Swarthmore College Alumni Bulletin 1995-08-01

B u lle t in ]

(treating
t
“what I f ” world
o f children’s books

All-American...
Julie N oyes ’95, h ere in action
against W estern M aryland,
finished her three-year
lacro sse c a re e r not only as
th e Centennial C onference
Player of th e Year but also as
a first-team national AllA m erican. Noyes holds the
NCAA reco rd s for th e m ost
points in a seaso n (125),
m ost goals in a seaso n (107),
and m ost goals in a c a re e r
(2 7 8 ). See page 11 for o th er
spring sp o rts highlights.
PHOTO © JO H N FERKO

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COLLEGE BULLETIN • AUGUST 1995

Editor: Jeffrey Lott
Assistant Editor: Nancy Lehman ’87
News Editor: Kate Downing
Class Notes Editor: Carol Brévart
Desktop Publishing: Audree Penner
Intern: Amy Diehl ’97
Designer: Bob Wood
Editor Emerita:

12

T h e C o n ju re rs

A nyone w ho h a s h eld a ch ild an d rea d a story a lo u d kn ow s the
p o w er o f w ords an d pictures. M eet fiv e Sw arthm ore authors o f
pictu re b o o k s an d n ovels, fiction an d nonfiction, w ho h a v e
m a d e th eir w ay in the difficu lt bu sin ess o f ch ild ren ’s publishing.
By R eb ecca Aim

Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49

Associate Vice President
for External Affairs:
Barbara Haddad Ryan ’59

Cover: Good Dog, Carl author Sandra
Darling ’63 in her studio. See story,
page 12. Photo by Rocky Thiess.

16

I’ll B u ild M y H o u s e o f S tra w

In a y earlon g effort, en g in eerin g students u n der th e tu telage o f
A ssistant P ro fessor C arrE v erbach con stru cted a h o u se m a d e o f
straw b ales. The g o a l w as n ot ju st to bu ild a h ou se but to “learn
how to liv e w h ile doin g m in im al d am ag e to th e environm ent. ”
By Carol B revart

Changes of Address:
Send address label along with new
address to: Alumni Records,
Swarthmore College, 500 College
Ave., Swarthmore PA 19081-1397.
Phone: (610) 328-8435. Or E-mail
alumni@swarthmore.edu.

Contacting Swarthmore College:
College Operator: (610) 328-8000
Admissions: (610) 328-8300
Alumni Relations: (610) 328-8402
E-mail: alumni@swarthmore.edu
Publications: (610) 328-8568
E-mail: bulletin@swarthmore.edu
Registrar: (610) 328-8297
Printed in U.S.A. on recycled paper.

The Swarthmore College Bulletin
(ISSN 0888-2126), o f which this is vol­
ume XCII, number 5, is published in
Septem ber, November, January,
February, May, and August by Swarth­
m ore College, 500 College Avenue,
Swarthmore PA 19081-1397. Second
class postage p aid at Swarthmore PA
and additional mailing offices. Permit
No. 0530-620. Postmaster: Send
address changes to Swarthmore Col­
lege Bulletin, 500 College Avenue,
Swarthmore PA 19081-1397.

20

O ld B u g s , N e w T ric k s

A t T em ple U niversity B en n ett L o rb er ’64 is c h ie f o f in fectiou s
d isea ses, “th e p u rest d etectiv e w ork in a ll o f m ed icin e. ” He
an d h is team w orry a b o u t n ew d isea ses, th e rea p p ea ra n ce o f
o ld on es, a n d the evolu tion o f an tibiotic-resistan t bacteria.
By M arcia Ringel

72

L e ttin g G o

“T ow ard mid-August I beg an to unravel. I beg an telling store
clerk s an d g as station attendants, ‘M y son is goin g to co lleg e. ’”
The m oth er o f C harlie M ayer ’98 sh a res th e lum p-in-the-throat
feelin g that a cco m p a n ied th eir c a r rid e to Sw arthm ore last fall.
By Donna Damico M ayer

2
4
26
30
36
56

L etters
C ollection
Alumni Digest
Class Notes
D eaths
R ecent Books by Alumni

t ’s been a long time since I hid under my blanket with a
flashlight to finish a Hardy Boys book, but I still have the
passion for reading that drove me to disobey my parents’
order to “go to bed.” But Mom, there was a m ystery to be
solved with my buddies Frank and Joe. I couldn’t leave them
alone in the secret cave, could I?
I don’t rem em ber learning to read. It’s so natural, like walking
or talking, that I feel I’ve always known how. Of cou rse I realize
from raising two children that such skills are learned. As our
babies sat in our laps, pointing to the pictures in Pat the Bunny
or memorizing another Richard Scarry book, they were already
learning to name things and to sequence simple stories. By the
time they got on the bus to first grade, their minds were filled
with favorite tales, and they were ready to read by themselves.
First steps and first words m ay be the triumphs of the toddler
years, but reading is truly the start of an independent life.
Of course we can ’t start with Whitman or Steinbeck or Annie
Dillard— so we begin with children’s books. If you’ve ever tried
to write one, you know it takes a special gift to shed the weight
of adulthood and enter the mind
of a child. That’s why I’m in awe of
authors from my youth like E.B
White and A.A. Milne. In “The Con­
Reading is the
jurers” (page 12), you’ll m eet five
start o f an
Swarthmore authors who contin­
independent life.
ue to add to this important genre.
When you think about it, maga­
zines are a lot like children’s books— stories with pictures, pages
filled with flights of fancy or bits of information meant to sur­
prise and delight. For instance, can you imagine actually build­
ing a house of straw ? We w atched it happen this year at the Col­
lege, and, being in a storybook mood, we couldn’t resist som e
Three-Little-Pigs wordplay. But in “I’ll Build My House of Straw”
(page 16), you’ll also find a serious side to this unusual environ­
mental engineering project.
Perhaps the real wolves at our door in the 1990s are new
(and not so new) bacteria and viruses. There are som e blowyour-house-down illnesses out there, so we had a talk with infec­
tious disease specialist Bennett Lorber ’64 in “Old Bugs, New
Tricks” (page 20). Dr. Lorber’s humane approach to medicine is
reassuring, but his perception of the public health is not. Some­
times the real world makes m e want to retreat into fiction.
But with its news and notes, its facts and flights of fancy, we
hope you find each issue of the Swarthm ore College Bulletin a
reader’s refuge. So curl up in your secret cave and get started,
but don’t let your mom catch you with the light on!
— J.L.

I

PARLOR TALK

2

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Still having m ailbox dream s?

To the Editor:
As I was walking with my 7-yearold daughter in Parrish Hall during
Alumni Weekend, we passed the
mailboxes. Pointing them out to
her, I said, “Rachel, see those mailboxes? I have dreams about those
mailboxes.” Four people nearby—
including my husband Tony ’75—
whirled around and said, “You do L
too?” So it turns out that I’m not the
only one who dreams that I have ;
forgotten the combination to my :
mailbox, which is stuffed full of
extremely important items, like
exams, notification of papers due, j
etc. Aud i won’t be able to graduate
unless I can get in there!
We shared other Swarthmore
anxiety dreams we had, like the one
where you’re ready to graduate but
you’ve just found out that you owe
two papers and an exam in a class
you didn’t know you were regis- «
tered for. I don’t think that one is
specifically Swarthmore, though.
Any others?

I
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S hellie W ilensky C amp ’75

Gulph Mills, Pa. j
An unfortunate stereotype

To the Editor:
In the article on immigration
(“Crossing the Line,” May 1995) you
quote Alex Aleinikoff ’74 of the INS
as saying, “about h alf... [of undocu­
mented immigrants] are ‘overstay­
ers,’ people who enter lawfully but
don’t go home.” Yet the pho­
tographs you chose to accompany
the story focused only on the other
half: a short, dark-haired man
sneaks through a fence, a dark-eyed
woman clutches a small child. It’s
interesting that you didp’t show
any Canadian graduate students or
Italian tourists to illustrate
Aleinikoff’s point.
The media have been irresponsi­
ble in the images they use to illus­
trate this issue, and it’s unfortunate
that the C ollege Bulletin chose the
same easy way out.
E lise R icher ’92

Cambridge, Mass.
Your poin t is w ell-taken. We liked
/
Ken Light’s photographs as works of
art but did not fully con sider their edi­
torial im plications.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Recognize diversity, but
honor the common culture
To the Editor:
Your May editorial (“Parlor Talk” )
asserts that “the idea of the melting
pot has been discredited” and that
there are definite limits to assimila­
tion. We’d all better hope that nei­
ther of these assertions is true and
that some form of modified melting
pot prevails.
If our common culture is increas­
ingly irrelevant, what are the com­
pelling interests keeping the “cul­
ture war” that you describe from
degenerating into violent tribal war­
fare? It’s disingenuous to express
surprise when deliberately sensi­
tized group differences escalate
into physical conflict.
If all the multicultural energy
spent on expanding group con­
sciousness had instead been spent
on expanding the common culture
and assimilating new immigrants, I
doubt whether the xenophobia of
which you speak would have
reached its current dangerous pro­
portions. I lived in Ireland from 1967
to 1981 and witnessed the bloody
results,of stressing group differ­
ences. After a bomb killed 18 peo­
ple outside my office building, the
Irish media shrilled the usual
pathetically inadequate cries for
“tolerance,” having done their part
(as the American media do here) to
foster tribalism and lay the ground­
work for such a catastrophe.
If “diversity” consciousness and
its related dynamics really catch on
inAmerica, then the results will
make events in the former
Yugoslavia look like child’s play.
The bumper sticker slogan “Honor
Diversity” has got it backwards. We
should recognize diversity, but
what we should honor are those
elements of our culture that unify
us and bind us together.
T

om

G reen

Lake Oswego, Ore.
Very passionate
about Bach
To the Editor:
What is this ridiculous protest of
Jewish students against the Bach St.
John P assion? (“Passionate About
Bach,” May 1995) That their protest
P lease turn to page 62
AUGUST 1995

y mom keeps a collection of small
escaped dorm life by wallowing alone
mementos in her kitchen window
under the pinkish Philly night sky, not­
as reminders of special people and ing that there are thousands more
places in her life. Recently she told me
stars back home in Iowa. Sometimes
that she saw a miniature Adirondack
the chairs embraced my happiness,
chair, which she wanted to buy
but more often they comforted me as I
because it reminded her of me at
wondered why the world hadn’t fallen
Swarthmore. I laughed, at first because
apart yet. They were almost as good as
it seemed absurd and then because I
a hug, although the arms didn’t reach
realized that those chairs do embody
around quite far enough to encircle
all that is wonderful about the College.
me. Other them that, though, the chairs
My mother probably has the mistak­ are the perfect shape. I love the fact
en notion that my friends and I fre­
that it is physically impossible to sit up
quent Parrish lawn, whiling away the
straight in them. They are the only
hours discussing Plato and Shake­
things at Swarthmore that are directly
speare. But I have never
conducive to relax­
m anaged to have an
ation.
academic conversation
My first winter here,
in an Adirondack chair.
I was homesick and
The
I to o en te rta in e d
exasperated with the
Adirondack
dreams of lazy spring
omnipresent layer of
and autumn days, all
ice coating every sur­
chairs
em
body
my work done, reclin­
face. Parrish lawn was
ing in th o se stu rd y
incredibly lonely with
all that is
Adirondacks with my
the chairs locked up in
wonderful
b e st frien d s in th e
Tarble for their own
world, discussing the
protection from the
about
meaning of life. That, of
elements. (I was told
c o u rse , was b e fo re I
that
the chairs aren’t
Swarthmore.
realized that work at
let out of their cage
Sw arth m ore is never
until after April Fools’
a ctu a lly “d o n e ” and
Day because of a past
that there is no such thing as a “lazy
prank that left them mysteriously up in
day” here. So my fantasy was a little trees. Of course, no one knows how
overindulgent, though I have learned they could have gotten there, since no
that it’s impossible to stay awake in student would dare break the College’s
th o se ch a irs on a sunny Thu rsday no-tree-climbing rule.) When they were
afternoon in October.
finally let loose on the lawn in the
I did once eavesdrop on two women
spring, they were soon taken com­
reading Shakespeare to each other, but pletely for granted—as if they had
that was different—it was for fun, not
always been there, hidden under the
for school. I sometimes wonder about
snow.
those conversations of which I was
My mom never purchased the
never a part, the ones that leave all the
miniature chair, probably because I
chairs corralled together in a circle, or
laughed at her for even considering the
just two of them pressed face-to-face
thought. But a tiny, white Adirondack
with no space in between.
in my mom’s kitchen window couldn’t
But it is the lone, independent
possibly convey the comfort of the real
Adirondack halfway down the lawn
thing.
that is mine. My first year here, I
—Amy D iehl *97

M

3

COLLECTION
SWARTHMORE

TODAY

COMMENCEMENT PHOTOS BY STEVEN GOLDBLATT'67

C h a rg e d to be co m e purveyors of optim ism ,
th e C la ss of 1 9 9 5 de parts S w a rth m o re
r I

Ï he knowledge and the experience you have
acquired at Swarthmore should persuade you to be
JL
purveyors of optimism about intellectual and soci­
etal goals that can be achieved,” President Alfred Bloom
told the graduating seniors at the College’s 123rd Com­
mencement.
“The more you sincerely and unashamedly communicate
that optimism, the more it will radiate to and influence oth­
ers, just as will your devotion to the life of the mind, your
confidence in the power of ideas, and your commitment to
creating a better world.”
President Bloom presided over the ceremonies, award­
ing 307 bachelor of arts degrees, 21 bachelor of science
degrees, and four honorary degrees.

Bill Cosby: “You’re going to have to listen to old p eop le now. ”

Honorary degree recipients included entertainer Bill
Cosby, who received the Doctor of Humane Letters degree;
economist Heidi Hartmann ’67, who was awarded the Doc­
tor of Law degree; social psychologist Dorwin P. Cartwright
’37, who received the Doctor of Law degree; and Barbara
Weiss Cartwright ’37, who also received the Doctor of Law
degree.
In related Commencement activities, Robert E. Savage,
the Isaac H. Clothier Jr. Professor Emeritus of Biology, deliv­
ered the Baccalaureate address. Bob Gross ’62, associate
dean of the College, spoke at Last Collection (see page 8 for
his edited remarks). Following are excerpts from honorary
degree recipients’ charges to the seniors.
Bill Cosby is an internationally recogn ized actor, director,
author, an d educator. He an d his wife, Cam ille, h av e given
m ore than $40 m illion in philanthropic support to historically
black institutions.
“Graduation is great because it’s walking out into wis­
dom. You’re going to have to listen to old people now and
not get a grade. I don’t care if you graduate 4.0, this is the
time where you’re going to get coffee for somebody. You’re
going to have to respect people regardless of what they
look like. I’m not talking about the color or what the hair is,
I’m talking about sweat on a shirt and the smell of oil.
These people have wisdom and can help you cut corners.
“My father, for instance, was a man who smelled like a
foundry when he came home. And while I was at Temple
University studying and gaining knowledge in leaps and
bounds, I felt that I was highly educated and he wasn’t. I
didn’t challenge him—I just wanted him to hear how bright
I was. I said to him one day, ‘Dad, we had a wonderful dis­
cussion in class today. Is the glass half full or half empty?’
And my father said, ‘It depends on if you’re drinking or
pouring.’”

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Heidi Hartmann ’67 led the effort to found the Institute for

Women’s P olicy R esearch in Washington, D.C., which con­
ducts research on such issues as fam ily n eeds o f w orkers, the
pay gap betw een m en an d wom en, w elfare reform , and
poverty.
“Public policies to support the work of women outside
the home, to support the new types of families that are
coming into being—more egalitarian families, single-parent
families, same-sex families—are almost entirely lacking. We
now need a new public and private infrastructure to create
new ways of supporting children, individuals, and families.
Your generation will, I believe, set the direction for decades
to come.
“You can now choose to continue this risky adventure
toward a better future, ¿haping it to meet your needs. As
you choose, please remember that your college education,
your Swarthmore degree, is very valuable.
It opens up the possibility of a choice of
occupations and gives you the freedom to
find satisfying work.
“So I urge you to use your freedom, to
find work that challenges you and that
helps those who have not had the good for­
tune to receive a degree like the one you
receive today. Do not settle for less than
you want. Serve coffee but go on beyond
that. You have a very long life ahead of you,
and the time you take now to explore and
take risks will almost certainly not be wast­
ed in the long run.”

gives to ethical values. Paramount among these values are
the intrinsic worth of each human being and personal
responsibility for the welfare of others. These have been
the guiding principles for work I have done with people
caught up in the criminal justice system at various states of
involvement—from pretrial hearings to life imprisonment. I
have become increasingly troubled by the realization that,
once these people are in the system, they cease to be treat­
ed as individuals who have aspirations, anxieties, frustra­
tions, and all other human feelings.
“The inadequacy of our criminal justice system is but
one example of society’s need for ethical intelligence. As
your life unfolds, you will encounter many opportunities
where a person with the intellectual skills and ethical sensi­
tivity of a Swarthmore graduate can contribute significantly
to the betterment of the world.”

Dorwin P. Cartwright ’37, know n as the

“grandfather o f group dynam ics, ” h as been
nationally recogn ized for his leadership and
devotion to the developm en t o f so cia l psy­
chology.
“Today I am grateful to the College for
having launched me on a rewarding career,
and I am especially indebted to its founders
because, had they not decided to educate
woman and man together, Barbara Weiss
and I would not be here today as husband
and wife, and there’s no telling who the par­
ents of our children might be.
“Edward Magill’s vision that Swarthmore’s basic purpose would be to prepare
young men and women ‘to use to best
advantage the talents with which they are
endowed’ has remained paramount. Over
the years Swarthmore alumni have found
innumerable ways to employ their diverse
talents, and the world is undoubtedly a
much better place because Swarthmore
has been here.”
Barbara Weiss Cartwright ’37 has d ev oted
her life to so cia l activism , tirelessly advocat­
ing p ea ce, crim inal ju stice reform , an d public
service across the country.
“From its beginnings Swarthmore has
reflected, in many ways, the importance it

AUGUST 1995

President Alfred H. Bloom bestows honorary degrees upon econom ist and 1994
MacArthur Fellow Heidi Hartmann ’67 (top), social activist Barbara Weiss
Cartwright ’37, and social psychologist Dorwin P. Cartwright 37.

5

C O LLE C T IO N
A n ability to flourish w ith others in th e light
“Our time at Swarthmore has fostered a desire and ability to flourish
with others in the light, as well as to be comfortable within the dark­
ness. The uniqueness of our education, then, is in part due to the
time spent maturing in the cave, as we have acquired important
skills that facilitated our emergence into the light. But more impor­
tantly, it has inspired us not to resign after the completion of this rite
of passage but to seek new challenges and strive for emotional and
intellectual fulfillment.”
—S en ior Class S p ea k er Laura Golub

Students claim a host of
post- and undergraduate honors
A rem arkable number o f fellow ships and
grants w ere aw arded to Swarthmoreans at
the end o f the 1994-95 academ ic year,
sending recent graduates for further study
here and abroad as w ell as helping under­
graduates with financial aid. And the win­
ners are:
Marshall Scholarship to Rajesh Vedanthan ’95. Awarded by the British govern­
ment to American students, the scholar­
ship covers all costs associated with
attending a British university. Vendanthan will attend Magdalen College at
Oxford to study human sciences, a blend
of human biology and social sciences.
Fulbright grants for higher study in the
country and program of the candidate’s
choice to MaryCatherine Arbour ’95,
agriculture in Chile; Benjamin Le Cook
’95, teaching assistant in Korea; Amy
Hammock ’95, women’s studies in Mexi­
co; Youngjae Lee ’95, philosophy in
Korea; Nader Vossoughian ’95, political
science in Germany; and Nicole Jassie
’95, women’s literature in the Ivory
Coast.

STEVEN G O LD B U TT '67

Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships to Ryan
Bush ’95, linguistics, and Joanne M. Seo
’95, classical languages. Given to college
seniors and recent graduates “of out­
standing promise,” the fellowships
encourage and assist them in joining
humanities faculties of American col­
leges and universities.

Goldwater Scholarship to Sydney Foster
’97. The federally endowed scholarship
covers college costs of up to $7,000 per
year. Winners are selected on the basis
of academic merit from a field of more
than 1,300 mathematics, science, and
engineering students nominated by col­
leges and universities nationwide.

National Science Foundation Grants to
Matthew Lee Peck ’95, molecular biolo­
gy; Helene Clara Muller-Landau ’95, ecol­
ogy; Betsy Ruth Kreuter ’87, linguistics;
Rachel Rue ’80, mathematics; Jean I.
Tsao ’93, ecology; and Katharine Estelle
Winkler ’93, molecular biology.

Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to Allison
Gill ’95 for her project “Nation Building:
People and Politics” focusing on current
developments among Russians and
Palestinians. Her travels will take her to
Siberia and Israel.

Wallenberg Scholarship to Nami Ando
’95 for 11 months of graduate study at
Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Harry S. Truman Scholarships to
Rebeccah Bennett ’96 and Russell Stark
’95. The awards of up to $30,000 are
given to college juniors who have exten­
sive records in community service, out­
standing leadership potential, are com­
mitted to careers in public service, pos­
sess intellectual strength and analytical
abilities, and wish to attend graduate
school to help prepare for their careers.

Mellon Minority Undergraduate Fellow­
ships to Jenny Diaz ’96, Octavio Gonza­
lez ’97, Joel Johnson ’96, Anam OwiliEger ’96, and Christine Rose ’97.
Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowships
to Alison McKenzie ’96 and Tanya Wig­
gins ’96. Fellows receive a summer
stipend to carry out an education-relat­
ed project and receive support for grad­
uate study in education with the under­
standing that they will go on to teach in
public schools.
Gold Congressional Award to Gypsyamber Berg-Cross ’96. An honor bestowed
by the U.S. Congress, the award is grant­
ed to young people who have achieved
individually challenging goals in four
program areas: voluntary public service,
personal development, physical fitness,
and expedition/exploration.

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Not your average motorcycle ... Newly graduated engi­
neer Paul Anschel did what none of his colleagues did
Commencement morning—arrive on his senior research
project. Anschel designed and built his motorcycle to run
on five 12-volt deep-cycle batteries, which store enough
energy to ride about 30-40 miles before recharging. “A lot
of research has been going on for electric cars, but not for
bikes,” he said. “The advantage is that they don’t require
as much power.” Anschel, who is working this summer to
perfect his machine, will begin a master’s degree in mech­
anical engineering at Colorado State University in the fall.

6

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

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New vice president for finance and registrar join the sta ff

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wo key College administrative positions have been filled with the naming of Paul J.
Aslanian as vice president for finance and planning and Martin 0 . Warner as regis­
trar. Aslanian, a former economics professor and a certified public accountant who
served as treasurer of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., for more than 20 years,
replaces William Spock ’51 who retired in June.
After earning a B.A. and an M.B.A. from the University of
Washington, he joined Touche, Ross & Company as a staff
accountant and then the Boeing Company as a senior sys­
tems analyst. In 1967 he accepted a position as assistant
professor of economics at Macalester, then spent several
years teaching at Western Washington State University
before returning to Macalester as treasurer.
While at Macalester, Aslanian oversaw an increase in the
college’s endowment from $13 million to nearly $500 milNew VP Paul Aslanian
lion.
Warner, who for the past six years has been assistant registrar at Duke University,
replaces Jane Hooper Mullins ’50, who also retired in June. Warner graduated with
highest distinction and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill in 1986. He also holds an M.A. in liberal studies from Duke.
Among his accomplishments at Duke, Warner coordinated the development of a
New registrar Martin Warner
consistent transfer credit policy and helped produce a comprehensive five-year plan
for the Registrar’s Office. He served on a subcommittee of Duke’s curriculum commit­
tee and provided academic advising to first- and second-year students.

DENG-JENG LEE

Phi Psi alum ni save the
day— and th e house
hi Psi fraternity, deeply in debt
to the College for delinquent
utility and maintenance bills for its
house, has staved off eviction
thanks to donations from many of
its former members.
Fundraising efforts began last
year when the chapter created a
newsletter, followed up with a suc­
cessful phonathon, and during
Alumni Weekend formed a Phi Psi
Alumni Advisory Council. The
Council, headed by Paul Chi ’95,
has taken on the responsibility for
raising the remainder of money to
retire the balance of the debt by
Sept. 15.
“Ultimately, the council will take
financial responsibility of the fra­
ternity in relation to the College,”
Chi said. The plan is to raise 75
percent of annual fees and expens­
es charged by the College from Phi
Psi alumni and 50 percent from
current student members. The 25
percent differential will go toward
building a permanent endowment
for the fraternity.
Once the debt is retired, the
College will begin renovating the
house in the summer of 1996.

P

AUGUST 1995

The construction of Kohlberg Hall, seen here from Parrish Hall, rem ains on schedule

for opening in January. A sundial will grace the four-story tow er in the foreground. Last
month work was begun to regrade the lawn in front o f Trotter Hall and to underpin its stone
walls in preparation for the next phase o f the north campus project. When Kohlberg Hall is
occupied, Trotter will close for a com plete renovation, reopening in Septem ber 1997.

C O LLEC TIO N
that I wasn’t sleeping well, and I wanted him to prescribe
some stimulants so that I could stay up late and write my
ometime during the four years at Swarthmore, every­
paper. He smiled and scribbled something on his pad.
one hits the wall. The wall can come earlier or later
“Here,” he said, “I’m giving you a prescription for sleeping
and sometimes more than once; it may be low and
pills, and I want you to take a week off and go to Florida. I’ll
thin, or high and thick. But everyone hits it. How we get
write the dean a note and tell him it’s medically necessary.”
over it, under it, or through it in a large sense determines
But what about my review paper, I asked. I remember him
the meaning and quality of our experience at the College.
saying, “What’s the big deal? It’s only a paper.”
I think we construct the wall when our sense of self col­
I never got the sleeping pills, and I never went to Florida,
lides with the expectations of others. The wall prevents us
but I felt very liberated by this conversation. “What’s the
from making progress down our path, but it also protects
big deal?” Somehow that phrase, trite and trivial as it was,
us from dangers that may lurk around the bend. Another
got me over my wall. I was able to work again, and I wrote
way of looking at it is that the wall arises from the collision
some pretty good stuff that spring. It started to be fun
of self-esteem and excellence.
again.
The French poet Paul Valéry wrote
So what does this story tell us
that all theory is autobiography. So
about hitting the wall, about Swarth­
let me tell you a story from long ago
more, about life? The psychologist
m
of when I hit the wall.
Nevitt Sanford wrote that a successful
I came here as a sophomore trans­
college experience requires the right
fer, looking for greater intellectual
balance of challenge and support, or
challenge, less of the rah-rah New
in the terms I used earlier, of expecta­
England collegiate life, and, frankly, a
tions of excellence and the internal
coed school. (These were very differ­
support provided by self-esteem.
ent times, you must understand.)
Without the expectation of excellence,
Since I had done rather well my fresh­
one’s potential achievement inevit­
man year without breaking much of
ably remains unrealized. And yet with­
an academic sweat, I thought college
out a sense of worthwhileness, one
was no big deal. I was fairly oblivious
cannot make the effort required to
to Swarthmore’s much ballyhooed
achieve excellence.
academic pressure, so I sailed fairly
When external expectations of
successfully through four semesters, j!
excellence become internal demons,
And then, in the fall of my senior year, 3
our capacity to realistically appraise
cam e the Modern Comp Lit seminar. §
our efforts goes out the window. The
Professor George Becker could not |
way out of this bind—easy to say but
have been nicer— and the other six j±j
awfully hard to achieve—is to have a
students, too, many of them my close 05
sense of perspective. Swarthmoreans
friends. But I had never realized how
B ob Gross ’62 received both an M.A. T. and an
can be terribly narcissistic. It is too
smart they were! As the weeks went Ed.D. from Harvard, and m ore recently an M.S.S. easy to see our hermetically sealed
by, their erudition seemed to become
from Bryn Mawr. He is now associate dean
academic oasis as the center of the
more and more evident, and so too, it
o f the College. This essay is adapted from his
universe, to see this moment in time
seemed to me, did my obtuseness. By
talk at this y ear’s Last Collection.
as isolated from the past and the
late fall I knew I was approaching a
future. No wonder, then, that the next
crisis. Every paper required at least one all-nighter. By the
paper, even the next sentence, becomes grotesquely impor­
time January rolled around (in those days the fall semester
tant. We lose the capacity to say, with Dr. Epstein, “What’s
ended in late January), my review paper was due. The topic,
the big deal?”
appropriately enough, was “Alienation in the Modern Novel.”
A sense of perspective begins to provide the answer to
With the shades of my brilliant seminarmates sitting on my
the problem of evaluation and judgment that lies at the
shoulder, the paper just wasn’t coming, even with the allheart of the apparent conflict between excellence and self­
nighters. So I did what any self-disrespecting Swattie would
esteem. During the past week, it seems that a lot of judg­
do— I asked for an extension.
ments have been flying around: grades, Honors, Distinction,
At the same time the Comp Lit crisis was looming, I was
Phi Beta Kappa, and so forth. This is slightly unsettling, and
trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.
it reminds us that what makes the intensity of Swarthmore
Grad school applications were due, and I was wrestling
tolerable is the relative lack of competitiveness. But the
between a Ph.D. in English or an M.A.T. so I could be a high
judgments are there, and the sad thing is our tendency to
school teacher. I began to feel even more alienated from my
internalize the negative and reject the positive. My antidote
paper on alienation. I was avoiding my friends, and I was
to this is what I have come to call Gross’ Law of Personal
getting to the point where I knew I needed help. So I went
Assessment: Whenever there is a discrepancy between the
into Philly to see my family physician, Dr. Epstein. Oddly
way you value yourself and the way others value you,
enough I told him that the reason I came to see him was
always go with the higher.

H ittin g th e w a l l ... or G ro ss’ L a w revealed

S

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

Morgan, Peabody, Savage, and Thompson retire
our members of the faculty retired at the end of
the academic year: Kathryn Morgan, the Sara
Lawrence Lightfoot Professor of History; Dean
Peabody ’49, professor of psychology; Robert E. Sav­
age, the Isaac H. Clothier Jr. Professor of Biology; and
Peter T. Thompson, professor of chemistry. All four
have been granted emeritus status.
Professor Morgan, a specialist in black studies and
folklore— particularly the oral tradition of African
American families—joined the Swarthmore faculty
shortly after receiving a Ph.D. from the University of
KATHRYN MORGAN
Pennsylvania in 1970.
She has been the recipient of many fellowships and research grants from
such organizations as the Smithsonian Institution, the American Philosophical
Society, and the Danforth Foundation. She is the author of numerous articles
and the book Children o f Strangers, a collection of leg­
ends passed on through six generations of her family.
In 1991 the Black Alumni Association established an
award in her honor for her “significant contributions
to the lives of African American students at the Col­
lege” and named her the first recipient.
m
u m
h
Professor Peabody, who graduated from Swarthmore
in 1949 with high honors, began graduate studies at
Harvard University before working with refugee relief
agencies in Germany and France for several years. He
returned to study at Harvard and completed a Ph.D. in
social psychology in 1954. Professor Peabody joined
the Swarthmore faculty in 1961. His research has con­
centrated on the relations between personality characteristics and the person­
ality traits of members of different nationalities.
Professor Savage, a cell biologist considered the “father of modern biology”
at the College, has been a member of the faculty for 28
years. '
A graduate of Oberlin College, he received an M.S.
and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. Prior to
joining the Swarthmore faculty, Savage taught at
Queens College in New York City.
In April a “Bobfest” was held on campus in his
honor, with 64 former students returning for a dinner
and a day-long program of research papers and a per­
formance of classical music.
Professor Thompson joined the faculty in 1958 as an
ROBERT SAVAGE
instructor in chemistry. He has an A.B. from Johns
Hopkins University and a Ph.D. from the University of
Pittsburgh, where he worked as an instructor and research associate before
coming to Swarthmore.
Thompson, whose research has centered on the properties of aqueous
solutions, was a National Science Foundation Faculty
Fellow at Cambridge University and a visiting scientist
with the Center for Chemical Physics of the National
Bureau of Standards. He has held visiting research
appointments at the University of Delaware for many
years.
On June 2 a symposium in his honor was held at the
College during Alumni Weekend, at which 10 of his for­
mer students presented papers on “The Diversity of
Physical Chemistry.”
PETER THOMPSON

AUGUST 1995

Not bamboozled ... Swarthmore Col­
lege was not among Philadelphia-area
colleges and universities left in the
financial lurch with the bankruptcy of
the Foundation for the New Era Philan­
thropy. New Era accepted investments
from nonprofit organizations and held
the money for at least six months,
promising to double the money after
that. Investors were told that the
money would be matched by an
anonymous group of donors—which
didn’t exist. Swarthmore raised more
than $25 million in the 1994-95 fiscal
year without any “help” from New Era.
Calling all E-mailers... Alumni can
now correspond with each other via Email—even when you don’t know the
exact address of the addressee. A new
feature added to the College’s comput­
er network acts as an electronic post­
master, forwarding E-mail to other
alumni with accounts. More than 1,400
alumni have sent us their E-mail
addresses, and of those, 99 percent say
they want to receive E-mail from other
alumni.
If you have an E-mail address but
haven’t told the Records Office, con­
tact them at alum ni@swarthm ore.edu
and let them know that you want to be
included in the E-mail forwarding sys­
tem. They will then send you the par­
ticulars about how to contact your
classmates and others on-line.
Good read in g ... The Sw arthm ore Col­
leg e Bulletin was named one of the
nation’s top five college general inter­
est magazines—taking a second-place
silver medal— in the 1995 recognition
awards sponsored by the Council for
the Advancement and Support of Edu­
cation (CASE).
One gold medal, two silver medals,
and two bronze medals were awarded
in the category from a field of 46
entries.
U rp !... And you thought only armies
marched on their stomachs. The Alum­
ni Office reports spending $300.97 on
pizza alone to feed the 96 student
workers over Alumni Weekend. Stu­
dents also went through 264 bottles of
soda, iced tea, and fruit juice, gallons
of milk and orange juice, and untold
numbers of hamburgers and hot dogs.

9

C O LLEC TIO N
Astronomer Peter van de Kamp, a leader
in the research o f low-mass stars, dies

A

stronomer Peter van de Kamp (left), whose pioneering
work in the search for planetary companions to near­
by stars spanned more than 40 years, died in May at
his home in the Netherlands. He was 93.
Van de Kamp joined the Swarthmore faculty in 1938. Con­
sidered one of the world’s leading authorities on astrome­
try—the branch of astronomy that deals with measuring the
masses and distances of stars—he initiated and led the
Sproul Observatory’s research that increased astronomers’
knowledge of low-mass stars and stellar distances.
He was also a humanist and a Renaissance man, a talented
musician and composer who appreciated the arts as much as
science. From 1944 to 1954, he conducted the College’s
orchestra. At his 70th birthday dinner, he was presented with
an original piano composition by Peter Schickele ’57 titled
“The Easy Goin’ P.V.D.K. Ever Lovin’ Rag.”
Van de Kamp was the author of many articles and books,
including Principles o f Astrometry, B asic Astronomy, Elem ents
o f A strom echanics, and Stellar Paths. He retired from the Col­
lege in 1972 as the Edward Hicks Magill Professor Emeritus of
Astronomy and Director Emeritus of the Sproul Observatory.

Reach out to Hans ... Hans Wallach, the Centennial
Professor Emeritus o f Psychology (with Kenneth Gergen, the Gil and Frank Mustin Professor o f Psychology,
at W allach’s 90th birthday party), has finally retired.
Although his retirement was official 20 years ago, Wal­
lach continued to conduct research until last fall, when
his health began to fail. He still enjoys interacting with
colleagues and form er students. If you’d like to send
him a note or a card, the address is: Harston Hall, 350
Haws Lane, Flourtown PA 19031.

C ham pio n talkers
warthmore’s Peaslee Debate Society
keeps racking up points. After becoming
the only U.S. team ever to win the North
American Debate Championship in Febru­
ary, seniors Jeremy Mallory and Neal
Potischman talked their way to first place
in the National Championship of American
Parliamentary Debate held in April. And
that made Swarthmore the only school to
win consecutive national championships—
and Potischman the only individual to do
the same (he won last year with partner
David Carney ’94).
Facing top-ranked Columbia, Mallory
and Potischman argued for displaying nude
photographs of victims in Jerusalem’s Holo­
caust Museum “for the greater good of
maintaining society’s collective memory” of
the tragedy.
Placing in the top 20 teams were Sarah
Cebik ’95 and Tara Zahra ’98.

S

Debaters Jerem y Mallory ’95 (left) and Neal Potischman ’95.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

AU

season. Finishing her spectacular career was first-team AllAmerican Julie Noyes ’95, who ended her three-year career
with a total of 278 goals, 38 assists, and 316 points. Senior
Madeline Fraser also received national All-American honors
he 1995 spring sports season was highlighted by
and was a first-team All-Conference pick. Also receiving Allsome spectacular individual performances. Four dif­
Conference honors were second-team selection Bess O’Neill
ferent athletes in individual sports were invited to
’95 and honorable mention selections Lara Ewens ’96,
their respective NCAA tournaments.
Heather Maloney ’95, and Jill Maybee ’96.
Foremost among the accomplishments of the spring
The men’s track team had an overall record of 4-2. At
teams were those of the women’s tennis team, which cap­
the Centennial Conference Championships, Shan Suther­
tured Swarthmore’s first Centennial Conference Champi­
land ’97 took first place in the pole vault. Junior captain
onship in the two years since the conference originated.
and “utility man” Sam Paschel was named as the team’s
The women ended up with an overall record of 14-2 and a
most valuable player; he was the
conference record of 10-0. Num­
highest scorer throughout all the
ber one singles playpr Kim
meets, having scored points at
Crusey ’95 was invited to the
various meets in the long jump,
NCAA Division III tournament.
pole vault, triple jump, 200m,
Crusey finished the season with
400m, and both the 4x100m and
records of 14-1 overall and 10-0
4x400m relays. The 4x400m relay
in the conference and was also
team of Paschel, Mike Turner
named as the Centennial Confer­
’96, Eric Pakurar ’97, and Walid
ence Player of the Year. Number
Gellad ’97 took fourth place at
two singles player Becca Kolasky
the Penn Relays.
’96 and number three singles
The baseball team ended up
player Ayanda Nteta ’95 were
with a record of 10-27. Jeremy
also first-team Centennial Con­
Bonder ’97 and Pat Straub ’97
ference selections.
were both named as honorable
The men’s tennis team also
mention All-Conference selec­
had an extremely successful sea­
tions.
Bonder had 84 consecu­
son. Finishing with an overall
tive errorless chances at second
record of 9-9, the team was
base, while outfielder Straub led
ranked 13th in the nation.
Swarthmore with his batting
Although only 12 teams are invit­
average of .356 and in runs
ed to the NCAA tournament, the
scored (17), hits (26), triples (1),
Garnet received a last-minute
and home runs (2). Craig Rodner
invitation when one of the 12
’96 set a conference record with
teams selected had to decline
17 stolen bases in conference
because of an NCAA violation. At
games.
the nationals Swarthmore lost
The men’s lacrosse team
two of the three matches to wind
ended the season with a record
up 10th. Leading throughout the
of 4-10. Goalkeeper Ben Henseason were number one singles
player Chris Pearson ’95 and Ernie’s last game ... Students and mem bers o f the faculty wood ’97 was third in the Centen­
number two singles player Barry and staff turned out to wish baseball coach Ernie Prudente nial Conference with a save per­
centage of 60.1 (256 saves, 171
many extra innings after a 26-year career at the College.
Mook ’96.
goals against). Midfielder Ben
The women’s track team had a Although he w on’t officially retire until the end o f the year,
Seigel ’96 was named to the Allrecord of 5-1 this spring. The his final gam e as coach was in April against Washington
Conference second team, while
women were led throughout the College. Among well-wishers w ere Tave Holland, the long­
season by Kate Dempsey ’95, who time equipment m anager in the Physical Education Depart­ defender Andy Petusky ’95 was
an honorable mention selection.
qualified for nationals in the ment, and his great-great-grandson, Ryan.
Swarthmore was led in scoring
800m. At the NCAA tournament,
by Brian Dougherty ’95, who had 28 goals and 16 assists.
Dempsey ran a personal-best time of 2:14.93, finishing 10th.
The softball team had a tough time this season, ending
The 4x400m relay team of Dempsey, Jill Wildonger ’97, Tori
with a record of 1-27. However, the team remains young as
Washington ’97, and Danielle Duffy ’98 set a new school
only Kimberly O’Shea, Margy Pierce, and Janine Sperman
record of 4:08.88 and finished second at the Penn Relays.
graduate. The golf team also had a difficult season. Shawn
The 4x100m relay team of Duffy, Washington, Wildonger,
Bundy ’97 played at number one for the Garnet, while cap­
and Catherine Laine ’98 broke both a school record and a
tain Matt Metcalf ’95 played number two.
conference record and won the conference championship
Swarthmore recaptured the Hood Trophy by a score of
with a season-best time of 51.89.
9y2_6y2. Swarthmore won in women’s lacrosse, women’s
The women’s lacrosse team had another successful sea­
tennis, and men’s tennis. Haverford won in men’s track,
son with a record of 13-4. Thirteen wins is the most a
women’s track, and men’s lacrosse. Baseball was split.
Swarthmore women’s lacrosse team has ever had in one

W om en’s tennis te a m captu res its first
Centennial Conference Cham pionship

T

AUGUST 1995

11

The Conjurers
T h ere’s an elem en t o f m agic in all good children’s books.
By Rebecca Aim
n the great green room, there was
a telephone....” How many tim es
did I re a d t h o s e w o rd s, from
G o o d n ig h t M oon b y M a rg a re t
Wise Brown, to my infant daugh­
ter? You could hardly even say that
the classic picture book has a story,
yet something about it has power still.
A fter m an y re a d in g s it b e g in s to
resem ble an incantation, working its
m agic on b o th th e re a d e r and th e
small listener.
T h ere’s an elem ent of magic in all
good children’s books, w hether they
be about dogs or devils, frogs or fami­
lies, history or mystery. The power of
such books com es from beyond print
or pictures on a page— it com es from
the mind and heart of the children’s
book author.
Quite a few Sw arthm oreans w rite
children’s books, but I spoke with just
five— four alum nae and on e faculty
member— whose books I enjoyed and
ad m ired . B etw een th em th e s e five
au th ors have w ritten m ore than 60
children’s books of different types—
fiction and nonfiction, novels and pic­
ture books. Each is inspired and does
h e r w ork in a d iffe re n t w ay, b u t I
found th a t all have m ade th eir way
into the som etim es difficult business
of publishing children’s books without
losing one im portant quality— th ey
are still a part of the world of children.
W hether conjuring wonder or despair,
laughter or curiosity, none of th e se
writers has quite left behind the child
she once was.

I

sta r of seven gorgeously illustrated
picture books, with a new one due out
in th e fall. He’s the b est known cre­
ation of Sandra Woodward Darling ’63,
w ho w rite s u n d er th e p en n am e
Alexandra Day.
Carl was b orn one Sunday when
Sandra Darling and her book collector
h u sb a n d , H arold, sto o d o u tsid e a
Zurich bookstore, looking in the win­
dow of the closed shop. A book hap­
pened to be open to a cartoon “of a lit­
tle dog who was left with a baby in a
crad le,” explains Darling. “The baby
falls out of th e crad le, and th e dog
tries to get it back in, and he finally
succeeds just as the parents walk in.
And my h u sban d said , ‘You know,
th at’s a great idea. We could make a
great children’s book out of that.’”
Darling had illu strated tw o ch il­
dren’s books, and she decided to try

n order to m ake
fantasy work, the
artist must take it
absolutely seriously.

I

— Sandra Darling ’63

writing one. “We had two dogs,” she
says, “and I wanted the baby to ride
and th e dog to b e th e le a d er, so I
picked the big dog, which was a rott­
w eiler.” (Eventually the sm aller dog,
an Irish te rrie r, got his rew ard. He
W ritin g P ic tu re B o o k s
served as the model for the title char­
f you spend much tim e in the chil­ acter of P addy’s P ay Day, published in
1989.)
d ren ’s departm ents of b ookstores
or libraries, you’ve probably met Carl.
In h is fir s t b o o k , C arl is le ft to
Since th e huge black rottw eiler first babysit the baby. He helps her out of
appeared with his infant m istress in her crib and watches her carefully as
G ood Dog, Carl in 1985, h e’s been the she jumps on the bed, slides down the

I
12

laundry chute, and gets a snack from
the kitchen, among other things. After
Carl gives the baby a bath, returns her
to her crib, and cleans up the house,
the m other returns. Pictures tell the
story—there are only 12 words in the
book, three of which are on the last
page: “Good dog, Carl.”
S a n d ra D a rlin g ’s fa th e r w as an
artist, and as a child sh e lived in a
hou se w here “drawing and painting
was going on all the tim e,” she says.
She is mostly self-taught, her only for­
mal art training being a few courses at
the Art Students League in New York
City in the 1960s.
In 1972 she and her husband start­
ed Green Tiger Press, specializing in
illu stra te d b o o k s, and in 1983 she
illustrated her first book for the press,
T he T ed d y B e a r s ’ P icn ic. T h e press
also published G ood Dog, Carl before
the Darlings sold the company in 1986
to a San Diego man, who later sold it
to Simon & Sch u ster. Then the Dar­
lings started their current business,
Blue Lantern Studio, a design firm.
“I think the art of the picture book
is different from the art of the illustrat­
ed book,” Sandra Darling says. “The
picture book has som ething in com­
mon with cinema, because it’s a picto­
rial movement in time. Like* a filmmak­
er I th in k ab o u t clo se-u p and long
sh o ts, m ovem ent from left to right,
color, focus on one part of the picture
as opposed to another, and things like
that. I have to think of the whole book
as one work of art, like a film. But I
also have to think as a painter—I’d
prefer to have each picture be a suc­
cessful painting in itself as well.”
Her realistic style complements the
fantasy elements of her books, Darling
believes. “I think one reason the Carl
books have been so popular is that
they show a kind of ‘what if world,”
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

S a nd ra W o o dw ard D arling ’6 3
Pseudonym: Alexandra Day
Also: owner, with her husband, of Blue
Lantern Studio (a design studio)
Formerly: owner, with her husband, of
Green Tiger Press from 1972 to 1986
Children’s books published: 18
First book: The Teddy B ea rs’ Picnic,
1983: “Someone had been after Green
Tiger Press to do a version of T h e
Teddy Bears’ Picnic’— you know the
old song. I thought it would be fun to
do it myself. It was a success, and natu­
rally a success encourages you to go
on.”
“Carl” books: G ood Dog, Carl, 1985;
Carl G oes Shopping, 1989; Carl’s Christ­
m as, 1990; Carl’s A fternoon in the Park,
1991; Carl’s M asquerade, 1992; Carl G oes
to D aycare, 1993; Carl M akes a Scrap­
book, 1994; Carl P ops Up, 1994
Some other books: Frank an d Ernest,
1988; P addy’s Pay Day, 1989; R iver
P arade, 1990; Frank an d Ernest Play
B all, 1990; Frank an d Ernest on the
R oad, 1994; My Puppy’s R ecord B ook,
1994
Coming out: Carl’s Birthday, fall 1995
Working on: S a ra ’s Im agination, about
imagination as “both a pleasure and a
pain”
Also in the works: a Carl movie from
Warner Bros., still in the very early
stages of development
Family: Husband Harold, four chil­
dren, three stepchildren, and one fos­
ter child (and one rottweiler and one
Irish terrier)
Home: Seattle

A rie lle N o rth O lson ’53
Formerly: children’s book critic for the St Louis
Post-Dispatch
Children’s books published: three
First b o o k : Hurry H om e, Grandma!, 1984: “It’s about
a grandmother on a birdwatching trip in Africa
who’s having wild adventures trying to get home in
time for Christmas. I happened to be reading
manuscripts for an agent who agreed to represent
me and sold the book quite quickly.”
Other books: The Lighthouse K eep er’s Daughter,
1987; N oah’s Cats an d the D evil’s Fire, 1992
Working on: a story based on the collie she had as
a teenager
Family: Husband Clarence (Ole), three grown chil­
dren, and three grandchildren
Home: Webster Groves, Mo.,
and Oceanside, Ore.

¿IIumjHoiiie,

Grandula!

by Arielle North Oison
illustrated by Lydia Dabcovich

sh e say s. “W hat if you really could
ride your dog? W hat if you could go
down the laundry chute? I think that
to encourage children to think playful­
ly and creatively about the world is an
excellent thing to do. But in order to
m ake fan tasy work, th e a rtist m ust
take it absolutely seriously.”
F o r y o u n g c h ild r e n “th e w h o le
w orld is m a g ic ,” s h e s a y s . “E ven
though th ey h aven ’t seen c a ts with
wings, they’re not sure that they don’t
e x is t— a fte r all, th e y h a v e n ’t se e n
m ost kinds of c a t s .” And Darling is
happy to join children in that magical
w o rld : “I am p e r fe c tly w illin g to
believe that around the corner there
is a winged cat. I think that children
sense that and they feel our kinship.”
A rielle N orth O lson ’53, who has
published three picture books, agrees

th at a w riter for children ca n ’t lose
touch with the world of children. “An
au th or of p ictu re b o o k s,” sh e says,
“m u st m a in ta in th a t in te lle c tu a l
curiosity and enthusiasm of youth—
that emotional edge.”
Like Sandra Darling, Arielle Olson
follows in a family tradition. Her father
was Sterling North, author of R ascal,
the 1964 Newbery Honor Book, as well
as many other books. “He was a pas­
sionate writer,” she remembers, “and I
always wanted to be as much like him
as p o ssib le .” After Sw arthm ore sh e
lived at home for a year working as a
n ew sp ap er re p o rte r, during w hich
time her father gave her “a one-on-one
course in creative writing unlike any­
thing I’ve ever received in all of my
schooling.”
Her writing went “on the back burn­

e r” while sh e brought up three chil­
dren, but in 1969 she began reviewing
children’s books for the S t Louis PostD isp a tch (sh e retired from that job
last year). After writing about four of
what she now calls “practice stories,”
O lson so ld h er firs t p ictu re book,
Hurry H om e, G randm a! Her next book,
The Lighthouse K e e p e r ’s D aughter, was
based on th e true sto ry of girl who
tended a Maine lighthouse during a
v iolen t sto rm w hile h er fath er was
away. N oah ’s Cats an d the D ev il’s Fire,
her most recent book, was inspired by
a Romanian folk tale about the devil
com ing aboard Noah’s ark to try to
sink it. The illustrations for her books,
bright and colorful for Hurry Home,
G randm a!, subdued and romantic for
T he Lighthouse K e e p e r ’s D aughter, and
dark and shadow y for N o a h ’s Cats,
w ere done by artists ch o sen by her
publishers.
“Reviewing ch ild ren ’s books was
like taking a con stan t cou rse in chil­
d re n ’s lite r a tu r e ,” sh e sa y s. “Even
reading bad books can help an aspir­
ing author, highlighting awkwardness
and verbosity and all the oth er mis­
tak es you w ant to avoid. But good
books offer m ore su b tle lesso n s—if
you can step aside to ob serv e techSWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

nique before the author sw eeps you
into his world.”
“E m otion al im p a c t” is th e m o st
important e le m e n t of a good c h il­
dren’s book, Olson says. A book with
a didactic message, barely fleshed out
in a story, seldom works. “But if read­
ers becom e emotionally involved with
the character, they may gain insight
into their own lives,” she says.
And a children’s book, particularly
a picture b ook , h as to b e c o n c ise .
“You h a v e to m ake e v e ry w ord
count,” Olson says.

O thers of N apoli’s novels cen ter,
m ore or less realistically, on contem ­
porary life. In those books especially,
rea listic dialogue is im portant, and
that is where her scholarly work as a
linguist co n n ects to her fiction writ­
ing. “I’m very interested in how people
talk to each other,” she says. “In real

conversation people don’t generally
talk in whole sentences— we interrupt
each other and talk in fragments. But
you can ’t do that in writing or you’ll
create chaos for your reader, so you
have to give it a sen se of being real
without it being real at all. I study that,
P lease turn to page 64

STEVEN GOLDBLATT '67

Writing N o ve ls
f you are a writer, then you’re infect­
ed. It’s like a disease, and you can’t
help it — y ou h a v e to do i t ,” s a y s
Donna Jo Napoli, professor of linguis­
tics at the College.
Napoli se e m s to h av e a se rio u s
case of writer’s disease. She has pub­
lished nine books in linguistics, plus
numerous articles and review s, and
seven b ook s for ch ild ren, with one
more coming out in the fall. She also
writes fiction for ad ults— m y steries
and fantasies and historical novels—
and poetry.
Her novels for children range from
fairy-tale fantasies to sto ries of con ­
temporary family life. “One thing that I
do is to take a well-known story and
look at it seriously for the holes and
try to fill them in,” sh e says. In T he
Prince o f th e P on d , for instance, sh e
tells the story of the Frog Prince from
the point of view of a female frog who
meets th e p rin c e ju s t a fte r h e has
been transformed. “If you think about
what it would be like to turn into a
frog,” she says, “it’s really an amazing
thing. You p ro bab ly w ouldn’t know
the first thing about what to do.” So
the Prince in her story, known in the
pond as “Pin,” has to be taught how to
jump and how to catch flies with his
tongue.
The P rin ce o f th e P on d is aimed at
third to fifth graders, and for that age
group, Napoli says, she feels a respon­
sibility to leave h er read ers “with a
sense of h o p e .” So alth ou gh Pin is
eventually kissed by the princess and
turns back into a man, leaving his frog
wife and 'children behind, th e m em ­
bers of th e frog family have learned
how to take care of each other. (One
of Pin’s sons, in fact, becom es the pro­
tagonist of the book’s sequel, Jim m y,
the P ick p o ck et o f th e P a la c e .)

I

AUGUST 1995

D onna Jo Napoli
Also: Professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College (since 1987)
Children’s books published: seven
First book published: H ero ofB arletta,
1988 (a first reader): “It’s a retelling of
an Italian folk tale about a giant who is
miserable about being a giant. It was
published by Carolrhoda, and it was
right up their alley because they
publish fairy tales and stories about the
handicapped, and this was both.”

Other books: S occer Shock, 1991; The
Prince o f the Pond, 1992; The Magic
Circle, 1993; When the W ater C loses Over
My H ead, 1994; Shark Shock, 1994;
Jimmy, the P ickp ocket o f the P alace, 1995
Coming out: The B ravest Thing, fall 1995
Working on: When the Sw ord P ierces
My H eart (sequel to When the W ater Clos­
es O ver My H ead) and Zel (a young adult
gothic novel)
Family: Husband and five children

by Carol Brevart

HOUSE OF

It’s no fa iry ta le as students build
a new kind o f house on cam pus.
Carr Everbach

nce upon a time, there were two
members of the Swarthmore Col­
lege Department of Engineering—a
young assistant professor and his student.
The eager student wished to go on a quest
toArizona and New Mexico—not to seek his
own fortune, but rather to find energy-conserving technologies and environmentally
Ifriendly building practices that could
improve the fortunes of his countrymen in
Israel. Sadly, he did not win the fellowship in
environmental studies for which he had
applied. But just as the student was begin­
ning to think that his dream would never
come true, his professor uttered the magic
words, “Listen, I have some money from
another grant, with which I might be able to
fund what you want to do.” And so in 1993
the delighted and grateful student set off on
his quest to the Southwest.
I At the same time, the generous professor,
who had been awarded a sabbatical year,
also left Swarthmore, heading for South
Dakota to teach math to Lakota-Sioux Indi­
ans. When the two adventurers returned to
the College, they found that their quests
were strangely intertwined.
I The student told of weird and unusual
things he had seen—of “earthship” houses
built from old tires filled with compacted
soil and of buildings made of straw. The pro­
fessor for his part came home seeking an
economical housing alternative to the Indi­
ans’ run-down trailers, having observed that
in South Dakota there were “tons of straw”
available. So now the student was able to
help the professor, because as the professor
listened to the student’s stories, an idea
began to form in his mind. The tale ends
with a sturdy house of straw that defies
huffs, puffs, and much more—all for about
$20,000, the price of an average trailer.

O

Photographs by W alter Holt
AUGUST 1995

ut it’s not a fairy tale after all— it’s the story
of Daniel Pedersen ’94, Assistant Professor
Carr Everbach, and a real straw-bale house
that now stands next to Clothier Fields.
After hearing Pedersen give a talk extolling
straw-bale technology, Everbach was inspired to
propose building a straw-bale house to members
of his senior Environmental Studies Seminar,
scheduled for spring 1995. None of the partici­
pants, including Everbach, had ever built anything
this ambitious before. As the undertaking would

obviously extend beyond one semester, the group
began to meet in March 1994 to exchange ideas.
The floorplan, drafted on a napkin in Sharpies
Dining Hall, showed a conventional rectangular
space for bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen and, in
acknowledgement of the Lakota-Sioux preference
for circular architecture, a round living room— a
total of almost 1,000 square feet. Although the idea
for straw-bale buildings is not new, Everbach
knows of none on this scale in the Northeast. His
goal for the students, however, was “not just to

he project began with a
simple goal— to build an
experimental house that
is both inexpensive and
does minimal damage to
the environment. None of
the builders had ever done
anything like this before.
Q T h e shallow foundation
was insulated with
polystyrene sheets.
Q Steel rods in the founda­
tion await the first course of
20-inch-thick straw bales.
0 F o r the circular living
room, bales were curved by
placing them over a "little
bump of rocks” and jumping
on them.
0 Bamboo rods were driven
into the walls to hold the
upper courses in place.

T

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

■

bond beam was

build a straw-bale house but to learn how to live
placed around the
top of the walls to hold
while doing minimal damage to the environment.”
them
firm, and they
In August 1994 Everbach and a student assistant
were protected by a
poured the house’s foundation on a site adjacent
layer of stucco.
to the Walter T. Skallerup Track. Using a Scandina­
vian technique, they dug a shallow trench along
the house’s perimeter, lined it with gravel, inserted
a perforated drainpipe, and topped it with cement.
Next they placed polystyrene sheets two feet into
the ground around the foundation to trap heat
inside the structure and to prevent the foundation
from freezing. Everbach justified the use of a small
amount of polystyrene by the fact that it permits a
shallow foundation using very little concrete. As he
explained: “Sometimes, in order to bring about
some environmental good, you have to use a little
environmental bad. Every single thing in this house
is a trade-off, sort of two steps forward, one step
back.”
The walls were then built of 20-inch-thick, dou­
ble-density straw bales, which have an insulation
value, or R-value, of 45. (Conventional 3-to-6-inch
fiberglass insulation material used in most homes
has an R-value of 12 to 19. It is also bad for the
environment, says Everbach, because of the large
amount of energy needed to produce
it.) Placed brick-like in staggered
MM
courses, the bales were held firm by
"Everything in
vertical steel rods cemented into the
foundation. Further rods of wood
this house is
and bam boo (h arv ested from the
Scott A rb o retu m ) w ere driven
trade-off— sort
through the upper layers.
For the living room, the bales were
of two steps
curved by placing them over “a little
forw ard, one
bump of rocks on the floor and jump­
ing on th e m .” The finished walls
step back."
were then stabilized by a plywood
“bond beam” fitted around the top __________
perimeter.
At this stage a problem arose. The bales in the
round room had not been placed directly on top of
each other, so the walls flared at the top, making
the upper diameter too wide for its bond beam to
tied on pressboard covered by conventional roofing.
fit. The flaw was corrected by wrapping a strip of
Light, strong, and inexpensive, pressboard is still rel­
canvas around the upper walls and cinching it
atively proenvironment in spite of small amounts of
tight, “just like a girdle,” until the bond beam could
formaldehyde in the glue because it uses up waste
be positioned. (See photo, page 16.)
wood scraps. The roof was insulated by blowing
For the roof Everbach and his students would
recycled newspaper cellulose into the 14-inch gap
have preferred something natural like thatch, or
between the roof and ceiling.
even sod, tile, or slate, but, because of the pro­
P lea se turn to p a g e 68
hibitive costs of these options, they ultimately set-

a

AUGUST 1995

BUGS
NEW

TRICKS
The diseases that threaten us are
changing with the times, says
infectious disease
specialist B’64.
or Bennett Lorber ’64, M.D., the
m ost rem arkable m edical puz­
zles occur in real life.
For example: By the time a 32-yearold man was referred to L orb er for
debilitating h ead ach es, he had seen
many specialists. At one point, misdi­
agnosed with Lyme d isease, he had
received intravenous an tibiotics for
six m onths. Lorber’s question: What
do you do for fun?
Two weeks before th e head ach es
started , th e p atient replied, he had
bought a pool table and was playing
three to five hours a day. “I had him
stand up, bend over as if he were lean­
ing over a pool table, and extend his
head back as if he were about to make
a s h o t,” L orb er says. “Then I asked
him to h o ld th a t p o s it io n .” S u re
enough, the headache got worse and
the diagnosis was made.
Playing pool, Lorber surmised, was
c a u s in g b o n y sp u rs on th e m a n ’s
spine to press against certain nerves.
Eliminating the game elim inated the
h ead ach es, but after six w eeks, the
p a tie n t co m p la in ed of m issin g his
favorite sport. L orber sen t him to a
p h y sical th e ra p ist to c re a te a n eck
b ra c e th a t would su p p o rt his n eck
when he bent over, allowing him to
play pool again.
Such creative thinking is an essen­
tial m edical tool. “Infectious d isease

F

20

doctors like to think of themselves as
the Renaissance people of medicine,”
L orb er explain s, p eop le with wideranging in te re s ts and an a b ility to
solve problem s in unorthodox ways.
T h a t’s th e kind of thought p ro ce ss
encouraged at Swarthmore, he notes.
In fe c tio u s d is e a s e s p e c ia lis t s
engage in “the purest detective work
in all of medicine,” says Lorber, who is
both chief of infectious diseases and
T h o m a s M. D u ran t P r o fe s s o r of
Medicine at Temple University School
of Medicine and Hospital. Cerebration,
n ot p ro ced u re, is th e tech n iq u e of
ch oice: “We gather th e information,
listen to the story, and examine the
patient. We ask patients where they
live, where they’ve been, what kind of
pets they have, what they eat. Then
we sit down and think.”
One frequent dilemma is the cause

reative thinking
is an essential
medical tool.
Cerebration, not
procedure, is the
technique of choice.

C

of fever, usually presumed to be the
result of an infection. Occasionally,
however, it’s something else, such as
a c o n n e c tiv e tis s u e d is e a s e or an
unrecognized early stage of leukemia
or lymphoma. “We’re the fever detec­
tives,” Lorber says.
Physicians are attracted to working
w ith in fe c tio u s d is e a s e s , Lorber
believes, partly becau se “it’s not an
organ-based specialty.” Infections can
strik e any p art of th e body. In fact
infectious d isease is th e only disci­
pline that deals with the interaction of
two biological sy stem s— the human
being that has the problem and the
organism that’s causing it.
L o r b e r ’s p a r tic u la r in terests
include infections of the central ner­
vou s sy ste m and th o s e cau sed by
anaerobic bacteria. He is=an interna­
tional authority on listeriosis, a brain
d is e a s e th a t c a n b e tran sm itted
through food or from mother to new­
born. When people call the Centers
for D isease Control and Prevention
(CDC) with questions about listerio­
sis, they’re referred to Lorber.
Epidemiologists are asked to evalu­
ate diseases and outbreaks that have
stumped other experts. Occasionally
a new disease emerges, arousing con­
sternation until its cause and a cure
are found. Few “emerging diseases,”
how ever, are actu a lly new, Lorber
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

says. Most are recognized entities that
are either becom ing m ore prevalent
or are su d d en ly c o n s id e re d m o re
im portant. A re c e n t e x p e rie n c e at
Temple University Hospital, in which
a medical student with undiagnosed
tu b ercu losis e x p o sed h u n d red s of
patients and co-workers, is a reminder
that TB is still v ery m uch w ith us.
“D o cto rs h a v e th is id e a th a t TB
doesn’t exist anymore,” says Lorber.
One fa c to r th a t p e rm its th e reem ergence of d is e a s e s is p o v erty .
Among such diseases surfacing lately
are tuberculosis, m easles, whooping
cough, and tre n c h fev er, la s t se en
widely in World War II. An epidemic of
syphilis in som e citie s has resulted
from th e com m on p ra ctice of crack
cocaine fisers trading drugs for sex.
The delivery of an infant infected with
syphilis from its m other used to be so
rare that medical students would be
called in to look at th e baby, w hich
dem onstrated certa in unm istakable
AUGUST 1995

physical signs, Lorber says. Now the
event is commonplace, a development
that Lorber calls “disheartening and
depressing.”
Political agendas play their part in
d isease prevention and research . “If
the outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease
in 1976 [in a Philadelphia hotel] had
o c c u r r e d in a w o m e n ’s in n e r-c ity
c h u r c h g rou p o r w ith an y o th e r
n o n -p o litic a lly id e n tifia b le b lo c k
vote,” Lorber says, “we still wouldn’t
know th e ca u se . T h e L eg io n n aires
dem anded from their con gressional
re p re se n ta tiv e s th a t a so lu tio n b e
found, and pressure was put on the
CDC to figure it out.” (It was form er
Swarthmore president Dr. David Fras­
er, th e n w orking at th e CDC, w ho
headed th e in v estig ative team th at
identified the bacterium in 1978.)
So m e b a c te r ia h av e e v o lv ed to

By Marcia Ringel

Diagnosing infectious diseases is
“the purest detective work in all of
medicine,” says Bennett Lorber ’64, M.D.,
teacher and clinician at the Temple
University Medical School and Hospital.

w ithstand th e an tibiotics th at killed
th em reliab ly for y ea rs. At T em p le
University Hospital and many oth er
p laces, for exam ple, b a cte ria called
enterococci have started to shrug off
vancom ycin, th e an tib io tic th at has
traditionally overpowered them. More
w orrisom e, L orb er says, is th at th e
m ethod used by th e e n te ro co cci to
re sist an tib io tics can potentially be
transferred to m ore difficult microor­
g a n is m s , s u c h as S ta p h y lo c o c c u s
aureus, which can readily cause infec­
tions throughout the body.
Contributing to the development of
an tibiotic-resistan t b acteria is indis­
c rim in a te a n tib io tic u se . P a tie n ts
should stop insisting that their doc­
to rs p rescrib e an antibiotic for viral
21

infections and other nonbacterial ill­
n e sse s, L orb er say s. O therw ise th e
possible effects are sobering. In parts
of Hungary and Spain, for exam ple,
the m icroorganism that causes m ost
ear infections in children has becom e
resistan t to the antibiotics routinely
used to treat them . T h ose infections
now h ave to b e tre a te d w ith in tra ­
venous drugs.
Researchers are learning that infec­
tion s bring ab ou t num erous co n d i­
tion s long thought to b e cau sed by
som ething else. Stom ach and duode­
nal u lc e rs — and p ro b a b ly sto m a ch
c a n c e r s — a re now know n to b e
c a u s e d b y H e lic o b a c t e r b a c t e r ia .
H em olytic urem ic syndrom e, w hich
can lead to kidney failure in children,
starts with an intestinal infection by a
certain type of E sch erich ia co li. Guillain-Barre syndrom e, a paralytic dis­
ease, is commonly caused by a previ­
ous intestinal infection with the bac­
terium C am pylobacter.
The increasing scarcity of research
grants, Lorber says, may soon start to
limit such discoveries. Some qualified
in v estig a to rs are leaving a ca d em ic
medicine, he warns, because they can
no lo n g er o b ta in funding for th e ir
work. Even money from an old stand­
by, th e p h arm aceu tical industry, is
dwindling.
And, Lorber continues, the public
and Congress tend to take an “atom
bom b approach,” identifying and con­
centrating on a sharply focused need,
such as building the bomb or sending
Americans to the moon. Yet historical­
ly, he points out, scientific discoveries
that improve public health have com e
from u n e x p e c te d p la c e s , n ot from
a p p lie d te c h n o lo g y . “If w e r e a lly
u nd erstood how scien tific p rogress
w o r k s ,” h e s a y s , “w e w ou ld fund
researchers in basic science to devel­
op the next century’s exciting break­
throughs. If we don’t w e’re going to
lose our position as the world’s scien­
tific leader.”
M ore im m ed iately , L o rb e r sa y s,
what the public needs most is to learn
how to protect itself from infection. “If
you want to im prove public health,
the single m ost useful thing you can
22

do is to educate people,” he believes.
But public health education must be
provided early enough to make a dif­
ference. A recent experience brought
this home to Lorber.
L a st su m m er h e w as a sk e d to
speak to a group of 14- and 15-yearolds about AIDS. “My mission was to
get th e se kids to use con d om s,” he
say s. He planned to u se stre e t lan­
guage in explaining how to use con­
d om s and to a p p ro a c h th e you n g
teenagers on their own level. When he
arrived he saw that two of the 22 par­
ticip an ts w ere visibly pregnant and
th re e w ere holding b ab ies on th eir
laps. T h e health hazards of sex, he
asserts, should be taught starting in
the first grade. “Education can have

hat would
he do if he
w ere in charge of
the public health?
“Put an incredible
tax on cigarettes.”

W

an incredible im pact,” he concludes,
“but we do it wrong and we do it too
late.”
P rev en tio n , esp e cia lly w ith v a c ­
cin es, is one of th e g reatest gifts of
infectious d isease m edicine, Lorber
says. Parents need no longer worry all
sum m er that their children will con­
tract polio while swimming. A vaccine
for hepatitis A was released early this
year and a chicken pox vaccine was
u nveiled on May 1. A v a ccin e now
given routinely to babies has reduced
H em ophilus infection, a m ajor cause of
meningitis in children, by over 90 per­
c e n t in th e la s t tw o y e a rs . Y e t in
Philadelphia, where Lorber works, 40
percent of children entering the first
grad e h ave receiv ed no im m uniza­
tions. “We should be doing better by

our children,” Lorber says. “We have
the knowledge and the tools, but we
don’t implement them. It’s a disgrace.”
Asked what he would do first if he
w ere put in c h a rg e of th e public
health, Lorber quickly replies, “Put an
in cred ible tax on cig a re tte s.” It has
b een d e m o n stra te d , h e sa y s, that
even a small increase in price decreas­
es the use of tobacco by a substantial
percentage. Smoking currently causes
hundreds of thousands of deaths each
year in the United States.
One particularly stron g influence
on public concern is health reporting
in the media, which fluctuates capri­
ciou sly. H erpes and Lyme disease,
once magazine cover stories, remain
prevalent in America but have faded
into the media background from over­
exp osu re. In co n tra st, L orber attri­
butes to media hype the public hyste­
ria over the recent outbreak of Ebola
virus, “w hich is taking p lace on the
o th e r sid e of th e w orld and is
ex trem ely unlikely ev er to cause a
p ro b le m in th is c o u n t r y .” People
sh o u ld b e m o re c o n c e r n e d , he
asserts, about hantavirus pulmonary
syndrome, a serious disease carried
by an im als th a t h as b een recently
appearing in hum ans in th e United
States but inexplicably has received
scant public attention.
T h e in fe c tio u s d is e a s e with an
unyielding grip on public attention is
AIDS. W hile recen t ad vances in the
prevention and treatment of common
infections that com plicate AIDS have
resulted in longer, m ore productive
lives for AIDS patients, the disease still
presents a paradox for doctors. The
difficulty of knowing that the patient
will ultimately die, Lorber observes, is
b alan ced by th e p rivilege of being
allowed to be “the kind of doctor that
I thought I wanted to be when I went
to m edical sch o o l— som ebody who
takes care of people over an extended
period of tim e, g ets to know them
extremely well, gets to hear the most
in tim ate d etails of th e ir lives, and
becom es their confidant and friend.
The best parts of human relationships
are available to doctors who take care
of patients with AIDS.”
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

“Y ou c a n b e
a c a rin g m e d ic a l
p r o fe s s io n a l an d
b e g o o d a t it,
but you can
h a v e o th e r p a r ts
o f y o u r life a t
th e s a m e tim e .”

o relieve stress and for relaxation,
Lorber has played the guitar for 30
years. “B y s h e e r p e r s is t e n c e I’ve
achieved a pertain m inim al level of
acco m p lish m en t,” h e sa y s, ca llin g
himself a “hack folkie.” Lorber keeps a
guitar in’ his office to plunk at the end
of the day while talking things over
with students. The point, he says, is to
demonstrate that “you can be a medi­
cal p r o fe s s io n a l an d c a r e d e e p ly
about your work and be good at it, but

T

AUGUST 1995

you can have other parts of your life
at the sam e time.”
Music in the family has entered the
professional realm through L orber’s
o ld er so n , Sam ’90. T h is sp rin g he
received a m aster’s degree in classical
saxophone performance from the New
England Conservatory of Music. Lor­
b e r ’s you n ger son, Jo sh u a , age 25,
works with young children at a pedi­
atric hosp ital in Philadelphia. “Kids
gravitate to him,” Lorber says. “He’s

Lorber keeps a guitar in his office to
plunk at the end of the day while talking
things over with his medical students.

quite exceptional.” Sam and Josh u a’s
m oth er is Carol Finneburgh L orb er
’63, w hose acquaintance Lorber calls
“the b est thing Sw arthm ore ever did
for me.”
As an undergraduate Bennett Lor­
b er told his friends th at his parents
were trapeze artists. “Because I could

ju g g le and w alk on m y h a n d s ,” h e
s a y s , “p e o p le b e lie v e d m e .” T h e y
sh o u ld n ’t have; h e m ade it up. His
father was a wrought iron worker in
Center City Philadelphia. When World
W ar II a b s o r b e d m o st d e c o r a tiv e
m etal, he bought a movie th eater in
Emmaus, Pa. “From age 3 to college, I
saw two or three movies a week,” Lorber recalls. His m other is a graduate
of Temple. His parents, both 81 years
old, still live in Emmaus.
Leaving public high school, Lorber
wanted to be a doctor. At Swarthmore
h e m a jo red in b io lo g y but sa y s he
to o k m an y c la s s e s in a rt h is to r y
“because it was so wonderful.” One of
his m entors was Gilmore Stott, who
first met Lorber during his admissions
interview in 1960. Lorber hadn’t been
so ld on th e C ollege, b u t w hen th e
interview was over, he told his m other
that he would feel bad if he didn’t go
th e re b e c a u s e th e in terv iew er had
been so nice to him.
As an incom ing freshm an, L orber
found a note from Stott in his mailbox,
inviting him to his house for a glass of
cider after chem istry lab. Following a
hand-drawn map, he stayed for dinner
and enjoyed the first of many visits to
S t o t t ’s fam ily-aw ay-from -fam ily on
cam pus. L orb er also took an eth ics
class with Stott. Later, during Lorber’s
first year of m edical residency, Stott
guided him through the labyrinth of
o b ta in in g an h o n o ra b le d is c h a rg e
from th e A rm y as a c o n s c ie n tio u s
objector.
Lorber’s interest in infectious dis­
eases was first stirred by an inverte­
b ra te zoo log y c o u rse w ith Sw arth ­
m ore P ro fe s so r N orm an M einkoth,
who taught at Sw arthm ore for m ore
than 40 years. “He referred to th o se
sm all living anim als as ‘c re a tu r e s,’”
Lorber says. “He never lost his sense
of wonder at the variety of life forms,
and he was able to com m unicate that
beautifully.”
Once, a few hours after Lorber had
given an oral report, Meinkoth spot­
ted him on campus and said, “I know
you want to go to medical school, but
whatever you do with the rest of your
life, I hope som e part of it will be in
teaching.”
“He put his hand on my shoulder,”
recalls L orber, “and said — I’ll never
forget this— ‘You have a real talent for
teaching.’” Years later Lorber realized
24

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Legionnaires’ Disease
struck at a Philadelphia hotel in
1976. This X-ray shows the fluidfilled lungs of an early victim
who was treated by Dr. Lorber.

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A yeast infection (red dots)
invades the skin of an AIDS
patient. This infection is often
seen in transplant patients
whose immune system s are
deliberately suppressed.

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Chromobacterium violaceum
is an unusual purple-pigmented
bacterium that attacks persons
with a rare disorder of the white
blood cells. Lorber has treated
several of these patients.

Kids’ sneakers have recently
been found to harbor the
bacterium Pseudomonas, which
can cause a bone infection in
conjunction with puncture wounds.

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Opportunistic infections can
attack people who have had life­
saving surgeries. One patient had
a device implanted in her head and
later developed this brain fungus.

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The bacterium Listeria
produces a “beautiful umbrella”
when grown in a test tube. Lorber
is an authority on listeriosis.

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to his surprise that teaching was the
work he loved best.
Shortly after joining the faculty at
Temple, where he has remained since
his internship in 1968, Lorber won the
first of many teaching awards. “Out of
the blue co m es th is p o s tc a r d ,” he
says. “It read: ‘Dear Bennett: I remem­
ber telling you in invertebrates that
you should be a teacher. Congratula­
tions. Norm.’ I still have th e card. I
can’t tell you the impact it had. I found
out later th at he knew w here every
student he ever had wa$ and w hat
they were doing.”
Meinkoth’s methods exerted a pow­
erful and lasting influence. “The level
of his teach in g was ex trao rd in ary ,”
Lorber say s. “He was p ro bab ly th e
best-prepared teacher I’ve ever seen.
When I have to give a lecture that I’ve
given repeatedly and I’m tired, there’s
always th e te m p ta tio n to give th e
same talk as last year. Then I say to
myself, ‘Norman Meinkoth never did
that once in his life.’”
Another lasting influence, L orber
says, was that “after taking inverte­
brate zoology, I never ate a clam or
oyster.” He w on’t eat su shi, eith er,
although he refuses to tell other peo­
ple what not to eat. (Lorber’s tip for
confirmed sushi enthusiasts: To avoid
fish tapeworm, don’t eat raw freshwa­
ter fish, su ch as salm on. Stick with
tuna and other saltwater varieties.)
Lorber savors watching his gradu­
ate students “make the quantum leap
from being sm art young d o cto rs to
true experts, reaching the next level of
creative thinking. It’s magic— so excit­
ing.” T h e d ev elo p m en t of m ed ical
school u n d erg ra d u a tes is a n o th e r
pleasure. “It’s immensely satisfying,”
Lorber say s, “to s e e them develop
from raw talent into caring, com pe­
tent p r o fe s s io n a ls .” At th e re c e n t
Temple medical school graduation, he
says, he watched his students collect
their diplomas and “sat there feeling
as if I would explode with joy.”
The field of infectious d iseases is
expanding so greatly that “there has
never been a m ore exciting tim e to
specialize in it,” says Lorber, w hose
senior e le c tiv e in th a t s u b je c t is
packed every year. W hether or not his
students decide to specialize in epi­
demiology, he says, the discipline is
“an extremely important part of turn­
ing people into doctors. It helps them
AUGUST 1995

use the skills that have becom e hid­
den by th e im m ense clu tter poured
into their heads in medical school.”
Lorber takes great care in deciding
w hat h e ’ll add to th e clu tter. W ith
teaching that highlights a balanced life
and exhibits a powerful con cern for

the health of children and th e poor,
those generations of doctors and their
patients are being well served. ■
M arcia R in gel is a freela n ce w riter w ho
refu ses to e a t su shi but w ould con sid er
an invitation to a clea n h o t tub.

This disease brought to you
by modern civilization
ocietal changes— the way we
live our lives— can have a
tremendous impact on pat­
terns of disease," notes infectious
ease specialist Bennett Lorber. Devel­
opments range from an increase in
parasitic infections accompanying the
proliferation of sushi bars in the Unit­
ed States to exotic infections transmit­
ted by stowaway pathogens during
national and international travel.
One disease that has been identi­
fied in humans only since 1976 is cryptosporidiosis, which causes severe
intestinal pain and diarrhea and can
be lethal to people whose immune
systems are weakened by HIV or
other infections. In 1993 some 400,000
people in the Milwaukee area devel­
oped cryptosporidiosis, caused by a
protozoan, after swimming in public
pools whose water had been contami­
nated by runoffs from nearby fields.
More than 100 died. If the outbreak
had occurred in 1975, Lorber says,
epidemiologists would have been baf­
fled.
Tight quarters harbor the spread of
new and old diseases. Influenza, shin­
gles, and tuberculosis are making a
com eback in nursing homes. Giardia­
sis, a parasitic infection that causes
nausea, vomiting, stom ach cramps,
and diarrhea, is spreading in day care
centers. TB is particularly fierce
among the homeless, a large percent­
age of whom, Lorber says, are Viet­
nam veterans who have never been
able to reconnect to society. Trench
fever, a disease carried by lice, was
last seen in the filthy, overpopulated
trenches of the two World Wars. Now
it’s striking the homeless, Lorber says,
“living in the trenches of our cities.”
On the other end of the lifestyle
scale, poorly cleaned hot tubs incu­
bate microorganisms such as amoebas that infect the eye. P seu dom on as

S

folliculitis, a nasty rash around the
hair follicles, is so often the result of
soaking in sizzling hot tubs that it’s
commonly called hot tub folliculitis.
dis­
The same bacterium lingers in the lin­
ing of steamed sneakers at spas,
attacking the bones of the feet. Pre­
vention: Air out your sneakers and
wear clean, dry socks.
Lorber has listed 16 emerging dis­
eases for Bulletin readers. The tally,
he says, is growing all the time.

New diseases
AIDS
Cryptosporidiosis
Ehrlichiosis (similar to Rocky
Mountain Spotted Fever)
Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome

New geographic range
for old! diseases
Chagas’ disease in Central American
immigrants
Malaria in American travelers

New populations at risk
Giardiasis in day care centers
Trench fever in the homeless
Tuberculosis in nursing homes

New tricks for old bugs
P seu dom on as folliculitis
Streptococcal toxic shock syndrome

New faces for old diseases
Atypical m easles syndrome (can
include pneumonia)
Bacillary angiomatosis
Infant botulism

New ecological niches for old bugs
Hot tub-associated amoebic infections
of the eye
Sneaker-associated P seu dom on as
osteomyelitis
— M.R.
25

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HMORE HAPPEN
North Carolina: Alumni, par­
ents, and friends gathered
for a guided tour of the Duke
Primate Center on June 4.
Priscilla Coit Murphy ’67 and
George Telford ’84 organized
the event.
Philadelphia: On June 10
the Philadelphia Connection
enjoyed a walking tour of
Chestnut Hill led by Dr.
David Contosta, History
Department chair at Chest­
nut Hill College and author of
Suburb in the City, a book
about Chestnut Hill. The tour
was arranged by Mary Woolson Cronin ’83.

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San Francisco: Alumni from
classes of ’90 through ’95
spent a fun-filled afternoon in
San Francisco’s Golden Gate
Park on June 25. The outing
was coordinated by Dave
Hochschild ’93 and Leslie
Bell ’92.

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W ashington, D.C.: The
Swarthmore Washington,
D.C., Connection joined area
Haverford alumni for the
musical B essie’s B lues at the
Studio Theatre. Serge Seiden
’85, production stage manag­
er and literary manager, was
on hand for a post-perfor­
mance discussion.

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1

A w ard W in n ers... Debby Van Lenten ’90, secretary o f the Alum­
ni Association, presents the Josep h B. Shane Award to Linda Rothw ell L ee and Bill Lee, both ’60, at Collection during Alumni Week­
end. Named for Jo e Shane, vice president for alumni and public
relations from 1951 to 1972, the aw ard was established in 1985 to
honor alumni who have given outstanding service to the College.

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Alumni Association Officers and Alumni Council for 1995-96
For the address or telephone
number o f any m em ber o f
Alumni Council, call the Alumni
Office (610) 328-8402, or E-mail
alumni@swarthmore. edu.
President
Alan A. Symonette ’76
President Designate
Elenor G. Reid ’67
Vice Presidents
John A. Riggs ’64
Glenda M. Rauscher ’69
Secretary
Jacqueline Edmonds Clark ’74
Zone A

Delaware, Pennsylvania

Lucy Handwerk Cusano ’50
West Chester, Pa.
Margaret D. Gold ’95
Swarthmore, Pa.
Charles C. Martin ’42
Wilmington, Del.
Matt Lieberman ’95
West Chester, Pa.
David L. Newcomer ’80
York, Pa.
Joseph M. Ortiz ’72*
Merion Station, Pa.
Anne Matthews Rawson ’50
Swarthmore, Pa.
Anne Titterton ’86*
Philadelphia, Pa.
* Elected to Council in 1995

26

Zone B

New Jersey, New York

Sarah Adams ’94
Scarsdale, N.Y.
Elizabeth Dun Colten ’54
Upper Saddle River, N.J.
Alice Higley Gilbert ’48
Garden City, N.Y.
Mark Guenther ’94
New Paltz, N.Y.
James A. Perkins ’34*
Princeton, N.J.
Susan A. Rech ’79
Plattsburgh, N.Y.
Lawrence J. Richardson ’78
Parsippany, N.J.
Elizabeth H. Scheuer ’75
Bronx, N.Y.
Harlan Stabler Sexton ’79*
Bronx, N.Y.
Zone C

Connecticut, Maine, M assachusetts,
New Hampshire, Rhode Island,
Vermont

Christine Frasch Caldwell ’74*
Stratham, N.H.
C. Russell de Burlo Jr. ’47
Belmont, Mass.
Dean W. Freed ’43*
Acton, Mass.
Sherryl Browne Graves ’69
Greenwich, Conn.
Marilyn Modarelli Lee ’56
Greenfield, Mass.

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Lisa A. Steiner ’56
Cambridge, Mass.
Rebecca Voorheis ’93
Arlington, Va.
Zone D

District o f Columbia, Maryland,
Virginia

Janet Hostetter Doehlert ’50
Arlington, Va.
Margery G. Dunn ’63*
Washington, D.C.
Colleen A. Kennedy ’72
Arlington, Va.
Betty Jo Matzinger Lash ’87
Alexandria, Va.
Andrew D. Pike ’72*
McLean, Va.
Zone E

Illin ois, In d ian a, Iow a, K an sas,
M ichigan, M innesota, M issouri,
N ebraska, N orth D akota, O hio,
O klahom a, South D akota, Texas,
West Virginia, Wisconsin

Diana Scott Beattie ’56*
Morgantown, W.Va.
Charles L. Bennett ’77
Chicago, 111.
Jean L. Kristeller ’74
Terre Haute, Ind.
Melissa Dietz Lojek ’72*
Grand Rapids, Mich.
Lou Ann Matossian ’77
Minneapolis, Minn.
Dorothy Watt Williams ’50
Lakewood, Ohio

Zone F

Alabam a, Arkansas, Florida,
Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana,
M ississippi, North Carolina, South
C arolina, T en n essee, territories,
dependencies, and foreign countries

Elizabeth Letts Metcalf ’42
Coral Gables, Fla.
Christine L. Moe ’79*
Atlanta, Ga.
Tracey Werner Shery ’77
New Orleans, La.
Jean R. Sternlight ’79*
Tallahassee, Fla.
Zone G

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

Margaret Morgan Capron ’42
Mountain View, Calif.
David Hochschild ’93
San Francisco, Calif.
Stratton C. Jaquette ’66*
Los Altos, Calif.
Don Mizell ’71
Los Angeles, Calif.
Judith Aitken Ramaley ’63
Portland, Ore.
Joanna Dalrymple Stuart ’55*
Portland, Ore.
Members at Large
Erik A. Cheever ’82
Media, Pa.
Glenn E. Porter ’73
Millburn, N.J.
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

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R edefining th e ro le
of A lu m n i C o u n c il
By Alan Sym onette 7 6
President, A lum ni A ssociation
n recent years the Alumni Council
has been struggling to define its role
at the College. At our spring meeting
we invited senior College administra­
tors, m em bers of the Board of Man­
agers, and fo rm er Alum ni C ouncil
presidents to d is c u s s th is issu e . I
came away from th a t m eeting with
two basic conclusions: First, that this
self-an aly sis is n o t new b u t h a s
occurred regularly throughout the his­
tory of Council. And second, that most
alumni see a need for organized com­
munication betw een the College and
alumni. Indeed, in researching the his­
tory of the Council, I cam e a cro ss a
memorandum from form er President
John Nason to th e p resid en t of th e
Alumni Association on the su bject of
co lle g e -a lu m n i r e la tio n s . In th a t
memo, Nason stated that the Alumni
Association existed to serve two pur­
poses:
“The first is to prom ote and facili­
tate those gatherings of alumni which
bring together old friends, renew old
acquaintances, and revive th e senti­
ments of loyalty and affection which
all graduates and form er students of
the College sh are in com m on .” The
second purpose is to “serve the Col­
lege in whatever ways are possible.”
This d e s c rip tio n a c c u ra te ly d e­
scribes the purpose of the Association
now, as it did in May 1948. Our chal­
lenge is to find creative ways to serve
the current needs of the College and
to address the changing relationships
and expectations of its alumni.
Many of you reca ll th e th em e of
President Alfred H. Bloom ’s 1992 inau­
guration speech, “Educating for Civic
R e sp o n sib ility in a M u ltic u ltu ra l
World.” Since then th e Sw arthm ore
com m unity h as b een engaged in a
continuing d isco u rse abou t how to
achieve th is m ission. I believe th at
alumni can play a critical role in this
discussion. Our educated perspective
as dwellers in “the real world” and the
economic, social, and spiritual experi­

I

AUGUST 1995

New Alumni Association president Alan Symonette visits during Alumni W eekend with
Kathryn Morgan, who retired this y ear as Sara Law rence Lightfoot Professor o f History.
ences of our lives in this regard can
not only be beneficial to the College
but also to students who will face the
challenges of that world.
As th e Alumni A ss o c ia tio n h as
increased in size, it has also becom e
m ore d iverse. Our co n n ectio n with
the College goes beyond the mere fact
that we attended classes and/or grad­

Council Nominations Sought
You are invited to nominate candi­
dates for Alumni Council. Please
send your nomination to the Alum­
ni Office by September 29, or
E-mail to alumni@swarthmore.edu.

uated from Swarthmore. We connect
w ith e a c h o th e r and th e C o lleg e
through unique exp erien ces as stu ­
dents and through our current inter­
e s ts . T h e s e c o n n e c tio n s a re o ften
b ased upon sh ared e x p e rien ces or
interests such as vocation, ethnicity,
o r sexu a l o rie n ta tio n . T h e Alumni
Office currently recognizes and sup­
ports many groups organized around
such interests. While such specialized
interests may not be shared through­

out the Association, they provide the
basis and support for continued con­
n ection with and loyalty to th e Col­
lege. It is understood that the Associa­
tion will continue to be inclusive of all
of its members. Nevertheless Council
must consider whether it should pro­
vide official recog nition to or make
any stru ctu ral m odifications to offi­
c ia lly in c lu d e t h o s e g ro u p s th a t
ch oose to formally organize. A com ­
m itte e w ill d is c u s s th is s u b je c t
throughout this year, and your input
is encouraged.
If you found two Swarthmore alum­
ni on a d e se rt island, you m ay not
have much, but you would certainly
have a co n v ersatio n . R eg ard less of
our individual interests or the nature
of our relation sh ip to th e College, I
have found that on the whole, we like
to com m u n icate w ith ea ch o th er. I
encourage all Council representatives
to c o m m u n ic a te w ith th e ir “c o n ­
stitu en cy” to discuss current issues
on cam pus and to identify activities
that encourage alumni participation.
On th e p ag e o p p o s ite a re th e
names of your representatives. Please
con tact them with your suggestions,
questions, and ideas. ■
27

Alum ni W eekend ’95: A Sampl
ore than 1,500 alumni, family,
and friends came to campus June
2-4 to catch up on news of the
College and each other. Among those
caught by photographers Steven Goldblatt
’67 and Deng-Jeng Lee are (clockwise, starting at bottom left): Douglas Spencer ’53;
former Swarthmore President John Nason
with Anne Bonner, associate director of
planned giving; Verdi Hoag Johnson ’45;
Barbara Taylor Crawford ’45; Elizabeth
Hirshfield ’96 with mom Anne Newman

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VSampler of Faces and Fun
Hirshfield ’70; Collection speaker Michael
Dukakis ’55; Susan Willis Ruff ’60 with
President Alfred H. Bloom and Charles Ruff
’60; Onuoha 0 . Odim ’85 with daughter
Chinyere Anna Wren Odim; Class of 1990
standard-bearers Jennifer Austrian Post,
Lisa Batt, Lane Wilder, and Jessica Hines
Turner; Clifford Woodbury Jr., husband of
Ethel Coppock Woodbury ’35. Above, out­
going Alumni Council President Gretchen
Mann Handwerger ’56 addresses the gath­
ering at Collection.

A Light th a t S h in e s M o st B rig h tly
Mary B. Temple Newman ’30 applies Quaker principles to life and politics.
n a January day in 1953 in the Massachsuetts State House, the swear­
ing-in ceremony of newly elected sena­
tors and representatives was in
progress. The chairman asked members
to rise and raise their right hands, but
one woman remained seated. Then the
chairman announced, “Among the
newly elected members there is a Quak­
er—Mrs. Mary Newman of Cambridge.
Will Mrs. Newman please rise?” All
through the House, there were whispers
of “What’s she doing?” Why’s she doing
that?” “Is she a communist?” What the
members were witnessing was the affir­
mation of a Quaker member of the legis­
lature—an event that had occurred only
once in Massachusetts, 118 years earli­
er, when John Greenleaf Whittier, the
Quaker poet and abolitionist, became a
state representative in 1835.
When Mary B. Temple Newman ’30
graduated from Swarthmore, she had
no thought of entering politics. While
working as administrative assistant to
the comptroller at Swarthmore, she met
Edwin Newman, a Quaker and faculty
member of the newly formed Psycholo­
gy Dept. They married in 1938.
During World War II, the Newmans
spent a year in California running one of
the civilian public service camps set up
for conscientious objectors by the
Friends and other religious groups.
Back in Philadelphia in 1942, Mary
became a volunteer in the Philadelphia
office of the American Friends Service
Committee. Ed, still teaching at Swarth­
more, was also doing research at Har­
vard. They moved to Cambridge in 1946.
To someone raised in the Quaker tra­
dition of sex equality, Massachusetts
was a real surprise. Women could not
serve on juries. Women teachers, if they
married, lost their tenure. Nurses alone,
among more than 20 professions and
trades, had to have other medical pro­
fessionals on their boards of certifica­
tion. Seeking to influence these matters,
Mary Newman joined the League of
Women Voters. She became state leg­
islative chairman and spent hours in the
legislative galleries. It was the McCarthy
era, and there were many bills regard­
ing oaths, investigations, and the like,
which she had opposed before legisla­
tive committees on behalf of the
League. To her surprise when bills like
these came to a floor vote, she found
herself mentally voting with the Repub­
licans.

O

32

No opponent-bashing here. Mas­
sachusetts R epresentatives John Moakley and the late Tip O’Neill h elped
honor Mary Tem ple Newman’s distin­
guished career o f public service.
First elected to the 240-member
House of Representatives in 1952, New­
man was one of four women—all Repub­
licans. It was a challenging experience.
While most legislation was considered
on its merits, there were certain mea­
sures, some trivial and some, like much
legislation affecting industry and orga­
nized labor, of real importance, where
the voting pattern was almost entirely
on party lines. After one such vote, she
was motivated to try out in the Legisla­
ture a practice used in the Friends busi­
ness meeting—no votes are taken, but
instead a proposal is discussed until all
objections are eliminated and a solution
satisfactory to both sides is found. She
tried it in a petty but long-battled mat­
ter: the placing of lights on the roofs of
call-firemen’s cars. The police had
objected for some years. She reasoned
with the firemen’s lobbyist and then
with the police lobbyist, offering minor
amendments to the legislation. It
worked—the amendment bill passed,
and all were satisfied.
This became her trademark as a leg­
islator. Finally appointed to the Commit­
tee on Commerce and Labor, she won
the trust and respect of lobbyists both
for the AFL-CIO and the Associated
Industries. In fact, in the 1960s she was
endorsed by the AFL-CIO, which led one
of her colleagues, a longtime Democrat,
to congratulate her, adding, “I hope this
isn’t going to hurt you in your district!”
In the case of important issues where
party division seemed imminent, she
would sit down with the Democratic
Speaker and discuss amendments to
delete objectionable sections. And she
found that it worked. In today’s politics
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

she deplores the “opponent-bashing”
that often replaces problem solving.
In 1971 Governor Sargent appointed
Newman to his new cabinet as secretary
of manpower affairs. Replaced in 1975
after the election of Michael Dukakis ’55,
she was asked by the then House Speak­
er (also a Democrat) to act as a consul­
tant to her former committee. In 1976
she became regional director for health,
education, and welfare under President
Gerald Ford. Since 1977 she has been a
visiting professor in the College of Man­
agement at the University of Mas­
sachusetts at Boston. At age 86 she is
still active there.
In November 1994 Mary Newman
received the John Joseph Moakley
Award for Distinguished Public Service,
established in 1993 by the McCormack
Institute of Public Affairs at the Universi­
ty of Massachusetts at Boston. In a pro­
file announcing the award, Ian Menzies,
a senior fellow of the Institute, spoke of
“the principles of her strong Quaker
faith.” In her acceptance speech, New­
man attempted to describe these princi­
ples. She spoke of Swarthmore, a Quak­
er college where the equality of men
and women as to responsibility, oppor­
tunity, and achievement are a matter of
course. Recalling her affirmation at her
inauguration, she explained that to
affirm means not maintaining a double
standard of truth. “I felt it was making a
commitment to my colleagues and I had
better stick to it,” she said. And she
spoke of the consensus method, point­
ing out that this rests on an assumption
of good will—a belief in “that of God in
every man.”
To Mary Newman the Moakley
Award was one of the proudest events
of her public life—but it was more than
that. It was a tribute to the spirit of con­
cern and caring that she encountered in
political life transcending partisan, reli­
gious, and economic barriers. Maybe an
excerpt from the award citation sums it
up best: “Throughout your life you have
identified the best in both friend and
adversary and showed, in quiet but
effective ways, the importance of lead­
ing by example.
“All in all, yours has been, and
remains, a rich and productive life
blessed with friends and admirers who
stand in awe before your energetic and
ceaseless activity. Yours has been, and
still is, a light that shines most brightly
before us.”

D ying fo r a little ch e m istry
For Ruth Rand 5 6 teaching is not only about chemicals and color but commitment.
s Ruth Rand ’56 passes along knowl­
edge of traditional dying techniques
to her high school science students, she
hopes to create enthusiasm for the field
of chemistry as well.
With the help of a $3,500 grant from
the Council for Basic Education in 1993,
Rand, who teaches at Albuquerque
Academy in Albuquerque, N.M., studied
how early cultures in the American
Southwest and Mexico created color for
textiles using organic materials. “They
had to figure out what matter would
stick to what fabric, what natural solu­
tions to use to get the hue they desired,
in what kind of container to prepare the
dye, and how long to heat it,” says
Rand, who looked at the antique textiles
themselves and at the limited research
already done on them.
While modern chemists use synthet­
ic compounds to create a rainbow of
chemical dyes, ancient peoples crushed
rocks and heated them to varying tem­
peratures to alter the color of a mixture.
They added iron to these mixtures,
causing electrons to make “quantum
jumps” thus changing the shade of a
color. Rand says this knowledge helps
people today connect to the art and
thought processes of cultures that came
before. She believes it is a major omis­
sion in scientific literature not to have
included this type of information, and
part of her mission is to record more indepth data on the techniques.
Through her grant studies, Rand was
able to learn more about the origins of
the color cochineal, an intense red,
which Rand says revitalized the Euro­
pean textile market in the 18th century.
Many people believe the color is indige­
nous to Afghanistan, but in fact, its true
roots are in the Spanish frontier, central

A

Alive: Narratives o f Animation,
M etamorphosis and D evelop­
ment was published last year.
Lois has been working active­
ly in drama and civic theater.
Marian Westover Gade re­
ports a wonderful trip last
year to northern England and
Scotland, including the Isle of
Skye. Dave Holland ran in his
17th straight alumni/varsity
cross-country race last fall. He
continues to help people with
retraining and placement in
his role as a job service repre44

Ruth Rand ’56 (pictured with her grand­
daughter Lyla) studies traditional textile
dying techniques and works to instill an
appreciation o f chemistry in young people.
Mexico, and northern New Mexico. Peo­
ple are also unaware, she says, of the
biological procedures and labor
required to harvest the female beetles
that produce the color.
From a chemist’s perspective, learn­
ing how ancient cultures created dyes
was a scientific experience, but under­
standing why they chose to use certain
colors has been a more spiritual one.
“In Native American culture, every­
thing is connected and spiritual,” Rand
says. “As I’ve learned about the devel­
opment of traditional dying techniques,
I’ve heard more about spirituality, the
wholeness of the earth, and respect for
the environment.” She says they chose
colors that reflected those beliefs—
today’s colorists might call them earth
tones.

sentative for the Common­
wealth of Pennsylvania.
Charles Cogswell is retired
and still living in Hesperia,
Calif., although he plans to
move to the Monterey area
eventually. When last heard
from, he expected to do some
part-time teaching at an aero­
nautical college. Kathy Hayes
Head works full time in the
Education Dept, at the Win­
terthur Museum, guiding and
planning special programs for
adults. Jim ’54 is still practic-

Rand, who has lived in New Mexico
for just four years, says her idea of
studying natural dying techniques as a
way to learn chemistry is slowly becom­
ing accepted by other educators. In late
May, however, Rand received thé Out­
standing Chemistry Teacher award
from the New Mexico chapter of the
American Chemical Society for her out­
reach work in the field.
Rand takes her love of chemistry
directly to children in the city of Albu­
querque and nearby rural areas who
might not otherwise have an experi­
ence with this discipline. She helps
them explore the wonders of chemistry
through color by doing simple experi­
ments or tie-dye projects. She often
takes along her Albuquerque Academy
students to help instruct.
“I think this might be an effective
way to introduce chemistry to less privi­
leged groups of students at an early age.
Many schools don’t start teaching expe­
riential science until the high school
level. And even if they have a lab, it’s
often not a very good one,” she says.
Rand believes students are interest­
ed in learning chemistry through colors
because “there’s beauty in chemistry,
and a lot of it comes from the colors
that are created while investigating phe­
nomena and basic matter.”
In addition to working with her own
students, Rand wants to encourage
other Swarthmore alumni to get
involved with young people and volun­
teer their time to teach basic chemistry
to elementary-age students. “Anyone
can do it, and I’d be happy to send them
the material,” says Rand. “You just have
to know how to read and be willing to
work with your hands.”
—Audree Penner

ing law. The Heads now have
three grandchildren. Jane
Piper Worley has retired to
spend more time with family,
to do a little teaching and vol­
unteer work, and, she hopes,
“to visit some of you.” Rev.
Barbara Troxell continues
teaching field education and
spiritual formation at Garrett
Evangelical Theological Semi­
nary. She has co-authored a
book on ministerial reflection
titled Shared Wisdom.
Woody Christian Tedeschi

is “well into the grandparent
business” with three little
grandsons and two more new­
borns expected. Try Wieland
is still working as a physician
at the VA Outpatient Clinic in
Anchorage, Alaska. He recent­
ly coordinated medical cover­
age for the Tour of Anchorage
50K. Carolyn Cotton Cunning­
ham has joined that “happy
group of ‘grandparents’” with
one granddaughter and a sec­
ond grandchild expected. She
has been working as a consulSWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

A D a nce r’s D ream
I gave up ballet at age 14 but made a comeback in my 40s.
B y Linda Valleroy ’72

uring 1994 my wildest dreams came
true. Not once, but three times.
This Tina the Ballerina-Cinderella-Walter Mitty-Zelig story actually began dur­
ing World War II, when my mother was
accepted into the Royal Ballet School in
London. But because my grandmother
feared both the blitz and show busi­
ness, she did not let her go. My mother
eventually chose a more exotic place to
live when she married my father and
settled in St. Louis, Mo.
I was an 8-year-old ballet student
when the Royal Ballet toured the states,
and my mother and I went to see Mar­
got Fonteyn dance in The Sleeping Beau­
ty at the St. Louis opera house. After the
final curtain call, I was enraptured and,
turning to my mother, I pledged,
“Mommy, some day I am going to dance
in that ballet.” She patted my little head
and said, “Of course you will, dear.” It
took 36 years to keep that pledge.
So I went to ballet class and applied
myself. But when I was 14,1gave up bal­
let and replaced it with cheerleading
and modern dance and archery. And
studying. By my late 20s, all the years of
studying had resulted in higher
degrees—and also in upper back pains.
A girlfriend urged me to sign up for
adult ballet classes: “You need to
stretch—you need a break.” I found that
the ballet flame had been burning all
along—like the stars when the sun
shines during the day. Ballet became a
refuge, saving me from the terminal
sobriety of overwork. Once again, I
applied myself.
The last year I lived in Washington,
D.C., I learned that large ballet compa­
nies sometimes use dance-trained,
musical supernumeraries to fill small
roles in the story ballets. So I began to
audition. I was rejected at first. Then, in
April 1991, the Royal Ballet came—yes,
the same Royal Ballet of my mother’s
and my childhood dreams—and I was
selected as “The Queen’s Head Lady-inWaiting” in Swan Lake and as the under­
study for court ladies in The Prince o f
the Pagodas. Those two weeks were
more like Fantasy Island than Swan
Lake. The first night I walked out to per­
form, I fell into an ecstasy, thereby for­
getting my most crucial bits of mime.
In July 19911 moved to Atlanta for a
new job. Good career move. Bad ballet
supernumerary move. I had only just
unearthed the ballet otherworld and

D

50

7 was so much old er then—I ’m younger
than that now. ’’ Linda Valleroy’s child­
h ood pledge was fulfilled when she was
invited to dance with the Royal Ballet.
now I was moving away from it. But in
January 19941learned that the Royal
Ballet would be returning to the
Kennedy Center in April. I began to plot.
I flew up for the casting call, knowing
that I would be auditioning for The
Sleeping Beauty and Mayerling. What I
did not know was that the Washington
dates would be the world premiere of
the Royal Ballet’s new production of
Sleeping Beauty, and that President Clin­
ton, his family, and Princess Margaret
would attend in the Presidential box on
opening night. The casting call was a
dream. I was exactly the right size and
type to be one of the six Maids of Honor
in Sleeping Beauty, and the ballet staff
remembered me from 1991.1was also
selected as the understudy for the
female character parts in Mayerling.
Those two weeks of rehearsals and
performances were glorious. Because of
the world premiere, the air was even
more electric than usual. To be
rehearsed by Anthony Dowell, the
famed 20th-century dancer and artistic
director of the Royal Ballet, and to work
among some the world’s top ballet
artists, was grand. I loved being part of
and observing how a ballet company of

such stature produces and creates a
work of art. The ways in which the
artists, management, and technicians
work together is intensely fascinating.
When I flew back to Atlanta after two
weeks of grace and glamour and true
grit, I felt like I was returning from Oz.
But I also began dreaming about the
Royal Ballet’s return to the U.S., at the
Metropolitan in New York City in July.
As it happened, my work schedule
obliged, and I was able to clear the time
to go to the casting call for The Sleeping
Beauty. And once again my dream came
true. As I stood in the audition line,
Anthony Dowell spied me and beckoned
me forward with a “welcome back” grin.
Working at the Met was another dream.
The New York audiences would roar
their approval for a particularly good
Rose Adagio in Act I. From the stage the
applause sounds like Niagara Falls.
My third lucky wish came true in
October. Not altogether by coincidence,
I was in Washington on Columbus Day
weekend for the casting call for the Aus­
tralian Ballet’s production of Don
Quixote. I was selected. Working with
the Australian company was great fun.
The dancers are young, warm, and
friendly, and Don Quixote was fun too.
This was the first time I had been in one
of ballet’s romantic comedies, and I
learned that comedy is more challeng­
ing than drama.
Perhaps you are wondering— what
is her day job? I have a doctorate in bio­
logical anthropology and work as an
epidemiologist at the Centers for Dis­
ease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
My job is monitoring HIV infection
prevalence and incidence, risk behav­
iors, and their determinants among
youth in the United States. It’s not com­
edy at all. It’s tragedy, and it’s very chal­
lenging. I love my job and feel fortunate
to do the work I do. But ballet provides
a needed break.
And now perhaps you are also won­
dering— what about her mother? She’s
very well, and she came to see me per­
form with the Royal Ballet. We both
remember my pledge at age 8 to dance
with the Royal Ballet in The Sleeping
Beauty. After the performance in 1994,
we both laughed about it. The kind of
laughing that makes you start to cry.
And what about you? What about
that dream you put on the back shelf
way back when? It’s time to get it out.
My mother will tell you, “Of course you
will, dear.”
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

i£p

l e t

should have been accorded the status
of a major college debate is simply
scandalous. When will all of these
hyper-sensitive minorities get the chips
off their shoulders and grow up?
The reason American society is dis­
integrating today is not that the melting
pot idea has been “discredited,” as Jef­
frey Lott’s editorial suggests, but
because multicultural pluralism is tear­
ing it apart. No organized society or civ­
ilization can maintain itself when its
members are giving their loyalty pri­
marily to their own groups rather than
to the larger nation of which they are a
part.
Every society has the right to set the
standards of morality and behavior by
which it chooses to function, and most­
ly these come to it from its founders
and its history. A minority cannot claim
the right to insist on its own standards.
It has, of course, the choice of resigning
or otherwise exiting, as the Jewish stu­
dents did, but it should not become an
occasion for the whole of society, or the
College, to take up every little protest
and have to re-examine its standards.
While diversity is the spice of life, it
must remain only the spice and not cor­
rupt the whole stew. What is being
advocated by liberals today, conscious­
ly or unconsciously, is a wholesale dis­
mantling of American society and its
standards in order to accommodate the
whining of its minorities. I am sick and
tired of it. I don’t want to see American
society dismantled and a patchwork of
tribalistic loyalties erected in its place.
The drift toward multicultural pluralism
is a disaster that will benefit no one,
least of all the minorities concerned.
M artin E.W. L uther ’4 6
Minneapolis

T E R S

C ontinued from p a g e 3

However, in his 1993 article “Reli­
gious Aims in Mendelssohn’s 1829
Berlin-Singakademie Performances of
Bach’s St. M atthew P assion ” (T he Musi­
ca l Quarterly, Winter 1993), Marissen
wrote that Mendelssohn, a convert
from Judaism to Lutheranism, probably
chose to perform the St. M atthew rather
than the St. John Passion, because with­
in the St. John's biblical narrative “those
Jews who do not accept [Jesus] as king
are seen as the ones essentially respon­
sible for bringing about Christ’s death.”
He wrote that the St. M atthew Passion,
by contrast, sees Jesus’ death as
“brought on by the guilt of all,” pointing
out cuts Mendelssohn made in the St.
M atthew and noting that many cuts
from the biblical passages concern
“negative character depictions of Jews.”
Unfortunately, I think Professor
Marissen was more respectful in dis­
cussing Mendelssohn’s concerns with
Bach than those of present day stu­
dents. The Bulletin article would have
been stronger had it enabled the con­
cerned students to express their views
of the College’s handling of the contro­
versy.
F ran S tier

Swarthmore, Pa.

Wants to come back
To the Editor:
I have just read “Passionate About
Bach,” and nothing has ever made me
wish I were a Swarthmore student now
as did this article. How thrilled I am that
this is happening at my beloved Col­
lege. My husband often reiterates his
belief that “the world is getting bet­
ter”—and gets a lot of funny looks. But
here is reinforcement as far as I’m con­
cerned.
M arjorie T odd S imonds ’4 1

Marissen’s views
are inconsistent
To the Editor:
I think Professor Michael Marissen’s
views on the St. John P assion have
changed. He contends in the Bulletin
that the students’ objections to Bach’s
work come from “a culture of narcis­
sism that makes no attempt to recon­
cile historical and modern concerns in
interpreting classical works.” He argues
that the question of who killed Jesus
was of no importance to Bach, and that
it is a fundamental misunderstanding of
this work to think that it is anti-Jewish.
62

E. Gordon, Mich.

“This work is
not M ein K a m p f ’
To the Editor:
The May issue of the Bulletin did indeed
describe a controversy that was “clas­
sic Swarthmore”—fundamentally ado­
lescent, political, hypocritical, and
embarrassing.
If you are Jewish and are not com­
fortable with performing Bach’s St. John
Passion, the answer (obvious to a 6year-old) is not to participate. However,
at Swarthmore, students are encour­

aged to turn an essentially personal
position into a political one. Write an
article to The Phoenix, or stand up in
front of 300 people and inform them of
the grievous injury you are suffering.
What is important is not to exercise any
actual tolerance, i.e., to acknowledge
that the beauty of Bach’s music may be
significant enough to justify putting up
with an infinitely abstract, totally sym­
bolic link between that music and a cul­
ture and time you find personally dis­
tasteful. What is “classic Swarthmore”
is to politicize your little problem, and
to see if you can, by deeming the entire
work “offensive,” whip the crowd into a
frenzy.
This work not Mein Kam pf. In the
real world in which we all presumably
live, a performance of it will have abso­
lutely no effect at all on the fate of Jews,
on the amount of anti-Semitism in the
world, or on anyone’s life. Yet in the
name of “tolerance” and “open debate,”
J.S. Bach is tried two centuries after his
death for what amounts to thought
crime, and symbolism replaces reality.
This is crazy and dangerous. It’s unbe­
lievable that nobody can step in and
say, “This is silly.” It is very upsetting to
see art used, once again, as a political
weapon, and particularly upsetting to
see Swarthmore apparently encourag­
ing such cynical, irresponsible distor­
tions in such a self-congratulatory man­
ner.
P et e r D arling ’84

Bethlehem, Pa.
PeterDarl@aoI.com

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Persistent, obscene message
To the Editor:
I am a music lover and parent of Jo 72
and Louise 79, who are the objects of
their parents’ thinly disguised enor­
mous pride. I am also a Christian of the
holocaust generation and heir to the
legacy of Inquisition and Pogrom, all
traceable to the persistent, obscene
message in words—written, spoken,
and sung—that Jews are responsible
for the crucifixion of Christ. I admire the
courageous and perceptive young
woman who said it truly, not just for
herself but also for Christ: “I am a Jew
and it directly offends me to sing the
words which I know can become the
basis for anti-Jewish thought.”

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SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

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Words pose a moral dilemma,
no matter how great the art
To the Editor:
The students who refused to sing
Bach’s St. John Passion should be con­
gratulated for their courage and perspi­
cacity. That their stage seats were not
left symbolically empty is cause for
concern, not for rejoicing.
Professor Marissen says that “in con­
text” the St. John Passion is not antiSemitic and that Lutherans believed
(believed in Bach’s time?) that all
humans are personally responsible for
Christ’s death. I am afraid that this is a
great oversimplification.
Luther apparently thought that his
reforms would bring the Jews to Jesus,
and he wrote in praise of Jews. When
the Jews did not convert, Luther wrote
a vitriolic tract in which he urged that
Jews and all evidence of their existence
be destroyed. The seeds reaped by
Hitler were sown by Luther and others
before and after.
The “branch-root” idea expressed by
Marissen is a fashionable ecumenical
notion. It would be more accurate to
say that Christianity is a separate tree
grown from a seed that contains some
Jewish genes, but which has other
genes as well, implanted there by early
Christians and later Luther, who mis­
represented the Jewish religion. Some
of these “bad genes” in the hybrid seed
spawned anti-Semitism as part of a
deliberate attempt to separate those
who accepted Christ from those who
did not and later to demonize those
who did not.
Today’s clergy—even the Pope—
have acknowledged the historical con­
tribution of Christianity to antiSemitism. Reconciling a critical audi­
ence or performer with the words of
the Passion is not simply a “pastoral
matter,” as Marissen puts it. In the postHolocaust era, to believe that the
words of the Passion are benign is, in
my opinion, frankly foolish. Words pose
a moral dilemma no matter how great
the art in which they are used. Once
you understand the words, they cannot
be ignored. The problem does not dis­
appear when one has a “proper” under­
standing of Bach “in context.” What I
read in the Bulletin was an attempt to
clothe an anti-Semitic text in an erro­
neous, antiseptic robe of rationaliza­
tion. How can Christians reconcile what
AUGUST 1995

they teach about love with Christian
texts that fan the flames of hate? Should
not these texts be abandoned in all
their forms?
W il l ia m R o s e n b l u m ’57
Richmond, Va.

Professor Marissen replies
To the Editor:
I would like to distance myself from the
views expressed in Peter Darling’s and
Martin E.W. Luther’s letters.
Attentive reading will reveal that Mr.
Rosenblum criticizes views I don’t hold.
He also reports on outdated research.
Studies of Luther’s entire output show
his anti-Judaism to be stronger and
more consistent than Rosenblum
reports. Recent scholarship also shows,
however, that in the post-Reformational
Lutheranism of Bach’s day these senti­
ments are qualitatively weaker. I will
provide details in a forthcoming study.
My views on Bach’s St. John Passion
are consistent with the essay Ms. Stier
mentions, and she has misidentified the
target of my comments on cultural nar­
cissism. They were aimed not at con­
cerned Swarthmore students but at the
majority of today’s music lovers and
scholars, who believe that great art
transcends its contexts and connotes
Pure Beauty, a cherished modern view
uncritically projected onto history—we
look at the past and see ourselves mir­
rored.
As for the essay, I was comparing
Matthew’s and John’s biblical narra­
tives. Bach includes those texts verba­
tim, and his commentaries on them, in
the form of arias and chorales, dramati­
cally affect their meanings. Since Men­
delssohn had decided (for reasons
unrelated to Judaism) not to perform
Bach’s arias, his abridgment projects
new meanings. Shorn of commentary
Matthew appears less problematic than
John, and, to eliminate the possibility of
misunderstanding in his particular per­
forming context, Mendelssohn went so
far as to excise biblical narrative as
well. Furthermore, Bach’s two passion
settings were unknown in 1829
(Mendelssohn had to perform from
music written out by hand). Today
there is a host of printed editions, and
the works have been performed thou­
sands of times. Swarthmore performed
the St. John Passion, with Bach’s arias
and chorales, in an educational context

featuring lectures, seminars, symposia,
and program notes. Providing no such
context, Mendelssohn’s situation was
fundamentally different.
Anyone who was able to see how my
colleagues and I spent the last semester
couldn’t suggest that any of us has
greater respect for Mendelssohn than
Swarthmore’s concerned students. Inci­
dentally, from what I know of him and
them, I’d prefer the company of the stu­
dents. Had they attended all the educa­
tional events and their open planning
sessions, 1 suspect they wouldn’t have
taken so harsh a view of the College’s
handling of the controversy.
M

ic h a e l

M

a r is s e n

Department of Music and Dance

Swarthmore’s inspiration
To the Editor:
I never graduated from Swarthmore.
After two attempts, my marks just
weren’t high enough. It has taken years
to get over my feelings of embarrass­
ment and disappointment, but the time
I spent at the College was one of the
highlights of my life. I’ll list a few of the
reasons:
•I learned about academic excel­
lence in Professor Blackburn’s English
lectures and Professor Euwema’s
physics classes.
•I learned about ethics. Mr. Euwema
spent many hours patiently working
with me until I passed with a D. I offered
money for his time, but he said that to
accept would be unethical.
•I met people who believe that truth
and right are not just abstract con­
cepts. When some students were jailed
in a civil rights demonstration, the
notice on the board said, “Students
arrested still have to hand in the essay
assigned last week.”
•I learned warmth and friendship.
My class contained people destined for
the top of their fields, but I never felt
anyone was a snob. To have more tal­
ent and drive than others, but not to
rub it in, is terribly important.
I have taught high school for 26
years, including directing more than 50
school musicals and jazz choirs. Where
does the inspiration come from? You
guessed it.
P.S. I’d love to hear from classmates.
T

ed

D u f f ’6 6

Box 933
Orillia, Ont.
63

“I find story ideas in the tiny details of
the ordinary but fascinating life of the
child I once was,” Eisenberg is quoted
Continued from p ag e 15
as saying in a flyer for the Institute of
and I teach a cou rse on the relation­ C hildren’s Literature, for which she
ship betw een dialogue in fiction and works as an instructor. “My own kids
dialogue in real life.”
help me rem em ber what it was like,
Realism and fantasy exist alongside b u t I d o n ’t r e a lly n eed th em to —
each oth er in Napoli’s novels S o c c er because basically the child is still alive
S h ock and S hark S h ock, which center and well inside of me.”
on a boy who talks to his freckles—
Eisenberg has written four series of
and whose freckles talk back. Napoli’s novels for children and teenagers, in
own childhood experiences inspired addition to her humor books for chil­
the tcile. “I was raised a Catholic,” she dren. The first was a set of mysteries
say s, “and I rem em b er adoring th e
featuring d etectiv e Laura Brewster.
c a t e c h is m b e c a u s e it w as full of The books were written using a spe­
an sw ers. And my fa v o rite w as th e
c ia l w ord lis t an d w e re aim ed at
q u e s tio n and a n sw e r: ‘W h e re is teenagers and young adults with read­
God?’— ‘God is everyw here.’ I would ing problems. A similar set of books,
talk to sticks, I would talk to my fin­ the South City Cop series, followed.
gers, I would talk to anything, because
For children ages 8 to 12, she has
God might be there.”
written three books featuring teenage
In fact, like Sandra Darling, Napoli detective Kate Clancy and three about
en ters the fantasy world of children
fourth-grader Lexie Nielsen. Eisenberg
and does not trivialize it. “I’m hoping says: “I love writing for that age group.
to reach the child who doesn’t easily It’s what they call the golden age of
see the line between fantasy and reali­ reading b e ca u s e it ’s when kids are
ty and for w hom th a t line is n ’t yet first able to read novels independent­
really important,” she says. “As a child ly. It’s a w onderful opportunity for
I took everything equally seriously, humor, because they haven’t become
and so when I write I also try to take as jaded as they get in middle school.”
everything equally seriously.”
Eisenberg first started writing for
One senses that Donna Jo Napoli is children at Sch o lastic Books, where
still deeply connected to the world of she took a job as an editorial assistant
childhood. I can sense a similar kind in 1974. So o n sh e w as w orking as
of co n n e ctio n in th e fictio n of Lisa assistant editor and writer for Sprint
Wright Eisenberg ’71, who writes real­ magazine, one of their publications for
istic novels that focus on adventure children. She w rote ju st about any­
and family life. She w rites seriou sly thing the magazine needed— stories,
an d c o m p a s s io n a te ly a b o u t su c h
plays, nonfiction articles, sports sto­
childhood experiences as being afraid rie s, m ath a c tiv itie s , and puzzles.
that a birthday party will be spoiled or After a few m ore years and a couple
what it’s like to be the youngest child. m ore jo b s in ch ild re n ’s publishing,
she turned to freelance writing.
What makes a good novel for chil­
dren? E isen b erg sa y s: “I think that
really good sto rie s, b oth for adults
and for kids, s ta rt w ith interesting
characters. A lot of people start with a
situation first, but in fact it’s usually
more interesting to see how a certain
type of kid reacts in a given situation.
Make your main character interesting
and you’ve basically got half your job
done.”
But no ch aracter is going to inter­
est every reader, she realizes. In her
own family, one d aughter was very
fond of E isen b erg ’s m ystery series,
while the other liked the Lexie stories.
“One thing I’ve com e to term s with is
th a t m y b o o k s a re n o t fo r every

T h e Conjurers

Lisa W right E ise n b e rg ’71
Formerly: writer and editor at Scholas­
tic Books, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
and Bowmar/Noble
Also: instructor for the Institute of Chil­
dren’s Literature in Connecticut and in
the Cayuga Heights (N.Y.) Elementary
School Enrichment Program
Children’s books published: 25 to 30
First book: Chicken Jo k e s an d Puzzles,
1976: “This is a little embarrassing, but
it’s funny. I was working on some very
boring workbooks for a language arts
program, and we were writing jokes to
go on the bottom of the pages to liven
them up. I kept stumbling on jokes
about chickens and realized that it was
a very rich subject.”
Some other books: 10 riddle and joke
books, the Laura Brewster mystery
series, 1977; the South City Cop
series, 1984; Mystery at
Snowsh o e Mountain Lodge,
1987; Mystery a t B lu ff Point
Dunes, 1989; L eav e It to
L exie, 1989; Mystery at Camp
Windingo, 1991; H appy Birth­
day, L exie, 1991; Story o f Sit­
ting Bull, 1991; L exie on H er
Own, 1992; The Camp Survival
H andbook, 1995
Working on: My Partner, the
Ghost, a mystery novel
Family: Husband Theodore
Eisenberg ’69 and three chil­
dren, ages 6 to 15
Home: Ithaca, N.Y.
64

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

S o yo u w a n t to w rite a c h ild re n ’s b o o k ....
cess editors are displaced and lists
manuscripts for children’s books a
t’s not that easy to succeed in the
are cut, sometimes drastically.”
children’s book business, and get­ year, and they used to publish about
Even when a writer beats the
60 titles a year. Now they’re cutting
ting started is particularly diffi­
odds and gets published, he or she
cult. Of the five authors I spoke with, back to around 40 or 45, and they’re
is not likely to get rich. “I could not
getting even more submissions.” It’s
only Donna Jo Napoli published her
support myself writing fiction right
especially hard to sell a picture
first book without previously work­
now, and I have seven books out,”
book, Napoli says, because they
ing in a job related to children’s
says Donna Jo Napoli. “You make
make up the vast majority of unso­
book publishing— and it took her 14
very little money. I think I make 16
licited manuscripts.
years. Before publishing children’s
cents from every paperback book I
Lisa Eisenberg gives a couple of
books, Peggy Thom son was a free­
sell, so figure how many
lance writer on chil­
books I have to sell to buy
dren’s su b je c ts , A rielle
a banana. That’s how it
Olson was a c h ild re n ’s
works.”
book reviewer and man­
Sandra Darling explains:
uscript read er and edi­
“It’s almost impossible to
tor, and Lisa Eisenberg
support yourself as a chil­
wrote and ed ited c h il­
dren’s writer or illustra­
dren’s m agazin es. And
tor—
the numbers aren’t
Sandra D arlin g o w n e d
great enough. A very good
the firm th a t first pub­
seller is 20,000. Maybe
lished her work.
you get a dollar for every
“I d o n ’t th in k an y
book that’s sold, and
other p u b lish er would
that’s only if you don’t
have ta k e n G o o d D og,
have to share your royalty
Carl," Darling says now.
with an illustrator. And it’s
“They w o u ld n ’t h av e
hard to do two books a
dared. For one thing, it’s
year if you’re an illustra­
nearly w ord less, w hich
tor. So you’re not going to
wasn’t done at the tim e
support a family on that.”
at all. S e c o n d , in th is
The biggest problem,
politically c o r r e c t and
Lisa Eisenberg says, is
socially se lf-c o n sc io u s
that a writer’s income is
age, they wouldn’t have
so uncertain: “You might
touched a book about a
have one year where
baby b e in g le ft a lo n e
you’re fine, and then the
with a d og. It n e v e r
next year you might be
occurred to me to think
earning $10,000 or less.”
about th at, and clearly
So why write children’s
the public isn’t stopped
books?
Despite the prob­
by any such thing, since
lems of getting published
the books have turned
and making a living, these
out to be so popular.”
ILLUSTRATION BY SANDRA DARLING '63 FROM CARL GOES TO D AYCAR E©1993
writers continue to devote
It’s e a sy to se e why
their talent and their energy to this
most children’s book authors don’t reasons that the current publishing
craft. “Writing and illustrating chil­
make it by contributing manuscripts climate is not as sunny as it was
dren’s books is not lucrative, but it’s
to the slush pile. “My editor at Little even 10 years ago: “For one thing,
fun and people like to do it,” says
Brown says that they get one or two the government is not giving
Sandra Darling. “I think that’s one of
libraries
and
schools
as
much
thousand u nagented m an u scrip ts
the reasons that the children’s book
over the transom every year,” says money to buy books. Second, series
market has flourished— a lot of peo­
Lisa Eisenberg. “And it’s a lucky year like the Babysitters Club or Gooseple have poured themselves into it
for new a u th o rs if on e or tw o of bumps have com e to dominate the
and a lot of good work has been
market.
So
trying
to
sell
a
very
good
them get published.”
done.” Or perhaps Donna Jo Napoli
individual book is getting harder and
And it’s getting harder. Donna Jo
explains it best: “When you’re a writ­
harder.” Arielle Olson adds: “Pub­
Napoli says: “Dutton, when they first
er, you write.”
lishers are merging their children’s
published The P rince o f the P on d in
—R.A.
book departments, and in the pro­
1992, got about 2,000 unsolicited

I

AUGUST 1995

65

child,” sh e says. “In a way that gives
m e so m e freed o m — I ca n w rite th e
kind of b o o k I would h ave liked to
read myself when I was a kid.”

W ritin g N o n fictio n

W

h a t do th e H ope d ia m o n d ,
Allende m eteorites, and a house
m ou se m an d ib le h ave in com m on?
They are all displayed at the Smithso­
nian’s Museum of Natural History and
featured in the book Auks, R ocks, a n d
t h e O d d D in o s a u r b y P eg g y B e b ie
Thom son ’43.
“I wished so much to show how a
bone, a bird, a boat, or a stone holds a
story for th o se who find the code to
read it ,” T h o m so n w ro te a fte r th e
book, written for children ages 8 to 12,
was published. The stories of about 20
of the museum’s ob jects (and a guard
dog, Max) appear in the book, one of
several Thom son has w ritten about
what happens behind th e sc e n e s at

o r the zoo book,
I w anted each
chapter to be about
a different animal.
But it would have
b een neater if
the entire book had
been about how
to give an
elephant a bath.

F

—Peggy Thomson ’43
public institutions like museums and
zoos.
A fter y e a rs of fre e la n c e w riting,
often on su b jects related to children
and cre a tiv e c la ssro o m s, T h om son
began w riting n o n fictio n b ook s for
children about 20 years ago. “I write
about what interests me and what I’d
lik e to know a b o u t ,” s h e s a y s . “I
assum e that kids would like to know
66

too. I just try to be a little
m o re c le a r and a little
more com pact than when
writing for adults.”
Thomson seem s to have
e n d le s s c u r io s ity a b o u t
th in g s and p e o p le . “R e­
searching books is a chance
to talk to people and to lis­
ten , n ot to sa y eav esd ro p ,
and just to w atch,” she says.
“In a lot of my writing I try to
show that the world is full of
interesting people and interest­
ing th in g s. How th in g s a re
made is vastly interesting. Life
is interesting.”
V
Spaghetti is the subject of one
of T h o m s o n ’s b o o k s , S ig g y ’s
S p ag h etti W orks. “To learn how
s p a g h e tti is m ad e, I w en t to a
spaghetti factory in M assachusetts
and w a tch e d to n s of s p a g h e tti
p o u rin g o u t of th e m a c h in e s and
b ein g p ackaged up and ca rrie d on
con v eyor b e lts ,” sh e says. She also
did historical research for the book,
finding, for example, that Thomas Jef­
ferson was the first president to serve
pasta in the White House.
Her research for K eep ers an d Crea­
tu res a t th e N a tio n a l Z o o in clu d ed
going back again and again to the zoo
to w atch e lep h a n ts gettin g a b ath ,
oran gu tan s learning sign language,
and birds getting their breakfast. She
researched the book City Kids in China
during a trip to Changsha, where her
China-born husband, John ’43, joined
h er for four days. For K a tie H en io,
N a v a jo S h e e p h e r d e r , sh e spent tim e
on a Navajo reservation in New Mexi­
co.
B u t a fte r all th a t w a tch in g and
learning com es th e writing: “For me
the hard part is zeroing in on a narrow
enough subject, so that I have room to
go into details and be playful about it.
That’s a hard lesson to learn. For the
zoo book, I wanted each chapter to be
about a different animal. But when I
finished th e book, I though t th at it
would have been neater if the whole
book had been about how to give an
elephant a bath.”
Her goal in writing for children? “I
just want to make my books interest­
ing and fun and readable. I don’t par­

ticularly intend to be instructional,”
she says.
Fun is also the focus of Lisa Eisenberg’s humor books. They have titles
like 101 G host J o k e s , T he C am p Surv iv a l H a n d b o o k , and Buggy Riddles,
and Eisenberg estim ates that around a
million copies of som e of the older riddie books have been sold. The books
feature such gems as: “What do spid e rs lik e w ith t h e ir ham burgers?
French flies!”
i
Eisenberg w rites the riddle books
with her friend Katy Hall, with whom
sh e created a riddle-making system:
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

“Yoi
ther
can
snal
wha
self
soui
and
hav<
wou
P
silty
plet
the:
boo

AUGL

P e g g y B e b ie T h o m s o n ’4 3
Formerly: researcher at Life magazine,
contributor to the Washington Post mag­
azine, Sm ithsonian, A m erican Education,
and many other publications
Children’s books published: seven
First book: On R eading Palm s, 1974: “It’s
a skeptic’s look at whether you can infer
anything about people’s characters
from their hands. Prentice Hall gave me
the assignment, and I thought it was
goofy and fairly inappropriate, but it
started me in a happy direction.”
Other books: Museum P eop le: Collectors
and K eepers at the Sm ithsonian, 1979;
Auks, Rocks, and the Odd Dinosaur:
Inside Stories from the Sm ithsonian’s
Museum o f Natural History, 1985; K eepers
and Creatures at the N ational Zoo, 1988;
City Kids in China, 1991; Siggy’s Spaghetti
Works, 1993; K atie Henio, N avajo Sheepherder, 1995
Coming out: When Great-Aunt Isabel
Com es to Visit (fiction picture book) and
H ank’s Bats an d B alls (no date yet from
publisher)
Working on: Travis and His Dog K osm ic
(about a disabled boy and his dog) and
Inside Out (behind the scenes at the
National Gallery)
Family: Husband John Thomson ’43,
three grown children, five grandchildren
Home: Chevy Chase, Md.

“You pick a subject, like snakes, and
then you write down everything you
can th in k of th a t h a s to do w ith
snakes-hiss, scales, kinds of snakes,
what snakes eat. Then you ask your­
self, ‘W hat so u n d s like h is s ? ’ Hiss
sounds like ‘h isstory’ or ‘h issterical,’
and that’s your punch line. You ju st
have to think up a silly question that
would lead to that answer.”
Prim arily th e s e b o o k s a re “ju s t
silly,” Eisenberg says, but not com ­
pletely. “When I say I’m a writer and
then tell p e o p le a b o u t th e rid d le
books, they kind of roll their eyes, but
AUGUST 1995

in fact you can do a lot with riddles.
I’ve gone to grade schools and taught
kids our riddle-making system , and
they learn a lot about word play and
what makes humor. So it’s not quite
as silly as it sounds.”
Kids love the riddle books. I know
because my 3-year-old laughs uproari­
ously at Buggy R iddles, and she can’t
und erstand m ore than one in 10 of
them. “Kids have to be in about first
grade to really get th e jo k e s ,” Lisa
Eisenberg says. “But younger kids like
them anyway.” And Eisenberg seem s
to laugh right along with them.

What is it like to live in the world of
children? I think th e se w riters gave
me som e idea. T h ere’s hum or there
and curiosity about the world outside.
T h ere’s fantasy and th ere’s fairy-tale
magic. It’s a world where a baby can
ride on a dog and where it’s a tragedy
if a birthday party fails. A few adults
can still visit there, among them these
five authors, who conjure out of their
crea tiv ity and cu rio sity b ooks th at
expand a child’s world. ■
R eb ec ca A im is a freela n ce writer. This
is h e r sixth featu re fo r the Bulletin.
67

'LL
BUILD
MY

HOUSE OF
STRAW
C on tin u ed from p a g e 19

everal features still remain to be installed.
Photovoltaic cells on the roof will produce
electricity from sunlight. Light and heat will
be provided not only by large south-facing windows
but also by special “heat-trapping” skylights made of
silvered pipe with convex glass hemispheres at each
end. “Drawbridge”-style window shutters lined with
silvered foam will reflect light into the house when
lowered and will maintain heat inside when raised.
Water will be supplied to the house from an outdoor
cistern composed of two stacked 80-gallon waterheater tanks. The bathroom will include a waterless
composting toilet. And there are plans for an indoor
“wetland,” where gray water (from sinks and show­
ers) will percolate through a bed of aquatic plants
such as reeds and cattails. The waste will be soaked
up and the clean water returned to the system pure
enough to drink.
The group faced many challenges. An over-ambi­
tious construction schedule could not be main­
tained by the group of only a dozen or so students.
Everbach estimates that he did between 10 and 20
percent of the total work himself. The house
remained without a roof throughout the winter and
had to be protected by tarpaulins. Putting them up
was an adventure in itself, said Brian Roche ’95:
“Every time we started to put them on, a Nor’easter
would blow up. It was like setting a huge sail— and
the wind would pull it right off.” The delay in roofing
caused some of the straw to become wet and rot,
and although bales can be replaced, the procedure
is still time-consuming. Birds nested in the walls; the
weight of the roof caused the walls to bulge and the
stucco to crack in one spot; and the house became
an easy target for vandals—windows were broken,
and a hole was found in one exterior wall, believed

S

68

_____

\ - '- r

m!

■

>

ilH i

to be the result of a “misaimed” shot put from the
nearby track.
Scarcity of funds is a serious obstacle to the
house’s future. Until now the project has been
financed solely by money from a grant Everbach
received from the Educational Foundation of Ameri­
ca to develop a course called “Swarthmore and the
Biosphere”—which has since become part of the
curriculum. With this money spent “pretty much
down to zero,” he is now using research support
from the College, has hired other students to help,
and has turned the house into an extracurricular
research project. This summer Eric Studer ’97 super­
vised a crew of high school students who completed
the exterior of the house and began interior work.
By the end of summer, Everbach predicted, “the
house will look nice.”
Everbach is currently investigating new sources

he ambitious
construction
schedule could not
be maintained by the
seminar students, so
Everbach has turned
the house into an
extracurricular research
project. Though the
builders would have
preferred a thatch roof,
they settled on
pressboard made from
waste wood chips.
Recycled newspaper
cellulose was blown in
as roof insulation.

T

AUGUST 1995

ocal building codes will prohibit
habitation of the house—-except
by the birds that have nested in its
walls. But students will measure and
analyze how the structure holds up in
the w et northeastern climate. Carr
Everbach even hopes to invite LakotaSioux elders to visit the project.

L

of funding, not only to put the finishing touches to
the house itself, but also to buy equipment to collect
data on the structure’s durability. One of the main
reasons for building it, he emphasized, is to carry
out analyses of how well such a house holds up in a
northeastern climate. Temperature and humidity will
be measured by placing sensors in the walls, and any
qualitative changes that occur will be noted. Everbach would also like to hear the opinion of the Lakota-Sioux on the house and is hoping to invite some of
the tribal elders to view it.
Although local building codes prohibit habitation
of the house because of its use of nonstandard build­
ing material, as a research project it is a tremendous
breeding-ground for ideas on environmental living.
And, with an eye to its acceptance as a form of
dwelling in the future, Everbach claims, “It is cheap
and relatively easy to construct.” When one consid­
ers that it costs $100 per square foot to build a con­
AUGUST 1995

ventional single-family home, and that a straw-bale
house costs $15-$20 per square foot, the financial
appeal is obvious.
For the students the project appears to have
meant considerably more than just learning how to
build a house of straw. Brian Roche calls it “a very
valuable experience for me because it offered a dif­
ferent way of knowing my classmates— better than if
I’d seen them in class. And it taught me how to com­
promise.” And for political science major Michelle
Hacker ’95, building a house compared very favor­
ably to studying abstract political theories: “I really
enjoyed the technical, concrete nature of it— that
you actually saw what you were doing, and it had a
purpose. And the best part is knowing that, once the
data is published, something we’ve done may help
somebody, somewhere, in the future.”
And if that’s not enough to make you play your fid­
dle and dance a jig ... ■

Letting go
E d ito r’s Note: N othing is h a r d e r than

le ttin g o u r c h ild r e n g r o w up. L a s t
S e p t e m b e r 1 a s I w a s d riv in g h o m e
from Sw arthm ore, I h e a r d D onna D am i­
c o M ayer on NPR’s All Things Consid­
ered, talkin g a b o u t th e p a in o i takin g
h e r so n to c o lle g e . A n d w hen, a t th e
e n d o f the p iece, I lea rn ed that the col­
le g e in q u e s tio n w a s S w a r th m o r e , I
kn ew that r ead ers o f the Bulletin w ould
b e to u ch ed by h e r story. N oah A dam s
in trod u ced th e p i e c e a n d la te r s p o k e
with Charlie M ayer ’98.
N oah A dam s: In 1973, many Septem ­

b e r s ag o, H ow ard N em erov w ro te
“Septem ber, The First Day of School.”
The poem begins, “My child and I hold
h a n d s on th e w ay to s c h o o l. And
w hen I lea v e him at th e first-g rad e
door, he cries a little, but is brave. He
does let go. My selfish tea rs remind
me how I cried before that door a life
ago. I may have had a hard tim e let­
ting go.”
The lump in the throat that com es
from w atching your child disappear
behind that first-grade door is not the
last lump in the throat that a parent
feels. Donna Dam ico M ayer has ju st
gone through it again.
D o n n a D a m ic o M a ye r: In th e fall of

1982, when my firstborn boarded the
sch o o l bus for th e first grade, I dis­
solved into tears. My husband looked
on in to ta l b ew ild erm en t. “It’s th e
b e g in n in g of th e e n d ,” I s o b b e d ,
“today first grade, tomorrow college.”
“No,” h e said, “tom orrow h e will
still be in first grade, and we’ve got 12
years to go.” This week Charlie left for
college and my husband was wrong—
it was ju st y esterd ay that he got on
th e bus for first grade. The years, it
seem s, have flown by. W e have had
som e slow times, of course, these last
18 years, particularly the first five. In
th o se days it would som etim es take
me V/2 hours to get two kids dressed,
out the door, and into car seats. I can
rem em b er g ettin g th e la st b o o t on
foot No. 4, and then realizing that in
the meantime foot No. 1 had removed
its boot. Life was structured then.
L o o k in g b a c k , I’m n o t s u r e if I
believed it would ever end. I knew it in
72

my head, but never
in my gut. All th is
summer I’ve tried to
picture myself driv­
ing C h arlie to c o l­
lege. I could see the
four of us chugging
up 1-95, b u t th e
image ends there. I
could never picture
the three of us com­
ing b a c k w ith o u t
him.
I t ’s n o t lik e we
w e re n ’t p re p a rin g
all year long. Char­
lie’s senior year was
a constant reminder
of h is im m in en t
departure— campus
v is its , th e SA T s,
a p p lic a tio n d e a d ­
“Charlie is not the little round-faced boy on the bus to first
lines, essay s, inter­
grade. H e’s a man now on his way out into the world. ”
views, mood swings,
find waiting, endless waiting.
little less, which, paradoxically, was [
Last fall I set out thinking I would som ew hat of a loss for this brother,
b e w ise, su pportive, and calm , and who says, “I don’t miss him. I miss the
that I would learn a lot to pass on to idea of him.”
friends with younger children. Well,
He was checking out, and to me it
here’s what I learned: The whole expe­ felt too slow and too fast all at once. ,
rience is hard on everybody, it takes And frankly, I feel gypped. I feel like 1
over the entire family’s psyche, and in I’m b ein g h an ded ea rly retirement
th e end you h ave to sa y g ood bye,
from a jo b I lik ed . W hy are there
ready or not.
countless books on childbirth, breast­
We managed to survive the school feeding, and child development, and a
dearth of material on letting go?
My next-door neighbor, who is only
“It’s the beginning
a few years younger them me and the
m oth er of tw o sm all children, said
o f the end, ” I sobbed,
wistfully, “Sounds good to me. You’re
gonna get your life back.”
“today first grade,
“But I like this life,” I thought. Then
tomorrow college. ”
th ere is my 38-year-old sister-in-law
and h er very fussy infant daughter.
y e a r and h e a d e d to w ard su m m er She was weighing the advantages and
knowing th at we w ere facing issu es
d isa d v a n ta g e s of h avin g a second
cen tered around our so n ’s need for child quickly, and I blurted out, “Oh,
independence and the need to sepa­ you don’t want to have them only one
ra te as p ain lessly as p o ssib ly . I, of year apart because then they’ll leave
course, wanted everyone to be cozy for college back-to-back.” The look in
and togeth er and was silently horri­ h er eyes m ade me know sh e would
fied that neither one of our children welcome a college that would take her
c h o s e to spend m uch tim e with us 3-month-old now.
this summer.
Perhaps the best advice came from
T h e tim e s w e w ere a fo u rso m e
a friend at w ork who said to me in
w ere generally tense. Charlie fought early sum m er, “Ju st pretend it’s not
w ith h is fa th e r o v e r th e s m a lle s t happening.” So that’s what I did. Then
things. He guarded his privacy with a toward mid-August I began to unravel.
new-found vigilance. He ignored me I began telling store clerks and gas sta­
and tormented his younger brother a tion attendants, “My son is going to
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

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college.” I divided my w hole world,
friends and strangers alike, into two
campS—those who looked potentially
tearful at my p ro n o u n c e m e n t and
those who didn’t. Some of my dearest
friends have told me in one way or
another to get over it.
I’ve decided these last few months
are like th e final half hour at work
each day. I am a nurse on an acu te
psychiatric floor and th ere’s never a
day that I d o n ’t c h e c k and d ou ble
check my worksheet and the medica­
tion records as I get ready to leave. As
1go down on the elevator, I’m always
wondering if th e re ’s som ething I’ve
left undone or forgotten to pass on to
the next shift, and I’m checking my
pockets to make sure I’m not taking
the n arcotic keys h om e w ith m e. I
have that feeling now, the feeling of
unfinished business. Have I left some­
thing out of my mothering? How can I
squeeze in some last-minute words of
wisdom and im p o rta n t a n e c d o ta l
information about life, and how do I
let him know how much I love him?
It’s tim e. I b ou g h t th e ex tra -ta ll
sheets, the stam ps, detergent, tooth­
paste. I’ve given all th e u n solicited
advice I have to, give. Now I’ve got to
believe in the last 18 years. Charlie is
not the little round-faced boy on the

bus to first grade. He’s a man now on
his way out into the world.

Noah Adams: Donna Damico Mayer
liv e s in T a k o m a P ark , M ary lan d ,
which she found out this weekend is
exactly 128 miles from Sw arthm ore,
Pennsylvania. Her son Charlie worked
with us here at A ll Things C on sidered
for the past year, and today he had his
first c la s s at Sw arth m o re C ollege.
Charlie, how’d it go?
Charlie Mayer: Well, I was excited
and happy to talk to you, and now I’m
a little teary-eyed after hearing my
mother. I wish that I had had a chance
to have th is co n v ersatio n with h er
before I left. Maybe if she had read me
that or told me some of the ideas that
were in it, maybe we could have cried
together. She cried a lot and I didn’t,
and now I’m sort of feeling guilty that
we didn’t have th e ch an ce to sh are
that one la s t ... grieving.
Adams: Th at m om ent of leaving,
when she took you to Swarthmore, do
you recall that as a moment of signifi­
can ce, or w ere you ju st so rt of anx­
ious to have her go so you could go
ahead with college?
Mayer: I felt like I couldn’t get on
with my life, with my college educa­
tion, until they left. And I know my

friends felt the sam e way. While the
parents were still here, they broke us
up. Som e d ean s and th e p re sid en t
talked to the parents, and som e other
deans talked to us at the sam e time.
And th e d ean s who w ere sp eakin g
with us said, “Well, we have to move
on now. We have to invite your par­
e n ts to le a v e .” And s p o n ta n e o u s
applause rocked the hall.
Adams: It would have been kind of
tough, though, to have had a real seri­
ous talk all the way up to Swarthmore.
Mayer. It would have been difficult
because my father was driving like a
maniac and my mother was just hys­
t e r ic a l. W e sh o u ld h a v e h ad th is
maybe a week ago. But there were so
many things to take care of that there
wasn’t enough time to just sit down in
th e living room or th e kitch en and
have a normal conversation, which we
can do. We’re certainly capable of it,
but the time just wasn’t there.... ■
R e p r in te d w ith th e p e r m is s io n o f
D onna D am ico M ayer, w h ose son h as
en co u rag ed h e r to w rite m ore, an d o f
N a tio n a l P u b lic R adio® C op y rig h t ©
1994 by N a tio n a l P u b lic R a d io . A ny
u n au thorized du plication is strictly p ro ­
h ib ited . P oem rep rin ted w ith th e p e r ­
m ission o f M argaret N em erov.

September ; The First D a y o f S ch o o l
My child and I hold hands on the way to school,
And when I leave him at the first-grade door
He cries a little but is brave; he does
Let go. My selfish tears remind me how
I cried before that door a life ago.
I may have had a hard time letting go.

A school is where they grind the grain of thought,
And grind the children who must mind the thought.
It may be those two grindings are but one,
As from the alphabet comes Shakespeare’s Plays,
As from the integers comes Euler’s Law,
As from the whole, inseparably, the lives,

Each fall the children must endure together
What every child also endures alone:
Learning the alphabet, the integers,
Three dozen bits and pieces of a stuff
So arbitrary, so peremptory,
That worlds invisible and visible

The shrunken lives that have not been set free
By law or by poetic phantasy.
But may they be. My child has disappeared
Behind the schoolroom door. And should I live
To see his coming forth, a life away,
I know my hope, but do not know its form

Bow down before it, as in Joseph’s dream
The sheaves bowed down and then the
stars bowed down
Before the dreaming of a little boy.
That dream got him such hatred of his brothers
As cost the greater part of life to mend.
And yet great kindness came of it in the end.

Nor hope to know it. May the fathers he finds
Among his teachers have a care of him
More than his father could. How that will look
I do not know, I do not need to know.
Even our tears belong to ritual.
But may great kindness come of it in the end.
—H oward N em erov

Are America’s
Values Changing?
his is the provocative theme of the Saturday
morning forum at Fall Weekend ’95. It will fea­
ture one of our most distinguished alumni,
Christopher F. Edley, Jr. ‘73, a professor at Harvard
Law School and former special counsel to Presi­
dent Clinton. Swarthmore faculty members will join
him in discussing whether our nation is experienc­
ing a fundamental shift in what most citizens con­
sider essential principles and priorities.
How significant are changes in Congress and
the Supreme Court? Do the media accurately reflect
current trends? Can we identify a national consen­
sus as we reach the end of this century? Alumni,
parents, and friends of the College are invited to
help explore these timely issues.
Plan to join us also for other Fall Weekend and
Homecoming events, from sports to performances
and exhibits. There’s no more stimulating way to
welcome autumn! You can get details from the
Alumni Office at (610) 328-8402, or reach us on line
at alumni@swarthmore.edu.

T

Jo in u s fo r

Fall Weekend
at Swarthmore
O cto b e r 6 -8

12-17-99 43810

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