking classes with the Oregon State University Extension Master Gardeners to support landscaping a yard on the edge of a high (3,800-foot) desert. Katherine wrote that Debby Gross Farrington, who died in October 2020, was a fine arts major whose interest in the arts continued throughout her life. Almost all of Debby’s letters included some discussion of an exhibit, collection, museum, or local arts and crafts show. I was saddened to learn of the death of Mary Boyce Gelfman, who used her graduate education and legal degrees in advocacy for special education students. We met occasionally on Cape Cod, where we each had a house. I’ll mostly miss her wit — always cleverly on point, but never mean. Mayer Davidson kept in touch with the late Gordon Power when both ended up in academic medicine in Southern California. Besides securing 30-plus years of NIH research funding, Gordon had a talent for creating complex projects, including building his own airplane (that late wife Peggy Condon Power ’59 persuaded him not to fly), making intricate furniture, and building a fourbedroom, two-story house whose roof he was repairing before he succumbed to COVID-19. Gordon attended medical school with Ferris Hall, who recalled Gordon telling him about playing a game of mental chess with another student at a Swarthmore football game until they left the stadium to settle a disagreement on a chess board in the dorm. Cora Diamond thrives on Zoom. She and sister Julie Diamond ’65 had a Zoom “conversation” with Megan Laverty of Teachers’ College at Columbia about Julie’s book Kindergarten: A Teacher, Her Students, and a Year of Learning. Cora participated in a class via Zoom at the University of Chicago, presenting a paper there and again at Oxford; she also held Zoom workshop presentations on Ludwig Wittgenstein and Iris Murdoch. All this and her dog keep her active. Peter Rosi died in March. In his 50-year medical practice in Alaska, he assisted thousands of mothers to deliver their babies at home. He and first wife Charlotte had five children and then adopted four brothers. He is survived by eight children, 18 grandchildren, and 15 great grandchildren. Pete and second wife Leone traveled widely, particularly focusing on monasteries. 1958 Marianne Wertheim Makman maynardmakman@gmail.com Linda Howard Zonana lhzonana@yahoo.com We are sad to learn of the death of Edwina “Edie” Parker Furman, whose obituary appears in Their Light Lives On. Janet Smith Warfield wrote that in 2020 she formed the educational nonprofit Planetary Peace, Power, and Prosperity Legacy Foundation. Its twice-monthly virtual gatherings include “‘stewards’ from all over the planet who share their gifts and skills with one another in respectful conversations.” Janet’s second book, Surrendering into Soul, is being published. Also, she has completed a series of podcasts on Bold Brave Media and has been interviewed on podcasts and live-streams, including The Beyond Growth Show, Better Your Business in 30 Minutes, and The Wellness Universe Inspired Sessions. Charles “Tex” Wyndham, after congratulating us on succeeding Vera Lundy Jones as class secretary, said his marriage to Nancy is a second one for them both, and “we passed our 50th anniversary on Feb. 4, so we think this one is going to last.” Nancy has a son, two grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, while Tex has a son and a daughter. His son Buck’s book, Hogs in the Sand: A Gulf War A-10 Pilot’s Combat Journal, was published in 2020. Tex’s own book, Texas Shout: How Dixieland Jazz Works, is a collection of columns he wrote for The West Coast Rag and The American Rag magazines. “Since I took DuPont’s last big downsizing offer and retired at age 54, all of my employment has been in the fields of ragtime and Dixieland jazz. I am very lucky to be able to say that everything I wanted to do in those musical areas I did.” Those interested in seeing some of Tex’s performances should search his name on YouTube. “The audience for Dixieland jazz and ragtime is quite elderly and has been dying out. My own Red Lion Jazz Band, which first took the stage in July 1964, still rehearses weekly, but hasn’t played a gig since October 2019.” He and Nancy were planning to travel to vintage film weekends in Rome, N.Y., and Columbus, Ohio. Writing in to class notes has been proven to prolong lives, so please contact us about your lives, struggles, amusements, and reflections. 1959 Miriam Repp Staloff mrstaloff@gmail.com Josephine Weissman Hall died in September 2020. A psychology major at Swarthmore, she was the only woman admitted to her class at Chicago Medical School. Josie trained as an OB-GYN at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. In addition to her private practice, she was an assistant professor at USC and former California Gov. Jerry Brown appointed her to the state Board of Medical Quality. Larger than life, Josie was funny, intelligent, and a strong, unforgettable character who raised five children and left an indelible mark on everything she touched. Her family and her patients will miss her. And so will I. In February, our class lost Moffett Beall Hall. Her husband described her as “a lifelong scholar, artist, and seeker.” An English major at Swarthmore, Moffett earned an additional bachelor’s in studio arts, mastered oil painting and watercolors, and worked in pottery and printmaking. Moffett spent her junior year in France and completed two book-length translations from French to English. She raised a son, wrote poetry, and was a student of Zen Buddhism. Her passing was noted in the spring Their Light Lives On. A memorial page is at moffetthallmemorial.com. I encourage you to send any items about yourself that we can share. Meanwhile, I’m still vertical. 1960 INTERGENERATIONAL FRIENDSHIP Jeanette Strasser Pfaff jfalk2@mac.com The topic (inspired by Michael Westgate) was: “What do you remember about Somerville?” Michael remembered that the jukebox in the Somerville snack bar had a silent record. For the same price as a song, you could buy three minutes of silence. The company servicing the jukebox was incredulous that students would be willing to pay for silence. Michael also recalled that Wednesday nights, Charlie Chaplin movies were shown, with the late Peter van de Kamp, his favorite astronomy professor, providing piano accompaniment. Janet Lockard remembered spending too many hours in Somerville, listening to the jukebox, sometimes dancing, and writing terribly profound streamof-consciousness “poetry” on paper napkins. Pat Roulston Williams learned “to change chords on guitar by watching a friend doing it in the air, listening to the jukebox.” Sara Bolyard Chase described the building as gray fieldstone in visual harmony with nearby Parrish. “Upstairs was a cavernous space for dances; downstairs, under a low ceiling, a space much more sophisticated. I remember feeling both adventurous and not quite ‘right’ being there.” (Is this Somerville or Hernando’s Hideaway?) Dave Horr remembered three things: The delightful, unique mural by Russ Ryan ’57, the dance parties, and lining up to choose classes for the next semester. Dave is thrilled that the Holtkamp organ in Lang Music Building has been restored. “I enjoyed playing it at our 25th Reunion and was sorry it had become unplayable. In retirement, I substitute for organist Michael Westgate ’60 met up with Ben Stern ’20 in June in Chatham, Mass. Working with Associate Professor Ben Berger, Ben was among the students who assisted Michael in putting together a virtual Intergenerational Forum on the Growing Disparity in Wealth, marking the Class of 1960’s 60th Reunion. colleagues, and I am secretary and treasurer of the Southern Arizona American Guild of Organists.” Sandra Ha Fink “loved the mural and the chance to talk to friends after spending time in the library.” Bob Heaton remembered the mocha milkshakes and grilled sticky buns, but, more interestingly, recalls “joining a fellow classmate and Robert Frost. Awesome! He did not seem poetic, just a congenial old man.” (Frost came to campus our freshman year.) Peter Faber: “Discovering sticky buns, Russ drawings, and crashing a formal dance in blue jeans.” (Peter, always the rebel.) Judith Nordblom Alger says, “Who even remembers that ‘Somerville’ was a place?” Joan Bond Sax has “absolutely no recollection of Somerville.” John Vincent: 1) Working many hours in the basement snack bar and 2) Groups of students taking proctored exams in the main room on portable typewriters. “Noisy — clatter, clatter — but you didn’t pay attention because you needed to complete your exam.” Susan Washburn remembered the white-painted concrete block walls and delightfully sardonic black line drawings by Russ. She adds: “Since my new fake hip doesn’t like lengthy mountain hikes, I got my old road bike refurbished. Of course, I had to acquire a brightorange helmet and a glaring yellow windbreaker to match my bike’s flashy paint job.” John Harbeson had a few wonderful conversations in Somerville but “probably didn’t frequent it as much as I should have.” Also, John was asked to do a seventh edition of Africa in World Politics, first published in 1991. Meanwhile, Gordon Adams writes: “I am concerned about my world: drought in the West, hostility across cultures, collapsing ecosystems. … But our garden and birds continue to be delightful, and the grandchildren are alive and well.” 1961 Pat Myers Westine pat@westinefamily.com The Class of ’61 had finished three virtual 60th Reunion events when I wrote this. Although disappointed FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 57 class notes we couldn’t meet on campus, we Zoomed: 1) the Spring Fling in April with chat rooms; 2) in early June for an arts panel, organized and facilitated by Class President Maurice Eldridge, which updated us on how music, art, theater, dance, and film studies became established departments and work together; and 3) also in June, shared a toast with President Val Smith during which she updated us about the College and answered our questions, followed by another chat room. Maurice and I thank Jon Van Til, Randy Moore, Bonny Cochran, and Greta Reed Seashore for their time and effort in planning a very different reunion. The Class of 1961 Reunion Fund for the Arts and Social Change has reached over $300,000 with a yearly distribution of more than $14,000 given to one to three students who spend the summer working for nonprofits, grassroots advocacy groups, or public service agencies on projects combining the arts and social change. Carolyn Goldberg Burke’s biography group portrait, Foursome: Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keefe, Paul Strand, Rebecca Salisbury, has been published. Responding to the reunion arts panel, she says, “No doubt it all began at Swarthmore, at a time when we didn’t have arts in the curriculum.” Sidney Oltman Ferrell is back in Berkeley, Calif., where she lived for 40 years before a 17-year interlude in Sweden, Romania, Kazakhstan, Oregon, and Washington state. She is happy to be in the in-law apartment at one son’s that is not too far from her other son. Sidney wrote of the death of Panthea Kreps Redwood, her roommate for three years at Swarthmore and a year after College. Panthea lived in Anchorage, Alaska, where she was a city planner. I also received a note from Emily Rowley telling me of husband Bob Rowley’s death in December. He and Hugh Nesbitt, both Kappa Sigs, died this winter, and their deaths were announced in the spring Bulletin. I welcome your personal memories. Hugh sat next to me for four years in Collection, and my late husband, 58 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 Peter ’62, and I visited his “house in the woods” several times when we all lived in Pittsburgh. Bob lost a son-in-law on 9/11 and a daughter to physical difficulties; he returned for several of our reunions. There was a letter this spring in the New York Times obituary section remembering Peter Aizupitis, who died in 2017. Dorothy Smith Pam is on the Amherst, Mass., town council and is an instructor at Holyoke Community College. Her holiday letter included a poem expressing hope and light in the dark time of COVID-19. Roger ’60 and Diane Marshall Shott live in Louisville, Ky., and felt well-taken-care-of in their Masonic Home retirement communityg. They missed their usual annual activities and inperson visits with their two sons. What would we all have done during the pandemic without Zoom and FaceTime? 1962 Evelyn Edson eedson@pvcc.edu David Wegman sent the notes he’d prepared for a virtual 55th Reunion with fellow med students Steve Schoenbaum, Suzanne Wright Fletcher, and Arthur Siegel. Having retired in 2010, Dave still works nearly full time but gets to do only those things he really wants to do. He specialized in occupational health and was principal investigator on an international research team studying a “chronic kidney disease of undetermined origin” that causes disability and death among working-age Nicaraguan men. Dave believes the cause is physically demanding labor in extreme heat, which over time can lead to irreversible kidney damage. Their research has shown evidence that water, shade, and regular rest could be beneficial. Dave is on the board of the Alpha Foundation for the Improvement of Mine Safety and Health and in a Swedish project on risk factors in occupational health. He has helped the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees to develop a post-COVID-19 plan for backstage workers. Wife Peggy died in 2010, but he found a partner in Carolyn, who started a forest-restoration project in Armenia after its 1988 earthquake. Allen Greenleaf died Jan. 17 in Pownall, Maine. He studied mechanical engineering at Swarthmore, specializing in optics. He homesteaded in Maine after he became concerned his work in high-altitude large optics might contribute to projects of war. Allen began building a barn by first building a sawmill, then cutting and milling lumber from his farm. He also designed, built, and installed a hand-crank elevator “because he could.” Those of us who knew Allen remember him as a shy, quiet person. His obituary noted, “A conversation with him required keen hearing and a comfort with silences.” Peg Kaetzel Wheeler wrote about keeping up with her children and grandchildren during the past year. “I’ve found time passes remarkably quickly when you’re doing nothing in particular.” To stay busy, she was in three book groups and knitted and sewed, including full-sized face masks and mini-mask bookmark Christmas presents. I was sorry when COVID stopped my work as a volunteer reading tutor for third-graders in Fluvanna County, Va. Instead, I read aloud to children Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Charlotte’s Web. I close this month’s column with a remembrance of Ruth Brown Cross, who died in January. She was married to economics professor William Brown while we were at Swarthmore. After his death, she married Bob Cross and returned to the College when he became president (1969–71). When I arrived in Charlottesville, Va., in 1972, Bob was a dean at the University of Virginia. Ruth and I were volunteers at Reading for the Blind and were often assigned the numerous Bibles requested by patrons, marveling at the wonderful variety of translations. Ruth was active in the arts community, and we saw each other at screenings of the Metropolitan Opera. She was 94, lively, and interesting to the end. May we all do as well. 1963 Diana Judd Stevens djsteven1@verizon.net Kathie Kertesz’s 80th birthday celebration in Spain ended abruptly when she had a stroke. She is rehabbing in Vallejo, Calif. Prognosis is favorable. Kyoko and David Gelber celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary in Provincetown, Mass., soon after David was elected to a third term on the Garrison, N.Y., school board. Dave ’62 and Suzi Merrill Maybee gifted granddaughter Alyssa Nathan ’21 a Barbara Seymour print in recognition of Alyssa’s Swarthmore graduation. Linda Steelman, Suzi, Barbara, and I enjoyed lunch together when Suzi took delivery of the print. Clyde Prestowitz reported he, Bill Krist ’62, Dave Maybee ’62, and their wives celebrated Dave’s 80th birthday a year late. They and the late Dick Poole roomed together in A101. In comparing our 2020 class address list with 2021’s, I noted Russ Fernald now lives in Berkeley, Calif., and Peggy Schoenberg Menzin is in Lexington, Mass. Mike and Eugenia Margosian Becker moved to a retirement community in Bend, Ore. Their two daughters live in Oregon, while their son, recipient of the Becker baby grand, is in Massachusetts. Atala Perry Toy is now my neighbor at Crosslands in Kennett Square, Pa. Last spring, Cay Hall Roberts experienced another kind of move when husband Dick went to their continuing care retirement community’s memory-care unit. With Cay holding his hand, he died there July 7. Kelly Ann Lister thinks Clyde’s The World Turned Upside Down: China, America, and the Struggle for Global Leadership should be a must-read for all in Congress and the White House. Speaking of books, Bob Putnam has done more than 100 virtual events for The Upswing: How America Came Together and How We Can Do It Again. He planned a few in-person events in the fall, combined with tourism and birding. Tom OwenTowle, author of two dozen books, has published Making Peace with Our Own Death, in which he advocates for facing our own end boldly and creatively. Pete Steelman ’95 released The Island Preacher, a collection of sermons by his late father, the Rev. Bill Steelman, that capture Bill’s spirit and passion. Alison Archibald Anderson enjoys life in Philadelphia, where she is active in her Quaker meeting, involved with committees in her co-op, and walks with two groups. Bruce Leimsidor keeps busy following the art market and adding to his collection of 16th- to 18th-century Italian and French drawings and ancient Buddhist sculpture. Before retiring as a psychiatrist in 2020, Janet Oestreich Bernstein closed her private practice and spent 21 years working as a traveling doc. Elizabeth Chin ’22 was the 2020–21 Class of 1963 Scholar. Her plans to intern and study abroad were canceled due to COVID-19. Instead, she studied at home, created digital art, and set up an online stationery shop. After a long illness, Ralph Bailey died April 23, 2020. He was a CPA, musician, singer, and songwriter. Many may remember the outstanding music he provided at our 45th Reunion with Fred and Polly Glennan Watts. Hedy Harris Lipez Burbank died Jan. 10 after several illnesses and complications from COVID-19. A lifelong volunteer, Hedy received the Arabella Carter Community Service Award at our 50th Reunion for her work with the Peace Corps, the Red Cross, an HIV/AIDS support group, a volunteer fire department, an eating-disorder support group, etc. Professionally, after receiving a master’s in psychiatric nursing, Hedy had a private counseling practice and worked for organizations in Berkshire County, Mass. After fighting pancreatic cancer tenaciously, Mike Cook died May 27. A Rhodes Scholar, he joined the Foreign Service in the 1960s and the Environmental Protection Agency in 1973, receiving numerous awards for his work. Many of us remember Mike as a football player and wrestler. Athletics continued to be important for him, including participating in marathons and triathlons. In retirement, Mike worked with Kim, his wife of 53 years, in her Vietnamese Resettlement Association. He also helped found the Green Infrastructure Center and, most importantly, took delight in his four grandchildren. Please stay in touch — send me your news, happy, sad, or otherwise. 1964 Diana Bailey Harris harris.diana@gmail.com Allan Berlind’s first contribution is that he is 17 years into retirement from Wesleyan’s neuroscience program and biology department. Also, he discovered that since 1993, all four Swarthmore alumni on the faculty received Wesleyan’s excellence in teaching awards. No fan of virtual reunions, Archer Dodson Heinzen organized an in-person one for D.C.-area classmates. In attendance with spouses were Jack Riggs, Jeffrey Heynen, Elizabeth Morrow Edwards, Lydia Razran Stone, and Matt Worthington. Special guests were honorary ’64er Heather Booth, wife of the late Paul Booth, and D.C. visitor Peter Weinberger. Inner Traditions will publish Bernie Beitman’s next book in the new field of coincidence studies. He has started two online Zoom meetings: Coincidence Ambassadors and Coincidence Café. He also restarted his podcast, Connecting with Coincidence. Unfortunately, Peter Freedman’s gum cancer has returned. “I’m undergoing immunotherapy (piece of cake) and chemotherapy (absolutely awful). There is no prospect for a cure, just a question of how these therapies can slow the cancer down.” He recommends “mindfulness training to anyone in a situation such as mine.” In contemplating “the privileges people like me have enjoyed our entire lives,” Mike Meeropol “decided that all my efforts — my commentaries, writing postcards to voters, giving money — produce a non-zero positive impact.” He hoped to do more as the pandemic receded, especially in terms of voters’ rights. “Otherwise, it may be ‘curtains’ for the so-called democratic experiment.” During the pandemic, Roz Stone Zander continued her work on slowing climate change through a position on Al Gore’s Board of Climate Reality. She added that there are many developments that can “lead us out of despair into doing something,” such as “seaweed for fertilizer, food and materials, paper made out of stone, regenerative techniques for soil, etc.” She will have a retrospective exhibition of paintings about nature at the Boston Center for Arts’ Cyclorama in April. Meg Hodgkin Lippert and husband Al were enjoying “full-time care of our granddaughter, now 2, in Honolulu. We look forward to a couple of weeks in our Maine cabin on China Lake with family — our first time traveling in two years.” Spike Lipschutz is “working, battling COVID, and supporting the wellness of health care workers.” He’s still celebrating past Phillies World Series, because once a Phillies fan … Peter Setlow reports, “With almost everyone vaccinated, we are now up and running at full speed” in the lab, and he hoped UConn Health would be back in person this fall. Anne Cochran Sloan said, postvaccination, she was enjoying political breakfasts, in-person book clubs, and church attendance without making a reservation. Anne also looked forward to “a long summer stay with my extended family at our cottage in Michigan.” Amy Stone completed training in mental health first aid with the National Council of Behavioral Health through the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom. Half of the allwoman class were Muslim and the other half Jewish. With Bernie Banet’s help, I reached Joanna DuBarry Morris, who’d weathered the pandemic in reasonably good shape. The Junior Fellows Program at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia was renamed in honor of George Wohlreich to the George and Judy Wohlreich Junior Fellows Program. From 2006 to 2021, George was the medical society’s president, CEO, and Thomas W. Langfitt Chair. During his tenure, he spearheaded the creation of the fellows program, a summer and after-school program for high school students from historically excluded communities that fosters interest in careers in health care and medicine and provides academic counseling and support. 1965 Kiki Skagen Munshi kiki@skagenranch.com George Thoma’s NIH retirees’ lunch club met at an outdoor lanai at a retirement complex, which “was more satisfying than the monthly Zoom calls we had been doing.” Susan Gross Nikolay sends: “In Germany, we are slowly coming out of lockdown and getting used to the ‘new normal,’ like wearing masks in stores.” Leonard Barkan was looking at some major life changes after sequestration. “The pandemic year (plus) was also a sabbatical year. On the plus column was 24/7 time with my beloved spouse; the pleasant obligation of producing three home-cooked meals per day, and the writing of a book.” Reading Shakespeare Reading Me is scheduled to be published next spring. Leonard’s retirement is projected for the end of 2021 along with a move from a house in Princeton, N.J., to an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 59 class notes Blaine Garvin “completed my 50th year of teaching political science at Gonzaga University — only a handful of students in class, all wearing masks, and the rest on Zoom. A few valiant students kept discussions going, but it wasn’t easy. We survived and look forward to a normal fall.” Dick and Gay Sise Grossman write: “Gay had surgery last December to remove the hardware that held her left leg together, and she can finally ride a bike. We had a great visit from Niki Giloane Sebastian. We are doing a lot of fire mitigation to make our community safer in this severe drought.” I got in touch with Niki and found out she retired last year as a case coordinator for Medicaid. Since January, however, she had worked part time at the New Mexico Caregiver’s Coalition, which involved teaching, care coordination, and counseling. Peter Meyer is, as usual, busy, though there are “no new trips to report on despite coming out of COVID. The main effects of the drift toward normalcy are a flood of visitors to our tourist-destination hometown [New Hope, Pa.] and acrimony over moving back to inperson municipal meetings.” Nancy Myers O’Connor writes: “The pandemic was more just an inconvenience for me; I continued to do a lot of bicycling until a short while ago when I rode into the side of a police car. I had my helmet on but broke my pelvis. I am fully recovered. The bike is still in the shop, and I will get a new helmet.” Because of extreme wildfire risk, Ann Erickson moved to the coast after having lived on California’s Russian River for 49 years. “I was evacuated twice in recent years, and the Armstrong Redwoods Natural State Reserve in my town has burned. During one of the evacuations, I drove up the coast to Fort Bragg and decided to buy a small mobile home in an RV park on the bluffs by Noyo Harbor. “With the Earth on fire, climate change, and awareness of my own mortality, I am not expecting ‘back to normal.’ But I am treasuring each day, the wild birds, the ocean, the endless skies, and the larger universe.” 60 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 1966 Jill Robinson Grubb jillgrubb44@gmail.com At the end of 2020, Phil ’65 and Pam Corbett Hoffer made piñatas shaped like the coronavirus or Trump’s head for the neighbors to break open. Joan and Tom Webb thrived in a bubble with their children and grandchildren on 45 acres. Joan finished the Breitowich Family Club newsletters and started another about the Cousins Club. Tom works daily opening up areas of woods and wetlands blocked by invasive species. With the election and arrival of vaccines, Tom hoped 2021 would progress toward racial justice, attention to climate and the planet, and an end to the pandemic. Frank and Pat Lykens Hankins went to Mexico with dear friends for two weeks. They also enjoyed their lake house, gardening, working in the studio, bobbing on their pontoon boat, and relaxing at their beach house. John M. Robinson returned to the serious study of history and the building of a large train set. Wife Pat is raising exotic plants in a new solarium, and both love FaceTiming with their two daughters and three grandchildren. Allen Shoenberger welcomed his first granddaughter, Alice, last fall. Bob Gwin said that back in the days when we roamed the campus, Christine Jordan had a radio show that could acquire records of the British comedy Goon Show. Bob found recordings of the Goons and infected his daughter, who passed them on to her daughters, 9 and 13. They are often caught quoting “The Highly Esteemed Goon Show.” Eleanor Bly Sutter said her Russian-language book A Russian Soul in Foreign Lands was published in Moscow. It’s a collection of poems entrusted to her by an elderly Russian refugee. Another writer, Judy Petsonk, is giving book talks on Justice: Maccabees & Pharisees, which chronicles a civil war in the first century BCE and the emerging Pharisee movement that would transform Judaism into a religion of teachers and disciples. Meanwhile, Judy’s husband, Steve Eisdorfer, put together online community play readings. Judy’s grandson, Jude, 3, is also a storyteller. Judy is taking a course on screenplay writing. The late Professor Tom Bradley told Russian major Tony Loeb to choose one career path and change whenever he wanted to. Taking that advice, Tony has been a draft counselor, radio announcer, engineer, retail salesman, high-tech account manager, sales manager, renewable-energy salesperson/ consultant, professional fiduciary, and tutor in Russian and German. Bill Belanger learned to solve problems at Swarthmore. He put that skill to use as an electrical engineer with DuPont; a public health engineer and tech-support manager with Philadelphia Air Management Services; an environmental engineer; a human physicist; a radiation safety officer; a Superfund hazardous-materials site responder with the EPA; and a radiation safety consultant. Now Bill is a gourmet cook, studio artist, and design artist in woodworking and furniture. Linda Lynes Groetzinger is working on a memoir of her two years in the Peace Corps in India, as well as exercising with her husband, attending seminars, and adoring her granddaughter and daughter. She loved the novel Cutting for Stone. Steve Bennett recommended A Gentleman in Moscow. I, Jill, have grown to love so many of you through this job; thank you for your patience and participation. 1967 Donald Marritz dmarritz@gmail.com Barbara Ingersoll Rothenberg retired from the NYC Department of Sanitation and lives in Brooklyn, near Prospect Park. “Fifty-five years [since graduation] blows my mind, but there are a lot of long-time things in my life these days. Not only have I been married for 55 years, my children have been married a long time, and the grandchildren are grown or growing.” Richard Vallee continues research at Columbia’s medical school, back in “The Heights” where he lived before Swarthmore. Ken Turan is retired but can’t stay away from the movies. “I am working on a dual biography of movie titans Irving Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer for a series called Jewish Lives, to be published by Yale University Press.” On July 19, 2020, Charles Bailey marked the 55th anniversary of his summit of Mount Denali with a hike up Lummi Mountain in Washington. The original climb included the late Stan Adamson ’65, the late Tuck Forsythe ’65, and Malcolm Moore, brother of Ted Moore ’66. They made energy bars at Sharples and drove to McKinley Park, Alaska, in Tuck’s ’55 Ford Fairlane. Teaching a ceramics course online drove Judy Bartella into retirement after 46 years at the George School. For 30-plus summers, she also “variously worked at, ran, and owned the Victorian Chalfonte Hotel in Cape May, N.J.” Shigeo Takenaka has lived near Tokyo since his retirement about 15 years ago from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Along with his daughter and son-in-law, also government employees, he was “able to live a relatively stable and quiet life” during the pandemic. David and Mary Kramer Schaps ’69 “organized one of the many improvised outdoor synagogues that popped up in Israel during the pandemic.” Tom Harriman worked with his editor on his contributions to the upcoming second volume of writings from the Veterans Writers Group, following the 2006 collection Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace. Tom’s short stories have appeared in Deadly Writers Patrol and the 10thanniversary edition of Tea Party. Jane Alpert’s ancient Greek reading group kept going strong ALUMNI COUNCIL NEWS As the fall semester began, we asked the Alumni Council Executive Committee what they were most excited about for the Council: Ayanna Johnson ’09 “I am excited to create meaningful connections and share the diversity in our alumni experience with current students. Our virtual Alumni Council ‘Career and Life’ office hours go beyond conventional networking to discuss mentorship, defining oneself professionally, and how to thrive. Our alumni are an amazing and available resource.” BoHee Yoon ’01 “One of the ways I try to give back is by volunteering with our wonderful Alumni Council, but Swarthmore has managed to turn even this work into one of the most rewarding experiences, and I have made more lifelong friends, across decades of class years.” Dina Zingaro ’13 “Bringing new voices to SwatTalks, which relaunched last September with Nobel Prize-winning physicist John Mather ’68, H’94. It’s incredible to see alumni from around the world and from such different class years in the same conversation.” Emily Anne Nolte Jacobstein ’07 “I’m most excited about increasing the pool of nominees for Alumni Council to develop a diverse and representative slate of nominees. Diversity comes in many ways, and I’m excited for that to shine through on the Council.” Mike Dennis ’93 “Sustainability … launching Alumni Council office hours … refreshing our website … and growing the Student Emergency Fund.” Patricia Scholz-Cohen ’85 “Despite all Alumni Council events taking place remotely this past year, the many connections made with both alumni and current students continued to be strong and productive. A highlight for me in the coming year will be connecting with senior students and sharing what a wonderful resource the alumni network is for them.” Sean Wright ’96 “I’m excited to see our alumni community come back stronger with more tools for engagement after this most challenging year and a half. I am especially excited and hopeful for the students to be on campus, the campus to remain open, and for Alumni Council to virtually support current students.” alumni@swarthmore.edu through COVID-19 and includes Michael Ferber ’66, Barbara Probst Morrow ’66, and Demetri Bonaros ’97. Jane also consults pro bono for New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. Husband Foster de Jesus retired from his architecture practice and still swims faster than Jane, despite being 10 years older. Their grandchildren “are the spark in our lives.” Tom Laqueur writes: “At last a grandchild, Abigail Mets Laqueur, who lives nearby with her parents — a pure joy.” Tom finished up with his last Ph.D. students, marking the end of 40 years of teaching. But he is still writing — a book about dogs in art and an essay in the London Review of Books about reparations. He distilled 35 liters of Calvados from 10 times that amount of his own hard cider. Doug Huron died in June at his D.C. home. He had a distinguished career as an employment-rights attorney and had a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that declared gender stereotyping a form of workplace discrimination. Doug practiced law even after developing primary lateral sclerosis, a rare variant of Lou Gehrig’s disease. He is survived by wife Amy Wind, three children, and two grandchildren. Marc Hofstadter died in May. He is survived by his partner of 30 years, David Zurlin. Marc’s career included several teaching stints, as well as more than 20 years as the librarian of the San Francisco Municipal Railway. He wrote and published 10 volumes of poetry, including The Miracle Garden, which will be published posthumously. 1968 Katie Bode Darlington katedarlington@gmail.com David Singleton writes from Delaware: “The news is that our longtime friend and neighbor got elected president. As for me, I’ve concluded 20 years’ service on the College’s Board of Managers. It’s been an important part of my life, so I will really miss it.” David Thoenen is chair of the board of Ascend, an international nonprofit working in Afghanistan to empower young women through mountaineering-based leadership training. He wrote that as the challenges facing these girls and young women mount, it is more important than ever for Ascend to stay in Afghanistan. Fred Montgomery serves on the Senior Resources Commission in Lake Forest, Ill., which is “involved with the operations of the city’s FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 61 class notes senior center, with affordable senior housing, and with a Vaccine Buddies program.” Carol Shloss has a new book about Ezra Pound and his daughter, Let the Wind Speak, which follows Lucia Joyce: To Dance in the Wake, a study of James Joyce and his daughter. Next, Carol will look at the relationship between Flannery O’Connor and daughter Regina. Bob Pollock announced the release of Entertwined, a collection of his musical compositions on the Furious Artisans label. Reviewers said the CD is “an extremely wellthought-out project containing seven works created by Pollock from the mid-1970s through 2007 … that illuminate [his] inimitable vision.” A reviewer of Eleanor Morse’s novel, Margreete’s Harbor (pg. 6), said the characters are “as deep as the Maine harbor on which they live … depicted in gorgeous prose.” Lynn Etheredge is circulating an overview of a new paper, “Toward a Future of Human Flourishing,” that lists the application of digital technologies and rapid learning strategies to many fields. Lynn’s photographic collection of colorful flowers, trees, and gardens is at lyneth1.myportfolio.com. After last year’s vegetable garden “competition” in our class notes, Bronwyn Hurd Echols created a raised bed dedicated to a range of vegetables and fruits, from collards to lingonberries. Joe Hafkenschiel says: “Each of my patio eggplants produces 20plus eggplants at one time. Now, I’ve just got to figure out what to do with them.” Another garden fan, Sam Brackeen missed the blooming of the rhododendron concentrated in Swarthmore’s Scott Outdoor Amphitheater area for the second consecutive year because of the campus’s closure. Sue Knotter Walton is “transplanting” herself from the East Coast to the West, specifically a rental in Park Hill, Denver. “I am madly winnowing down for movers coming at the end of July.” Love bloomed in 2020 for Larry and Diana Royce Smith’s daughter. But at her wedding in Colorado, only the bride, groom, Diana, Larry, 62 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 and a photographer were physically present, with the groom’s family attending via Zoom. This year, they hope to celebrate the festivities that didn’t happen last year. But first, Diana and Larry will travel to Idaho by way of Maine to see their daughter and her Norwegian Forest cat named Blueberry Muffin. Speaking of pets, Hal Kwalwasser wrote that his goldendoodle pup was named Zola for author Emile Zola since he is part French poodle. “We got the pup on Juneteenth, which argued for picking a humanrights crusader’s name.” While he doesn’t answer to his name yet, Hal was reading to him from Zola’s works. Marc Sonnenfeld looks forward to seeing everyone at the next reunion and would like to correspond with classmates about that. Plan to join us for our 55th Reunion in June 2023. Please stay in touch on swarthmore68.com, or by writing to me. 1969 Jeffrey Hart hartj@indiana.edu During the challenges of COVID-19, Ron Thomas completed several extended solitary meditation retreats as part of a five-year Dzogchen training program. Christine Erb writes: “After four self-administered COVID tests and a visit from the U.K. authorities, I was released from quarantine and am happily visiting my 8-month-old grandson, Finn, and his parents Nicole Belanger Satullo ’08 and Nathaniel Erb-Satullo ’07 in Oxford.” Peter Max Zimmerman spent time in Slovakia in January. Fred Feinstein’s daughter Emma was married in April. He and wife Karen Collins regularly stream the Live from the Lost Highway music broadcast on Fred’s Facebook site. Howard Vickery ’70 became a grandfather for the first time in February. Marilyn Holifield was the commencement speaker for and received an honorary doctor of humane letters from Barry University in Miami in May. John McDowell retired from Indiana University–Bloomington after 46 years as a professor there. He edited a book, Performing Environmentalisms: Expressive Culture and Ecological Change, due out in September. His retirement plans include organizing his papers and materials, keeping his eyes open “for whatever might appear on the horizon,” and seeing to projects still in the works. Ronald Krall had kneereplacement surgery March 30. Jeff Hart had his April 22. Tom O’Donnell had his awhile back. Barry Wohl recovered sufficiently from his endocarditis to hike with his son in Wyoming. Jeff Ruda was elected to the board of directors of the American Ceramic Circle, a nonprofit with 500-plus members founded “to promote scholarship and research in the history, use, and preservation of ceramics.” Rika Alper and spouse John abandoned Montclair, N.J., for their Berkshires house. Leonard Nakamura was featured in an article in the spring Bulletin (bit.ly/ LNakamura). Avery Rome “got drafted by the local Democratic Party and I am running as 6th Ward commissioner of Radnor Township [Pa.]. This is a new path for me, after a career of newspapering at the Philadelphia Inquirer and teaching journalism at Penn. It’s a joy to meet the next generation of activists.” Carl Kendall had new research published on leprosy. Elizabeth Coleman continues to write new poems. Donald and Cheryl Warfield Mitchell 71’s daughter, Anais, won a Grammy for the cast album of Hadestown. Anais’s band, Bonny Light Horsemen, appeared on CBS This Morning: Saturday last year. Don and Cheryl live in Vermont, where they raise sheep at Treleven Farm. With deep sadness, Peter Warrington, Don Lyon, and Felix Rogers reported the passing of their Swarthmore roommate, John Fahnestock, who died May 31 from complications of a progressive neurological disorder. John began as a math major but earned his degree in art history and participated in modern dance, theater, filmmaking, and pranks like anamorphic dorm painting. His life as a potter was enriched by experiences in theater, including a tour of England with the Swarthmore-graduate troupe Freddy and the Muskrats. In the 1970s, John purchased a bungalow in Telluride, Colo., when it was still affordable. Besides pottery, he was adept at carpentry and home and commercial remodeling, and as a projectionist for the Telluride Film Festival. As a member of Telluride’s planning commission, John is credited with guiding the city to civic development that was esthetically and historically consistent. He married Goedele Vanhille, a fellow ceramist, and moved to nearby Norwood, Colo., where they established their gallery, Yank and Flanders, in 2001. He is survived by Goedele and children Cisco, Jonas, and Esme. John is remembered for his warm, gracious manner, remarkable intellect, invincible skill at Scrabble, and stunning quickness with puns, befitting a “groan” man. 1970 Margaret Nordstrom hon.margi@comcast.net I received great news from Anne Thompson of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. She has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was the only NASA employee among the 252 newly announced members. The senior scientist for atmospheric chemistry in the Earth Sciences Division, where she has worked for 26 years, Anne was elected in the category of astronomy, astrophysics, and earth sciences. She was a Penn State professor of meteorology from 2005 to 2013. Among other achievements and contributions, Anne was recognized for her early work that used models to characterize the Earth’s oxidizing capacity and its relationship to the greenhouse gas methane. She and colleagues described a preindustrial atmosphere using methane measured in ice cores and proposed mitigation strategies. The latter is part of the new national climate strategy. Anne initiated NASA’s Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesondes in 1998, which has amassed nearly 10,000 ozone profiles while building capacity that enables nations like Kenya and Indonesia to meet obligations to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. She was president of the International Commission on Atmospheric Chemistry and Global Pollution and the American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) Atmospheric Sciences Section. Anne’s honors have included a Fulbright Scholar Award, the American Meteorological Society’s Verner Suomi Award, the AGU Roger Revelle Medal, and a corresponding membership in the Academy of Athens. Ruth Jones McNeill’s death was included in the spring Their Light Lives On. She died on Valentine’s Day in Corvallis, Ore. Ruth majored in anthropology and taught in West Hartford, Conn., and then in and around Boston. She married Bart Jones in 1992 and moved to Oregon in 2004 where she taught preschool before retiring. Ruth battled cancer off and on beginning in 1989. At one point, she was informed that people with her diagnosis had a life expectancy of two to three years. Her response included a trip to Peru and outliving that forecast by 20 years. Beverly Lyon Clark died March 18. She is survived by husband Roger, son Adam, daughter Wendy, grandson Matthew, and many others. She married Roger in 1969 and received an English literature Ph.D. in 1979. She was an English literature professor at Wheaton College for 44 years. For additional details, see Their Light Lives On. Our condolences go out to Roger and their family. 1971 Bob Abrahams bobabrahams@yahoo.com Reunion Committee member Deborah Bond-Upson says: “It has been wonderful to have more contact with Swarthmore folks for our V-union. I live and work on Oahu, Hawaii, have four adult kids, and just gained a granddaughter in San Francisco’s East Bay. Erie Pearson Vitiello, Kate Cook, and I have been staying in touch and gathering periodically. Kate is about to become a grandmother to a baby in the East Bay, too, so she is moving there. Erie is not far away in Davis, Calif., so we will get to gather more. If you visit Oahu, come kick back with me.” Shelley Fisher Fishkin enjoyed the Sharples Social on Zoom and has several classmates in her weekly Zoomba dance party, which anyone can join by emailing her at sfishkin@stanford.edu. The Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford, which Shelley co-founded in 2012 and co-directed with Gordon H. Chang, ended in August 2020. The project had met its goal of changing the conversation around the 150th anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad, adding that at a time of rising anti-Asian violence, it is important to recognize the central role Asian people have played in the development of the United States. Deborah Zubow Prindle is wrapping up four years at the State Department overseeing assistance to 18 countries in Eastern Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia, and was considering retirement. Deborah has enjoyed watching her adopted-in-February Sheltie puppy grow up. Also, she reached out to retired professor Steve Piker to mentor the D.C.-area Swat Alumni Book Groups (about 200 people) with a reading list on love that includes, for the first time, ethnographic nonfiction. Don ’69 and Cheryl Warfield Mitchell were thrilled to watch daughter Anais receive an honorary doctorate and deliver the 2021 commencement address at Middlebury College. Cheryl helped create the new online Policy and Practice of Nurturing Care master’s program, in conjunction with Castleton University in Vermont, with a two-generation approach to supporting children, families, and communities. The sheep continue to thrive, but the chickens fell victim to the resident raccoon. Marya Ursin enjoyed the Reunion. As her studio, the Dragon’s Egg, opens to public performances, and college and theater school begin to be in person, “I find myself with a rush of commitments. I’m not sure how to restore some of the emptiness the pause brought, which I found nourishing.” She planned to play a lot with granddaughter Aarya and hug her daughter and extended family members. Kenneth Oye is a member of the American Friends Service Committee Board and Corporation and of the Novel and Exceptional Technologies Advisory Committee of the National Institutes of Health, and is a professor of political science and data systems at MIT. William Pete Welch has two kids in their early 40s and two grandsons in elementary school. “After a checkered career, for a decade I have worked for the federal government analyzing Medicare policy (while living in Arlington, Va.).” Dave Gott leads “an active life in western Massachusetts that has included parallel vocations in farming and social work. My coming out as gay has been central to my life, and I still sing ‘Yea, Morals Matter.’” Terry Miller Mumford writes: “As restrictions have lifted, we have been able to visit with three of our four children and their families. We are making an extra effort to reach out to those we couldn’t see for many, many months.” Please stay connected with our class with our new website and Facebook page. See swarthmore71. org for links. 1972 Nan Waksman Schanbacher nanschanbacher@comcast.net Jan Ellen Paradise died April 12 after a long illness. Her full obituary is at bit.ly/3qSNNPM. Arlene Dannenberg Bowes retired from practicing dentistry in private offices and for the U.S. Public Health Service. She also left Penn’s School of Dental Medicine after 27 years on the clinical faculty. Ken DeFontes was elected board chair for the North American Electric Reliability Corp., which implements mandatory reliability standards for the electric-power industry. “We have been quite busy dealing with cyber and physical security and the transition of the electric grid to renewable energy.” After 12 years as a large-animal veterinarian, then 24 years in biotech/oncology research, Mark DeWitte is “‘mostly retired,’ except for a clinical research review board for UPenn hospital.” Mark and his wife worked in Australia at one point and travel there whenever possible. Paul Lauenstein lost his mother in April (our condolences), but his father, 95, fishes with Paul and his brother. Paul continues to build a database of wildlife sightings in Sharon, Mass., for future generations to “see what we had before climate change.” Christopher Leinberger sent greetings from D.C., where he is an emeritus professor at George Washington University and was focusing on his startup. Wife Lisa teaches art history at American University. Their blended family includes five children (two are Swarthmore grads), their spouses, and five grandchildren. John Lubar spends every week on a different fishing boat as an at-sea fishery observer. Apparently, his claims of retirement were “hollow.” Bertha Fuchsman Small is minding grandchildren and tending belted Galloway cows and some horses. She occasionally helps with FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 63 class notes vaccination clinics. Carola Sullam Shepard stayed busy during the pandemic by meeting friends outdoors and having “one real old-fashioned telephone conversation each week.” While sorting and labeling old photographs, Carola “wrote up brief descriptions of the lives of grandparents and other relatives, including … how they influenced me. Hopefully, my kids will want to read this one day and have those unfamiliar characters in period costume come to life.” Mark Vander Schaaf retired as regional planning director for the Minneapolis–St. Paul area five years ago. He has finished a project for the American Planning Association called Creative Placemaking in Rail Transit Corridors, a tool for communities integrating arts and culture into their transportation and community-development activities. Robert and Katherine Burns Vaughan are celebrating 50 years of marriage and still live bicoastally, enjoying grandchildren in both places. They are pursuing dreams long deferred, such as writing, travel, and long-distance ocean sailing, while gearing up for the 2022 midterm elections. Nan Waksman Schanbacher is director of development for the Wade Institute for Science Education. This small nonprofit in Quincy, Mass., provides professional development for educators to improve STEM education, to get kids excited and engaged with the subjects, to steer some of them into STEM careers, and to turn them into proactive citizen-scientists. Anyone in the Boston area who is interested in participating (or donating) should get in touch with Nan. 1973 Martha Shirk swarthmorecollege73@gmail.com During the pandemic, Neil Raphel and wife Janis Raye hibernated 64 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 in Vermont. Then, their publishing business, Brigantine Media, took off as their Brick Math program was used throughout the U.S. and in other countries. Read more about this new use for Legos at brickmathseries.com. Retirement was “just around the corner” for James White Jr. after 21 years with the Delaware River Port Authority, at which he spent his last seven years as CFO/treasurer. He’s had a 45-year career in treasuryrelated jobs in the corporate, banking, and government sectors. A high point of 2020 was seeing daughter Chiquita Brooks-LaSure sworn in as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the first Black woman to hold the post. Isaac Stanley ended his tenure as board chair of Ignite, a Chicagobased agency that supports 14–26-year-olds on the brink of homelessness; this was four years after retiring as senior business analyst from MetLife, where he had a 32-year career. He leads weekly virtual meditation sessions for about a dozen regular attendees (including several classmates). He and wife Ava Harris Stanley ’72 were looking forward to sailing on Lake Michigan. Martha King was named the 2021 Rising Volunteer of the Year by the Food Bank of the Rockies. For her, volunteering was a source of mental and physical health during the pandemic, which arrived just after her return from Zambia with Peace Corps Response. Martha got together with Dave Lyon and Joe and Lana Everett Turner ’74 at the Turners’ home in Steamboat Springs, Colo., in late spring. Ask her or Dave about their near-death experience driving back to Denver. Sandy Alexander, who practices law in Tulsa, Okla., shared a fascinating part of her family history on the class website. “I am the daughter of survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre,” she wrote. “I am relieved that I no longer have to explain the meaning of that statement. I am still processing the whirlwind that enveloped me during the commemoration of the centennial of the massacre.” Sandy’s late father, John Melvin Alexander, was the named plaintiff in the unsuccessful 2003 reparations lawsuit brought by survivors and their descendants. “I have come to the realization that just as the Brown family has been forever associated with the debates about school integration, my Alexander family name will be associated with the debate about reparations.” To read more, visit swarthmorecollege73.com. Andrew DeGraffenreidt III died in February, two weeks after suffering serious burns in an accident in his West Palm Beach, Fla., backyard. Andrew, the first Black city attorney in Hollywood, Fla., had a private law practice and served as counsel to numerous public boards as well as city attorney in Riviera Beach, Fla. He and his wife of 27 years, Mary, had a blended family of seven children. Condolences can be posted at bit.ly/3dhISCn. Visit swarthmorecollege73. com or facebook.com/ SwarthmoreClassOf1973. 1975 Sam Agger sam.agger@gmail.com Dave Gold opened a third law office in New York, with the others in Miami and Boca Raton, Fla. “I was able to spend precious time in Asheville, N.C., with my children and grandchildren during COVID.” Terry Fromson reports: “My son and his wife had a baby boy May 15 — my first grandchild. My husband and I enjoyed meeting him and helping his parents soon after his birth in Boston.” Larry Schall writes: “We are aging, and with age comes both wisdom and loss. We lost a good one this past June: Ken Andres, a dear friend to so many of us and a teammate in every sense of that word. He passed peacefully with wife Karen at his side after a very short illness. To his soccer teammates, Ken was No. 18, an absolute force on the 1974 National Soccer Championship finalist team, now in the Swarthmore Athletics Hall of Fame due entirely to his persistence. Ken was as committed to the sport of soccer as anyone I’ve ever known. He had a biting sense of humor and tried hard not to smile all that much, lest anyone mistake him as anything but completely serious. To those of us who got to see beneath that façade, Ken was a sweet and loyal man, devoted to his friends and family. He will be missed.” 1977 Terri-Jean Pyer terripyer@gmail.com I am writing at the end of June, trying to adjust to the new freedom provided by being fully vaccinated. I ventured to New Hampshire for a family wedding in mid-June. Every moment was vibrant with how exquisitely special it was and to see, hear, and hug loved ones after such a long drought. I felt especially fortunate that Mary Lou Dymski drove up from Cambridge, Mass., to spend a few days with me and my family. She shared photos of her three beautiful grandchildren, and we promised to visit more frequently. I suspect that many of you have been having similar experiences, appreciating your chance to see friends and relatives and to finally hold those family celebrations that were postponed. I hope you will share those experiences with us and that you will make plans to participate in our reunion in 2022. I’m sorry to share that the College recently learned of the 2018 death of Louis Staton, a classmate who left Swarthmore a year early. He was an energetic, gifted writer, actor, and musician. A play he wrote in his 20s, A Mid-Semester Night’s Dream, based loosely on his Swarthmore experiences, was mentioned in a New York Times article about the cultural arts center and theater that his mother ran in Mount Vernon, N.Y., and that produced the show in 1981. Our sincere condolences to his family, including daughter Dominique. figuring out my next move.” As we approach age 65, it would be great to hear from more classmates who are also “figuring out their next move.” pass the baton. I trust one of you will take it up 1978 1980 1981 Donna Caliendo Devlin dmcdevlin@aol.com David Kranz writes: “After a 42-plus-year career in 1199 SEIU, United Healthcare Workers East, I retired at the end of last year. My time in 1199 was composed of close to 18 years working at Mount Sinai Medical Center in NYC, first in a clerical position, then as a bio-medical technician and active as a shop steward. For the next 24 years, I worked for the union in charge of issues concerning our professional and technical members. It has been very satisfying to be part of one of the few success stories in the American labor movement, as 1199 SEIU has grown to over 400,000 members. When I first got my job at Mount Sinai after Swarthmore, my idea was to work for a couple of years to gain some insight on the potential of a progressive union to bring about societal change, which was inspired by my study of labor history. It has been a very satisfying ride. I would love to hear from old classmates. I’m looking forward to doing more reading and Karen Oliver karen.oliver01@gmail.com Martin Fleisher marty@dearborncapitalpartners.com I’m afraid there is little news, perhaps because we are all just emerging from the COVID-19 era. On a sad note, David M. Snyder of Port Allegany, Pa., died March 18 after a lengthy illness. He is survived by wife Karen and son Bryan. Melanie Wentz and Tom Long came East for a family wedding, and we had a nice reunion with them and Eric and Jodie Landes Corngold. Mel and Tom were our first out-of-town guests in quite some time. We’re looking forward to more. As many of you know, Anne Schuchat retired after 33 years at the CDC. This is a loss for the CDC and the country but also to our class since about 50% of our notes have been about her — more pressure on the rest of you. This is my last column as class secretary. I’ve enjoyed my 16 years working on this, but it is time to It was fun to see folks at our four virtual 40th Reunion events between Nov. 19 and June 3. The Reunion Committee of Jeff Gordon, Tom Scholz, and the amazing Katie Kuzoian Straple from the alumni office did a fantastic job organizing the various Zoom gatherings. It was great to catch up with everyone, and a shout-out to all who helped as breakout-room hosts. Cheryl Kisatsky Avanzato has been a radiologist at an upstate New York hospital for 30 years. She and husband John, a gastroenterologist, work part time, allowing them to travel to see parents and their three sons. Their youngest wed a Brazilian woman in 2019, and they look forward to traveling to Brazil with them. Cheryl confesses that she has finally joined Facebook and enjoys seeing what classmates have been doing. Speaking of Facebook, don’t forget to join and post in our Swarthmore College Class of 1981 group between Bulletin issues. STRONG SURGEON POLLY McKINSTRY ’76 Polly McKinstry ’76 took third place in the women’s 65+ category at the 2021 International CrossFit Games — one of just 20 athletes worldwide invited to compete in her age group. Polly, who was awarded “most valuable woman athlete” her senior year at Swarthmore, is an oculofacial plastic and reconstructive surgeon in Laguna Hills, Calif. “When I chose Swarthmore, it offered one of the best women’s athletic programs among the Ivy and Little Ivy colleges,” Polly says. “The athletics were a great outlet and support for the intense academics. I was thrilled to discover CrossFit, which brought back the focused training and camaraderie I enjoyed doing team sports. Being physically fit makes me better able to focus and perform my work as a surgeon, just as it helped my studies at Swarthmore.” Jonathan Berck is an attorney with a small firm in Newburgh, N.Y., where he and his wife relocated after three years in Beacon, N.Y. They have a house on the Hudson River. Jon adds that they have been proceeding up the Hudson Valley for the past five years and probably won’t stop until they hit Montreal. Alan Gordon’s newest pseudonym is Allison Montclair, whose third mystery novel was published in June. This series is about the proprietors of a licensed marriage bureau in 1946 London who find themselves drawn into one investigation after another. “Allison’s a better writer than I am” Alan says. “Book four will be out next year.” Ken Leith was busy packing up his house as part of a plan to downsize this summer. He had no new house picked out, “but with this crazy market that could change in 48 hours.” While trying to stay healthy, Ken says, “my knees are feeling like they need [the late] Doug Weiss to keep them moving.” A late submission for the 40 for our 40th column from Matt Lorenz: “As grandson Shiloh Lee Lorenz turns 3 in Tallahassee, Fla., I work away in Tampa Bay, Fla. Celia and I are eager to share beaches with Swat tourists.” Finally, Dan Schulman — from Brooklyn or Bucks County, Pa., depending on the progress of his renovation contractors — writes: “I have been at my own eponymous law firm practicing commercial litigation and bankruptcy with two other attorneys for the past decade. Before that, I worked at major New York law firms. I have been married for 30-plus years to Leslie Hall, and Juliet is our only child.” In May, Juliet had a book review published in Ms. magazine. Dan regularly sees Ellyn Plato, Hilary Mellis Barr, Gary Simon ’79, and Stephen Labrum ’79. Dan added that Carl Levine, who started with our class before transferring to the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor, looked the same as he did in college, “other than the length of his hair,” which may have been why he recognized him immediately when their daughters were in elementary school together. FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 65 class notes 1982 David Chapman dchapman29@gmail.com I received a treasure trove of news from the Class of ’82 Facebook page. Also, any news can be emailed to me (or just stop by Charlottesville, Va., and update me in person). Tim Hoyt and Lisa Wright ’83 weathered the COVID-19 crisis with Tim becoming an expert at Zoom and other distanceteaching methods at the U.S. Naval War College. He has been working on a book about the Irish Republican Army and the Irish war of independence. More important, Tim’s delighted to be able to sing with groups to a live, in-person audience again. Geoffrey Brown is an emptynester, with elder daughter Naomi working as a second-grade teacher in Springfield, Mass., and the younger, Susan, heading to the Netherlands for college. He will be back at the National Science Foundation in January as a program officer. Bob Brownstone had major transitions during COVID: a complicated divorce, the sale of his marital home in San Francisco, a new apartment, leaving his employer, starting three companies, purchasing a New Orleans rental property, and facilitating relocations for his son and daughter. With best friend Michelle, he traveled and learned to be a calm person. Bridget Bower retired July 1 after 33 years as archivist at Ithaca College. She noted that there was a backlog at her job, “but I estimated it would take about 10 years of doing nothing else to finish it up.” Raymond Sun completed 29 years in Washington State University’s history department, where he received a teaching excellence award in 2018. He leads a digital exhibit project of the more than 250 World War II dead from 66 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 what was then Washington State College. Raymond is researching Jewish rescue of Jews during the Holocaust. William “Beau” Weston wrote the social-theory essay “Heroic Centrism in a Time of Polarization,” which was published by the Niskanen Center. Sherry Jordon started her 28th year of teaching in the theology department and the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. She and husband Bill live in White Bear Lake. Jamie Stiehm is a member of the Alumni Council and gave a SwatTalk on the Arc of Suffrage with Lucy Lang ’03 as moderator. Jamie continues to write a column from D.C. Ken Short is provost at the U.S. government’s newest engineering graduate school, after seven years as its acting provost. He helped the school obtain its charter in December 2019. Ken added that he was leaving neuroscience research and teaching less, “but only after serving as Professor Allen Schneider’s honors examiner in neuroscience one last time this spring.” Henry Yaffe sold his business in 2020, is vice president of technology for Luna Innovations, and purchased a house in Christiansburg, Va. “Amit and I are bouncing back and forth to our Maryland home. We are expecting our first grandchild in July.” Kate Rittenhouse Dugan worked for 30 years as a children’s librarian in Andover, Mass. Her son sells water-management systems and is moving out soon. She and her husband adopted two rescue cats during the pandemic. Jon and Susan Danzig Bernhardt ’83 live in St. Paul, Minn., and had been caring for their granddaughter. “Susan is also offering a cornucopia of alternative health care services, including Tibetan cranial. Anybody traveling anywhere near should stop by for hospitality and a session. In other news, we get to see Betsey Buckheit, who lives about an hour away (plus others who live only a Zoom call away).” Jennifer Madison McNiff wrote that Gwen Erwin Marrion received the Katchen Coley Award for Excellence in Land Conservation from the Connecticut Land Conservation Council. Gwen is founding member and president of the all-volunteer Bolton Land Trust, which works to balance growth with preservation. 1983 John Bowe john@bowe.us Suellen Heath Riffkin hoped for post-pandemic restoration of the usual summer gathering at the Jersey Shore with Ellen Singer, Sue Kost, Lisa Yahna Shortell, and Patty Pesavento to celebrate their 60th birthdays. From Seattle, the silver lining of the pandemic for Martha Swain was that daughter Maddy, 25, moved back to the city. Martha teaches early childhood classes at the Seattle Waldorf School and was looking forward to seeing Jen Baily in July in Boston on Martha’s way to visit her folks in Maine. Andrea Davis-Griffin oversaw the Greenhouse Therapy Center’s move to a larger commercial suite in Pasadena, Calif., growing her team, and building a sensoryintegration therapy gym. She enjoyed time with a stepdaughter who moved back home for the pandemic and others in their nearby blended family. Toni Caruso Siebert (paralegal in appellate practice) and husband Steve (State Department) have started to think about retirement, even though it’s five years away and their two boys are still at home. Steve would like to “retire” to another interest or project, while Toni would be content reading and baking bread. Deb Felix said her College Equity Index has been released and can be accessed free at collegeequityfirst.org. “Swarthmore did OK, but some competitors did better.” Deb goes sailing or kayaking several times a week in Wellfleet, Mass. Greg Davidson and Tamah Kushner worked from home in Redondo Beach, Calif., where they “were impressed with each other’s work lives — having not really ever seen them so close up.” They enjoy visits with their first grandson on the other coast. Greg walks about seven miles a day, with a goal of at least 2,000 miles walked in 2021. After pastoring and working with Mennonite Church USA, Andre Gingerich Stoner is a community organizer with Faith in Indiana, South Bend. The county chapter has roughly 25 congregations and community groups. Andre was pleased that county officials committed to investing American Rescue Plan monies in crisis intervention. Wendy Davis is “officially retiring from my adult literacy teaching position as of this June.” She planned to stay retired for at least a year to join her partner on some deferred trips, including to the Grand Canyon. Dan Werther and his wife left COVID-ravaged NYC last winter for six months in Florida. With his taste of warm weather in winter, Dan says, “I really need to recalibrate and figure out what my mind and body can take.” Kevin Kuehlwein and his husband celebrated 25 years together and largely lived in their Salem, N.J., home during COVID-19. Check out Kevin’s piano improvisations on SoundCloud.com under Gideon Scull Studios. “It’s been fun to put them out there and get some interest from complete strangers.” Karen Ohland is associate director for finance and operations at a to-be-constructed art museum for Princeton University. Also, she will be the next president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. As for me, John Bowe, my wife and I got licensed to be foster parents last winter and had our first placement in February — a then-14-month-old. Our two 20-something kids live nearby, visiting often, and the foster child happily goes to them both. We had overlooked the fact that a toddler can easily tire out 60-year-olds. 1984 Karen Linnea Searle linnea.searle@gmail.com I’m writing this column in early summer with a recent Swarthmore grad and a rising senior camping in my backyard. One of them asked if I still feel attached to the College. Considering that I’m reading a book by my former roommate, looking at the art on my walls from yet another classmate, and going through all your emails … yes, I certainly do feel connected. In July 2019, Ann Starrs joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as the director for family planning, moving from NYC to Seattle. “I manage a grant-making program to improve access to contraception (or family planning) for women in low/middle-income countries, focusing on sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. I love the work.” Jorge Munoz and his family are well, all at home. “Daughter Sofia, 20, is a junior at Scripps College, and Renata, 18, starts at Haverford College in the fall. Wife Natalia is busy with home renovations, lots of cooking, and looking after her mom (virtually in Bolivia). I work from home for the World Bank, focusing on Africa, mostly. I have discovered drumming as my new hobby, so I’m devoting more time to music.” Chris DeMoulin writes from L.A.: “I’m grateful that after 18 months, we got to reschedule L.A. Comic Con for Dec. 3–5 at the L.A. Convention Center. Any ’84s who want to check out the madness with 100,000-plus people, ping me at chris@comicconla.com; I’ve set aside 40 tickets.” After 26 years of teaching at Hackley School in Tarrytown, N.Y., Adrianne Pierce retired. Partner Laura works from home for Girls Inc. Daughter Hannah is at Wesleyan majoring in film and English, and younger daughter Cate joined her there this fall. Colette Mull and Mike Dreyer were contemplating a move from Pennsylvania and will be sad not to see Steve Demos and Roger Latham ’83 and Jane Stavis as regularly. Colette adds: “Jane has a little quad like ours in Cape May, N.J., so we will see her more frequently than Steve and Roger but hope they will come to visit.” Jessie Winer, a New York artist whose show in a Naples, Fla., gallery was interrupted by the pandemic, had her volunteer collaboration with Central Park Conservancy expanded, when they took her popular quarterly drawing classes in the park virtual. Now, hundreds of people from all over the world tune in. Gwyneth Jones Cote sent a photo of a D.C. gathering with her, Donna Marchesani Cronin, and Jim Weber. They had a great time catching up. In the photo was a copy of the Halcyon, open to the staff page with a photo of the three of them. Of course, none of them has aged a day since 1984. Thanks to all for sending news. Please keep emailing. For those of you who are curious, the book I’m reading is The Age of Kali by Jocelyn Roberts Davis. It is a retelling of The Mahabharata, often called India’s Iliad, but from a nontraditional perspective. It’s Jocelyn’s first foray into fiction, and it’s already swept me up into an entirely new world. 1990 Jim Sailer jim.sailer@gmail.com Tracey Patillo tepatillo1@gmail.com Sharon Marroquin is a multilingual specialist in Austin, Texas, training school administrators and teachers. “I believe these programs are necessary reparations for decades of linguistic and cultural oppression within the public schools.” She also claimed she will be a 90-year-old chair-dancer someday. We hope to join her. In a first-time update, Ruth Brown Walkup writes: “I have been married for 25 years, gotten a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology, focused on international health development, worked for the U.S. government for more than 10 years (including as a diplomat in Zimbabwe and India), shifted careers to being an organizational and leadership-development expert, done more than 30 triathlons, played around with oral storytelling, explored the [Financial Independence, Retire Early] movement, traveled slowly in many parts of the world, been happily child-free by choice, and weathered COVID renting a hobby farm in rural Virginia where the Appalachian Trail is a 45-minute walk from the back door.” Jen Austrian Post retired from the federal government in 2020. It didn’t last long, and she returned to the workforce after four months. Husband Rick is in IT and hasn’t been traveling heavily due to COVID. Their daughters are back home. The elder graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology, and the younger finished her sophomore year at Washington College in Maryland. Peter Mastroianni is a founding partner of Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg, a national trial firm with four offices. “We launched in October 2018 with a results-driven, no-billable-hour model. In 2021, we were named Silicon Valley Firm of the Year, and our managing partner, Courtland Reichman, was named Silicon Valley Litigator of the Year by Benchmark Litigation.” Sarah Newland Jorgensen and Christine Lehman are named partners. Peter is a board member of Escheatment, a software company that locates and recovers unclaimed assets. 1991 Ben Rothfeld plannerben@gmail.com It’s well past our 30th Reunion, but give yourselves a pat on the back. Just not too hard because we’ve got enough aches and pains. Several alumni spoke at a memorial tribute for Nick Jesdanun on April 23, including Cameron “Cammy” Voss, Sameer Ashar, and Steve Burd ’90, as well as members of Nick’s family, fellow runners, and former co-workers at the Associated Press. They each highlighted a facet of Nick’s generous, humble, and not-soserious soul. After learning about Nick’s passing in April 2020, I worked with Sameer, Steve, Pat Egan ’92, Heather Hill ’92, Stephanie Hirsch ’92, Mara Senn ’92, Beth McLaughlin ’92, Dena Ringold ’92, and Dave Zaring ’92 to establish the Nick Jesdanun Memorial Summer Opportunity endowed fund to support traditionally underrepresented or firstgeneration Swarthmore students who are part of the Richard Rubin Scholar Mentoring Program with summer internships in journalism, technology, or public policy. Thanks to the generosity of alums, friends, and relatives, we have achieved our initial goal of raising at least $125,000. Donations are still being accepted. See miles4nick.com, which was organized by Nick’s brother Gary and several cousins. To round out the Nick news, Abby Brown Sullivan and Keyvan AmirArjomand ran a Virtual Reunion 5K called Miles4Nick that encouraged alumni of all classes to run, hike, swim, bike, or (in my case) referee youth soccer to raise money for the fund. We raised $7,555. Gautam Gowrisankaran, wife Kathie Barnes ’93, and two-thirds of their daughters (the ones still in high school) are moving back to NYC for three years while Gautam teaches at Columbia University. They had lived in Tucson, Ariz., where the couple taught at the University of Arizona. John Altom lives in Whitehouse, N.J., and is shepherding his daughter, a high school junior, and his sons, sophomores, through the college-admissions process. Maybe he can get some advice from Cammy, who, along with husband Denis Murphy ’89, attended Swarthmore’s Commencement to see son Declan Murphy ’21 graduate. Daughter Eliza Murphy FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 67 class notes ’23 is a Swarthmorean, too. Cammy works in the Philadelphia school district office that oversees charter schools. In other off-to-college news, Phil McLean is sending son Aiden to UC–Davis to study environmental science. Alex and Dawn Rheingans McDonnell saw son Keiran graduate from Friends Central School in Wynnewood, Pa., and are sending him to Haverford. 1996 Melissa Clark melissa.a.clark@gmail.com Gerardo Aquino tony.aquino@united.com At the many virtual reunion events this past year, we heard classmates discuss their areas of expertise through Parlor Talks, along with Marcella Nunez Smith speaking at the Alumni Collection about her work to address inequities in health care and the disparate effects of the pandemic on marginalized communities. Andrew Medina-Marino co-leads the Men’s Health Division at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He was also appointed an adjunct psychiatry professor at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. Andrew and partner Daniel are busy with their toddler son, whom they are teaching English, Afrikaans, and Spanish, even though he hasn’t started talking yet. Megan Smith worked at an emergency intake site for unaccompanied children crossing the border this past spring with about 200 other federal employees from across the country, including Nicole Jassie ’95 and Sandy Lin ’98. All three are lawyers who have worked in child-related fields. After five years with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the General Counsel supporting the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, Marc Pachon became attorney for the 68 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, investigating mistreatment or harm. He is also at the University of Illinois College of Law. This year, he had four print publications of his photography and is president of the Arches Gallery at the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, Va. Kate Ellsworth, in Boston, is “busy with her acupuncture practice, shepherding her 16-yearold through this last crazy year and into the next (junior year in Spain).” Kristin Pizzo FitzGerald started a middle school global-history teaching job at Beaver Country Day School in Chestnut Hill, Mass., after 11 years at the Fenn School. Kristin, her husband, and their kids, 6 and 8, live in Arlington, Mass., and spend a lot of time with family in Maine and on Cape Cod. After 10 years running a laboratory at the NIH and doing clinical work at Johns Hopkins, it took working from home during the pandemic for Chris Hourigan to realize that he doesn’t like commuting. He, wife Suchi, a pediatric gastroenterologist, and their two boys moved from Virginia to Bethesda, Md., this summer. During the pandemic, Jim Hunt founded Hunt & Associates, a law firm focusing on personal-injury cases. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and six children. Rebecca Winthrop wrote that the upside of the pandemic was getting “comfortable with mucho interruptions from kids, dogs, parents, you name it, amid presentations and policy dialogues. I also realized how little I need to travel to do my global work. I don’t think I will ever spend as much time on planes as I used to.” Curtis Trimble writes: “Alejandra Gonzalez, our daughters, and I managed to visit Alejandra’s sister, Fernanda Gonzalez Hausske ’98, and her family in Idaho over the holidays shortly after they relocated there from the Bay Area.” The couple’s daughter Sofia made it through her first year at Bryn Mawr College, with the second semester as enjoyable as the first semester was wearying. “All of us look forward to her experiencing a ‘normal’ sophomore year.” 1997 Lauren Jacobi laurenjacobi@hotmail.com I am working on a new, timeconsuming project and am looking for a classmate to help with gathering alumni-related material and writing our class notes. If you are interested, please email me. This past spring, Cameron Geddes became the Accelerator Technology and Applied Physics Division director at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he researches laser-driven particle acceleration and intense laser-matter interaction. Tony Cheesebrough is chief economist for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and teaches at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College. This summer, Liza Ewen started as head of school at Monteverde Friends School in Costa Rica — wife Sandra Rodriguez’s native country. Their kids, Santiago, 10, and Pablo, 4, were excited about the new school and a promise to adopt a dog. Lia Ernst became legal director with the ACLU of Vermont, where she’s worked since 2015. Previously, she was a judicial law clerk for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. Andrea Barnett Gemignani teaches legal writing and family law at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., as visiting professor of legal practice. Previously, she represented Virginia public school boards. Rebecca Giguere, her Argentinian-born husband, and their daughter returned to NYC after about eight months in Mexico. Last summer, she and her family went on a “vancation.” They traveled cross-country in a minivan for two weeks, visiting several national parks, having a socially distanced play date in Nashville with Dhruvi Kakkad and her boys, and posting on Instagram (@touringwiththetorres). Rebecca writes for the Families Love Travel website and is a public health researcher. She would enjoy exchanging travel stories and tips with other Swat families. As always, please send me news; I’d love to hear from you. 1998 Rachel Breitman rachellbreitman@yahoo.com Shirley Salmeron Dugan shirley.salmeron@gmail.com In Seattle, Delila Leber and her wife had daughter Rosalie “Sally” in April. Sister Layla, 2, is adjusting and has become a diaper fairy (plus other big-kid jobs). Delila has moved into a new role as a dual-language coordinator after 12 years of teaching kindergarten in Spanish. Ari Plost left Hagerstown, Md., where he was a rabbi at Congregation B’nai Abraham, to be senior rabbi of Temple Solel of Hollywood, Fla. While in Maryland, Ari founded the Thomas Kennedy Center and came up with the idea for a park to honor this legislator who fought in the 1800s to make it legal for people of the Jewish faith to hold public office in the state. Mandy Hourihan Eppley started studies this fall at UC–Davis School of Law, which is known for its focus on social justice. Most recently, she worked at UC–Berkeley’s Center for Cities and Schools, directing a research initiative that partners young people with city planners and leaders. Rebecca Green “appeared on Master Minds on the Game Show Network, improved my hummingbird-photography skills, became a law firm partner, and was featured on the front cover of Los Angeles Lawyer magazine for an article I wrote on the U.S. Supreme Court decision Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia. I’ve enjoyed Zoom dates with Kevin Kish, Kate Baird, and Julia Kernochan Tama, and hope to continue that in the postpandemic world.” In January 2020, Sarah Wamester Bares moved to Walla Walla, Wash., for her husband’s job. Through a tough year, she faced her mother’s cancer treatment, car accidents, and home-schooling, and she bought a new home, which she is renovating. “Since March, I’ve been waking up at 5 every morning to go to the house to remove cardboard, muslin cloth, 25 layers of wallpaper, and thousands of tack nails. The kids are well. I’m looking forward to them getting vaccinated and resuming school.” I, Rachel, was excited to use my first post-vaccine Metro ride to visit Cathlin Tully at her new home in Maryland, and then take Amtrak to NYC to see my former student Emma Otheguy ’09 and husband Tim Roeper ’07 and meet their 1-year-old Aleya in Queens. I also saw some new Swatties this spring: Pinar Karaca-Mandic’s daughter Mina Mandic ’25, a former student of mine here in D.C., and Kristin Waugh Hempel ’97’s son Atticus ’25. It’s exciting to see the next generation of Swatties. Pinar (bit.ly/PinarKM) is the academic director at the Medical Industry Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. “Daily, we are tracking COVID hospitalizations, hand-collecting data, and sharing data weekly with NPR and other insights with media.” 1999 Melissa Morrell melrel99@hotmail.com Mary Meiklejohn-Pitney left her position as director of patient access at a community health center to take her turn as the athome parent with the fully remote kids. “Fingers crossed that the kids can attend school in person this fall, and I can start exploring the next phase of my professional life, whatever that may be.” Jenny Briggs is the new chair of the neuromuscular therapy department at the Pittsburgh School of Massage Therapy. Carl Wellington is director of autonomy at Aurora, where he leads a team working on self-driving trucks. Jenny and Carl had a wonderful evening out with Elizabeth Nickrenz Fein and husband Pete at an outdoor dance party. Elizabeth is chair of the Duquesne University psychology department. Carrie Bader in Salem, Ore., writes: “After a divorce, I decided to embark on parenthood on my own. I welcomed my little girl, Madelyn, early this year. Solo-parenting a newborn during a pandemic has been ridiculously challenging.” Roger Bock realized that after 15 years at the same job, it was either now or never to try something new. He is at Wayfair, where he applies machine learning to improve the “post-order customer experience.” Aarti Iyer, who moved back to the U.S. for a year, was awarded the 2021–22 James Marshall Public Policy Fellowship by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. “I will work on Capitol Hill to use social science theory and research to inform federal policy.” Anna Tocci died March 21 surrounded by friends and family after a short bout with an aggressive form of brain cancer. She is survived by husband Justin Andre and daughters Juna, 10, and Anya, 8. Deborah Stein writes: “I met Anna during a gathering in the Willetts room she shared with MC Hyland. That room, and the one she shared the following year with Sarah Cross, are some of my favorite Swat memories. I still marvel when I think about how my teenage peers could create spaces so warm, so welcoming, so full of bright colors, creativity, kindness, and the feeling of home. It was an early sign that Anna had a special capacity for community-building. She will always be with me when I make the black beans recipe she wrote down for me.” “The summer before my first year at Swarthmore,” MC shares, “I received a letter from my future roommate, Anna, to tell me a bit about herself. Her love of music and her uncanny knack for hospitality led Anna to foster communities. I’ll miss Anna more than I can say, but I will also forever be inspired by all that she taught me about how to care for people and let them care for you.” On March 28, we lost Aaron Hirschhorn in a boating accident in Biscayne Bay, Fla. He was featured in the winter Bulletin (bit. ly/AHirschhorn) for his appearance on Shark Tank, where he received funding for his startup, Gallant. He is survived by wife Karine Nissim and children August, Joe, and Elle. From his brother, Dan: “It gives me great comfort and happiness to know he was doing exactly what he wanted to do with his life, and that he had never been happier.” We will miss both of these amazing classmates, and I am heartbroken for their families and friends. 2000 Michaela DeSoucey mdesoucey@gmail.com Emily Shu emily.n.shu@gmail.com After 15 years in the classroom, Kat Vidal Loveless is working as a master practitioner in Carnegie Learning’s World Language Professional Learning department. “The pandemic shifted our family priorities dramatically, and I’m grateful for the chance to work from home again.” Nikki Lee graduated cum laude with a master of library science from North Carolina Central University. She is a middleschool librarian and is pursuing yoga-teacher certification. Paul Willenberg lives in Portland, Ore., with his wife and 9-year-old daughter and runs Namazake, an online sake shop. Thalia Mills and husband Gil Toombes are muddling through life with two jobs and two boys, Callum, 1, and Rohan, 5. She says the FDA has been an interesting place to work over the past year and even more challenging with COVID-19. Victor Pineiro and wife Ev had second child Luke James in June. Victor’s debut middle-grade novel, Time Villains (the first in a series), was released in July. Kim Foote was awarded the George Bennett Fellowship at Phillips Exeter Academy, where she will be writer-in-residence for the 2021–22 academic year. She had short stories in The Rumpus, Ecotone, and Iron Horse Literary Review. Maya Shanbhag Lang’s memoir, What We Carry, was in bookstores this spring. “I’m still walking on air from having The New York Times say that I write ‘exquisitely.’ I live near NYC and would love to see any Swatties in the area.” Eva Allan’s family will spend her husband’s sabbatical year in Lyon, France, and she would love to connect with any alumni there. Samantha Twigg Johnson was marooned in her favorite city, Oxford, England, during the pandemic but missed family and friends in the U.S. “I still love counseling teenagers at a local school, and I have restarted my private psychotherapy practice. I also write and play music. I particularly enjoyed playing a socially distanced set on a canal boat in May.” Listen at samtwigg.net or connect with her on Instagram or Facebook (@ twiggtwang). Rochelle Arms Almengor, along with her husband, daughter, and mom, relocated from Brooklyn to Kentucky mid-pandemic. Rochelle started a full-time faculty position in the peace and social justice department of Berea College, which has author bell hooks on its faculty. “It’s truly a dream to get to work [at the college]. Otherwise, Daniel and I are happily parenting Soli, who is keeping us on our 40-something toes. Come see us if you are down South.” I, Michaela DeSoucey, moved across town, in Raleigh, N.C., for more space for home offices and future guests, and a bigger yard for my boys, Jasper, 9, and Zachary, 5, and our pandemic cat. I was fortunate to have Gabe Cumming visit, via Zoom, my Sociology of Food Systems graduate seminar this spring to talk about his North Carolina-based organization, Working Landscapes. I, Emily Shu, FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 69 class notes moved to an 18th-century house near NYC, where I continue to work as a high school principal. I was delighted to host Jen Slaw Napolitano via Zoom for a juggling workshop for our seniors this spring. Jen and her family moved from New York to Conestoga, Pa. 2002 Tanyaporn Wansom swarthmore2002@gmail.com Jae Won Chung’s son, Ezra Chung, arrived on Memorial Day. Jeanne Gardner Gutierrez curated the exhibition Cover Story: Katharine Graham, CEO, which was on view at the New-York Historical Society. She also joined the board of the Wassaic Project, a nonprofit arts organization in Dutchess County, N.Y. In April, Elizabeth Lindsey became CEO of Urban Alliance, a national nonprofit that helps young people achieve economic mobility through paid internships and training. On Juneteenth, she eloped with Erika Johnson in Provincetown, Mass. Elizabeth, Erika, and Elizabeth’s two daughters live in D.C. Keetje Kuipers writes: “My wife, Sarah Fritsch Kuipers ’04, daughter Nela, 8, and son Lyle, 18 months, moved to Missoula, Mont., where I teach poetry in the MFA program at the University of Montana. We are enjoying the rivers and music and would love to see any Swatties passing through.” I, Tanyaporn, live in Bangkok, enjoying consultant life and serving as lead writer on Thailand’s country grant for COVID-19 response and mitigation to the Global Fund for HIV, TB, and Malaria. On June 16, Maya Peterson died in childbirth alongside daughter Priya Luna. Her loss is deeply mourned by her partner, A. Marm Kilpatrick, her parents, Mark and Indira Peterson, and their families, as well as by a community of friends. Her mother writes: “Maya packed more into her 41 years than many of us would in 80.” 70 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 Maya earned a bachelor’s in history with high honors from Swarthmore and a master’s in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia Studies and a Ph.D. in history from Harvard. A beloved teacher and colleague, she was an associate professor of history at UC–Santa Cruz. Marcy McCullaugh shares this tribute to Maya: “Her determination, fearlessness, and confidence inspired so many of us to want to be more like her. She was an integral part of many communities at Swarthmore, from the women’s rugby team to Russian Club. Her passion for history and the study of Russia and Central Asia started in college, especially during her study abroad in St. Petersburg in spring 2000 and adventures across Russia, Mongolia, and China on the Trans-Siberian train in summer 2001. Maya’s kindness, warmth, and joy for living had a profound and lasting impact on those of us who knew and loved her best. Maya will be in our hearts forever.” 2003 Robin Smith Petruzielo robinleslie@alum.swarthmore.edu Hwa-chow Oliver Hsu left NYC in 2016 for Silicon Valley to join Ascend.io, a big-data startup. This was after spending three years getting a master’s in cello performance and music theory and nine years working as a full-time software engineer and part-time freelance musician and teacher. Oliver married wife Stephanie in 2018, and they have a son, 2. After being in Taiwan during COVID-19, they decided to stay for good. After three years at Howard University as the Law Library director and assistant professor of law, Kristina Alayan moved to Baltimore to be associate dean of information and technology and associate professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. Kristina adopted puppy Lucille this year, joining dogs Sage and Herbie and cats Miles and Quincy. Morghan Holt Milagrosa Chinn remarried, and alongside her OB-GYN wife and daughter Lexx, Morghan opened a women’s clinic north of Seattle. Charles Small and wife Jade Floyd, who live in Silver Spring, Md., welcomed daughter Jasper Elliott Teagan Small on April 12, 2020. After four years as director of federal affairs for Los Angeles, Charles was sworn in virtually by President Joe Biden on Jan. 20 as deputy assistant secretary for intergovernmental affairs at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Ursula Whitcher was a virtual honors examiner in algebra and algebraic geometry for Swarthmore this spring. She is the editor of and a regular contributor to the American Math Society’s Feature Column. She had a short story in Cossmass Infinities and a poem in the Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine. Ursula’s poem “Physics 6,” written at Swarthmore, was in the Ursula K. Le Guin memorial poetry anthology Climbing Lightly Through Forests. After three years in Casablanca, Morocco, Blair Cochran and Chris Guttridge are now with the International Baccalaureate program at the American School of Kinshasa, Congo. Son Nicolas was excited to start preschool, and second-born Lucas was excited to discover new hazards. Paul Wulfsberg is back in Algeria, working in person as U.S. Embassy spokesperson, having spent much of the past year teleworking and living in Boston with his wife and two children. Susan Christensen Henz coauthored her ninth educational puzzle book, Amazing Brain Book for Kids, with her mom through Callisto Media. Susan and her family put in a garden with plenty of veggies and melons to share. Stella Cousins and Jeff Regier welcomed Alice June Regier on May 11. They are on faculty at the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor. Eden Wales Freedman, who joined Alumni Council, is vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa. Davita Burkhead-Weiner is a child psychiatrist in Ann Arbor, Mich. She married Bob Headley last fall in a tiny COVID-conscious outdoor ceremony. They participate in triathlons, including the IM Michigan 70.3 this summer. Todd Gillette and wife Laura bought a house in Columbia, Md., and enjoy game nights with fellow ’03ers. Laura Fox has lived in Alaska since 2008 where she enjoys backpacking and cycling. My husband, Frank, and I welcomed daughter Greer Imogen in January. Brother Emory, 2.5, tests all of her toys. 2004 Rebecca Rogers rebecca.ep.rogers@gmail.com Danny Loss danny.loss@gmail.com Autumn Quinn and husband John Gale welcomed James Patrick on June 6. Anna, 4, is learning to be a helpful big sister. Autumn is a project manager for the Android team at Google. Jenny Blumberg Graber and husband Evan welcomed Nora Lynn Graber on March 2. She was impatient to enter the world — Jenny barely had time to get to the hospital. Parents and brother Seth are very much in love. Jenny’s work as an OB-GYN in Philadelphia’s suburbs was in person throughout the pandemic. She is grateful for job security and doing something she finds fulfilling. Cadelba Lomelí-Loibl’s first child, Secoya, was born in May. Before Secoya’s birth, Cadelba completed a two-year program and is a fellow in the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine. She is a nurse practitioner in a community clinic setting. Sarah Donovan Finnegan became a full-time stay-at-home mom with two home-schooled kids, ages 4 and 7. She’s also a full-time risk manager for an investment management firm. Sarah started in a new role with AllianceBernstein in November and also became a board trustee for a secondary school, helping them manage COVID-19 risk and contingency planning. Adrienne Mackey has a new art project called Aqua Marooned!, a card game that is played at nature centers across the Delaware River watershed. It encourages players to connect with flora and fauna and is part of the Lenapehoking~Watershed project, which shares environmental awareness through art and culture. Edwin Way earned a Ph.D. in spring 2020 from Indiana University–Bloomington. His dissertation focused on financialization and the political economy of deindustrialization. We, Rebecca Rogers and Danny Loss, were excited for our elder son to experience his first summer camp. Rebecca joined a collaboration with Harvard School of Public Health’s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment to explore ways that health centers can prepare themselves and their patients for the effects of climate change and extreme weather events. 2005 Jessica Zagory jazagory@alum.swarthmore.edu It is with immense gratitude that I resume compiling class notes after a two-year hiatus while I completed my medical training. Thank you, Emiliano Rodriguez, for keeping us connected. Preety Sidhu accepted a job at the GrubStreet literary arts center in Boston. She manages the annual Muse & the Marketplace conference on how to write well and get published, which was founded by Christopher Castellani ’94. Nick Guerette started at the Berkeley (Calif.) Free Clinic in March 2020. He immediately pivoted from his intended facilities-maintenance role to providing handwashing stations for homeless encampments. This developed into the Curbside Community Water Project, which offers potable water to hundreds of people living on the street in Berkeley and Oakland. With the project transferred to a newly formed nonprofit, he is figuring out what a general engineer is employable for. Katherine McAlister graduated with a master’s in library and information science from the University of Washington. Kate Duffy finished an American studies Ph.D. at Brown University. She lives in Burlington, Vt., with husband Erik Osheim ’03 and their toddler son. Lindsay Brin moved to Ottawa, Ontario. Caitlin Hildebrand-Turcik completed an integrative medicine fellowship in September 2020 and leads integrative health at the San Francisco VA. She and John Turcik love life in the redwoods on the Russian River in Guerneville, Calif. In Bangalore, India, Raghu Karnad married Abhishikta Mallick in March 2020 in a pandemic wedding that was wonderfully minimal with just parents, siblings, and one Swattie, Anmol Tikoo ’06. Randy Goldstein and Emily Remus ’06 had Fiona RemusGoldstein on June 4, 2020. They live South Bend, Ind., where Emily received tenure as an associate professor of history at Notre Dame. Randy is CEO of Kitchen Cabinet Distributors. Swatties should feel free to reach out for “friends and family pricing.” On June 10, Timothy Colman and Liam Miller welcomed Noa Miriam Colman Miller to the farm in Chester County, Pa. Jody Fisher spent the past two years as duallanguage coordinator at a Chicago elementary school. He and spouse Jessica Petertil had Josephine Eliza on June 16. Brother Judah, 2, was thrilled. Joy Mills moved to Wellington, New Zealand, in January and in April gave birth to Willow Marjorie Mills Worth. Eugene Palatulan, Jorge Aguilar, Tafadzwa Muguwe, and Brian Hwang forgot that they already submitted their baby news for the previous issue. Needless to say, I am excited for these little ones to continue the legacy in the Class of 2041(ish). 2006 Wee-Jhong Chua wchua1@gmail.com During a visit with my thengirlfriend, Sherin Rouhani, to Philadelphia, my mom surprised me with, “So, do you think she’s the one?” Before I could answer, she unveiled the most beautiful engagement ring. With Sherin in the next room, I quickly thanked her and slipped the ring in my pocket. So many questions flooded my mind, including, “What’s the story of the ring?” That and other questions won’t be answered because this was my mom’s final gift to me — she died unexpectedly a week later. My mom, Kim Elizabeth Chua, retired as a jeweler and gemologist. As a refugee from the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, she spent her first decade in the U.S. as a social worker who sponsored hundreds of displaced families seeking refuge. She is remembered as a deeply caring person, whose greatest joy was in her family. Sherin and I married in April at the Lincoln Park Conservatory in Chicago. While my mom couldn’t be there, her spirit, love, and energy were truly felt. We live in Chicago, where I am an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. I work in the emergency department, integrating my passions for health care, advocacy, and education. If you’re ever in the Windy City, I’d love to catch up. Yavor Georgiev and Norah had son Yusef in January. The baby’s already traveled to three continents so the couple could spend pandemic time off closer to family. Ariana Nadia Nash has poetry and academic articles forthcoming in P-Queue, CounterText, and J19. She and husband Jacob Sloan had son Striker John Sloan on April 9. He is already an avid reader and will no doubt produce his own masterworks soon. Anastasia Herasimovich and husband Vasili had second child Alexander in May. Anastasia also accepted an invitation from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law to teach Structuring Real Estate Transactions. Megan Richie and Brodie Winner ’05 acquired son Emil Laurence Winner to accompany big brother Galen. The chaos tolerance of both parents has increased accordingly. After more than 12 years in Brooklyn, Jenna Adelberg Silver moved to Providence, R.I., with husband Andrew and daughters Caroline, 6, and Sophie, 3. Jenna works for Univision Communications in NYC. Hannah de Keijzer moved to Hoboken, N.J., with her family and is excited to reconnect with NYC Swatties. She’s wearing several hats: nonfiction editor, catalyst for writing and other creative projects, dancer, and parent. Katia Lom is in London with dog Kaiser and partner Martin. She is part of archive teams making TV documentaries. William ’05 and Anisha Chandra Schwarz had Ameya Chandra Schwarz on Oct. 14, 2020. Brother Narayan had the strangest kindergarten year ever; they look forward to the reopening of Washington state. Martyna Pospieszalska and her husband welcomed second child Eliasz on June 29 and will move from D.C. to South Padre Island, Texas, for the next two years. Emily Wistar and Dan Hammer ’07 had Caleb Barnett Hammer in January, and sister Lily, 4, was thrilled. Emily is a primary care doctor at the Potrero Hill Health Center, run by the San Francisco Department of Public Health, and returned to work in August after a six-month maternity leave. 2007 Kristin Leitzel Hoy kleitzel@gmail.com Michelle Tomasik and Andrew Cheng ’08 welcomed Felix Haolin Cheng in June. Sister Annika is FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 71 class notes graciously helping the exhausted parents. Mustafa Paksoy and wife Anabel welcomed Zeki Marshall Paksoy on April 18, three weeks early. He was 4.5 pounds, but he’s thriving. Mustafa started as director of engineering at Amplitude. The family splits time between San Francisco and the home they share in West Marin, Calif., with Anabel’s sister. Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham lives in New Haven, Conn., with wife Sonia Gilbukh and their pandemic baby, Daniel Anthony Gilbukh. Paul teaches finance as an assistant professor at the Yale and is learning to play tennis. The family moved next door to Julia Smith ’06 and Jacob Wallace ’05 and their two kids last summer and were doing their best to recreate dorm living in their late 30s. James Brady spent lockdown in Philadelphia with his parents. This was a big change from his days in the crowded poker rooms where he makes his living. During the pandemic, he transformed his game to play online. While his profits plummeted, he was playing better than ever. As everything reopened, James looked forward to getting back to his community and seeing friends in person. In April, Caleb Ward started as a postdoc in feminist philosophy at the University of Hamburg, Germany, where he’s teaching a couple of seminars and on the hunt for more research funding. He and his family live in Berlin. Samantha Graffeo Gardner completed her certification in pediatric dentistry with the University of Florida, Gainesville. She, her husband, and their two daughters were thrilled to return to Boulder, Colo., and Sam was excited to improve children’s oral health in the Denver/Boulder area. Katie Van Winkle spent much of early 2021 helping people schedule vaccination appointments. In April, she helped launch the nonprofit TogetherAustin and its vaccineequity project, VaxTogetherAustin, which organized clinics and administered more than 10,000 Pfizer vaccine doses. At 7 months, baby Susannah loved seeing other babies, splashing in fountains, and practicing her plank position. 72 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 2008 Mark Dlugash mark.dlugash@gmail.com Renata Peralta moved back to Philadelphia after seven years in NYC. She was labor organizing with the Communications Workers of America while on “professional development leave” from the Open Society Foundations. Justin Shaffer moved to Miami. He works in real estate, picked up tennis, and reconnected with Todd Friedman ’09 and Raul Ordonez ’09. Mairin Odle spent 2020 oscillating among sewing, reading, watching her pollinator garden, and sleepless nights going over the plot of the Austrian film The Wall. She’s been thinking about visible mending as an ethos, was finishing a book, and is readying herself for “something else.” Wren Elhai finished a master’s in international policy at Stanford in June 2020. In August 2020, he moved back to D.C. and the State Department to be an adviser on public and press engagement in the Office of Cyber Issues. If you’re in the area, connect with him to catch up and/or play music. Michael Karcher got rid of most of the excess weight and depression that resulted from a long, slow Ph.D. and a chill postdoc, which is coming to an end soon, with the long-term job search ongoing. Adam Dalva and Alana Salguero’s wedding was canceled due to the pandemic. In the plus column, Adam was elected to the board of the National Book Critics Circle. Katy Feniello finished a midwifery master’s in November and passed her certification exam in December after almost 10 years. Taking care of people as full-time birth-center nurse and student midwife for the pandemic crushed Katy. She was looking forward to starting as a midwife fellow this winter. After completing fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Association of University Women, Sunny Yang shifted to online teaching during her first semester at the University of Houston. She split the rest of 2020 training herself in online pedagogy and strategizing to keep her British partner from being deported due to a hiring freeze. In December, the partner’s hire finally went through. The pandemic unleashed, for her, an interest in home décor, DIY, and Etsy/eBay rabbit holes. Jake Brunkard married Sergio Sanchez in a civil ceremony witnessed by three strangers and a friendly dog shortly after moving to Madison, Wis., to join the genetics faculty at University of Wisconsin. The couple spent 10 years in Berkeley, Calif., and are (re-)learning what snow is. This was the first time since 2008 that Jake moved without Ranga Atapattu’s assistance, although she did prepare road-trip playlists in long-distance support. Alyssa Work is a staff attorney at the Bronx Defenders. She and Alex Friedman ’09 now share their NYC apartment with September 2020 arrival June Friedman-Work, who, thankfully, also enjoys prestige TV and wearing pajamas all day. Patricia Kelly Marsh created the ShhParty app, which allows entertainers to grow an audience and make an income selling tickets and collecting tips. App users can attend the ShhParty from a mobile device at home or in person at the ShhParty venue. Patricia married Vincent Marsh on July 23, 2020. Tatiana Cozzarelli was about to run out of funding for her Ph.D. that she had failed to write. She was, however, writing and building a revolutionary socialist publication, Left Voice. 2009 Melanie Spaulding maspauld1@gmail.com Qian Julie Wang’s Beautiful Country (pg. 46) debuted Sept. 7. It is a literary memoir that traces her time living as an undocumented child in NYC in the 1990s; she wrote the book while making partner at a law firm. She was thrilled to have Linda Huang ’08, associate art director at publisher Penguin, design the cover. Qian Julie co-founded Gottlieb & Wang this year and has dedicated her law practice to advancing education, immigration, and civil rights. After four years of fieldwork interviewing ranchers across Montana about the challenges of coexisting with wildlife, Hannah Jaicks spent 2020 writing it all up into a book that will be published in February. The Atlas of Conflict Reduction: A Montana Field Guide to Sharing Ranching Landscapes with Wildlife explores personal stories of everyday conservation heroes who coexist with native wildlife, while also practicing regenerative methods that sequester carbon and provide locally sourced, ethically raised meat and produce. Krys Malcolm Belc’s memoir, The Natural Mother of the Child: A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood, was published in June. Julia Barber earned a Ph.D. in the history of art and architecture from Brown University in 2018. Fletcher Coleman and Laura Post had a busy pandemic with Fletcher earning an art history Ph.D. from Harvard in spring 2020. After a cross-country move with two cats, he began as assistant professor of art history at UT–Arlington. Laura also joined the faculty to teach printmaking. Sarah Ifft Decker moved to Memphis, Tenn., and started a tenure-track job in Rhodes College’s history department. Christopher Compton earned a master’s in social work from Hunter College and moved from NYC to Massachusetts this summer. Harrison Russin received a musicology Ph.D. at Duke University this spring and is an assistant professor of liturgical music at St. Vladimir’s Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y. Since leaving Swat, Dianne Seo has traveled (parts of) the world and finds herself back at Swarthmore’s doorstep; she started a breast surgery fellowship on the Main Line. Because of COVID-19, Sven-David Udekwu was stuck at his duty station in Wau, South Sudan, for eight months, doing networking and access work with armed groups and authorities for the International Committee of the Red Cross. Now, he’s in the Western Oromia portion of Ethiopia. A bright spot in social distancing was his standing on Gina Grubb Fisher ’10’s lawn in 30-degree weather in February. After four years of practicing corporate law at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Jose Aleman moved to Europe with the goal of transitioning to international affairs by pursuing a master’s at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. Garth Griffin decided that he was ready to start a venture and cofounded Gigasheet. The company keeps people’s data safe with a tool that makes it quick and easy to carve up very large datasets. Jennie Park is the new managing director of fundraising at Briarcliffe Credit Partners. Julian Chender joined Accenture, where he works in organization design. The intensity and intelligence reminds him of Swarthmore. Jason Thrope was promoted to senior vice president at Starwood Capital, where he’s worked since 2012. He and wife Erin welcomed Charlotte Elaine Thrope during the pandemic. Matt and Lisa Cabral Sosna had Nina Irene in July 2020. They call her the Hulk because she’s big for her age and wants to move around all the time. On Halloween 2020, Kara Peterman married Scott Rutherford in Northampton, Mass. The wedding was attended by immediate family and officiated by yours truly. It was one of the few highlights of 2020 for me. 2010 Brendan Work theworkzone@gmail.com We are delighted to inform the Class of 2010 that they have been accepted to Swarthmore College. Simultaneous lifetime experiences score highly with our admissions committee, including Kate Aizpuru for being a powerlifter in the civil division at the Department of Justice at the same time that Seth Green was an Appalachian Trail hiker. These identities paired well with Justin DiFeliciantonio, Shiva mantrachanting tennis novelist, who is training for a 50K ultramarathon in October. We were pleased to find that Jake Ban received a master’s in school leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. After moving with husband Grady to Minneapolis, Jake will be the assistant principal of the Lower School of St. Paul Academy and Summit School. Another assistant principal is Elizabeth CalvertKilbane, who moved into the position after 11 years at Kappa International High School in the Bronx, and who had with husband Thomas Kelleher ’09 their second child, Louise, in March. For fundraising purposes, we want matriculates with as many children as possible. Anne MillerUueda had second child Wesley Wheeler Miller-Uueda in the same year that Molly Weston Williamson brought us son Callum, brother of Fletcher. Sara Daley and her husband had first child Gideon in May, moved from Detroit to Hamilton, Ontario, and reported that raising a child and moving to a new country allowed them about as much sleep as a year of study at our institution. Shaun Kelly and his wife are with Augustine, 3, and Leo, 1, in Wilmington, Del., where Shaun runs Connolly Gallagher’s corporate and commercial litigation group after being director of consumer protection for the Delaware Department of Justice. We were taken with how many places you traveled and lived. Jennifer Spindel is raising two Siamese cats and working for (“not evil”) big ag in St. Louis; Gina Salcedo is doing compliance analytics at a pharmaceutical company and making zucchini bread in Boston; and Caitlin O’Neil is tending tomato plants in Sacramento, Calif. Melinda Yang, having spent three years in Beijing, returned to the U.S. for a biology faculty position at the University of Richmond. She adopted Kaz Uyehara’s foster cat, plus a dog from a shelter, and wants to thank the following people for keeping her sane: Monica Joshi, Roseanna Sommers and Robert Manduca, Roy Allen, David Burgy, Ramya Gopal, Ben Good, Nadja Mencin, Clare Kobasa, and Marina Tempelsman. Also among the thanked were Helen Hougen, who completed a urology residency at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland and then moved to Miami for a urologic oncology fellowship. Carey Pietsch, a Brooklyn-based comic artist, gave a virtual talk to current Swatties at McCabe. Unfortunately, while we were writing this acceptance letter, our admissions department informed us of a rare mistake. Unless you can send more evidence of 2010’s feats and talents to theworkzone@ gmail.com, your spot will be given to a more deserving class. 2011 Ming Cai mcai223@gmail.com Debbie Nguyen dnguyen616@gmail.com Kathryn Stockbower enjoyed the summer weather in Portland, Ore., and checked off a bucket-list item by summiting Mount St. Helens alongside Ben Dair Rothfuss. Brendan McVeigh married Manya Sleeper in February. Among their three physically present wedding guests was Ryan Carlson. Andrew Loh is a dual-degree candidate at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Harvard Kennedy School. Karen Shen started a pulmonary and critical care fellowship at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Sara Lipshutz is on the biology faculty at Loyola University Chicago. Though Ruby Bhattacharya spent the pandemic around Philadelphia with family, she is based in NYC ,where she is director of recruitment and selection at Barnard College’s Office of Admissions. Niki Machac graduated from a residency program and in August became an attending OB-GYN in Queens. Samantha Griggs celebrated three years with Peloton in September. She is in the NYC area and enjoyed the summer at her parents’ shore house. Joanie Jean completed a pediatric dental residency with UConn’s Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. She plans to move to Philadelphia to work at a private practice. Debbie Nguyen was promoted to chief of staff at Foster America, a national nonprofit working to improve the foster-care system. She lives in Norwood, Mass., with Josh Abel and rabbits Cookie and Freckles. 2012 Maia Gerlinger maiagerlinger@gmail.com Boston: Emily Coleman is halfway through a dermatology residency. Nick Vogt graduated from an M.D./ Ph.D. program at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and started an internal medicine residency at Mass General. Toby Heavenrich is an engagement manager for Seurat Group. New York City and state: Arsean Maqami is pursuing an executive MBA at Columbia. While managing Design Build Partners, he and his business partner were hired by client Seritage Growth Properties, where Arsean is vice president of development and construction. He works with Noah Sterngold ’14 on Lean Flow construction-scheduling software. Amelia Possanza, who will probably live in Brooklyn forever, was working on a book about lesbians and has become an avid biker. Will Campbell had a baby boy and lives on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Shane Ogunnaike lives in Harlem with wife Jade, daughter Sloane, and “fur-son” Albus, and is an account executive FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 73 class notes at AI startup Arthur. Hannah “Alex” Younger was an artist in residence at the Studios at MASS MoCA last year. She had a solo show at the Indianapolis Art Center over the summer, and she and Tasha Lewis were in Art Now America at Eastern Tennessee State University. Margret Lenfest is in residency in canine sports medicine and rehabilitation at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine. Philadelphia, Baltimore, D.C. area: Zack Gershenson and his wife live in Harleysville, Pa., with a cat and dog. He has the “same job (pharma/biotech consultant) with the same moral quandaries.” Francesca Bolfo is completing an art history Ph.D. at Penn in contemporary post-colonial art, with a focus on Cuba and Puerto Rico and their diasporas. Tim Brevart is leading a team of tech consultants, and daughter Brie was born April 6. Zach Weiner and Lisa Shang live in Baltimore with dog Pretzel. Lisa is an Under Armour data scientist. Natalia Cote Muñoz works in the Office of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State. She and David Weeks ’10 married in a virtual ceremony with many Swatties attending. Sara Blanco lives in Arlington, Va., where she trains women to run for political office with Running Start. Midwest: Eleanor Glewwe is a visiting assistant professor of linguistics at Grinnell College. Maki Somosot and Josh Cockroft live in Cincinnati, where Josh is a resident in family medicine and psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati, and Maki is the communications and narrative director for the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. Adam Hardy and Laura Rodgers-Hardy moved to Cincinnati, where Laura started a pediatric residency at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. She earned an M.D./Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, and Adam has an integrative biology Ph.D. from UChicago. They had their second baby in January. West: Franklin “Charlie” Huntington finished the fourth year of a clinical psychology Ph.D. at the University of Denver. He lives in Boulder, Colo., in a 13-person co-op. Melissa Frick 74 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 ARTIST-ACTIVIST ALEX ANDERSON ’13 Alex Anderson ’13, a Los Angeles-based artist who works in clay, is the 2021 recipient of the John S. Knudsen Prize, presented by the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, Calif. A studio art and Chinese double major at Swarthmore, Anderson brings social activism to his works, which have been described as simultaneously lush and beautiful with a tinge of critique. For those hoping to follow in his path, Alex offers the same advice he received from his grad school adviser: “Follow your inclinations and make something we’ve never seen before,” he says. “It really is that simple.” lives in San Francisco and started the fourth year of a radiationoncology residency at Stanford. She was training for a 100K trail race in Argentina’s Patagonia region. Adam Bortner graduated from a residency at a community health center for the poor and underserved and became certified as an HIV specialist. Halleh Balch and Andreas Bastian moved to San Francisco, and Halleh started a Stanford postdoc in nanophotonics, energy, and climate research. Nick Rhinehart is in Berkeley, Calif., doing a postdoc in robotics and machine learning. In Half Moon Bay, Calif., for six years, Kat Clark has worked at Apple for two years. Shiran Victoria Shen began a national fellowship at Stanford’s Hoover Institution in September. Her first book will be published next year. Molly Siegel, who lives in Portland, Ore., graduated from an OB-GYN residency at Oregon Health & Science University, began a fellowship in reproductive endocrinology and infertility, and had baby Liam on May 24. South: Dante Fuoco and his boyfriend moved to Virginia, where Dante is starting a poetry MFA at Virginia Tech. Jennifer Yi is a Durham (N.C.) VA Health Care System clinical psychologist. Abroad: Mary Jean Chan is a senior lecturer in creative writing (poetry) at Oxford Brookes University in England and a supervisor for graduate programs. She will move to Oxford and is writing her second poetry book. 2013 Paige Grand Pré jpgrandpre@gmail.com Congratulations to Kai Tucker Law, who married Jason Law. Marcus Mello, in Boston, started in May as an associate urban designer at Sasaki and got his driver’s license after months of practice. Nearby, Ahmad Ammous started as a hospitalist outside Boston. Also in New England are Swarthmore roommates Chris Geissler and Ben Goossen, who both completed Ph.D.s — Chris in linguistics at Yale and Ben in history at Harvard. Chris thanked the Swatties who provided support along the way, and is “still singing shape note music.” Josh Satre bought a house in Frederick, Md., and is a research analyst for ACLED. He enjoys hiking with wife Morgan and daughter Nora, 1. Max Nesterak is deputy editor of the Minnesota Reformer, a nonprofit politics and policy news site, and hosts its weekly podcast, Reformer Radio. Sam Hirshman and Olivia Natan graduated from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business with Ph.D.s in behavioral science and quantitative marketing, respectively. During that time, they had coffee at least once a week. Both are on faculty: Sam at the Norwegian School of Economics in Bergen, Norway, and Olivia at UC–Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Zach and Erin Curtis Nacev moved to Portland, Ore., this summer. Erin started an OB-GYN residency at Oregon Health & Sciences University, and Zach is studying at Lewis & Clark Law School. Charles Tse checked in from Hong Kong following a dinner with Abir Varma ’14. After being in investment banking, Charles is in his fifth year at a startup that has done well in video live-streaming, and he closed a fundraising round with a satellite company. Pre-COVID-19, Charles traveled annually to Tel Aviv, Israel, to meet with tech startups for venture-capital investments and to connect with existing portfolio companies. Since August 2020, Charles has worked out daily and “is likely in the best condition since college.” He would love to reconnect with Swatties. 2014 Brone Lobichusky blobichusky@gmail.com Robin Carpenter and Hannah Grunwald adopted dog Pepper during the pandemic. Hannah organized a three-day virtual conference on diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM and finished a Ph.D. in December. They are moving back to the East Coast, where Hannah will start a postdoc at Harvard Medical School, studying cryptic genetic variations in cave fish. Robin has been crushing it in his races with Rally Cycling in Europe, competing in nationals in June. Anthony Collard works for Negative Zero Cryotherapy in Florida. Max Firke completed a master’s in education at the University of Maryland while teaching science in Montgomery County, Md., public schools. He volunteered during the pandemic with Open Source Medical Supplies, supporting collaborations among makers who were working to solve the PPE shortage. Haydil Henriquez (pg. 10) was named the inaugural Bronx Poet Laureate. After two cancellations due to COVID-19, Danny Hirschel-Burns married fellow Yale political science Ph.D. student Deepika Padmanabhan over the summer in a family ceremony in Michigan. He hoped to celebrate with Swarthmore friends soon. Emily Lau started a theoretical and applied linguistics Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge and continued her computational phonetics research. She has also discovered a passion for coxswaining with the Jesus College Boat Club. Frank Mondelli and Riana Shah had baby Lev Aryuna ShahMondelli on Feb. 24. Lev has already had a tour of campus. Despite everything, Cody Ruben had an excellent 2020. He finished an electrical and computer engineering Ph.D. at the University of Florida, bought a house, started a job as a consultant, adopted a dog, and bought a car. Lastly, Brone Lobichusky was a third-year general surgery resident at York Hospital in Pennsylvania and was voted most likely to “place a chest tube without local anesthetic.” After receiving her vaccine, she enjoyed postponed vacations to Key West, Fla., and Aspen, Colo. Brone’s also working toward a fellowship in trauma and critical care, and is always looking for updates from classmates at any point during the year. 2015 Abigail Frank abigailcrfrank@gmail.com Nathan Cheek nncheek@princeton.edu Chelsea Matzko moved to New Orleans this summer with her husband and two cats to begin medical school at Tulane University. Let her know if you want to grab a beignet in the Big Easy. Speaking of Tulane, Anirban Ganguly started his second year of medical school there. Across the pond in Ireland, Tim Vaughan-Ogunlusi graduated from medical school in May. Tim went on weekend trips throughout Europe to make up for a year’s worth of canceled holidays. After living in Dublin for three years, he’s ready to be Stateside. Julia Murphy celebrated completing year three of medical school by wandering Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Kimaya Diggs is chillaxing in western Massachusetts, loving life with her dog and spouse. She’s writing full time, playing lots of shows, and finishing solo and holiday albums. She glazed over 100 unfinished pieces left behind by her late mother, which was a special artistic and tactile experience. Antony Kaguara spent the past couple of months working on gethomespace.com, out of Nairobi, Kenya. He is excited that Sharples is getting a face-lift and can’t wait to catch up at the next reunion. Emmy Talian lives in East Falls, Philadelphia, and teaches English in the suburbs at Conestoga High. This May, she received a master’s from Penn’s Reading/Writing/ Literacy program. She road-tripped to North Carolina this summer with her cavapoo, Melon, and fiancé, Justin, staying with Joy Martinez Pinter ’16 and Erica Janko ’17 along the route. Lucía Luna-Victoria Indacochea entered the last year of a history Ph.D. at UC–Davis. She received the ACLS/Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship, which will allow her to finish her dissertation on Peru’s internal armed conflict. Lucía hoped to return to Peru and its magnificent food in 2022. Alison Koziol is in Colorado making beer during the week and training sled dogs. If you’re in Fort Collins, swing by for a pint. Lauren Barlow left behind the winters of Chicago for the “year-round sunny shores” of Cambridge, Mass., to pursue a master’s at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Kate Wiseman is in Chicago pivoting in the world of education and the arts. She congratulated Nate Cheek on his psychology and social policy Ph.D., even though he refused to brag about it. Nate and Abigail Frank, who also has a Ph.D. and is a phenomenal dancer, were reunited at last. 2016 Stephanie Kestelman stephaniekestelman@gmail.com Z.L. Zhou zzlzhou@gmail.com Veda Khadka passed her qualifying exams to be a Ph.D. candidate in microbiology. She celebrated with Sarah Babinski, who came to visit from New Haven, Conn., where she is working toward a Ph.D. Mercer Borris moved to Cambridge, Mass., where she’s pursuing a dual master’s in business and electrical engineering at MIT. Stephanie Kestelman went to Cold Spring, N.Y., for Brooke Kelsey’s bachelorette party. Brooke married Joe Boninger this fall. Fatema Jivanjee lives in NYC, has a master’s in social work, works at the Renfrew Center for the treatment of eating disorders, and serves as a board member of the New York chapter of the International Association for Eating Disorder Professionals. She’s @YourSouthAsianTherapist on Instagram. Antonia Violante started a master’s in integrated product design at Penn. Sean Thaxter married Chastity Hopkins ’15 in October 2020. Katie Jo McMenamin and Spencer Friske got married in June in Colorado. In November, Suness Jones married David Hall in St. Paul, Minn., with Sun Park as maid of honor. Suness has completed her first year of a master’s in public health at the University of Minnesota’s Maternal and Child Health program. Ariel Pearson lives in Philadelphia and takes adult gymnastics classes. Bill Fedullo remains in the Philadelphia area, having started a job as a whistleblower attorney at Berger Montague. Christen Boas Hayes moved in with Isabel Knight in D.C. during the pandemic. Isabel then moved to Philadelphia to live with Asher Glom Wolf ’18. Christen has visited them and their five kittens and also started a job as a regulatory policy adviser at the U.S. Treasury. Bennett Thompson works for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in D.C. and plays Dungeons and Dragons in free time. Shinae Yoon started law school at the University of Virginia and placed second in the All Reunion Year Virtual Alumni Trivia. Over the pandemic, she hosted an online colloquium series sporadically attended by Rachel Berger, Oscar Chen, Cara Ehlenfeldt, Rachel Flaherman, Allison Hrabar, Dakota Pekerti, Daniel Redelmeier, Annie Tvetenstrand, Elaine Zhou, and Z.L. Zhou. Tania Uruchima graduated with a master’s in public affairs from UT–Austin and returned to D.C. to work for the federal government. Kara Bledsoe moved to Fort Worth, Texas, to work at Ithaka S+R, an academic and cultural nonprofit. She also was learning how to knit, sew, grow her own food. Molly Petchenik graduated from Yale Law School and moved to Austin, Texas, to clerk for U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman. Laura Rigell left Philadelphia and took a break to travel before diving into work to strengthen democracy. In April, Martin Froger Silva left his job of four years at FWD.us to bike solo from the Mexican to the Canadian border along the Pacific Coast — a 2,500-mile trek on a bike he built. This summer, FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 75 class notes he started a master’s in climate science and policy at UC–San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Z.L. is a linguistics Ph.D. candidate at UCLA. Elizabeth Tolley ’18 visited him, and he occasionally sees Laura Chen ’19 when he’s in the Bay Area. Z.L. has taken up the hobbies of mustache-growing (handlebar) and puppy-rearing (cocker spaniel-poodle mix). Rainie Oet (she/they) moved to L.A., sold a picture book about a nonbinary child’s magical birthday party, and had their third poetry book, Glorious Veils of Diane, published in February. She is represented by literary agent Abigail Frank ’15 of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. Olivia Ortiz is working on a master’s in city planning at UC– Berkeley. When they’re very lucky, Dakota Pekerti and/or Kelley Langhans takes them on hikes or brings them baked goods. Dakota is the single dad of two kittens; Kelley is working on a Ph.D. at Stanford. Elaine Zhou has been teaching high school English and traveling in Shanghai. Before that, she was in Chicago, passing time by visiting Kelly Smemo, Richard Monar and David Lin ’15, and Tamsin True-Alcalá ’15 and giving talks at Shinae’s colloquium series. Joelle Hageboutros graduated from Penn law school and is clerking at the International Court of Justice. 2018 Emma Suen-Lewis finished a computer engineering master’s and moved to Philadelphia with her cat, Toast. Kai Kandrysawtz moved to Charlottesville, Va., to pursue a speech language pathology master’s at the University of Virginia. Swarthmore College Bulletin / Laura Chen laura.g.chen@gmail.com Letty Ho and Kevin Murphy drove a van to Seattle from Oakland, Calif., to see Eriko Shrestha (pg. 48), who fed them curry, showed them the night lights, and took them on a Katherine Kwok katherinekwokhk@gmail.com FALL 2021 hike through the snow. Gloria Kim received a master’s in religion and spent the summer hiking through the Appalachians. She would appreciate podcast and e-book recommendations. Zain Talukdar started his third year of medical school at the University of Rochester. Xena Wang hoped to finish a master’s in museum studies in 2022, while making art and working at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Until she moved to the Philadelphia area in August, Laura Chen used memes and Zoom calls to stay in touch with freshman hallmates Mark Oet, Maya Deutsch, Janice Luo, and Kenny Bransdorf. Jonathan Hamel Sellman finished his second year as a secondgrade teacher in Lawrence, Mass. His beloved grandmother died this spring. She was a deeply compassionate, selfless, tough-asnails woman who was like a third parent to him. He was very excited to visit Pavan Kalidindi and Ivan Lomeli in L.A. over the summer. 2020 2019 Dorcas Tang dorcastjy@gmail.com Min Cheng mindcheng@gmail.com 76 Kyle McKenney started at NYU law school in the fall, studying environmental law to fight climate change using the legal system. Kwame Asiedu is at Columbia for a master’s in human nutrition. Dominic Sonkowsky started a master’s in urban planning at NYU, focusing on walkability. He volunteers with Welcome to Chinatown. Isabel Cristo and Liz Whipple live together in Brooklyn and made a cameo appearance in In the Heights. Emily Audet graduated with a law degree from UCLA. This fall, she started as a Hueston Hennigan Fellow with the Social Justice Legal Foundation. She and husband Matthew Olivencia-Audet live in L.A., where he began work as a software engineer at Google. Arka Rao is close to joining a lab at UC–San Francisco and met Judith Kaminsky ’68, who owns Cookin’, a recycled cookware store in San Francisco. Sayed Malawi foiled an attempt at identity theft by David Xu, who welcomed a third turtle, Bacon Cheezburger. Isabel “Izzy” McClean izzy.mcclean@gmail.com Mehra den Braven mmehra.denbraven@gmail.com Observing iguanas inspired Shayla Smith’s short story, “Them Iguanas Are My Friends,” which was published in The Hopper (tinyurl. com/4ce2t34c). Peter Chong lives in Philadelphia with two Swatties, one an alum Nominations Open for Alumni Council! Interested in serving your fellow Swarthmoreans? Nominate yourself or another alum for Alumni Council by emailing Lisa Shafer at lshafer1@swarthmore.edu. Nominations are due by Nov. 1. and the other a rising senior. He’s a paralegal at an immigration law firm and cycles for transportation, exercise, and relaxation. Molly Fennig is working on a Ph.D. at Washington University in St. Louis in clinical psychology, specializing in treating eating disorders. In March, Taylor Tucker did a virtual book talk hosted by Sankofa Video, Books, & Cafe with fellow co-authors and the editors of their book, Strong Black Girls: Reclaiming Schools in Their Own Image. It is available at Blackowned bookstores such as Sankofa and Harriet’s Bookshop. In May, Taylor graduated from Penn’s Graduate School of Education with a master’s and her certification to teach secondary English. Roman Shemakov co-authored Digital Transformation of Property in Greater China, available from World Scientific. Izzy McClean and her senior-year roommates, Oliver Steinglass, Zach Viscusi, Ian Cairns, Felix Laniyan, and Quentin Millette, completed their first road trip around the Southwest. They are planning their route for next year’s trip. Oliver claims to have beaten Sagnik Gayen in Catan, but we have no sources to confirm this. 2021 Hannah Watkins hannah.swatkins1@google.com My name is Hannah Watkins, and I’m our class secretary. During my time at Swarthmore, I was president of Terpsichore Dance Collective, a biology major and environmental studies minor, and secretary of the senior class. Shortly after graduation, I moved home to Anchorage, Alaska, with my partner and our cat, where I’m a medical scribe in a OB-GYN clinic. When I wrote this, I was enjoying the summer social scene under the midnight sun and looking forward to spending quality time outdoors fishing, hiking, and picking berries. their light lives on our friends will never be forgotten William Nute Jr. ’38 A medical missionary and pacifist with a dedication to knowledge, service, and family, Bill died March 31, 2021. Bill served with the American Board for Foreign Missions in Turkey and helped establish the Child Health Institute. He later worked for the New York City Department of Health and taught at Columbia School of Public Health. Mary Ann Myerscough Huber ’43 Mary Ann, a retired administrator with R.H. Macy & Co., died April 13, 2021. With a bachelor’s in social science, Mary Ann pursued studies in education at Columbia University. At Swarthmore, she was part of the Hamburg Show and participated in mountaineering. Francis Fairman III ’45 Francis, an engineer, a musician, and a late-in-life runner, died Jan. 29, 2021. Francis enlisted in the Navy V-12 program and studied at Haverford College, Swarthmore, and Duke University. After returning from World War II, he earned a master’s in electrical engineering and worked for Westinghouse’s nuclear business for 30 years before running a successful consulting business until age 70. Peter Miller ’46 Peter, former president and chairman of a family manufacturing company, died June 15, 2021. The son of two Swarthmoreans, Peter majored in engineering before joining his father’s company, Chester-Jensen Co., a manufacturer of heat-exchange and food-processing equipment in Chester, Pa. He enjoyed golfing and visiting Vermont, and he served on the board of Crozer-Chester Medical Center. Howard Bowman ’47 Howard, an undercover case officer who received a Career Intelligence Medal Elizabeth Martinez ’46, H’00 “Betita,” a leader in the Chicana movement, died June 29, 2021. A former Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee coordinator, Betita helped create the Chicano Communications Center in New Mexico. She later ran for California governor and helped found the Institute for MultiRacial Justice. FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 77 in memoriam from the CIA, died May 3, 2021. Howard left the College to enlist in the Army in 1944 and earned a Bronze Star in the Battle of Munich. After his honorable discharge, he joined the CIA, retiring at age 65 and working as a contract employee until 2005. Margaret MacLaren Ulrich ’49 Peggy, a former dean of students and admissions, died May 12, 2021. In addition to her position at Swarthmore, Peggy served at Westminster Choir College in New Jersey and at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. She also volunteered at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia and endowed a scholarship/fellowship that provides a monthly stipend and tuition support for one resident artist annually. Frank Hendrickson ’47 Frank, a physician and professor of radiation oncology who successfully treated a snow leopard with jaw cancer, died Aug. 10, 2019. Frank received his medical degree from Jefferson Medical College, was a general medical officer in the Navy, and spent his career at what is now Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. Upon retirement in 1996, he was presented with the Chicago Radiological Society Distinguished Service Award, and an endowed chair was named for him at the medical center. William Eldredge ’49 Bill, who was board president of the Hudson (Ohio) Library and Historical Society, died May 3, 2021. Bill served in the Army during the Korean War and worked for SherwinWilliams Co., including as president of the International Division, retiring in 1993. He traveled extensively with his wife overseas and on study tours with the Victorian Society in America, and he was active on the Hudson (Ohio) Planning Commission and in his Unitarian Universalist church. William Matchett ’49 A poet and World War II conscientious objector, William died June 21, 2021. faculty & staff James Bell, who worked as an instrumentation engineer in the Chemistry Department before retiring, died March 22, 2021. He was 78. Corine Dunlap, who worked for the College for more than 25 years, died Feb. 24, 2021. She was 94. 78 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 William received his master’s and Ph.D. in English from Harvard University, where he was one of the founders of the Poets’ Theatre. A professor emeritus at the University of Washington, he wrote multiple books of poetry books, and his work was also featured in The New Yorker, Saturday Review of Literature, and The New Republic. He was active with Seattle’s University Meeting and the American Friends Service Committee. James Carson ’50 Jim, an engineer and a champion sailor, died March 21, 2021. Jim attended Swarthmore and the Merchant Marine Academy, and he served in the Merchant Marine. He was a chemical engineer for DuPont from 1950 to 1983, but his passion was sailing, winning the Barnegat Bay Lightning Class championship numerous times and competing in U.S. and international regattas. Constance Cain Hungerford, the Mari S. Michener Professor Emerita of Art History and Provost Emerita, who also served as interim president of the College, died May 12, 2021. She was 73. Pauline Marshall, who worked for 30 years in the College’s libraries, died July 12, 2021. She was 96. Abigail Moore, a former secretary for Nancy Okazaki Morton ’50 A child-welfare advocate born and raised in Hawaii, Nancy died March 16, 2021. Nancy earned a master’s in social work at the University of Wisconsin– Madison in 1973. She worked for Wisconsin’s Department of Health and Social Services for 20 years, specializing in adoption and foster care, and then returned to Honolulu where she worked for the Queen Lilioukalani Children’s Center. Rada Demerec Dyson-Hudson ’51 Rada, an anthropologist who conducted fieldwork with her husband in Uganda, died April 14, 2016. Rada graduated from the College Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in biology. A Fulbright Scholar, she earned a Ph.D. from Oxford and received Guggenheim, Fulbright, and National Science Foundation funding for a field study of Karimojong pastoralists in Women’s Studies, died April 4, 2021. She was 87. Robert Pasternack, the Edmund Allen Professor Emeritus of Chemistry and Biochemistry, died June 5, 2021. He was 84. Helen Warren, who worked in Swarthmore’s cafeteria, died April 3, 2021. She was 83. northeast Uganda, before eventually working at Cornell and Binghamton universities. helped create the Taconic Independent Practice Association to address the expansion of managed care. services, including as head of the Trust Department at the First National Bank of Atlanta. Robert Ammerman ’52 William Jones Jr. ’54 Grace Bunker Lowney ’54 A veteran and philosophy professor, Robert died May 28, 2021. Before graduating from Swarthmore with highest honors, Robert served in the 88th Infantry Division in Italy and participated in the first U.N. Peacekeeping mission in Trieste. He pursued graduate studies in philosophy at Princeton and Brown universities, joining the University of Wisconsin– Madison’s philosophy department 1957, where he focused his scholarship on Ludwig Wittgenstein. Bill, an economist who once earned two silver medals in javelin at the Penn Relays, died July 3, 2021. Bill was a three-sport athlete at Swarthmore, participating in football, basketball, and track and field, and earned the Kwink Trophy for best overall athlete. He earned a master’s in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and had a long career in banking and financial Alison Griffith Tennyson ’54 George Hoffmann ’52 An international traveler and ardent supporter of gay rights, Alison died April 9, 2021. Alison attended Swarthmore and the University of Geneva before graduating from Barnard College; she then earned a master’s from Columbia University, where the book based on her thesis included a foreword by then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. Alison skied the Alps, carried letters into the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and loved all arts and opera. George, a political science professor, died May 10, 2021. George taught at Wittenberg University in Ohio, Midwestern University in Texas, and Butler University in Indiana from 1964 to 1991. He served as the director of Legal Studies at Butler and for two terms on the board of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences, receiving its George C. Roberts award for best paper. Sybil Hillman Pike ’52 Sybil, a bookstore owner and retired Library of Congress research librarian, died March 9, 2021. A French major at the College with a master’s in library science from the State University of New York–Albany, Sybil co-owned and operated Wayward Books in Washington, D.C. She was also an avid reader and gardener and enjoyed time with family and friends. Eleanor Cohn Kane ’53 A physician specializing in diabetes mellitus, Eleanor died April 28, 2021. After graduating from Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, Eleanor was in private practice in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and was affiliated with Vassar Brothers and St. Francis hospitals, serving on their attending medical staffs and as medical director of St. Francis’ Internal Medicine Department. In the late 1980s, she Grace, a varsity archer and educator, died April 28, 2021. After Swarthmore, Grace earned a master’s in education from Bryn Mawr College, married, and raised two children while earning a child psychology Ph.D. from the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor. She worked in education, volunteered at the Unitarian Universalist church and the League of Women Voters, and traveled extensively for pleasure. James Hormel ’55, H’09 James, the first openly LGBTQ person to represent the United States as an ambassador, serving in Luxembourg in 1999–2000, died Aug. 13, 2021. A longtime member of the College’s Board of Managers, James was a pioneering public servant, fierce advocate for human rights, and generous and dedicated philanthropist. His support of the College included the establishment of a faculty chair in social justice and a $4.3 million gift, donated along with his husband, Michael P. N. Araque Hormel ’08, to establish the James Hormel and Michael Nguyen Intercultural Center, which opened in 2018, deepening the College’s commitment to inclusivity and diversity and to educating the whole person. Carolyn Wittman Gordon ’55 A special education teacher and devoted mother of three, Carolyn died May 13, 2021. A member of the Garnet Singers, Carolyn graduated with a degree in psychology. She later worked as a special education teacher and at a child-development center and split her time between Sarasota, Fla., and Wilmington, Del. Paul Marcus ’55 Paul, who registered voters in Mississippi in the summer of 1964, died May 8, 2021. After Swarthmore, Paul earned an MBA from Baruch College in New York City. He cared deeply about civil rights and focused his life’s work on developing affordable housing, including projects such as Manhattan Plaza, Riverbend, and Waterside in New York. FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 79 in memoriam Ann Price Steele ’55 Edwina Parker Furman ’58 Ann, who among many titles was an ice-hockey grandmother, died May 12, 2021. A member of the varsity swim team and a biology major at the College, Ann nurtured in others an appreciation for animals and advocated for animal conservation. As director of public policy at the Mental Health Association of Connecticut, she lobbied for parity in mental health insurance coverage, which became law in her state in 2000. A staunch advocate of free speech, Judy died in spring 2017. A scholar of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant and a philosopher of politics, Judy earned a master’s and Ph.D. from Yale University before joining the philosophy department at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, retiring in 2002. She was a founding member of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship. Gerard Swope ’56 An accountant and lifelong supporter of the Marine Biological Laboratories, Gerry died May 3, 2020. Gerry attended Swarthmore for two years before being drafted by the Army and later received his bachelor’s in accounting from Babson College. After earning an MBA from Harvard University in 1970, he was hired as CFO of an employee-training video company, then served as financial vice president of Federal Publications Inc. until his retirement. Martha Fisher Laties ’57 “Marty,” a history major who testified before Congress, died May 18, 2021. After marrying, having three children, and moving to Baltimore, Marty joined the League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union. In 1965, the family moved to Brighton, N.Y., where she was secretary of the local ACLU and a leader of a group that fought state aid going to religious schools, among other issues; she continued her political work at her retirement community in Mitchellville, Md. Swarthmore College Bulletin / Marilyn Hughes Johnson ’58 Carl Levin ’56, H’80 Judith Wubnig ’55 80 “Edie,” an elementary school and adultliteracy teacher, died March 26, 2021. Edie earned a master’s in elementary education at the College of St. Rose in Albany, N.Y., and taught in Albany and East Greenbush, N.Y., as well as in New Orleans. Later, she studied adult literacy at Middle Tennessee State University and worked with the Nashville Adult Literacy program, teaching and training volunteer tutors. FALL 2021 The longest-serving U.S. senator in Michigan’s history, Carl died July 29, 2021. Before winning election to the Senate in 1978, Carl was an assistant attorney general and general counsel for the Michigan Civil Rights Commission and helped form the Detroit public defender’s office, serving as its chief appellate defender. As a senator, Carl spent nine years as chair of the Armed Services Committee, exposing corrupt practices by military contractors and playing an instrumental role in lifting the ban on gays in the military. He was also chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, confronting companies like JPMorgan Chase, Apple, and American Express about, among other issues, overseas banking havens and tax-avoidance maneuvers. He retired in 2015. Peter Rosi ’57 Peter, a physician and home-birth advocate, died March 25, 2021. A history student at Swarthmore, Peter received his medical degree from the University of Chicago before opening a practice that specialized in home births, which he operated for more than 50 years. Peter was a longtime member of the Orthodox Church of America and was active later in life at St. Alexis Orthodox Church in Battle Ground, Ind. Marilyn, a whiz with her editorial red pen and a community activist who served on many local boards, from cable TV to mental health, died May 28, 2021. Marilyn moved to Connecticut in the early 1970s and earned a master’s in community psychology, becoming administrative planner/coordinator for five regional human-service agencies. A proofreading job in the ’80s led to a 40year career as a freelance copy editor and researcher. Michael Hudson ’59 Michael, a professor who had Guggenheim, Ford, and Fulbright fellowships and was past president of the Middle East Studies Association, died May 25, 2021. Michael’s lifelong engagement with the Arab world began as an exchange student in Beirut during the 1958 Lebanese crisis. In 1975, he joined Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service as director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies; he was also founding director of the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore. Panthea Kreps Redwood ’61 Panthea, a dedicated birder and gardener who loved singing and oil painting, died Jan. 3, 2021. Panthea moved from Palo Alto, Calif., to the East Coast at 16 to attend Swarthmore, earning a biology degree. At age 40, she migrated to Alaska with her three children to homestead, working for many years as a landuse planner for Anchorage. Panthea traveled extensively, with her most recent adventure being an exploration of South Africa’s botany. Allen Greenleaf ’62 A mechanical engineer by both natural inclination and training, Allen died Jan. 17, 2021. A graduate of Swarthmore and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Allen focused his professional life on high-altitude large-optics technology, until his concerns that this work might contribute to war led him to leave the field. He then became a homesteader in Maine, supporting the work and his interest in mechanical engineering by refurbishing and putting to use old and derelict farm equipment. Linda Fulton McKay ’62 A great problem-solver who was in her element at the beginning of the computer age, Linda died June 11, 2021. Linda earned a bachelor’s in economics and had a Rotary Foundation Fellowship in Bombay, India. After earning her master’s in biochemistry from the University of Kansas in 1992, she worked for the biotechnology company Genentech and stayed involved in civic and educational causes in Lawrence, Kan. Linda had three paintings in the Kansas Watercolor Society’s juried show in 2003 and was the featured artist in the Lawrence Art Walk in 2009. Bennett Weaver ’62 Ben, a “computer geek” and cellist, died July 15, 2021. Ben attended Swarthmore on a music scholarship before returning to Gainesville, Fla., to study physics at the University of Florida. In the late ’60s, he began writing computer programs at CNA Insurance before joining Harris Bank in the late ’70s as an analyst, retiring in 2001. In 1983, Ben was a founding member of the Association of Personal Computer Users, one of the oldest general computer groups in America. Ralph Bailey ’63 Ralph, a singer, songwriter, and certified public accountant, died April 23, 2020. A history major at Swarthmore, Ralph also received a master’s in history from the University of Pennsylvania, becoming a CPA in 1991. At the College, Ralph was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa and the varsity tennis and cross-country teams, and he worked for WSRN. Troopers. Later, in private practice, he litigated hundreds of employment cases, including Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, in which the U.S. Supreme Court, for the first time, determined gender stereotyping was a form of discrimination. Michael Cook ’63 Libby, whom loved ones called a “fighter of injustice, an uninhibited dancer, a curious traveler, and an outspoken seeker of the truth,” died May 9, 2021. After graduating from Swarthmore with an art history degree, Libby earned a law degree from Villanova University in 1977 and practiced family law in and around Philadelphia for 40 years. She broke new ground with her practice in collaborative law and was a passionate advocate for court reform at the state level. Mike, a Rhodes Scholar, marathon runner, and Ironman triathlete, died May 27, 2021. At Swarthmore, Mike played football and was a wrestler while also serving in student government. After graduating from Oxford’s New College, he joined the Foreign Service, serving in Vietnam and Thailand, before joining the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1973 as the first director of the Superfund program. He received numerous awards for his work, including the Distinguished Federal Executive Award in 1987 and the Distinguished Career Service Award at his retirement in 2006, while also working with wife Kim’s Vietnamese Resettlement Association and helping to found the Green Infrastructure Center. Marc Hofstadter ’67 A librarian and writer who published 10 volumes of poetry and a book of essays, Marc died May 10, 2021. After earning a bachelor’s in French literature, Marc received a literature Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and taught American literature there and at the Université d’Orléans and Tel Aviv University. In 1980, he earned a master’s in library and information science from UC–Berkeley, and served, until 2005, as librarian for the San Francisco Municipal Railway. Douglas Huron ’67 Doug, a civil rights attorney who won landmark workplace-bias cases, died June 7, 2021. After earning his law degree at the University of Chicago in 1970, Doug worked at the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, where he was the lead lawyer on a case that desegregated the Alabama State Elizabeth Leavelle Bennett ’68 Arthur Fink ’68 A consultant, photographer, and member of Portland (Maine) Friends Meeting, Arthur died April 21, 2021. A physics major at the College, Arthur earned a graduate degree in computer science from Harvard University. Though he described himself as a consultant, coach, speaker, and facilitator, Arthur might have been best known as the resident photographer of the Bates Dance Festival in Lewiston, Maine, from 2005 to 2017. John Fahnestock ’69 John, a ceramist and a projectionist for the Telluride (Colo.) Film Festival, died May 31, 2021. At Swarthmore, John threw pots and was involved with dance and theater, earning a degree in art history. He eventually moved to Telluride, where he built a ceramics studio, joined the fire department, chaired the then-Historic Preservation Commission, and worked in finished carpentry. He later settled in Norwood, Colo., and opened the gallery Yank and Flanders with his wife in 2001. Beverly Lyon Clark ’70 A professor loved and respected by generations of faculty, students, and FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 81 staff members at Wheaton College, Bev died March 18, 2021. Bev graduated from Swarthmore Phi Beta Kappa, served in the Fiji Islands with the Peace Corps, and received an English literature Ph.D. from Brown University. For 44 years, she was an English literature professor at Wheaton, in Norton, Mass., where she wrote 13 scholarly books and hundreds of articles. Jan Paradise ’72 Jan, a pediatrician who studied child abuse, died April 12, 2021. Jan attended Swarthmore but received her bachelor’s and medical degrees from the University of Pennsylvania; she was later on Penn’s faculty and on staff at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, studying child abuse. Jan continued these studies after relocating to Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, before leaving academia to enter private practice, retiring in 2019. Jennifer Dion ’73 Jennifer, a resident of Cortez, Colo., died March 9, 2021. An art history graduate, Jennifer lived in Pennsylvania and Virginia before moving to Colorado. Robert Early ’73 Bob, a Sheltie-lover who taught at Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Kittanning campus, died Feb. 1, 2021. With a bachelor’s in physics, Bob received master’s degrees in physics and math from Indiana University– Bloomington, and earned a third master’s in counseling and guidance from the University of Central Florida. Among Bob’s many activities were a nightly jog, attending the Pittsburgh Symphony, and playing with the Armstrong Concert Band and Kittanning Community Band. Kenneth Andres Jr. ’75 Ken, an attorney and a member of the Garnet men’s soccer team that placed second at the NCAA Division III National Championship, died June 24, 2021. Ken was a founding and managing 82 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 partner of Andres Berger, president of the New Jersey Association for Justice, and an adjunct professor at Drexel University law school. He refereed soccer at the college level, served in many National Intercollegiate Soccer Official Association leadership roles, and was the NCAA secretary rules editor. Louis Staton ’77 A gifted writer, singer, dancer, and actor, Louis died Feb. 6, 2018. Louis worked briefly on and off Broadway, at An Evening Dinner Theatre in Westchester, N.Y., and at Mount Vernon (N.Y.) Fine Arts Cultural Center Open Cage Theatre. His other jobs included working in solar panel sales, and he wrote at least seven musicals and 76 songs. Eedy Nicholson ’78 Eedy, a lawyer and active member of the Swarthmore Alumni Gospel Choir, died July 16, 2021. A history major at the College who attended Boston College Law School, Eedy was an attorney for the Department of Social Services and the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, retiring in 2015. She was a member of Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury, Mass., and its choir, with which she traveled internationally. David M. Snyder ’80 David, a supporter of national parks and the battlefield trust, died March 18, 2021. David studied history and philosophy at Swarthmore and later worked for UPS in West Chester, Pa., and Costa’s in Coudersport, Pa. An avid sports fan who loved to farm, David was a member of the National Rifle Association, the American Battlefield Trust, and the National Parks Conservation Association. Submit an obituary Jeanette Chapman ’84 Jeanette, an engineer and lifelong musician who played piano and violin, died April 16, 2021. Jeanette transferred from the College her sophomore year to Howard University, graduating with honors in mechanical engineering. She later joined the U.S. Patent Office, where she worked for 33 years and garnered numerous awards including the Bronze Medal Award for Superior Performance, the Exceptional Career Award, and the Distinguished Career Award. Anna Tocci ’99 A musician, healer, and former cafe owner, Anna died March 21, 2021. Anna graduated with a peace & conflict studies degree; worked as a paralegal for migrant farm workers; created the North Star Music Café in Portland, Maine, in 2007; and sang and played guitar in the band Ramblin Red. For the past five years, Anna and her husband had operated Greenlight Studio, a play space for kids and their parents in Portland. Maya Peterson ’02 Maya, a beloved associate professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, died June 16, 2021. An internationally known scholar, Maya engaged questions of health, the environment, and the transnational histories of science and technology; her first monograph, Pipe Dreams: Water and Empire in Central Asia, was a finalist for the Central Eurasian Studies Society’s Award for Best Book in History and the Humanities. A devoted mentor known for combining kindness with intellectual rigor, Maya held a history degree from Swarthmore, and a master’s in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia Studies and a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University. 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 Swarthmore College Bulletin, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore, PA 19081. looking back ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, the Russian famine of 1921–1922 severely afflicted the Soviet Union, its effects lasting for years and claiming millions of lives. International relief organizations such as the American Friends Service Committee sent extensive aid to the suffering areas. Jessica GranvilleSmith Abt (known as Jessica Smith), Swarthmore Class of 1915, spent years in Russia as a Famine Relief Program worker with the AFSC. Smith’s famine-relief work marked the beginning of her lifelong dedication to promoting Russian-American relations. She authored many books and articles, was an editor of and contributor to the New World Review for more than 40 years, served on the Board of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, and was awarded the Order of Friendship of the Peoples by the Soviet Union in 1977. Smith’s professional work and personal associations placed her under longterm scrutiny from the U.S. government. She was summoned as a witness in a 1956 Senate inquiry in which she faced accusations of being a Communist propagandist. Both her first and second husbands, active participants in the Communist Party and Ware Group, were formally investigated as suspected spies. (Her second husband eventually confirmed the Ware Group’s covert status in his memoirs.) In reference to Smith and another witness, Sen. James Eastland, chairman of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, asked whether there was “a weakness in our education system which would produce such distorted minds.” Smith cited her Quaker education in both secondary school and college for nurturing her interest in peace activism. “I loved Swarthmore,” she said. “It was a terribly important influence on my life. It was there I became aware of the great need to work for peace, which has become my life work.” —CHLOE LUCCHESI-MALONE, Archives Technician, Friends Historical Library LIBRARY OF CONGRESS in memoriam FALL 2021 / Swarthmore College Bulletin 83 spoken word CLEAR AND TRANSPARENT Associate Professor of Statistics Lynne Steuerle Schofield ’99 reflects on her term in the Provost’s Office as associate dean of the faculty for diversity, recruitment, and retention. by Alisa Giardinelli What interested you about this role? I worked on a committee with Professor of German and Film & Media Studies Sunka Simon, who held this position prior to me. I realized that there was a lot of work still left to do and that she had laid some great groundwork for things that I was interested in. When I first graduated from Swarthmore, my original goal was to be a middle school principal. So this feels a little like I managed to get back to 84 Swarthmore College Bulletin / FALL 2021 that role without actually having to do the really difficult job of being a middle school principal. My original thinking in wanting to be a principal concerned the concept of what makes good teaching: what is involved and what support systems an institution can provide so people can develop their teaching and professional skills. I’ve been able to do a lot of that in this role, both in the recruitment of and the development for junior faculty. What initiatives stand out for you? We’ve tried to clarify and make more transparent our review procedures and policies for our tenure-track candidates as well as the reviews for our non-tenure-track instructional staff. We had them in place, but there were often a lot of questions. We held listening sessions with people who had recently been up for tenure to see what their experience was, chairs of all of the departments and programs, and the staff members who manage the process. I’m really proud of that because I think that transparency has really improved the process for our candidates as well as for the College generally. I’m hoping the transparency and clarity will mean less implicit bias in the decisions that we make because we’ve laid out a set of criteria much more clearly. That’s a very small way to be a part of a broader movement around antiracism and anti-chauvinism. Where does this interest in looking for ways to improve systems come from? It comes from my very first job when I taught middle school math in Westfield, N.J. Two-fifths of that first year, I taught algebra, and the other three-fifths, I pulled seventh graders out of gym to teach them how to take the test that they were going to have to take in eighth grade. I really didn’t like that part of my job. I loved teaching algebra. But it became really clear to me that some policymakers had decided that the way to determine how much kids were learning was by having them take a test. For some kids, that extra math was maybe a really good thing. And for some kids, maybe, being pulled out of gym was actually a really bad thing. It wasn’t clear to me how much the policymakers understood all of those downstream implications. Do you have a favorite moment? The moment that our Academic Continuity Committee turned in our report [to President Valerie Smith in May 2020] — that was the moment when I was most proud to work at Swarthmore. I felt like this is a place that’s going to try to be as thoughtful as possible about its response to the pandemic. Having started those conversations allowed us to move more quickly, once the decision was made, because people were already aware of a number of the issues. That was the best committee I’d ever served on, not just at Swarthmore, but of almost any committee or work that I’ve done. LAURENCE KESTERSON LAURENCE KESTERSON “I’ve most appreciated how much more interaction I have with the College staff,” says Schofield. “They’re a tremendous group of people, and faculty in large part don’t interact with many of them on a regular basis.” in this issue 36 Pick a topic and dive in: The Color of Trees By looking at agricultural problems in new ways, John Leary ’00 is building biodiversity — and community, too. LANDFILLS The Post-Landfill Action Network is a student-led zero-waste movement that equips students with the necessary skills and resources to implement solutions to waste in their campus communities. by Tara Smith + WASTE NOT: postlandfill.org CORAL REEFS The Coral Reef Alliance partners with local communities and takes a multipronged approach to restoring and protecting coral reefs. + RESTORE: coral.org OCEANS Oceana works to make our oceans more biodiverse and abundant by winning policy victories in the countries that govern much of the world’s marine life. + GO DEEP: oceana.org AGRICULTURE Trees for the Future works with thousands of farmers across sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on the implementation of “Forest Garden” programs in Cameroon, Kenya, Senegal, Uganda, and Tanzania. + PLANT THE FUTURE: trees.org CLIMATE POLICY LAURENCE KESTERSON Leary looks to a future when sustainable agriculture practices are the norm. “We need to be able to grow food on this planet for a long time to come,” says Leary, at Kimberton CSA, a Pennsylvania community-supported agriculture farm, this summer. Today, Trees for the Future has 68 employees in Senegal and more than 200 across Africa. Climate Analytics combines science and policy analysis to support countries — especially those most vulnerable — in the fight against human-induced climate change. + ANALYZE: climateanalytics.org 20 THIS SIDE UP Just as funny upside down, a treasured Monty Python poster makes the cut for Move-In Day on Aug. 23. Creating a New Climate Moving past pessimism and paralysis, a studentled workshop series encourages participants to critically engage with the climate crisis. by Roy Greim ’14 24 In Deep At the ocean’s edge and into its deepest waters, Swarthmoreans are invested in the mechanisms of marine life, working out how animals solve the problems of their worlds and exploring how they function in their environment — however it changes. by Kate Campbell 42 The Company of Trees In appreciation of our ever-changing, deeply rooted, and highly communicative campus friends. LAURENCE KESTERSON SWARTHMORE’S STEWARDS ARE AT WORK IN THE WORLD AND GAINING GROUND GROWING TOGETHER FEATURES FALL 2021 Non Profit Org U.S. Postage PAID Permit #129 19464 TREE TOPS p36 FOOD MATTERS p46 SEED STRATEGY p48 500 College Ave. Swarthmore, PA 19081–1306 www.swarthmore.edu CLIMATE OF CHANGE THE BULLETIN’S FALL ISSUE is dedicated to SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN stories of Swarthmoreans making strides in helping to sustain the planet. We are hopeful, hard at work, and energized for change. LAURENCE KESTERSON Give back like Mwangangi by mentoring current students. Learn more at swarthmore.edu/alumni. navigating new waters together Whales and other species critical to ocean health. Story, p.24. WHALE ILLUSTRATION © ELENNADZEN–STOCK.ADOBE.COM FALL 2020 1 “Last year was my first time as a teaching assistant for the Math Department. This role, however trivial it may look on the outside, has actually been one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had. Guiding students through math homework problems and seeing some of them develop an interest in math has been an extremely fascinating process. Surprisingly, it has not just been a one-sided relationship; I have learned much more about the problem-solving process through guiding others to solve their problems.” — Mwangangi Kalii ’23