Swarthmore College Alumni Bulletin 2006-09-01

america
the überpower

feat u r e s
12: America the Ubiquitous
When one nation dominates the world,
its power breeds unease, resentment, and
denigration.
By Josef J of f e ’ 6 5

d e partments
3: Letters

18: Ask the Right Questions

Readers’ voices

Charles Bennett ’77 connects the dots
between medicine and public policy.

4: Collection

By Dana M a c ke n z i e ’ 7 9

A miscellany of campus activities

22: Life in Honors

34: Connections

Students revel in the rigor, challenge,
exhilaration—and exhaustion—of today’s
Honors Program.

Group meetings and faculty travels

By Carol B r é v a r t - D e m m

Alumni share their lives.

62: Artful Energy2

30: Painting Chester’s Future

47: Deaths

Robert Storr ’72: curator, artist, teacher,
critic, historian, and writer

A public mural project seeks to transform a
struggling city through collective creativity.

Remembering departed friends and
classmates

38: Class Notes

By Jeffre y L o tt

58: Books + Arts

profiles
54: God and Government
R. Kent Greenawalt ’58 explores the law
of church and state.
By Audree Penner

By Susan Cousins Breen

69: Suds and Science

Before the Separation, an album of songs
by Daniel “Freebo” Friedberg ’66

Biologist Gretchen Margaret Meller ’90
helps to create an informal opportunity
to share science.

R e v i e w ed by Jeffrey Lott

By Carol Brévart-Demm

70: In My Life
Back to My Nature
B y E l i s a b eth Commanday Swim ’99

76: Q + A
Why Is Rafael Zapata So Connected?
B y A l i s a Giardinelli

ON THE COVER
Millions of people around the world wear, eat, drink, sing, and dance
American—seduced by all things “Made in U.S.A.” Illustration by Daron
Parton. Story on page 12.

OPPOSITE
The Alice Paul Residence Hall glows beneath fireworks celebrating the
College’s 134th Commencement. Photograph by Ari Levinson.

parlor talk

O

n Sept. 11, I hung an American flag on my front porch, just as I had
done in the weeks following that shocking morning 5 years ago. I'm
no blind patriot, but it seemed like the right thing to do—a way to
remember. I also display my flag on Memorial Day, Flag Day, and Independence Day.
I have always seen the stars and stripes as a symbol of the ideal America
that I admire and love—industrious and benevolent, generous and democratic, peaceful and free. When I take my flag down from the front-porch
beam, I fold it carefully in the approved fashion—its triangular blue field
and white stars to the outside—just as I learned in elementary school many
years ago.
I remember Memorial Day celebrations in the small Allegheny River town
near where I grew up. The color guard snapped to attention, a wreath was
laid at a monument outside the American Legion Hall, a band played, and all
of the children rode in a short parade on bicycles bedecked with red, white,
and blue crepe paper and little flags.
My father, who, not long before, had
fought the Nazis in North Africa and
Italy, reveled in this simple celebration, taking home movies of the
parade and smiling with his pretty
wife and my aunts and uncles. This
was my country and my flag.
Later, during the years of protest
against the Vietnam War, I felt cheated when the hard hats and love-itDuring the Vietnam War, or-leave-it hawks appropriated the
flag as their pro-war symbol. If you
I felt cheated when the
wore the stars and stripes on your
hard hats and hawks
lapel, people knew you backed the
appropriated the flag as administration on the war. It was a
powerful symbol that should have
their pro-war symbol.
replaced the Viet Cong flags that
I wanted to take the
some protesters waved in the faces of
flag back from people
our returning soldiers. I thought that
America, where I was so lucky to
who were doing such
have been born, could not be the
things in my name.
country that carpet bombed and
defoliated the Vietnamese countryside. I wanted to take the flag back from
the people who were doing such things in my name.
Now, America is involved in another foreign war. Our flag is the object
of hatred and scorn in many parts of the world. Even our historic friends
question the United States’ unilateral foreign policy. As the world's only
superpower—the überpower of Josef Joffe's ['65] cover story (p. 12)—we can
theoretically choose almost any course of action. Yet we choose war. And, as
Freebo '66 says in his song “The Freedom Wall” (p. 58), we seem bent on
building a wall between us and the rest of the world.
The flag I fly at home is hoisted in the hope that America can still fulfill
the ideals of those remembered Memorial Days. The flag flies here at
Swarthmore too, high atop Parrish Hall—a daily reminder that we are an
American institution with a responsibility to our country and our world.
—Jeffrey Lott

2 : swarthmore college bulletin

Swarthmore
COLLEGE BULLETIN
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The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN
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letters
SILENT ON IRAQ

A DIFFERENT VIEW

I wish we, as a moral community, would
critique the contrasting points of view of
Paul Wachter '97, who is notably self-satisfied with the achievements of the latest
generation of student activists (“The New
Activism,” June Bulletin), and Dahlia Wasfi
'93, whose anguished question—“What
will you do?”—chastens our conscience
and exposes our failure to prevent the
United States’ invasion of Iraq (“For Now,
They Struggle,” June Bulletin).
The “new activists” are silent on Iraq.
According to Wachter, today's activists prefer “discrete causes” and “eschew the
grandiose.” I see that they prefer blindness.
The invasion was preceded by 12 years of
war conducted through sanctions and military bombings. The pretexts for the invasion were obviously phony. Liberals castigate the stupidity of Bush, but they went
along with the fiction of weapons of mass
destruction.
KATHERINE “KITTY ” BRYANT '74
Philadelphia

One of my cello students is a 64-year-old
Vietnamese man. He is a medical doctor
and has lived in Florida since he left Vietnam on a small boat during the exodus of
the mid-1970s. He saw the cover story
(“The Spirit of Vietnam”) of the June Bulletin that was sitting on my piano and
asked if he could read it. Last night, he
returned for his next lesson and handed it
back with a look of disappointment. He
said the visitors to Vietnam were fed the
images and messages the government
wanted them to have. His constant communication with friends and relatives who
are still living in different parts of Vietnam
gives him a very different impression of the
country today. Poverty and oppression are
everywhere, he said, and the South is still
made to feel the heel of the North, even
though it is ostensibly one country now.
He also was amazed at how a ruthless, dictatorial demagogue like Ho Chi Minh
could be elevated to a virtual saint. My student felt the article did a disservice to Vietnamese people everywhere.
Whew! Quite a difference in opinions—
and not unexpected for a country that has
had such a beleaguered past. To me, the
article instilled a desire to visit the country
myself someday. This probably won't happen, but it is a new interest.
EDWARD KLEIN '66
Gainesville, Fla.

SWARTHMORE AND THE NSA

I read “The New Activism” with fascination
and delight. Congratulations to Swarthmore's undergraduates and recent graduates whose activities and efforts are
described in this piece.
The article discusses 1960s activism
and compares it with activism today. It is
interesting to note that activism was alive
and well at Swarthmore long before the
1960s. This year, the American Council on
Education and Praeger Publishers released
American Students Organize: Founding the
National Student Association [NSA] After
World War II. The immense book (1,244
pages) documents the founding and early
years of the NSA and the activities of many
other intercollegiate organizations during
the era of the GI Bill, approximately 1945
to 1952. An introductory chapter describes
intercollegiate student organizations from
the 1920s through World War II. Swarthmore is well represented throughout the
book. In its pages, student idealism over
the years springs wonderfully to life. I
recently donated a copy to the College
library.
RALPH LEE SMITH '51
Reston, Va.

ONE CAN’T HELP BUT WONDER

“The Spirit of Vietnam” is certainly a
splendid, enthusiastic, and keenly observed
description of the treasures—cultural, historic, and panoramic—of this assuredly
happy, proud, and thoroughly progressive
country. Indeed, as so eloquently presented
here, today’s Vietnam seems to encapsulate
the quintessential ingredients that will no
doubt ensure soaring prosperity, social justice, and a future based on mutual respect
and understanding between our two contries.... One can’t help but wonder, then,
whether any of the [Swarthmore travelers]
were one bit interested in Vietnam’s shocking human rights record, total ban on
political dissent and press freedom, and a
judiciary based on Marxist principles.
GEORGE VANDOR
Kirkland, Wash.

the Spirit of

Vi
etnam
A FITTING TRIBUTE

I noted with great interest that Pat Clark
Kenschaft '61 was awarded the 16th annual
Louis Hay Award for Contributions to
Mathematics Education (“Class Notes,”
June Bulletin). This award is named for
Louise Schmir Hay '56, who graduated
from Swarthmore with a degree in mathematics, earned a Ph.D. at Cornell University in 1965, and became head of the Mathematics Department at the University of Illinois, Chicago. She was a founding member
of the Association of Women in Mathematics, and the Louise Hay Award was
established by that organization in 1990 to
honor her “lifelong commitment to nurturing the talent of young women and men”
and to mathematics education in general.
Louise died a very premature death on Oct.
28, 1989. It is good that her memory is
honored by this award—and most fitting
that a fellow Swarthmore graduate should
be a recipient.
HARRIET SCHLEY '56
Norfolk, Va.
FOR THE RECORD

I really appreciate the nice entry about my
plays in the June Bulletin (“Books + Arts”).
Backwater Park was nominated for an Elly
Award in the category of best original
script, but it received only the nomination,
not the award. Much as it would have been
great to receive the award, the nomination
was, in itself, quite an honor. I would hate
to grab undue notoriety and ask that you
please note this correction.
LAURIE DANIELS BLAZICH '63
Somerset, Calif.

september 2006 : 3

ELEFTHERIOS KOSTANS

collection

I WOULD LIKE TO TAKE A FEW MINUTES

to consider several habits of person and
mind you have cultivated here—rare and
powerful habits that ready you for leadership
of a truly distinctive kind.
Over your Swarthmore years, you have
not only mastered a great deal of content
and myriad skills but have repeatedly accepted this College’s distinctive invitation to step
back to gauge the relevance of that content
and those skills to the broader purposes of
disciplines, of intellectual pursuit itself, of
societies, and of life. You not only explored
disciplinary paradigms but stepped back to
ask what questions are most important for
those disciplines to ask. You not only built
the intellectual foundation required to find
your place—and thrive—in our societies
and world but stepped back to define your
own sense of the priorities our societies and
that world should set. You have not only
begun to consider the career paths you are
likely to pursue but have stepped back to
imagine the impact you want to make
through and beyond those careers.
And in your papers, experiments, and
artistic work, rather than be satisfied with
simply completing the requirements of the
task, you set yourselves the much more
demanding goal of producing insights,
results, and artistic forms that might, even
in the smallest measure, extend the frontiers
of understanding and creativity and, therefore, represent advances of significance. In
fact, that very practice of stepping back to
4 : swarthmore college bulletin

define significant ends and then stepping
forward to make a significant difference—on
however small a scale, has become a habit
integral to who you are and to what you
expect of yourselves.
Over your years here, you have also
accepted this College’s distinctive invitation
to test your perceptions, claims, and visions
against the most exacting juries of truth and
reality you could assemble—against relevant
theoretical and experimental findings and
historic and contemporary analogies; against
the most reliable and comprehensive picture
of facts and circumstances you could muster;
against the perspectives and interpretations
of others—those who tend to confirm as
well as those who may unsettle your worldview; and, again and again, against your own
maturing critical eye.
That exercise of intellectual humility, of
seeking to verify what you believe and represent to be true, has also become a habit integral to who you are and to what you expect
of yourselves.
You have accepted this College’s distinctive invitation to engage complexity. You
have taken joy in the intricacies of beautiful
arguments, performances, programs, and
proofs, but, you have, as importantly, come
to recognize that responsible understanding—whether of texts or of theories, of personal choices, or of institutional and societal
circumstances and priorities—often requires
a similar engagement of complexity. Based
on constant practice, engaging complexity

and committing the disciplined thought and
persistent energy necessary to take command of it have, as well, become habits integral to who you are.
Moreover, active membership in a community resolute in its commitment to intellectual and personal honesty has reinforced
in you the habit of demanding of yourselves
and of others the highest standards of
integrity.
Active membership in a community united in its commitment to the worth of the
individual has reinforced in you the habit of
seeing and valuing the other, through whatever differences, as a fellow human being.
Active membership in a community
premised on confidence in the other’s potential to become, through education, an independent decision maker of a better world,
has reinforced in you the practice of persuading others through arguments of logic,
fact, consequence, and ethical vision rather
than through moralistic and sentimental
appeal or instrumental threat and reward.
Leading others to independent understanding and embrace of a point of view, rather
than imposing or inducing unexamined
acceptance of that view, has likewise become
a habit integral to who you are and to what
you expect of yourselves.
I am quite sure that you see these habits
as now intrinsic to who you are and recognize that they have been developed or
strengthened here, but I am not as sure that
you appreciate how uncommon they are or

Swarthmore’s
Distinctive Invitation
to Lead
COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
BY PRESIDENT ALFRED H. BLOOM

how powerfully they prepare you for leadership of a truly distinctive kind.
Your habit of stepping back to define significant ends—and then stepping forward to
make a significant difference—ensures that
your leadership will be distinguished by your
exceptional abilities for intellectual and ethical analysis in setting significant goals and
by your resolve to make a difference in energizing momentum toward those goals.
Your habit of seeking to verify what you
believe and represent to be true ensures that
your leadership will be anchored in realistic
assessment of the obstacles and opportunities in its path, open to new information as
it unfolds, and vigilant that its own vision
does not override consequences it does not
intend.
Your habit of engaging complexity
ensures that your leadership will take careful
account of the complex trade-offs inherent
in the choices it makes—trade-offs such as
those between likely benefits and possible
harm, between the competing interests of
diverse constituencies, between response to
individual circumstances and furthering collective purpose. It will be a leadership that
imagines complex solutions that not only
make the hard decisions required to stay on
course but at the same time respond as well
as possible to all legitimate claims, not simply those of highest priority.
Your habit of demanding the highest
standards of integrity ensures that your
leadership will, to the best of your aware-

ness, speak the truth; to the extent that prudence and confidentiality allow, maximize
transparency; and, with unqualified commitment, honor community and public trust.
Your habit of valuing others across differences ensures that you, as a leader, will listen
to others, seek to build common ownership
of the directions you take, weigh carefully
the consequences for fellow human beings in
the trade-offs you make, and be willing to
draw the line on decisions that risk visiting
unacceptable harm.
Your habit of turning away from moralistic and sentimental appeal as well as from
instrumental punishment and reward,
ensures that you, as a leader, will empower
colleagues to independently embrace your
vision, rather than conscript followers to
that vision.
Across the disciplines, professions,
organizations, communities, nations, and
the world you will serve, there exists a deep
and pervasive thirst for leadership. And I am
convinced that when humankind has the
choice, it will opt for the very distinctive
qualities of leadership you are ready to
provide.
So, whenever you envision a promising
direction for your discipline or profession or
spot an imaginative strategy for your forprofit or nonprofit organization, whenever
the opportunity arises to take responsibility
for a group, institution, or society, step forward mindful of the quality and power of the
leadership you can deliver. If you don’t,

someone else will. And it’s all too likely that
that “someone” will be less prepared to distinguish significant goals and less able to
inspire others to embrace them; less resolved
to test the realities that bear on the implementation of those goals; less committed to
respond to the full range of complexities at
play in the decisions made; less resolute in
sustaining integrity; less practiced in open
and fair process; less determined to seek
solutions that affirm the value of all human
beings; less compelled to find and build on
common ground; and less certain to choose
a mode of persuasion which respects colleagues rather than demeans them.
The world is searching for the truly rare
and distinctive leadership skills that you
have cultivated here. I know this is so from
observing the way the world has responded
to the leadership offered by those who, over
the years, have sat in the very seats you occupy this morning. You will know I am right
once you begin to test your leadership skills
beyond Swarthmore and watch the world
respond to you.
The credential I will hand you shortly not
only testifies to what you have accomplished
but promises what you can accomplish in a
world that waits. So I ask you, as you walk
from those seats to this stage, let go forever
of any hesitancy you might harbor over your
ability to lead! T
The foregoing was adapted from President
Bloom’s address, delivered May 28, 2006.
september 2006 : 5

collection

Commencement
THREE HUNDRED FORTY-SIX MEMBERS

of the Class of 2006 graduated on May 28
at the College’s 133rd Commencement. President Alfred H. Bloom awarded honorary
degrees to philosopher and Africana studies
scholar Kwame Anthony Appiah, scientist
and inventor Neil Gershenfeld ’81, and jurist
Mary Murphy Schroeder ’62.
Retiring Dean of the College Robert
Gross ’62 addressed the graduating class at
baccalaureate services on May 27. The senior
class speaker—chosen by his classmates—
was Toby David. The class selected Assistant
Professor of Educational Studies Diane
Downer Anderson to address its Last
Collection.
Appiah, a native of Ghana, is the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of
Philosophy at Princeton University’s Center

2006

for Human Values. Writing widely on issues
of diversity, community-building, and cultural identity, he is best known for his book
In My Father’s House (1992), one of the most
assigned books on Africana studies reading
lists.
Gershenfeld directs the Center for Bits
and Atoms at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, a unique research group that
investigates the relationship between the
content of information and its physical representation in forms that have ranged from
molecular quantum computers to musical
instruments. Gershenfeld is the author of
Fab: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop
(Henry Holt, 2005) and When Things Start
To Think (Henry Holt, 1999). The “fab” labs
that he developed are bringing prototype
tools for personal fabrication out of the lab-

oratory and into the field. He has taught at
MIT since 1992.
Mary Murphy Schroeder is chief judge of
the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of
Appeals. She earned a J.D. at the University
of Chicago Law School in 1965. In 1975,
Schroeder was appointed to the Arizona
Court of Appeals, becoming the youngest—
and only the 12th woman—appellate judge
in the nation. She has served on the Ninth
Circuit since 1979 and as chief judge since
2000. Among her important opinions was
one that rendered invalid convictions of
Japanese aliens dating from World War II
and a 1982 ruling that struck down height
and weight requirements for female flight
attendants. In 2001, she received the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement
Award from the American Bar Association.

Senior speaker Toby David entertained
with a humorous talk that compared
getting through Swarthmore to the
Biblical story of Exodus.

President Alfred H. Bloom presented
diplomas to 346 members of the
graduating class.
After receiving their mortarboards on
a zip line from high above the crowd,
engineering graduates saluted
themselves with a flying banner.
As the bells of Clothier Memorial Hall
pealed, the faculty and senior class
stepped off in front of Parrish Hall.

6 : swarthmore college bulletin

By Jeffrey L o tt
Photograp h s b y E l e f t he r i o s Ko s t a n s

Sunlight bathed the Scott Amphitheater
on one of the first warm days of the
spring.

Honorary Degree Recipients

Neil Gershenfeld ’81, honorary doctor
of science: “[At Swarthmore], I spent
happy hours working in the lab in the
basement of the physics building. At the
time, some schools did laboratory demonstrations. Others would provide lab equipment along with instructions on how to do
an experiment. At Swarthmore, we were
given the apparatus and told to fix it. In
retrospect, this is one of the most important life lessons I learned. As I went on to
make computerized musical instruments
and molecular quantum computers and
personal fabricators, I was driven by the
kind of imperative I found at Swarthmore—to see what could be rather than
what is.”

Mary Murphy Schroeder ’62, honorary doctor of laws ( right, with Professor
of Political Science Carol Nackenoff ):
“Swarthmore and Professor J. Roland Pennock gave me the encouragement and
opportunity to do what few women
thought of doing in 1962—to become a
lawyer and aspire to public service at the
highest levels…. So my charge to you is
about opportunity. Your generation will
find new heroes. Perhaps some of you will
be among them. Help them, and help each
other reach at least my generation’s goals
of equal justice and equal opportunity, not
only in the United States but throughout
the world.”

Kwame Anthony Appiah, honorary
doctor of humane letters: “Here’s a conundrum for you: The past century has been
an age of unprecedented scientific and
scholarly mastery; it has also been an age
of unprecedented bloodshed.... If we’re
so good at math, why haven’t we become
whizzes at morality? ... When you graduate from Swarthmore, you’ll surely add to
the relentless expansion of human knowledge. As you do so, I suggest only, by way
of common sense, that you see what contributions you can make to that other,
great collective project of moral understanding.”

september 2006 : 7

ELEFTHERIOS KOSTANS

collection

A Select Set
of Students
A RECORD 4,850 students
applied to the College for
admission to the Class of 2010,
a 19 percent increase over
2005–2006. Offers of admission were sent to 897 (18 percent) of the applicants, from
which a class of about 372
arrived in late August.
Of those admitted from
schools reporting class rank, 33
percent are valedictorians or
salutatorians, 56 percent are in
the top 2 percent of their high
school class, and 91 percent are
in the top decile. The Class of
2010 comes from five continents, 36 nations, and 47 U.S.
states as well as the District of
Columbia. Sixty-three percent
of those admitted were from
public high schools, 21 percent
from independent schools, 8
percent from schools overseas,
and 1 percent were homeschooled. Fifty-two percent of
accepted students identified
themselves as domestic students of color: 21 percent as

8 : swarthmore college bulletin

Asian American, 14 percent as
African American, 16 percent as
Latino/a, and 1 percent as
Native American/Hawaiian.
According to the 2006
Princeton Review survey of
“America’s Best Value Colleges,”
Swarthmore ranked ninth
among public and private colleges offering the best education for the money.
And, for the third year in a
row, Swarthmore was ranked
3rd among national liberal arts
colleges by U.S. News and World
Report, behind Williams and
Amherst colleges. Of these
schools, Swarthmore is the only
one to have remained in the top
three since the rankings were
first published in 1983.
Tuition, room and board,
and other fees will rise to
$43,532 in 2006–2007, but the
College continues to meet all
demonstrated need with scholarships. More than half of
Swarthmore students received
aid in 2005–2006, with the
average aid award (scholarships, loans, and campus jobs)
totaling $29,500.
—Jeffrey Lott

Members of the Class of 2010
get to know each other
during orientation in late
August.

2010
No Single Motivation
for Terror
LINKING THE RECENT CONFLICT BETWEEN ISRAEL AND
HEZBOLLAH to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. administra-

tion repeated the message often used to justify U.S. involvement in
Iraq: that the “war on terror” presupposes the existence of a single
enemy united around a single cause—religiously motivated hostility to freedom and the American way of life.
Assistant Professor of Political Science Jeffrey Murer disagrees,
maintaining that militant Islam is neither unified and cohesive in
purpose nor religious in nature.
Co-editor—with Associate Professor of National Security
Affairs at the Naval War College Derek S. Reveron—and contributor to the book Flashpoints in the War on Terrorism, published in
August by Routledge, Murer says: “We found that insurgents who
are using Islam around the world are doing so to mark their differences from the states they are opposing. They are primarily fighting
local wars, asymmetrical wars of independence. Other than that,
they have little connection with one another.”

and variety of travel options
offered to alumni, the College’s
Alumni Relations Office recently entered into an agreement
with Travel Study Services
(TSS), a New York firm that specializes in creating travel packages for colleges and universities.
“We wanted to offer more
trips and be able to include destinations that we haven’t visited
before,” says Lisa Lee ’81, director of alumni relations. “We
also wanted to have some shorter trips, some that would appeal
to younger alumni, to people
interested in social or environmental issues—and possibly
even some opportunities for
community service.”
Although her office will continue to develop ideas for alumni travel and work with the faculty members, Lee says that TSS
will handle the logistics, allowing the College to offer three or

The book comprises case studies of 14 conflicts around the
world considered to be part of a “global jihad” by authors from the
Air War College, Naval War College, National Defense University,
and other colleges and universities including Yale and MIT.
Although acknowledging the threat of terrorism, Murer fears
that American policy exacerbates many conflicts by failing to recognize their local quality. “To treat them all the same,” he says, “is to
deny the specificity of the solutions that each requires.”
Addressing the question of whether terrorism is fueled primarily
by religion or politics, Murer and his co-authors contend that religion is invoked to stir passions and rally followers after leaders
make a political decision to fight.
“The ‘war on terror’ is largely based on a flawed understanding
of the dynamics that fuel terrorism,” Murer says. “Much of it stems
from a failure to recognize that Islam is as varied as Christianity. No
one expects Christianity to be homogeneous. Yet that’s what many
political leaders presume about Islam. A change in that misunderstanding—and the policy changes that would follow—would go a
long way to undercut terrorist motivations.”
—Alisa Giardinelli and Carol Brévart-Demm

COURTESY OF THE LIST GALLERY

TO INCREASE THE NUMBER

more trips a year instead of the
one or two currently available.
For more than 30 years,
Swarthmore has offered popular
Alumni College Abroad trips to
alumni, parents, and friends.
Usually accompanied by members of the faculty, featured
alumni, or guest hosts, participants in these trips have
enjoyed learning together about
a country or region’s history,
economy, religion, art, and culture. Programs include formal
lectures as well as opportunities
for informal discussions during
meals and tours—and a chance
for Swarthmoreans to get to
know each other while traveling
as a group.
Trips to three destinations
have been planned for 2007:
Russia, China, and river rafting
on the Salmon River in Idaho.
For more information, see the
back cover of this magazine or
go to www.swarthmore.edu/ac_abroad.xml.
—Jeffrey Lott

An exhibit titled Beach Series II, 1988-2006, featuring some of
the most recent work of sculptor Penelope Jencks '58, is on
display in the College's List Gallery, Lang Performing Arts
Center, from Sept. 6 to Oct. 8. Portraying Jencks' childhood
memories of seeing adults bathing nude during summers on
Cape Cod, Mass., eight 10-foot-tall, plaster sculptures capture
both the monumentality and physical vulnerability of their
subjects, as imagined from a child's perspective.

Murer says that U.S. policy makers should “move
beyond a one-dimensional
world view that centers
on Osama bin Laden and
the tendency to treat the
interface of religion and
politics as seamless.”

ELEFTHERIOS KOSTANS

Alumni Travel
Programs to
Expand

september 2006 : 9

collection
Getting to “I Do”

ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

PLANNING A WEDDING IS EXCITING—

Arboretum Honored
IN APRIL, the Scott Arboretum received renewed
accreditation from the Accreditation Commission of the
American Association of Museums. The arboretum was recognized for “professional operation and adherence to current and evolving standards and best practices; commitment to continual institutional
improvement; and for public service and accountability through fulfillment of its
mission.” The arboretum celebrated its 75th anniversary with the publication of
a commemorative history. The book is available from the Scott Arboretum ((610)
328-8025) or from the College bookstore (www.swarthmore.edu/bookstore).

Rhyme and Rhythm
I NTERIOR D ESIGN
In a house made all of afterthoughts, where
dusty cupboards block each others’ moves
and sockets brood unused while afternoons
hold sullen bookshelves in their glare;
in a house made all of surfaces, like papers
on a desk after colliding at the edge,
filth spills through the caulk’s white wedge
to fill in cracks, cement stray hairs.
In the heaving jumble’s even grime,
things lose their hum of smooth design;
and some uncaring understanding made
of a pair of wandering ants intrudes
to scatter blindly in the light and lose
the way back to the slowly fading fray.

10 : swarthmore college bulletin

and expensive. Thanks to a new book by
Associate Professor of Psychology Andrew
Ward and Shirit Kronzon of the University of
Pennsylvania’s Wharton
School, brides-to-be may
have an easier time “getting to ‘yes’” (or rather,
“I do”) than before. The
Bargaining Bride: How to
Have the Wedding of Your
Dreams Without Paying
the Bills of Your Nightmares (New Page Books,
2005) offers advice on
the business aspects of
getting married, discussing the cost
and compromise involved in choosing
the cake, gown, flowers, music, invitations, photographers as well as dealing
with hidden, unexpected charges like
alteration fees, corkage, and cake cutting.
Ward, who has conducted research on negotiation for 15 years, and Kronzon, who teaches
it, offer tips on working successfully with family
members and wedding providers and encourage the use of a “devil’s advocate” at meetings
and a contingency contract to cover last-minute
surprises.
Despite the authors’ meticulous attention to
the business details of weddings, they don’t
cover quite everything. “Call us hopeless
romantics,” Ward says, “but we don’t discuss
prenups.”

THIS POEM WON William Welsh ’08 the Iris N. Spencer Undergraduate Poetry Award from the West Chester University Poetry
Center. Seeking only original, unpublished poems composed in
traditional modes of meter, rhyme, and form, the award recognizes
poetic achievement among undergraduate poets from Delaware
Valley colleges and universities. Welsh was the first recipient of the
award, which included a $500 prize and an invitation to the West
Chester University Poetry Conference.
Welsh says that formal poetry—as opposed to the free verse
popular with most contemporary poets—appeals to him because of
its memorability.
“Fitting language to certain patterns of rhyme and rhythm gives
it a brilliance that is more likely to stick in your mind,” Welsh says.
He adds that formal poetry is challenging yet rewarding. “Reading
a poem that moves gracefully through a traditional structure is like
watching a dancer with weights tied to his limbs: his performance
is more impressive because he has to overcome externally applied
constraints. Even better if he can use them to his advantage.”

Astronomy Wulff Heintz, age 76, died on
June 10.
“Wulff set a model of intense dedication
to advancing scientific knowledge, which,
combined with his clarity and enthusiasm
for what he came to know, made learning
from him irresistible. The community is
sadly diminished by his passing,” President
Alfred H. Bloom said.
A native of Würzburg, Germany, Heintz
spent World War II in hiding to avoid being
drafted, after the Nazis made life difficult
for his physician father who disagreed with
their policies. Although he was still only a
teenager, his passion for astronomy—as
well as a subtle sense of humor—was
already evident. “I used to love the blackouts during the bombing runs,” he said,
“because they made it so much easier to see
the stars.”
In 1953, Heintz received a Ph.D. in
astronomy from Munich University, followed by an advanced postdoctoral degree
from the Technical University of Munich in
1967, the same year he came to Swarthmore
as a visiting astronomer. Two years later, he
was appointed an associate professor, serving as department chair from 1972 to 1982.
He retired in 1998.
During research that spanned more than
50 years, Heintz established the foundation
for much of the current knowledge about
the structure and evolution of stars and the
galaxies of which they are a part, completing
more than 54,000 double-star measures,
discovering 900 new pairs, and calculating
approximately 500 orbits. He was the
author of more than 150 research papers
and author, co-author, or editor of nine
books, including Double Stars (1978), which
is arguably the definitive text in his field.
Heintz spent his first 26 years at Swarthmore continuing to its conclusion an 82year-old program of photographic observation of the heavens, using the observatory’s
24-inch refracting telescope, in place since
1912. Concentrating on binary star systems
(where two or more stars orbit around each
other) and dwarf stars (those with smallerthan-usual masses and low luminosities),
Heintz completed a collection containing
more than 90,000 photographic plates of
about 1,500 stars or star systems, including

In Memoriam

Wulff Heintz ( above ) was “a prolific
scientist with a great love of observing,”
one colleague said. His instrument
was the 24” refracting telescope in
the College’s Sproul Observatory.

their cataloging and evaluation. In an
August 1994 Bulletin article, he announced
from Sproul Observatory, “We have
squeezed out of photography everything we
could do at this location.”
Dozens of students contributed to
Heintz’s work, staying up all night at the telescope. “It’s difficult for us to be awake for
class the next day after having spent a night
at the telescope,” he told the Bulletin, “but
the observations and their processing continued on schedule.”
After retirement, he continued to use the
telescope in Sproul Observatory, hosting
popular visitor nights to share his passion
and knowledge of the origin and properties
of stars and planets.
Heintz’s former colleague Associate Professor of Astronomy Eric Jensen says: “I
remember Wulff as a prolific scientist with a
great love of observing, especially with the
Sproul telescope. He was always ready to
share his time to educate people about the
telescope and its discoveries, whether it was
the public visiting during open observatory
nights, students learning how to use a telescope for the first time, or professional colleagues inquiring about the many observations made here by Wulff over the years.”
—Carol Brévart-Demm

TATIANA MANOOILOFF
COSMAN-WAHL, 1917–2006
ON MAY 9, Assistant Professor Emerita of

Russian Tatiana Manooiloff Cosman-Wahl,
age 89, died at her home in Riddle Village, a
retirement community in Media, Pa.
Although born in Siberia,
Cosman-Wahl spent
most of her childhood in China,
where her parents had fled to
escape the
Russian Revolution. Orphaned
at an early age,
she was adopted
by social worker
Ida Pruitt, who
assumed responsibility
for her education, including instruction in Chinese and English,
and, in 1938, her immigration to the United
States.
Cosman-Wahl served with a China relief
organization in New York City and as a Russia researcher at the Library of Congress in
Washington, D.C. She obtained a B.A. from
Middlebury College, an M.A. in Russian
from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in
Russian literature from New York University. After teaching at several colleges in New
York City, she served as an assistant professor of Russian at Swarthmore for 10 years,
until her retirement in 1982.
—Carol Brévart-Demm
september 2006 : 11

HALCYON 1978

FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE SPROUL
OBSERVATORY and Professor Emeritus of

STEVEN GOLDBLATT ʼ67

WULFF HEINTZ DIES AT 76

WHEN ONE NATION DOMINATES THE
WORLD, ITS POWER BREEDS UNEASE,
RESENTMENT, AND DENIGRATION.
By Josef Joffe ’65
Illustrations by Daron Parton

“America is everywhere” is a
statement attributed to the Italian novelist
Ignazio Silone (1900–1978). Today, the dictum should be expanded to include “and
even more so by the day.”
When I grew up in postwar West Berlin,
before enrolling at Swarthmore, America
was not everywhere. At that time, America
was military bases. America was the Berlin
Airlift (1948–1949), which saved the Western half of the former Reich capital from
Soviet encirclement; it was the M-48 tanks
that faced down Soviet T-55s across the
Berlin Wall in fall 1961. America was Westerns and Grace Kelly movies at the local cinema, interspersed with lots of German, Italian, French, and English films. And it was
just a single radio station, the American
Forces Network (AFN), which twice daily
played forbidden rock ’n’ roll during programs like Frolic at Five or Bouncing in
Bavaria on AM radio.
The only true American piece of apparel
was a pair of Levi’s. U.S. TV fare was
rationed—mainly because there were only
three public channels in Germany until the
mid-1980s, when private networks were
legalized. A phone call to America was so
expensive that it was placed only once a
year, at Christmas or for an important birthday. The Paris editions of The New York Times
and Herald Tribune were read only by American tourists. In school, it was the occasional
Steinbeck or Hemingway work in translation, and a lot of Goethe, Schiller, and

Shakespeare. Food was strictly of the local
kind: sausages, seasonal vegetables, pork,
herring, cabbage, dark bread, potatoes. So
was drink. When ordered in 1960 at the
Berlin Hilton, a Coke consumed 60 percent
of a teenager’s weekly allowance. Save for
the tourists and soldiers, America was not a
reality but a distant myth, as portrayed in
soft brushstrokes on TV by series like Lassie
and Father Knows Best.
No more. Today, the entire world watches,
wears, drinks, eats, listens, and dances
American—even in Iran, where it is done
in the secrecy of one’s home.

across Europe as an ironic testimony to
America’s gastronomic clout. (Originally, the
bagel—from the German word beugel,
meaning “that which is bent”—was parboiled and baked in the southwest of Germany, whence it emigrated with German
Jews to eastern Europe and then traveled
across the Atlantic to New York’s Lower East
Side.) Pizza, though invented in Naples, has
changed citizenship and swept the world,
courtesy of the U.S.-based chains.
Not only is American English the world’s
lingua franca, American culture became the
world’s cultura franca in the last fifth of the
20th century. Assemble a few kids from, say,

If there is a global
civilization, it is American.
Suddenly, Halloween—complete with
the American paraphernalia—has become
an institution in Germany and even in
France, a country that prides itself for defying all things American. Suddenly, the German Weihnachtsmann looks a lot like the
American Santa Claus, and the garish
Christmas decorations that festoon middleclass American suburbs in December have
sprouted up all over Europe. Thanksgiving,
the most American of feasts—complete
with turkey and cranberries—is making its
debut in the more cosmopolitan homes of
Germany. Even the lowly bagel is spreading

Sweden, Germany, Russia, Argentina, Japan,
Israel, and Lebanon in one room. They
would all be wearing jeans and baseball
caps. How would they communicate? In
more or less comprehensible English, with
an American flavor. And what would they
talk about? About the latest U.S.-made
video game, American hits on the top-10
chart, the TV series South Park, or the most
recent Hollywood blockbuster. Or they
would debate the relative merits of Windows and Apple operating systems. No, they
would not talk about Philip Roth or Herman
Melville, but neither would they dissect
september 2006 : 13

Thomas Mann or Dante. The point is that
they would talk about icons and images
“Made in the U.S.A.” If there is a global civilization, it is American—which it was not
20 or 30 years ago.
Nor is it just a matter of low culture. It is
McDonald’s and Microsoft, Madonna and
MoMA, Hollywood and Harvard. If twothirds of the movie marquees carry an
American title in Europe (even in France),
the fraction is even greater when it comes to
translated books. The ratio for Germany in
2003 was 419 versus 3,732; that is, for every
German book translated into English, nine

even in countries where it is denounced as
the “Great Satan.”
Joseph Nye, the Harvard political scientist, has coined a term for this phenomenon: “soft power.” Such power does not
come out of the barrel of a gun. It is “less
coercive and less tangible.” It derives from
“attraction” and “ideology.” The distinction
between “soft power” and “hard power” is
an important one, especially in an age when
bombs and bullets, no matter how “smart,”
do not translate easily into political
power—that is, the capacity to make others
do what they otherwise would not do. A per-

reviled while it was copied. A telling anecdote is a march on Frankfurt’s Amerikahaus
during the heyday of the German student
movement. The enraged students wore jeans
and American army apparel. They even
played a distorted Jimi Hendrix version of
the American national anthem. But they
threw rocks against the U.S. cultural center
nonetheless. Though they wore and listened
American, they targeted precisely the
embodiment of America’s cultural presence
in Europe.
Between Vietnam and Iraq, America’s
cultural presence has expanded into ubiqui-

America’s ubiquity goes hand in glove
with seduction. Europe—indeed, most of
thE world—also wants what America has.
English-language books were translated
into German, most of them from America,
as a perusal of a German bookstore suggests. A hundred years ago, Berlin’s Humboldt University was the educational model
for the rest of the world. Tokyo University,
Johns Hopkins, Stanford, and the University of Chicago were founded in conscious
imitation of the German university and its
novel fusion of teaching and research. Stanford’s motto is taken from the German Renaissance scholar and soldier Ulrich von Hutten (1488–1523): Die Luft der Freiheit weht—
the winds of freedom blow.
Today, Europe’s universities have lost
their luster, and as they talk reform, they
talk American. Read through mountains of
debate on university reform, and the two
words you will find most often are “Harvard” and “Stanford.” (Some of us mention
Swarthmore, especially at the new European
College of Liberal Arts in Berlin, where I am
a trustee.)
America’s cultural sway at the beginning
of the 21st century surpasses that of Rome
or any other empire in history. Rome’s or
Habsburg’s cultural penetration of foreign
lands stopped exactly at their military borders, and the Soviet Union’s cultural presence in Prague, Budapest, or Warsaw vanished the moment the last Russian soldier
was withdrawn. American culture, however,
needs no gun to travel. It is everywhere,
14 : swarthmore college bulletin

fect example is America’s swift military victory against Iraq, which was not followed so
swiftly by either peace or democracy. Indeed,
the relationship between “soft power” and
hard influence—that is, America’s ability to
get its way in the world—may be nonexistent or, worse, pernicious.
Hundreds of millions of people around
the world wear, listen, eat, drink, watch, and
dance American, but they do not identify
these accoutrements of their daily lives with
America. A baseball cap with the Yankees
logo is the very epitome of things American,
but it hardly signifies knowledge of, let
alone affection for, the team from New York
or America as such. The same is true for
American films, foods, or songs. The film
Titanic, released in 1997, has grossed $1.8
billion worldwide in box office sales alone.
It is still the all-time best seller. With two
exceptions, the next 257 films in the revenue
ranking are American as well. But this pervasive cultural presence does not seem to
generate “soft power.” There appears to be
little, if any, relationship between artifact
and affection.
If the relationship is not neutral, it is one
of repellence rather than attraction—and
that is the dark side of the “soft power”
coin. The European student movement of
the late 1960s took its cue from the Berkeley
free speech movement of 1964. But it quickly turned anti-American; America was

ty, and so has the resentment of America’s
“soft power.”
Ubiquity breeds unease, unease breeds
resentment, and resentment breeds denigration as well as visions of American omnipotence and conspiracy. In some cases, feelings
harden into governmental policy. The
French have passed the Toubon law, which
prohibits the use of English words. Other
European nations impose informal quotas
on American TV fare. America the Ubiquitous has become America the Excessive.
In the affairs of nations, too much hard
power ends up breeding not submission but
counterpower, be it by armament or by
alliance. Likewise, great “soft power” does
not bend hearts but twists minds in resentment and rage. Yet, how does one balance
against “soft power”? No coalition of European universities could dethrone Harvard
and Stanford. Neither can all the subsidies
fielded by European governments crack the
hegemony of Hollywood. To breach the bastions of American “soft power,” the Europeans will first have to imitate, then to
improve on, the American model—just as
the Japanese bested the American automotive industry after two decades of copycatting—and the Americans, having dispatched their engineers for study in Britain,
overtook the British locomotive industry in
the 19th century. But competition has barely
begun to drive the cultural contest. Instead,

Europe, mourning the loss of its centuriesold supremacy, seeks solace in the defamation of American culture.

AMERICA THE BEGUILING
America’s ubiquity goes hand in glove with
seduction. Europe—indeed, most of the
world—also wants what America has.
Nobody has ever used a gun to drive
Frenchmen into one of their 800 McDonald’s. No force need be applied to make
Europeans buy clothes or watch films
“Made in the U.S.A.” Germans take to
Denglish as if it were their native tongue.
So might the French to Franglais if their
authorities did not impose fines on such
linguistic defection. Japan’s cars and electronics have conquered the world, but very
few people want to dance like the Japanese.
Nor does the rest of the world want to dress
like the Russians or (outside Asia) watch
movies made in “Bollywood,” though India
produces more movies than all Western
nations put together. Nobody risks death on
the high seas to get into China, and the
number of those who want to go for an
M.B.A. in Moscow is still rather small.
America’s hard power is
based on its nuclear carrier
fleets and its stealth
bombers as well as on its
$12 trillion dollar economy.
But its allure rests on pull,
not on push, and it has
done so since Columbus set
out to tap the riches of
India but instead ended up
in America. Why? One need
not resort to such sonorous
terms as “freedom,” the
“New Jerusalem,” or John
Winthrop’s “cittie upon a
hill with the eies of all people upon them”—concepts
that evoke religious transcendence and salvation.
America’s magnetism has
much more tangible roots.
If it is transcendence, it
is of a very secular type—a
society where a peddler’s
son can still move from
Manhattan’s Lower East
Side (now heavily Chinese)
to the tranquil suburbs in

the span of one generation. Hence, the best
and the brightest still keep coming, even if
there is no Metternich, Hitler, or Stalin to
drive them out. Nor is citizenship
bequeathed by bloodline. People can become
Americans. They do not have to invoke
Deutschtum or Italianità to acquire citizenship; they merely have to prove 5 years of
legal residence, swear allegiance, and sign
on, symbolically speaking, to documents like
the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution. American-ness is credal, not
biological.
Two million legal and illegal immigrants
push into the United States each year. Every
new group has contributed its own ingredient to the melting pot (or “salad bowl,” as
the more correct parlance has it). In fact, it
was Russian Jews with (refurbished) names
like Goldwyn, Mayer, and Warner who first
interpreted the “American dream” for a
worldwide audience on celluloid. It was the
descendants of African slaves who created
an American musical tradition, ranging
from gospel via jazz to hip-hop, that has
conquered the world. It was a Bavarian Jew
by the name of Levi Strauss whose jeans
swept the planet. Frenchmen transformed

Napa Valley into a household word for wine.
Scandinavians implanted a social-democratic tradition into the politics of the Midwest,
while Irish built the great political machines
of Boston and New York. Hispanics set the
architectural tone of California and New
Mexico.
And the “work in progress” continues.
According to the article “Alien Scientists
Take Over U.S.A.” (Economist, Aug. 21,
1999), at the end of the 20th century, 60
percent of the American-based authors of
the most-cited papers in the physical sciences were foreign born, as were nearly 30
percent of the authors of the most-cited life
science papers. Almost one-quarter of the
leaders of biotech companies that went public in the early 1990s came from abroad. In a
seminar I taught at Stanford in 2004, three
out of five straight-A papers were written by
students named Zhou, Kim, and Surraj
Patel—and the course was not about computer science, but American foreign policy.
And so America has become the first “universal nation.”
Demonstration, seduction, imitation—
this is the progression that feeds into
“America the beguiling.” So why doesn’t
irresistible imitation generate affection and
soft power? The answer is simple: Seduction
creates its own repulsion. We hate the
seducer for seducing us, and we hate ourselves for yielding to temptation. A fine
illustration is offered by a cartoon on the
Jordanian Web site www.mahjoob.com
(April 29, 2002, since removed) that transcends its Arab origins. It shows a Jeep-like
SUV, a pack of cigarettes with a Marlboro
design, a can of Coca-Cola, and a hamburger—all enticing objects of desire, but dripping with blood. These products “made in
the U.S.A.,” the cartoon insinuates, are the
weapons that drive America’s global domination. They are meant to seduce, and yet
they drip with blood that symbolizes
heinous imposition. Yield to the seduction,
and the price will be the loss of your own
culture, dignity, and power.

AMERICA THE ÜBERPOWER
Anti-Americanism or any anti-ism flow from
what the target is, and not from what it
does. It is revulsion and contempt that
needs no evidence, or will find any “proof”
that justifies the prejudice. As a general
september 2006 : 15

diagnosis, this interpretation is valid
enough. Hence, visions of omnipotence and
conspiracy dancing in the anti-ist’s head are
mere figments of an imagination that pines
for a reprieve from crisis and complexity.
The problem with America, though, is
more intricate. Unlike other objects of antiism, America is powerful—indeed, the
mightiest nation in history. And being easily
leads to doing, or to fears of what America
might do.
As early as 1997, France’s foreign minister
Hubert Védrine began to muse about the
temptations of “unilateralism” afflicting the
United States and about the “risk of hegemony” it posed. Though George W. Bush
had not yet flashed his Texas cowboy boots
on the world stage (Bill Clinton was still in
the White House), it was time, according to
Jim Hoagland in “The New French Diplomatic Style” (Washington Post, Sept. 25,
1997), for Paris to shape “a multipolar world
of the future.” In 1998, France “could not
accept a politically unipolar world or the
unilateralism of a single hyperpower,” said
French Foreign Minister Hubert Védrine in
an interview (Liberation, Nov. 24, 1998). By
then, the United States was the “indispensable nation,” as Bill Clinton and his secretary of state Madeleine Albright liked to put
it. It was a power that, in 1999, would
unleash cruise missiles to bludgeon Serbia’s
Slobodan Milosevic into the surrender at
Dayton. By 2002 and 2003, there was sheer
hysteria in the streets not only of Europe
but of the rest of the world—complete with
the most vicious anti-American epithets like
“Nazi” and “global terrorist.”
Singular power, especially power liberally
used, transformed a festering resentment
into an epidemic, and so the anti-American
obsession that swept the world contained
an at least semirational nucleus—the fear of
a giant no longer trammeled by another
superpower. No, the United States would
not unleash its smart bombs against France,
Germany, Brazil, or Malaysia as it had
done—or was about to do—against Milosevic and Hussein. But anti-Americanism, like
other anti-isms, is not about rational expectations because power breeds its own angst.
It is the fear of the unknown, of what might
happen when ropes that once bound the
colossus have fallen away.
There had been plenty such safeguards in
the era of bipolarity—when the United
16 : swarthmore college bulletin

States and the Soviet Union, two superpowers, kept each other in check. Moreover,
America had contained itself, so to speak, by
harnessing its enormous strength to a host
of international institutions, from the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization to the
United Nations. Now, it had become a raw
power, which intimated as of 2002 that it
would go to war against Iraq with or without a Security Council resolution. Angst of
power unbound led to the perverse spectacle
of millions demonstrating against the United States and thus, “objectively speaking,”
seeking to protect Saddam Hussein, one of
the most evil tyrants in history.
Any anti-ism harbors fantasies about its
target’s omnipotence; hence the paranoid
frenzy of 2002–2003, which, interestingly,
subsided when American weakness in pacifying Iraq was demonstrated in the aftermath of military triumph. It was part
schadenfreude, part relief that the giant’s feet
of clay were finally being revealed. At any
rate, the fearsome power differential
between the United States and the rest of
the world seemed to have shrunk a bit. Less
clout, less loathing—four words that
explain hysteria’s decline. Yet, what prescription might follow from this diagnosis?
Reducing its might to reduce hatred is
not an option for the
world’s last remaining
superpower. Nor can
America seek to please
the world by becoming
more like it—less modern or more postmodern, less capitalist or less
religious, more parochial
and less intrusive. The
United States is unalterably enmeshed in the
world by interest and
necessity, and it will not
cease to defend its dominance against all comers. Great powers do not
want to become lesser
ones, nor can they flatten themselves as a target. There is no opt-out
for No. 1, unless forced
to do so by a more
potent player, and there
is no change in persona
for a nation whose

exceptionalist self-definition is so different
from that of the rest of the West.
The United States is different from the
rest, in particular from the postmodern
states of Europe stretching from Italy via
Germany and Austria to the Benelux and
Scandinavian countries. The European
Union is fitfully undoing national sovereignty while failing to provide its citizens
with a common sense of identity or collective nationhood. Europe is a matter of practicality, not of pride. As a work in progress,
it lacks the underpinning of emotion and
“irrational” attachment. Europeans might
become all wound up when their national
soccer teams win or lose, but the classical
nationalism that drove millions into the
trenches of the 20th century is a fire that
seems to have burned out. If there is a common identity, it defines itself in opposition
to the United States—to both its culture
and its clout.
As Europe’s strategic dependence on the
United States has trickled away, new strategic threats have not emerged. And substrategic threats like Islamist terrorism are not
potent or pervasive enough to change a
creed that proclaims, “Military violence
never solves political problems.” Of course,
massive violence did solve Europe’s existen-

tial problems twice in the preceding century,
but that memory takes second place to the
horrors of those two world wars and to
Europe’s refusal to sacrifice a bit of butter
for lots more guns. But why should Europe
make that sacrifice? Its actuality is peace,
which has made for a far happier way of life
than did the global ambitions of centuries
past.
Europe’s empire is no longer abroad. Its
name is European Union, and it is an
“empire by application,” not by imposition.
Its allure is a vast market and a social model
given to protection, predictability, and the
ample provision of social goods. Its teleolo-

the last half of the 20th century. If the “statist” Europeans invented social security, the
“individualist” Americans invented “affirmative action” as a set of privileges for
groups defined by color, race, sex, or physical disabilities. “Political correctness,” the
very epitome of postmodernism, is an American invention.
But if we subtract the postmodern from
the modern in the United States, a large
chunk of the latter remains. For all of its
multiethnicity, America possesses a keen
sense of self—and what it should be. Patriotism scores high in any survey, as does religiosity. There is a surfeit of national sym-

planetary clout, its location athwart two
oceans, and its global interests, it remains
the universal intruder and hence in harm’s
way. Its very power is a provocation for the
lesser players, and, unlike Europe or Japan,
No. 1 cannot huddle under the strategic
umbrella of another nation. Nor can it live
by the postmodern ways of Europe, which
faces no strategic challenge as far as the eye
can see. (Neither would Europe be so postmodern if it had to guarantee its own safety.) The United States is the security lender
of last resort, and there is no International
Security Fund where the United States
could apply for a quick emergency loan. And

With its planetary clout, its location
athwart two oceans, and its global
interests, the United States’ very power is a
provocation for the world’s lesser players.
gy is one of transcendence—of borders,
strife, and nationalism. Its ethos is pacificity
and institutionalized cooperation—the
ethos of a “civilian power.” Shrinking
steadily, European armies are no longer
repositories of nationhood (or ladders of
social advancement), but organizations with
as much prestige as the post office or the
bureau of motor vehicles.
If this is postmodern, then America is
premodern in its attachment to faith and
community, and modern in its identification
with flag and country. In the postmodern
state, says Robert Cooper in The Breaking of
Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-first
Century (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003):
“The individual has won, and foreign policy
is the continuation of domestic concerns
beyond national borders. . . . Individual consumption replaces collective glory as the
dominant theme of national life [and] war is
to be avoided.” The modern state fused
power to nationhood, and mass mobilization to a mission. Still, the difference
between Europe and the United States is
not one of a kind. After all, Americans are
just as consumerist and preoccupied with
self and family as are Europeans, nor do
they exactly loathe the culture of entitlements that spread throughout the West in

bols throughout the land, whereas no gas
station in Europe would ever fly an oversized national flag. With its sense of nationhood intact, the United States is loath to
share sovereignty and reluctant to submit to
dictates of international institutions where
it is “one country, one vote.” The United
States still defines itself in terms of a mission, which Europeans no longer do—
though the French once invented a mission
civilisatrice for themselves, and the British
the “white man’s burden.”
The American army still offers newcomers one of the swiftest routes to inclusion
and citizenship. And, unlike most of their
counterparts in Europe, the U.S. armed
forces are central tools of statecraft. American bases are strung around the globe, and
no nation has used force more often in the
post–World War II period than has the
United States—from Korea to Vietnam to
Iraq and in countless smaller engagements
from Central America to Lebanon and
Somalia.
But whatever the distribution of pre-,
post-, and just modern features may be, the
most critical difference between America
and Europe concerns power and position in
the global hierarchy. The United States is
the nation that dwarfs the rest. With its

so, the United States must endure in a
Hobbesian world where self-reliance is the
ultimate currency of the realm and goodness
is contingent on safety.
But a predominant power that wants to
secure its primacy can choose among various grand strategies. While anti-Americanism has been, and will remain, a fixture of
the global unconscious, it need not burst
into venomous loathing. Nor is the fear of
American muscle necessarily irrational when
that power seems to have no bounds.
“Oderint, dum metuant”—“Let them hate
me as long as they fear me”—the Roman
emperor Caligula is supposed to have said.
Fear is indeed useful for deterring others,
but it may turn into a vexing liability when
great power must achieve great ends in a
world that cannot defeat, but can defy,
America. T
Josef Joffe is publisher-editor of the German
newspaper Die Zeit and a fellow at Stanford
University’s Hoover Institute. This essay is
adapted from his new book Überpower: The
Imperial Temptation of America by Josef Joffe
(W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2006, with permission). Daron Parton is an English artist and
illustrator who lives and works in New Zealand.
september 2006 : 17

18 : swarthmore college bulletin

LLOYD DEGRANE

Charles Bennett has hired 21 Swarthmore students or young alumni to work in his
Northwestern University lab since 1998. The amount of responsibility he gives them
is unusual—there are no make-work tasks. Project coordinators ( left to right )
Neal Dandade ’06, Cara Angelotta ’05, Charlie Buffie ’06, and Cara Tigue ’06 are
seen here with Bennett at the V.A. Lakeside Hospital in Chicago.

Ask the
{Right}
Questions
CHARLES BENNETT ’77 CONNECTS THE DOTS
BETWEEN MEDICINE AND PUBLIC POLICY.

B y Dana Mackenzie ’79

At Swarthmore, Charles Bennett had several heroes.
One was the late Franklin and Betty Barr Professor of Economics
Bernard Saffran—a hero to many students. “I had him as a microeconomics teacher in an honors seminar,” Bennett says. “Bernie was
always about being careful with your thinking. He pushed me to
think about the creative aspects of what you are doing.” A second
idol was a fellow mathematics major, Dave Bayer ’77 (see “Beautiful
Math,” June 2002 Bulletin), who exemplified for Bennett what creative thinking meant.
“What I learned during my years at Swarthmore was that the creative people were the ones who could ask the right questions,” Bennett says. He was good at answering questions—good enough to
graduate with high honors. At the time, though, he found it frustrating that he could not figure out the right questions to ask, the way
Bayer could.
But something must have rubbed off on Bennett, now a professor of medicine in the division of hematology and oncology at
Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. There, he
has founded one of the country’s foremost centers for investigating
adverse drug reactions. The center’s success is based on asking the
right questions about drug safety. Why did this patient get seriously
ill after taking drug X? How many similar cases have been reported?
How many cases have not been reported because no one noticed the
connection? And how can we track them down?
In 2001, Bennett received funding from the National Institutes
of Health to develop the academic watchdog group RADAR. The
acronym stands for Research on Adverse Drug Events and Reports
(with some poetic license). RADAR now has eight full-time staff
members and about 45 collaborators. Although the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) is charged with oversight of the nation’s
pharmaceuticals, Bennett insists that the two are not in competition. “We’re not going to be better [than the FDA], but we can be
complementary,” he says. The FDA’s drug safety program could be
compared to a huge network of weather sensors; every year, it
receives 250,000 adverse event reports associated with thousands
of different medications. In contrast, RADAR doesn’t evaluate every
gust of wind—it looks for big storms. Bennett’s group investigates

primarily cancer drugs, with side effects that have been either fatal
or required major medical intervention. The drugs they investigate
are market leaders, usually with hundreds of millions of dollars in
sales. So far they have found 16 drugs that fit this profile.
As so often happens in science, Bennett got interested in adverse
drug reactions because of a personal experience. “My father’s best
friend was admitted to Northwestern with a very rare disease called
thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura [TTP],” he says. Discovered
in 1924, TTP is named for the purplish spots (purpura) that appear
on the skin of its victims, due to ruptured blood vessels. If left
untreated, it kills 90 percent of its victims within days. It was not
until 1992 that a lifesaving treatment was identified. With this
treatment, emergency filtering of the patient’s blood, the mortality
rate for TTP is now 10 percent. But fortunately, TTP is rare, affecting
roughly one person in a million.
Bennett’s family friend survived, but he couldn’t stop wondering
why she had come up on the wrong end of that one-in-a-million lottery. As a hematologist/oncologist, he knew the right people to ask.
“I told other doctors her story, and several said they had had
patients with the same diagnosis,” he says. “They had all taken the
same drug 2 weeks before they got sick.” It was a drug called Ticlid,
an anti-clotting medication for people at risk of strokes or heart
attacks. Within 3 months, Bennett had obtained information on 60
patients with TTP associated with Ticlid, 20 of whom had died. For
patients on Ticlid, he estimated that the odds of getting TTP were
about one in 1,600. It was uncommon enough that it had not been
reported previously—but far too common for comfort.
Bennett’s report, published in 1998, caused an earthquake in the
lucrative market of heart-attack medications. Roche, the company
that makes Ticlid, was forced by the FDA to write a “Dear Doctor”
letter to physicians, describing the risk of TTP. The bottom dropped
out of the market for Ticlid, which was replaced by a competitor’s
drug, Plavix—now the second-leading drug in the world in dollar
sales. (Ironically, in 2000, Bennett reported in the New England
Journal of Medicine that Plavix caused TTP as well—just not as frequently. The manufacturers of Plavix also sent a “Dear Doctor” letter to physicians.)
september 2006 : 19

“The data on Ticlid had been
sitting in several locations, but
no one had taken the time to
synthesize it,” Bennett says.
“That made me think,
how many other drug side
effects are out there that
people don’t know about?”
He set out to find the answer.
For Bennett, the TTP story was life changing. “I realized that the
data on Ticlid had been sitting in several locations, but no one had
taken time to synthesize it. That made me think, how many other
drug side effects are out there that people don’t know about? More
important, how many cancer patients die from side effects of drugs,
and the family and the doctor mistakenly attribute the death to the
cancer?” Thus, the idea for RADAR was born.
One of RADAR’s other high-profile cases concerned a drug
called epoetin, which is prescribed to prevent anemia in cancer
patients and patients with kidney failure. For 10 years after it first
became available, there were no problems with it, but, in 1998,
something went drastically wrong. “All of a sudden, 11 patients on
epoetin in Paris became horribly anemic, so badly that they were
getting transfusions every other day,” Bennett says.
“When I first read about the 11 cases, I was sure that there must
be more,” Bennett says. “We requested all the data we could from
the FDA. The data existed, but it took 9 months to clean up the
database. There were three epoetin formulations that were sold
worldwide (although only one is available in the United States),
and we had to identify which one the affected patients had been
taking. Sometimes they would be switching formulations right and
left. It took a fair bit of detective work to realize that it was one
company’s product that was causing the problem.” They eventually
identified 200 cases of the severe anemia, concentrated in four
countries—England, France, Canada, and Australia.
The problematic formulation was called Eprex, manufactured by
Johnson & Johnson (but sold only outside the United States). As it
turned out, 1998 was the year that mad-cow disease became a
major concern in England. Regulatory authorities in Europe
believed that a stabilizing ingredient in Eprex, called human serum
albumin, could transmit mad-cow disease. To be safe, they required
the company to change its manufacturing process. Unfortunately,
the revised formulation caused an immune reaction in some
patients. But why only in those four countries? It turned out that
they were the ones whose health services required doctors to inject
Eprex into the skin, to save money. “We showed that if they
20 : swarthmore college bulletin

stopped administering Eprex subcutaneously; if they bit the financial bullet and injected it intravenously, the side effect would go
away,” Bennett says. (Intravenous injections require higher dosages
because the drug is more quickly flushed from the body.) Indeed,
since 2004, when Bennett published his findings, the frequency of
this side effect has dropped to near zero. “We saved a $14 billion
market and preserved the quality of life for hundreds of thousands
of patients with kidney failure,” says Bennett.
It may seem odd to hear a doctor talking about saving markets,
but Bennett has an unusual background. He is one of a handful of
medical doctors who also has a Ph.D. in public policy. Henry
Kissinger handed him his doctoral diploma from the RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica in 1991.
“In the world of oncology, I was the first physician to earn a
Ph.D. in public policy,” he says. It was not an easy decision to go
back to the life of a graduate student after a decade of training in
medicine. Yet the sacrifice has paid dividends. His public-policy
background has enabled Bennett to co-author papers with a Nobel
Prize winner (Barry Blumberg, discoverer of the hepatitis B virus)
and also with his Swarthmore mentor Bernie Saffran.
The interface between medicine and public policy is huge. Adverse
drug reactions are only a part of Bennett’s work. He has also studied the link between low literacy and cancer. For example, doctors
have known for years that black men with prostate cancer tend to
have more advanced cases when they are first diagnosed. Bennett
showed that the difference has nothing to do with biology. Males
with poor literacy skills are not informed about the need for
prostate cancer screening, whether they are black or white. The policy implication is clear: All men need to be informed about cancer
screening in a way that they can understand. Brochures that
assume a high school reading level will not work.
So Bennett turned to another medium. “We hired veterans to be
actors in a video that informs veterans about cancer screening,” he
says. “They sit in the cafeteria, discussing cancer screening at
lunch. At the end of the video, it says that so-and-so served in

Korea, this guy served in Vietnam, that guy was at Normandy. It’s
something the patients at the veterans’ hospital can really relate to.
We showed that we could markedly increase the rate of screening,
at a cost of only $100 per person. It’s unbelievably cost-effective.”
Recently, Bennett and Northwestern received $3.2 million from
the National Cancer Institute to participate in a multicenter study
called the Patient Navigator Program, which will help inner-city
Chicago residents who are at high risk for cancer to navigate the
Veterans Administration and county health care systems. Bennett
sees it as a counterpoint to his work on adverse drug reactions:
“RADAR is cutting-edge in terms of science, and Navigator is cutting-edge in terms of service.”
In recent years, Bennett’s work has brought him back in touch
with Swarthmore. In 1999, he co-wrote a paper that appeared as
the lead article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Bernie Saffran was a co-author. Because the subject was sensitive—
it showed that drug companies were letting bias interfere with their
economic evaluation of new products—Saffran’s participation as a
neutral economist was crucial. “His was a voice of reason,” Bennett
says. “Bernie told me not to overemphasize the findings but to be
very precise and stay on point.” Several years later, at Saffran’s
memorial service, Bennett found out that his former professor had
been very proud of that paper.
Another co-author on the same paper with Saffran was Mark
Friedberg ’98, who, Bennett says, did excellent work on the project
and presented it at a national meeting. Since then, Bennett has
made a regular habit of employing Swarthmore students as interns
and research assistants. He has hired 21 Swarthmore students overall, including three interns and three 2006 graduates this year
alone. “Charlie has been a great mentor,” says Cara Angelotta ’05,
who is a project coordinator for RADAR. “It has been great to work
for him because, in a way, I feel as if I am still at Swarthmore. I’m
constantly learning and being presented with challenges, but in a
very supportive environment.” Angelotta will work with RADAR for
another year and then go to medical school.
The amount of responsibility that Bennett gives to undergradu-

ates who work for him is unusual—no make-work tasks. Nearly
half the papers he has written at Northwestern since Friedberg
worked there have had a Swarthmore student as co-author. They
even help him write grant proposals, which are the lifeblood of any
academic researcher.
“My colleagues are amazed that I allow [undergraduates] to
have major roles in the grant preparation efforts,” Bennett says. But
he believes Swarthmore students are exceptional because of their
writing skills and motivation to improve the world.
Bennett’s track record seems to justify the faith he puts in the
students. He currently has 10 active grants totaling $10 million.
The students also benefit from the experience. “They have been
important co-authors on papers that appear in journals that are out
of reach even for many senior academic researchers,” Bennett says.
“That’s why, when they apply to medical school, several of them
have received full scholarships to top-tier medical schools such as
Harvard, Stanford, Emory, the University of Michigan, and Penn.”
Bennett’s own status also continues to rise. This fall, he will
receive an endowed chair at Kellogg, the Northwestern University
Business School, concurrent with his professorship in the medical
school. The new professorship will connect the lines between his
public policy and medical research efforts. Bennett; his wife, Amy;
and their 7-year-old son, Andrew, are firmly entrenched in Chicago—at least, they hope, until Andrew matriculates to Swarthmore
for the Class of 2021.
Meanwhile, he hopes that he can continue to keep RADAR
funded. It’s an uphill battle, because federal funding opportunities
have dropped by half since the Iraq War began. “We really hope
some white knight comes out of the blue and understands that we
are trying to battle companies that have billions of dollars on the
table, while saving thousands of lives,” Bennett says. However, as
he said in a recent television interview, “If I save just one life, I feel
good.” T
Dana Mackenzie ’79 is a freelance science writer and author of The Big
Splat, or How Our Moon Came to Be.
september 2006 : 21

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By Carol Brévart-Demm

Photographs by Eleftherios Ko stans

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22 : swarthmore college bulletin

O

n a warm April afternoon, with
only 2 weeks before final examinations begin, a score of students
lounge on Parrish lawn, grabbing a last
opportunity to relax and soak up some rays.
Far from the sunbathers in both body
and spirit, two seniors—a young man and
woman—sit in the intimate Moore Seminar
Room, Science Center 149. The space is
small, the size of an average dining room. A
table of warm brown wood surrounded by
16 chairs almost fills it. Three walls consist
entirely of blackboard, covered with proofs
and equations; the fourth is a huge window
that looks onto a small garden.
The two seniors are in the honors seminar Modern Algebra, one of four 2-credit
courses or “preparations”—three in their
major and one in their minor—that they
must complete to graduate. As honors candidates, they will conclude each preparation
with two examinations given by scholars in
their field from outside the College—a 3hour, 15-minute written exam and a 30- to
45-minute oral.
Waiting for Professor of Mathematics
Charles Grinstead and their classmates, they
Matt Fiedler appreciates the opportunity
to present problems in a seminar setting.
“It’s when I’m presenting that I find out
whether I really understand it,” he says.

discuss the problems assigned for the
upcoming session. Two more students arrive
with Grinstead, who greets everyone cheerfully. He and Matt Fiedler ’06 start to chat
about the problems. Fiedler is an honors
math major with an honors economics
minor. Combining honors and course
preparations, he plans to graduate with a
double major in math and economics.
Grinstead assigns one problem to each
student and one to himself. They stand, take
pieces of chalk, and begin to write furiously
on the walls. Only an occasional inhalation
of breath and the constant, rapid tapping of
chalk on slate are audible as the mathematicians scribble formulas, calculations, and
explanations. Fiedler kneels down to use the
lower part of the board, which extends to
the floor.
As they work through the problems, a
lively dialogue develops. Grinstead offers
subtle guidance with a dose of humor, occasionally seeking assistance from the students. He treats them as his equals. “Professors don’t know it all,” he says.
Fiedler presents his problem and its correct solution, yet
this does not
satisfy
him.

He seeks a more elegant approach as he proceeds, admitting insecurities in some sections but resolving them as he speaks. Animated and enthusiastic, he stands to make a
point, makes a note on the board, sits, flings
his right foot across his left knee, and leans
back in his seat, completely relaxed. He is in
his element, engrossed in probing the
depths of the math.
“Students like Matt are a joy to have in a
seminar. He’s incredibly energetic and very
mathematically talented,” Grinstead says
later.
As the 3-hour session ends, Grinstead
assigns a new batch of problems, with the
promise, “These are going to be all blood,
sweat, and tears.”
“The seminars are the core of the Honors Program,” Fiedler says. “In math especially, it’s very tough material. You’re working through much of it on your own or with
your peers, and you’re always stopping by
your professor’s office, but it’s still hard.
Particularly with math, you can hit your
head against a wall for an hour or so, and
then, the problem cracks open—and that’s
wonderful.”
He appreciates the opportunity to present problems in a seminar setting. “It’s
when I’m actually presenting it that I find
out whether I really understand it. If I were
going to graduate school for math, this
would have been an excellent preparation,”
he says.

september 2006 : 23

Fiedler, however, plans to become an
economist, not a mathematician. “My International Economics seminar with Professor
[Stephen] Golub was awesome,” he says.
“He struck a great balance between textbook
work and articles he brought in to supplement them. Students made presentations,
building the theory bit by bit, and he’s so
good at asking the next question and biting
off the right chunk for that certain student
to do. He enabled us to work together really
effectively.”
The rigors of the Honors Program do not
prevent Fiedler from engaging in extracurricular activities. He is the scheduling coordinator and a writing associate in the Writing Associates Program, an advisory board
member and mentor in the Student Academic Mentor Program, a teaching assistant
and tutor in the Economics Department as
well as a member of the a cappella group
Sticks and Stones and technical consultant
for the College Young Democrats’ Web site
www.garnetdonkey.com.
24 : swarthmore college bulletin

“Honors was a good fit for me,” Rhiannon Graybill says. “I like being able to focus
intensively on something, and I like the way the honors seminars are dialogic.”

While Fiedler talks math, Rhiannon Graybill
’06, an honors religion major and honors
interpretation theory minor, sits in the science center’s Eldridge Commons, her eyes
riveted to her laptop screen as she writes the
conclusion to her honors thesis.
“I’m writing about the Tower of Babel,
analyzing the biblical story as a story in the
Bible and as a story that teaches us how to
read the Bible,” she explains. Graybill argues
that the Tower of Babel presents an alternative to what she calls the Sinaitic model of
understanding language, law, and interpretation. Her adviser, Associate Professor of
Religion Nathaniel Deutsch says: “Rhiannon came up with a thought-provoking and
original hypothesis and followed it through.
She has uncovered and explored some
things that nobody—including contemporary biblical scholars—has actually ever
touched on.”

In addition to three other honors preparations, Graybill, who received a Swarthmore Foundation grant in 2004 and the
Philip M. Hicks Prize for Literary Criticism
Essay and a Mellon Mays Undergraduate
Fellowship in 2005, has learned Hebrew so
that she can read the Hebrew Bible and the
Midrash in their original language. After
visiting Morocco last year, she also began to
study Arabic. Outside class, she is a cofounder of the TOPSoccer organization—a
volunteer group that enables physically
challenged children to play soccer—and has
served as a resident assistant.
IN THE FREAR ENSEMBLE THEATRE, the Lang
Performing Arts Center’s “black box,” Neal
Dandade ’06, an honors theater major and
honors English literature minor who is also
a premed student, rehearses Edward Albee’s
Zoo Story, one of three theater preparations.

Albee’s 1958 play explores isolation and
class differences through the story of Jerry,
a poor man consumed with loneliness, who
begins a conversation with Peter, a wealthy
man, and ultimately forces Peter to help him
commit suicide. Dandade is collaborating
with visiting director Ross Manson, founder
of the Toronto-based Volcano Theater
Company.
Dandade, whose parents left India in the
1970s to move to El Paso, Texas, is playing
Jerry, the main character. Along with the two
protagonists’ socioeconomic differences,
Dandade introduces a racial element into
the play. He makes Jerry’s character Palestinian American to place the piece in a
post–Sept. 11 context.
As they rehearse, Dandade, extremely self-critical, pauses several times to
correct flaws in his acting.
Donning a scruffy, oversized
overcoat, he becomes Jerry,
rendering masterfully the
dejected slouch of the downtrodden. His expressive face is
able to mold itself easily to portray both the anguish of a deeply
unhappy man and his animated
struggle to hold Peter’s attention as
he tells stories of the rooming house
where he lives. He has perfected an
Arabic accent.
“You’re hitting all the beats, getting
all the details,” Manson tells him.
“This is the first college-level production I’ve directed,” Manson says, “and I
treat it—and Neal—the way I would any
other process or actor. [His work is] of a
very high level. He has raw talent, and he
takes direction extremely well. All he needs
is experience.”
Dandade’s previous honors preparation
in theater was Mango Chutney on Mesa Street,
an autobiographical solo play, which he created and performed to excellent reviews in
February.
“Neal came to me several years ago and
wanted to study theater in India,” Assistant
Professor of Theater and Dandade’s adviser
Erin Mee says. “So I put him in touch with
Kavalam Narayan Panikkar, one of India’s
most famous directors, with whom I have
worked. Neal came back overflowing with
new ideas about theater. He wanted to put
some of those ideas to work in a solo piece
about growing up in El Paso. I gave him

some assignments for the summer and hired
a director [solo actress and director Maria
Möller] to work with him. This resulted in
Mango Chutney, a brilliant and moving piece
of theater.”
For relaxation, Dandade performs
improv comedy with Vertigo-Go and has cohosted a WSRN radio show. He is a member
of the Southeast Asian society DESHI and
serves as a campus tour guide.
Associate Professor and Chair of Theater
Studies Allen Kuharski says: “Neal is a great
example of what can happen
at Swarthmore:

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He’s graduating from the Honors Program in theater, and he also got great
scores on his MCATs.”
IN TROTTER HALL, students gather in the
Roland Pennock Seminar Room for Professor of Political Science Carol Nackenoff’s
Constitutional Law seminar. There are 12 of
them—a large seminar group, but, with 60
percent of all political science majors in the
Honors Program, this is not surprising.
“I’m getting scoliosis from carrying all
the reading material for this class,” one
student jokes.
“How many trees do you think were
killed for honors seminars?” another
student wonders.
Abena Mainoo ’06, an honors political

science major and honors French minor
from Ghana, sits quietly, organizing materials for her oral argument in today’s moot
court session. The students will argue the
case LULAC v. Perry, examining the constitutionality of the 2003 controversial redrawing of the Texas congressional map that
helped Republicans to win 21—up from
15—of the state’s 32 seats in Congress.
Mainoo has chosen the role of counsel for
the defense, representing the state of Texas
and Governor Rick Perry—“to see how I’ll
do arguing for a side I’m not naturally sympathetic with,” she says.
Nackenoff calls the court to order with a
gavel, and Mainoo, dressed in a smart black
pants suit, steps to the podium. Clearly and
concisely, she argues that Texas is not guilty
of unconstitutional mid-decade redistricting, racial and political gerrymandering,
and voter dilution. Calmly assured, she
answers questions from the other “justices.”
Kristin Davis ’06, in a white pants suit,
presents opposing arguments. Afterward,
both have the opportunity for rebuttal. A
loud and lively discussion ensues, until
Nackenoff calls a 15-minute recess for
snacks. Scheduled from 1 to 5 p.m., this
class almost always lasts until 6 p.m.
The court decides in Mainoo’s
favor on the counts of racial and political gerrymandering and vote dilution
but determines that mid-decade
redistricting was unconstitutional.
“I was extremely impressed with
Abena’s formal presentation,”
Nackenoff says. “It was very professional, very rigorous. She had a really good
instinct how to pitch it. None of the questions threw her, and she was able to craft
really good answers. She’d make an excellent
trial lawyer.”
Stoical about the staggering workload
accompanying honors seminars, Mainoo
says: “For my Latin American Politics seminar with Professor Ken Sharpe, we received
a 40-page syllabus. We had to present
papers every week. The class went from
7 p.m. to midnight or 1 a.m. Sometimes, I
got sleepy, but it was always really interesting. The seminars just go as long as they
go.” Instead of grading the students’ papers,
Sharpe writes one-page, letter-style critiques
of their work. “He indicated things he liked
and those I could improve on,” Mainoo
says. “It was a kind of correspondence with
him, and he always offered constructive critseptember 2006 : 25

The Evolution of Honors
tained by the lack of grades. Rather, that sense of camaraderie is built
Since 1922, when College President Frank Aydelotte first introby the sense of responsibility that we, as teachers, give to students,
duced it, Swarthmore’s Honors Program, based on the Oxford tutorial
model and arguably the oldest such program in the country, has under- the respect we give them in terms of this dialogic model, and the real
love of learning and testing of ideas that goes on in the seminars,”
gone several revisions. The most recent was in 1996, after the number
Williamson says.
of participants reached its lowest ebb at 10 percent of the student
This year, 130 external examiners came to campus to evaluate the
body.
work of 114 honors candidates, constituting 33 percent of the senior
“Despite changes over the decades, the essence of the program
class. Ten received highest honors; 64, high honors; and 40, honors.
remains the same,” affirmed Professor of English Literature and Pro“The outside examiners love our students and are very impressed
gram Coordinator Craig Williamson. Seminars still form the backbone
with them,” Williamson says. He adds that Swarthmore faculty memof the program. Whether in classrooms, labs, or research contexts,
bers relish not only the opportunity to exchange
students take responsibility for leading discussions
new ideas but also the chance to show the quality
and critiquing each other’s work. Dialogue flows
“Honors students at
of their students and the program.
back and forth between students and faculty. And
Swarthmore need to
“For 84 years, the Honors Program has embodied
the program culminates in external examinations
have an awful lot of
the College’s commitment to the rigor, joy, and sigadministered by invited scholars, who determine
stamina, just to be able
nificance of the finest liberal arts education,” said
whether a student receives honors, high honors, or
to cover the tremendous
President Alfred H. Bloom, “and the 1990s revision
highest honors.
amount of work. They
has had a dramatically positive effect in energizing
In 1996, the number of required honors preparahave to be dedicated
and sustaining the program in a very different
tions was set at four—three in the major and one in
world. Grades have become necessary to ensure that
the minor. The restructuring made the program more
to learning—really driven
our students are not disadvantaged in graduate and
accessible and attractive to students and opened the
by curiosity for knowlprofessional school admission. The subject matter of
way for the departments that had dropped out of
edge and the wish to do
many disciplines that could not be segmented into
the system to reenter. For these departments, relyresearch and to think.”
2-credit seminars is effectively accommodated, and
ing only on 2-credit seminars had become inconsis—Cynthia Halpern, associate
research projects, theses, foreign study, communitytent with the breadth of the disciplinary preparation
professor of political science
based initiatives, and the creative arts all have
they felt responsible to offer. The revised structure
taken their rightful place in the program.
allows courses to be combined to create honors
“Our graduates who have participated in this Honors Program
preparations and welcomes in-depth research and honors theses, which
invariably count their experiences—particularly their interactions with
typically demand an entire academic year of work.
The structure also enables students to be examined in foreign study the external examiners—to be among the most formative experiences
of their lives, moments that reaffirm for a lifetime their confidence to
and community-based projects, encourages interdisciplinary combinaset the highest standards for themselves and to chart their own inteltions of majors and minors, and invites participation by the creative
lectual paths.”
arts in the form of poetry portfolios, theater productions, musical
Assistant Professor of Politics Kenneth Kersch of Princeton, who for
compositions, and art exhibits. Every academic department of the Col2 years has served as the outside examiner for Professor of Political
lege—including all the sciences and engineering—now participates.
Science Carol Nackenoff’s Constitutional Law seminar, offers an outside
The revision also includes a change in the grading policy. Under
perspective: “The Swarthmore Honors Program in many ways resembles
the former system, students were not graded in honors seminars in
the Ph.D. qualifying exams we give to our students at Princeton. I
order to further the spirit of student-teacher collaboration in preparwrite both exams and orally examine both Swarthmore and my Ph.D.
ing for the outside examiners. However, as students became increasstudents at about the same time of year. The Swarthmore students are
ingly aware of the importance of grades for acceptance into graduate
every bit as good as my graduate students—a testament to both them
and professional schools, many were discouraged from enrolling. Since
and their teachers. I find that I am able to use the same pool of ques1996, Swarthmore professors award grades in the honors preparations,
tions for both exams. I also enjoy the opportunity to spend time with
and the outside examiners confer honorifics. To ensure the pre-emimembers of the political science faculty at Swarthmore during my
nent role of the Honors Program, “distinction in course” is no longer
visit—a very interesting and enjoyable group of people.”
awarded by the College.
—C.B.D.
“I think the camaraderie in the seminars was never largely sus-

icism. It was definitely not about grades.”
Mainoo says that the frequent presentations required in the honors seminars have
built up her self-confidence in oral performance, especially in French; writing weekly
papers has improved her writing; the
tremendous amount of reading has helped
her learn to “skim” proficiently; and through
studying in groups with her seminar mates,
26: swarthmore college bulletin

she has made new friends and learned new
perspectives.
Working out and running for fun with
friends helps relieve stress. She has been a
member of the Swarthmore African Students Association, has participated in the
Chester Debate and the Chinatown Tutorial, and has worked for 11 hours a week in a
number of campus offices.

CLASSES ARE OVER ON APRIL 28. In the
days preceding their honors exams, Fiedler,
Graybill, Dandade, and Mainoo are quietly
confident.
Fiedler has a plan to ensure that he can
review everything by exam time. His main
challenge is in preparing for Real Analysis.
“I took the course in my sophomore year, so
it’s the most distant,” he says. For math, he

hard for Postmodern Religious Thought.
There are four of us, and we’ve pretty much
taken over the religion seminar room. There
are books and notes everywhere. It’s rather
fun in an intense kind of way.” She is
focused and not nervous.
Dandade and his classmates practice
written and oral exams with Assistant Professor of American Studies Kendall Johnson. He spends days in the library looking
at Theater History seminar papers that he
and his classmates wrote in their junior
year. “One can only prepare so much for
these exams,” he says. “Our real preparation
was when we stayed up, pulling all-nighters
to read and write seminar papers during the
semester.” All the hours of study in McCabe
tire him. “It’s the thought of being done in a
couple of weeks that keeps me driven,” he
says.
Mainoo participates in a group study
session with Professor Sharpe. “We spent 3
hours throwing out possible exam questions. Not only did we resolve many issues
about the exam, but we also resolved a lot of
big-picture questions. It was exciting and
inspiring.” Assistant Professor of Political
Science Jeffrey Murer, her European Politics
teacher, plans a similar study session for the
next day.

Neal Dandade, rehearsing with Toby David ’06, says that his honors preparation The
Zoo Story enabled him to explore the Sanford-Meisner technique, in which he had
become interested while studying independently.

prefers to work alone rather than in a study
group. “In terms of working with other
folks, I’m not the honors poster student.
Looking over old exams and reflecting on
my several years of experience in math, I
think there will be a large element of luck.
Lots of proofs require a ‘lightning bolt of
inspiration.’ Sometimes, the bolt comes,
sometimes it doesn’t. How I do will depend

a lot on how many lightning bolts come
through.”
In addition to studying for exams, Graybill is preparing to present her thesis, as a
student researcher representing the Humanities Division, to the Board of Managers at
their upcoming dinner meeting this week.
With three exams, she, too, has a plan.
“Right now,” she says, “I’m studying pretty

THE WRITTEN EXAMINATIONS END, and the students’ reports are varied. Fiedler’s economics exam, Public Finance, has gone well. The
math exams—Real Analysis, Mathematical
Statistics, and Modern Algebra—were more
difficult. “The stats exam probably went the
best of the three; I could do 70 to 80 percent of that one well but substantially less
on the algebra and the analysis. There were
some theorems in analysis that I had simply
never studied before. They had not come up
in class, and I couldn’t find them in any of
my textbooks. There was no time to panic,
though, which was a good thing,” he says.
He and his study group research and learn
the previously unknown material until they
are confident of being able to discuss it in
the upcoming orals.
Graybill has sailed through her written
exams. “I’m meeting my study group for
lunch today, but I’m pretty much ready for
orals. I think it’ll be OK,” she says. She is
happy with her thesis presentation to the
Board. “I was a little apprehensive because
it’s very academic and filled with technical
biblical issues, and suddenly, I had to turn it
september 2006 : 27

into a 10-minute, after-dinner presentation.
But the Board members asked a lot of questions and seemed really interested in it,” she
says.
Also positive about his exams, Dandade
is delighted by the positive reaction to the
campus performance of The Zoo Story, especially pleased that friends Dito van Reigersberg ’94 and Dan Rothenberg ’95 of the Pig
Iron Theater attended and enjoyed the play.
Dandade can hardly wait for orals. “The
reason I think I’m a good candidate for the
Honors Program,” he says, “is because I like
to talk about my ideas and don’t know if I
can always fully express them on paper. It’s
nice to have this second chance.”
Mainoo’s smile is a little less brilliant
than usual. Her first exam, on the 19th-century French novel, she fears, did not go well.
“I prepared right up until the night before,
and that was a mistake,” she says. Running
out of time, she failed to complete her final
answer but now looks forward to having the
chance to do so in the oral exam. Her other
three exams have been less problematic, and
Latin American Politics was even fun, she
says. “I’m really looking forward to talking
with the examiner for that one because he
wrote one of the main texts we studied. It
will be exciting to engage him in conversation about that,” she says.
During the 2 weeks before Commencement, only seniors are left on campus. The
four students comment on the strange, limboesque atmosphere of the days between
honors written and oral exams—all are
ready and anxious to get on with it.
A couple days before orals begin, honors
students receive an e-mail from the Registrar’s Office, reminding them not to wear
jeans or T-shirts when they appear before
the external examiners. The note advises
them that they may take their written exam
questions and answers with them but
should not refer to them too often.
BY MAY 20, IT’S OVER. The students are
relieved and euphoric. “When I came out, I
felt pretty good. It was great to have it over.
It had been quite a process,” Fiedler says.
Yet, he is disappointed by the format of the
math orals. “A lot of people talk about the
wonderful conversations they have with
their examiners, but that only really happened in my economics exam. In the math
exams, I was up at a board solving problems
until the 45 minutes were up. There’s not
28 : swarthmore college bulletin

“A conversation with a friend over dinner the night before my first oral ended up
forming the basis of most of my exam,” Abena Mainoo says. “I really appreciated the
opportunities to discuss these things with my peers and to think them through critically and defend them.”

much give and take. Maybe it’s not as fulfilling for math majors because of that.”
As with her written exams, Graybill says
she had a good feeling. “I thought it would
be hard to have three in one day, but it was
actually nice because I was really focused—
and then they were done. The department
was so supportive, sitting around telling me,
‘It’s going to be fine. Have some free
lunch.’”
“It was great!” Dandade says, “Just like
having a conversation. Afterward, I was
pretty exhausted, but it wasn’t bad at all.”
In her first exam on European politics,
Mainoo says she was so nervous that her

responses were too formal. Talking about it,
she relives the experience, and words tumble
out: “My examiner realized I was nervous.
He said, ‘I could be asking you these questions outside this office, just as if we were
having a chat.’ That relaxed me. I even started to interrupt and ask him questions—just
the way it’s supposed to be. I was really
happy with that exam. I definitely sweated
in all of them, but, after my last one, I came
out and thought, ‘I’m done.’ A professor I
know from Penn was there as an examiner,
not mine, but it was great to see him. And
Professor Halpern, who encouraged me to
do honors in the first place, was there, too.

Then, I met my friends; we went and
changed into flip-flops, and it felt so good,
so really good.”
By Saturday evening, the long-awaited
notes lie in the students’ mail boxes. Fiedler,
Graybill, Dandade, and Mainoo all receive
high honors. Fiedler regrets the lack of feedback on his exam performance. “You do all
this stuff,’ he says, “then you never find out
how you did in your individual exams. You
get this one-line letter from the registrar: ‘It
is my pleasure to inform you that the visiting examiners have recommended that you
be awarded your degree with honors/high
honors/highest honors.’ It’s a bizarre little
piece of paper—but maybe it will seem less
anticlimactic over time.”
CELEBRATIONS BEGIN. At the Iron
Hill Brewery in Media, Pa.,
Fiedler enjoys one of the best
hamburgers he has ever eaten.
The next day, a rainy Sunday, he
buys a jigsaw puzzle at Target,
and, for the next 14 hours, he and
some friends work on it. “It was a
1,000-piece puzzle with a big area of
sky and lots of rocks that look all the
same.” He attacks the puzzle with the
same tenacity he applies to a difficult
math problem, completing it at 4 a.m.
“I’ve never before been able to devote
that much time here to something that
has nothing to do with anything.”
Graybill heads for the beach and Hershey Park with friends. Mainoo and Dandade both visit friends in New York City. All
spend time on campus with friends, relishing a final opportunity to be together at the
College. “It’s an interesting feeling to be on
Swarthmore’s campus without having something intellectual to think about,” Dandade
says. Mainoo, on the orders of her mother
and aunt, who are flying in from Ghana, has
a 3-hour appointment downtown to have
her neat Afro hairstyle braided for Commencement.

and contributions to the College community. In a week or so, he will head for Washington, D.C., to spend a couple of years
working for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and sharing a house with
Swarthmore friends.
“The honors experience has been terrific,” he says. “That you’re with people who
are academically serious about material
that’s at such a challenging level, is great.
The math seminars forced me to really
refine my thought processes and be logical
and rigorous in a way that you don’t have
outside of a math seminar. That ability for
analytical and logical rigor is a skill that
I’ll be able to use in whatever I do.”

Graybill says that, despite the workload,
the Honors Program has been wonderful for
her. “The small classes, caring professors,
and passionate classmates really intensify
the college experience.”
After Commencement, Dandade’s mother will return to El Paso, while he and his
father head to Chicago for a few days. In
September, Dandade will pursue public
health research, by day, with Charles Bennett ’77, a professor of medicine at Chicago’s
Northwestern University (see page 18); by
night, he plans on seeking venues to perform Mango Chutney on Mesa Street and finding improv opportunities.
“I’d definitely choose honors again.
Working with outside directors has been a
great way to learn about doing theater in the
professional world. I’ve learned so much
through my performance pieces that I
couldn’t have learned otherwise. And my
American Studies seminar with Kendall
Johnson really taught me how to pick
things apart and look at them from different angles. In terms of just becoming
a thinker, this changed me a lot.”
Mainoo welcomes her parents and
an aunt from Ghana and a cousin
from London, with whom she has
been celebrating during the past few
days. She will return to Ghana for
the summer, “to see how things
are in West Africa,” but she’ll be
back in September to attend
Harvard Law School.
Opting, initially, not to do
honors, Mainoo has no regrets now. “I’d
do it again and probably take the same seminars.” She suggests, though, that before
deciding between course and honors, sophomores should be encouraged, through
organized round-table meetings, to interact
with current honors students and look at
some of the honors seminar syllabi to
become more informed of the expectations
of the program. “I know it’s up to the students to do this independently,” she says,
“but, as a sophomore, I just wasn’t thinking
about things like that.”
As Dandade has been known to tell touring visitors: “This place is such a great institution, with so much to offer; the Honors
Program is only one of the great things
here. It definitely requires a higher degree of
dedication, and it’s not for everyone, but, if
you’re really passionate about your subject,
definitely don’t rule it out.” T

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ON COMMENCEMENT DAY, sunlight bathes
the campus. Fiedler’s parents have come
from Rochester, N.Y. Last year, he was one of
three Swarthmore juniors selected for a
prestigious Truman Scholarship, which will
help support him in graduate school; now,
he also receives the Ivy Award, given by the
faculty to a graduating male who has displayed outstanding leadership, scholarship,

Graybill’s parents
remain on campus just long
enough to applaud her as she receives the
Oak Leaf Award, the women’s equivalent to
the Ivy Award. Then, they must fly home to
Montana in time for her brother’s high
school graduation ceremony. “We’re missing
each other’s graduation,” Graybill says, ruefully. A Rhodes Scholarship finalist, she will
pursue a Ph.D. in Near Eastern studies at
Berkeley. A Berkeley Fellowship will provide
full tuition and a stipend, and a Townsend
Mellon Discovery Fellowship, awarded
through a program that promotes interdisciplinary study, will match her with a graduate
mentor from a different field. To prepare for
her “Berkeley adventures,” she will spend
part of the summer in Israel, studying modern Hebrew.

september 2006 : 29

ANDY DRUCKER ’06

Anna Torres ( above ), an artist and
activist from New York City, started the
Chester Mural Collective ( right middle )
with a Lang Opportunity Grant. Swarthmore students ( far right bottom ) helped
install the group’s first mural in May.
Chester-based artist Michelle McIver
( right bottom ) has supervised this summer’s work on a second mural at the
downtown YWCA—an indoor work that
celebrates children around the world.

30 : swarthmore college bulletin

PAINTING
CHESTER’S
FUTURE
“PUBLIC ART UNITES PEOPLE
THROUGH A COLLABORATIVE
PROCESS OF CREATION,”
SAYS ANNA ELENA TORRES ’07,
WHO CONCEIVED THE
CHESTER MURAL COLLECTIVE.
By J eff re y Lott
P h o to grap h s by Jim G raham

T

he streets of downtown Chester,
Pa., 4 miles from Swarthmore,
are lined with abandoned
homes, shuttered businesses,
and silent factories that testify to
the city's once prosperous past. Handsome
facades under peeling paint recall the optimism and confidence that made Chester one
of Pennsylvania's industrial powerhouses
decades ago. Today, it is one of the state's
poorest cities, and students entering
Chester's high school—a modern, forbidding fortress—walk across an arid plaza
under the eyes of security guards and police.
And after school, there are few things for
them to do.

Inspired by extensive murals in Philadelphia, Anna Elena Torres set out to effect
change in Chester through a public art project that would lift the spirits of Chester's
children. Torres first tutored in Chester as a
freshman through a work-study program. A
native New Yorker, she noticed that, despite
Chester's rich history, there were few cultural resources and that the children she
worked with never had art classes. During
her sophomore year, Anna was awarded a
Lang Opportunity Scholarship that included
a $10,000 grant from the College's Lang
Center for Civic and Social Responsibility
for her proposal to create the Chester Mural
Collective (CMC).

COURTESY OF THE CHESTER MURAL COLLECTIVE

september 2006 : 31

"MURALS CAN TRANSFORM
NOT ONLY THE WAY A CITY
BLOCK LOOKS BUT ALSO THE
WAY PEOPLE PARTICIPATE IN
THE LIFE OF THEIR CITY."
Torres, an honors religion major, started
the CMC in summer 2005 while interning
at Chester's Freeman Cultural Arts Complex. “The idea is to give Chester residents—students and adults—opportunities
to fill the town's blank walls with their own
work and also to teach art to students during after-school hours,” Torres says. She
has led presentations for middle school students that focus on the role of murals in
social change movements.
The CMC's first mural, designed by
Chester-born artist Joseph Church, was
installed in May on a 60-foot wall outside
Chester Hardware & Supply on Second
Street and Edgmont Avenue, a few blocks
from the spot where William Penn first set
foot in the New World in 1682. It represents
the city's past with a map and renderings of
historic architecture; the central figure, an
African American girl representing the present and the future. She is wearing a crown
of thorns and holding a picket sign in her
left hand and a dove in her right.

32 : swarthmore college bulletin

Torres says that she was drawn to public
murals “because of their ability to unite
people through the collaborative creative
process. Murals can transform not only the
way a city block looks but also the way people participate in the life of their city. One of
my proudest moments was when a teen who
worked on the mural told me, ‘Now, when I
notice run-down walls, I just think how perfect they'd be with murals.' She didn't accept
what she saw and was able to picture an
alternative that she could have a role in
shaping.”
Sustaining the CMC into the future will
require continued partnerships among businesses, city government, Chester residents,
and Swarthmore students, Torres says. “We
already have a waiting list of businesses that
have requested murals, and the City of
Chester has asked for major pieces on three
sites. There's been so much support for the
murals because people understand that
political change begins with cultural
change.” In August, Torres received news of
a $5,000 grant from the Chester Youth Collaborative that will help to see the CMC
through a new year of activities, bringing
together students, adults, and art to recreate a sense of hope in Chester. T

“The urban landscape of Chester is so
dilapidated,” says Sally O’Brien ’07, who
serves as administrative director of the
Chester Mural Collective. “For kids to
know that they can have a positive effect
on the landscape of their neighborhood
is really important.” The Chester murals
are drawn and painted on “parachute
cloth”—a heavy synthetic fabric—then
adhered to walls using acrylic gel. In
May, Swarthmore students ( bottom )
touched up the seams of the collective’s
first effort after it had been adhered to
the wall of Chester Hardware and Supply.

COURTESY OF THE CHESTER MURAL COLLECTIVE

september 2006 : 33

alumni weekend

2006
P h o t o g r a p h s b y Jim Graham and Eleftherios Kostans

Reunion By the Numbers
1,305
3
42
112
15
39

Alumni Weekend attendees
Number of reunion dormitories with no electricity on
Friday afternoon, after lightning hit a transformer
Highest percentage of attendance (Class of 1956)
Highest number of attendees (Class of 2001)
Number of countries represented
Number of states represented

Right: Friends coming
together—that's what
reunion is all about!
Below, left to right: Rafael
Zapata, director of the
Intercultural Center, with
Steven Larin ’97 and Juan
Martinez ’91 at a Saturday
afternoon reception

Bad weather (yet again) did not deter 2006 Alumni Weekend participants from enjoying their weekend and each other. Umbrellas
were out in full force, but spirits were high and activities went on
unabated.
The weekend was filled with activities. Attendees loved the juggling antics of Jen Slaw ’02 and Tony Duncan. Alumni turned out
despite drizzle to see the ribbon-cutting for the Parrish Hall rededication. Our faculty lecturers this year were Edmund Allen Professor
of Chemistry and Biochemistry Robert Pasternack, Associate Professor of German Sunka Simon, and Associate Professor of Psychology Andrew Ward. Alumni could find music almost anywhere:
The Mozart Requiem sing-in drew about 100 alumni; and Ruth
Goldberg ’81; and the bands Merry Lyin’; Nathan and the Narwhals; Robby George [’77] and Friends; The Kids; and Daniel
“Freebo” Friedberg ’66 (see page 58) all performed during the
weekend. Alumni and their children participated in a gamelan
demonstration, and Swarthmore Alumni in Finance held a reception. There were departmental receptions, class panels, and many
other opportunities for alumni to come together.
Alumni marched in the parade of classes serenaded by the music
of a mummers string band, followed by Alumni Collection. This
year’s Collection speaker was Christopher Lehmann-Haupt ’56,
recently retired from The New York Times. Interested alumni can find
his talk at www.swarthmore.edu/alumni/pdf/Collection_06.pdf.
Alumni Weekend would not be possible without the participation and hard work of many people. We thank all the alumni volunteers who organized events, dinners, and panels. We also offer our
thanks to the faculty lecturers and to staff members who hosted
events and receptions.
—Lisa Lee ’81
Director of Alumni Relations

Above: Derrick Gibbs '76 and friends after the Parrish Hall
rededication ceremony

34 : swarthmore college bulletin

Top: Members of the 50th-reunion Class of 1956
march in the parade of classes.
Above center: Members of the Class of 1981
after their class memorial service
Above right: Alumni Collection speaker Christopher Lehmann-Haupt '56, former senior daily
book reviewer and chief obituary writer for The
New York Times
Left: “Smile for the camera!”
Right: Alumni artists exhibited their works in the
List Gallery.

september 2006 : 35

connections
RECENT EVENTS
Boston: In a summer with record high temperatures, plagued by electrical outages, the
Boston Connection was troubled by a different sort of electrical malady—too much
of it! The Connection had planned to meet
and see Martha Hicks-Courant ’77 and the
rest of the Chelmsford Community Band
perform the kick-off event of the annual
concert series at Boston’s famous Esplanade. However, the “rain or shine” festivities were canceled due to an electrical storm.
Undaunted, Boston Connection Co-Chair
David Wright ’69 hopes that “the band will
be rebooked next summer at the Hatch Shell.
They deserve it! Swarthmore will be there!”
Chicago: Director of Grounds and Horticultural Coordinator for the Scott Arboretum
Jeff Jabco led Connection members on a tour
of Millennium Park in September. This garden was designed by landscape architects
Kathryn Gustafson and Jennifer Guthrie,
theatrical designer Robert Israel, and Dutch
nurseryman–garden designer Piet Oudolf.
Thanks to Marilee Roberg ’73 for organizing
this event.

Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor of English Literature Philip Weinstein ( above and right,
with Connection Chair Anaïs Loizillon ’95 ),
spoke with alumni in Paris in July. During
2006–2007, Weinstein will deliver a series of
lectures as part of Swarthmore's Faculty-on-theRoad Program, Further information will be
mailed to Swarthmoreans in each region in
advance of these events, or you can find out
more at http://www.swarthmore.edu/x208.xml.
Atlanta ..................................Sunday, Oct. 8
New York ............................Thursday, Oct. 12
Boston ..................................Sunday, Oct. 22
Chicago ..............................Thursday, Nov. 2
Seattle ..................................Friday, Nov. 10
Portland................................Sunday, Nov. 12
Raleigh/Durham ..................Thursday, Nov. 30

ALEXEY ROSTAPSHOV '06

Paris: Connection Chair Anaïs Loizillon ’95
organized two faculty events this summer. Provost and Mari S.
Michener Professor of Art History Constance Hungerford visited
Paris alumni after participating as faculty director of the Alumni
College Abroad program in Provence. Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor of English Literature Philip Weinstein spoke to
alumni at Le Café qui Parle. Merci, Anaïs!

On Aug. 24, Swarthmoreans in Washington, D.C., enjoyed a
happy-hour gathering near Farragut Square. The event drew a
crowd of almost 3 dozen spirited alumni representing class
years from 1964 to 2006. Pictured are three of the newest
crop of alumni, Aloysius Obodoako ’06, Martyna Pospieszalska ’06, and Yavor Georgiev ’06. The event was organized by
Maria Barker '96.
36 : swarthmore college bulletin

UPCOMING EVENTS
Seattle: In other book-group news, Karl Knaub ’95 reports great
success with the new Seattle book group. Karl is an alumnus of the
DC book group and is using that experience to help him organize.
The theme of the readings will be “The City,” and Karl is welcoming Assistant Professor of English Heather Easterling ’92, of Gonzaga University, to be the faculty leader. So far, the results have been
remarkable, with many discussion groups forming. Serendipitously,
one of the interested alumni is Judith Stoloff ’62, who happens to
be a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners (city
planners) and is excited to lend her experience to the group. For
more information about the group, e-mail Karl at karlknaub@gmail.com.
Washington, D.C.: In this, its 10th year, the DC alumni (and
friends) book group will explore the psychological dimensions of
novels and memoirs with William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Psychology Jeanne Marecek and Professor of English Literature and
Chair of the Department Peter Schmidt. Contact Sue Ruff ’60 at
sueruff@aol.com for more information.
Washington alumni are also invited to an exhibition at the Textile Museum titled Mantles of Merit: Chin Textiles from Mandalay to
Chittagong. Former Swarthmore president David Fraser and his
wife, Barbara Fraser, are curating this major exhibition of Chin textiles, which will run from Oct. 13, 2006, to Feb. 25, 2007. Once
event details have been finalized, more information will be available
from the Alumni Relations Office. Call (610) 328-8402.

ALUMNI
ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
OFFICERS
President
Seth Brenzel '94
Vice President
Lauren Belfer '75
Vice President
Minna Newman Nathanson '57
Vice President
Kevin Quigley '74
Secretary
David Wright '69

ZONE A
Delaware, Pennsylvania
Mara Lee Baird '79
Wyndmoor, Pa.
Kevin Browngoehl '78
Bryn Mawr, Pa.
Delvin Morris Dinkins '93**
West Chester, Pa.
Daniel Honig '72
Swarthmore, Pa.
James Robert Lindquist '80**
Paoli, Pa.
Cecily Roberts Selling '77
Philadelphia, Pa.
Jon Van Til '61
Swarthmore, Pa.

ZONE B
New Jersey, New York
Jorge Aguilar '05+
Bronx, N.Y.
Susan Yelsey Aldrich '71
Pelham, N.Y.
Erica Strong Batt '63~
Vineland, N.J.
Lauren Belfer '75
New York, N.Y.
Patricia Aileen Funk '06+
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Max Gottesman '56
New York, N.Y.
Yongsoo Park '94
New York, N.Y.
Joyce Klein Perry '65
Rochester, N.Y.
Steven Rood-Ojalvo '73
Haddonfield, N.J.
Diane Tucker '91**
New York, N.Y.

COUNCIL

ZONE C
Connecticut, Maine,
Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
Rhode Island, and Vermont
Gwendolyn Cadge '97
Somerville, Mass.
Mary Morse Fuqua '59
Williamstown, Mass.
Karen Kelly '73
Williamstown, Mass.
Meghan Kriegel Moore '97
Lowell, Mass.
Thomas Riddell '66
Northampton, Mass.
Russell Dana Robbins '84
Wilton, Conn.
Stephen Smith '83
Winchester, Mass.
Susan Raymond Vogel '56
Worcester, Mass.
David Wright '69
Wellesley, Mass.

ZONE D
District of Columbia, Maryland,
and Virginia
Mary Catherine Kennedy '80
Washington, D.C.
Albert Yung Kim '93
Washington, D.C.
Todd La Porte '80~
Washington, D.C.
Rosanne Boldman McTyre '74
Washington, D.C.
Ken Moskowitz '76
Arlington, Va.
Minna Newman Nathanson '57
Washington, D.C.
Christopher Plum '75
Silver Spring, Md.
Barbara Yoder Porter '62
Kensington, Md.
Kevin Quigley '74
Arlington, Va.
Tracey Stokes '89~
Mitchellville, Md.
** member at large
+ class president
~ Nominating Committee

ZONE E
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas,
Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,
Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio,
Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas,
West Virginia, and Wisconsin
Sandra Alexander '73
Tulsa, Okla.
Gerardo Aquino '96**
Houston, Texas
Samuel Awuah '94
Chicago, Ill.
Elizabeth Moss Evanson '56
Madison, Wis.
Maurice Kerins III '76
Dallas, Texas
Sabrina Martinez '92
Houston, Texas
David Samuels '89
Minneapolis, Minn.
Matthew Evan Williams '04+
Westerville, Ohio

ZONE F
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, territories,
dependencies, and foreign countries
Julie Brill '85
Toronto, Ont.
Mary Ellen Grafflin Chijioke '67
Greensboro, N.C.
Amy Lansky Knowlton '87
Decatur, Ga.
Lawrence Phillips '63
Atlanta, Ga.
Peter Seixas '69
Vancouver, B.C.

ZONE G
Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana,
Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon,
Utah, Washington, and Wyoming
Seth Brenzel '94
San Francisco, Calif.
Steven Gilborn '58
Valley Village, Calif.
Joshua Green '92
Keauhou, Hawaii

Christine Halstead '91
Foster City, Calif.
Karen Holloway '57
Fountain Hills, Ariz.
Barry Schkolnick '80
Los Angeles, Calif.

CONNECTION
REPRESENTATIVES
National Chair
Jim Moskowitz '88
Ann Arbor
Jenny Blumberg '04
Kamilah Neighbors '98
Atlanta
Linda Valleroy '72
Austin/San Antonio
Jennifer Jacoby Wagner '92
Boston
Ted Chan '02
David Wright '69
Chicago
Marilee Roberg '73
Denver
Phillip Weiser '90
Durham
Julia Knerr '81
London
Abby Honeywell '85
Metro-DC/Baltimore
Art Zito '81
Metro New York City
Lisa Ginsburg '97
John Randolph '97
Paris
Anaïs Loizillon '95
Philadelphia
Jim Moskowitz '88
Paula Goulden-Naitove '79
Pittsburgh
Barbara Sieck Taylor '75
San Francisco
Ruth Lieu '94
Seattle
Lorrin Nelson '00
Debbie Schaaf '95
Jay Schembs '01
Tucson
Laura Markowitz '85

september 2006 : 37

class notes

JIM GRAHAM

Ken and Anne Matthews Rawson—both of the Class of 1950—
help keep the College ticking. Each week, they walk from their
home near the campus to wind the clocks in Parrish Hall and Bond
Memorial Hall. During the recently completed renovation of Parrish, Ken repaired both College-owned case clocks. He says the J.J.
Elliott clock in Parrish Parlors is approximately 100 years old. The
Rawsons were the winners of the 2005 Joseph Shane Award for
service to the College. To read more about their clock project, see
Anne’s 1950 Class Notes column on page 48.

38 : swarthmore college bulletin

profile

God and Government

DUSTIN ROSS

R. KENT GREENAWALT ’58 EXPLORES THE LAW OF CHURCH AND STATE.

R. Kent Greenawalt came to the Columbia U. School of Law
in 1965 after a 2-year scholarship at Oxford U. under the
supervision of noted political philosopher Isaiah Berlin.

D

oes religion belong in the classroom? University Professor
R. Kent Greenawalt ’58, who teaches at Columbia’s School of
Law, thinks it does—under certain conditions.
With schools and parents debating the teaching of evolution,
creationism, and intelligent design, Greenawalt, who has spent
years considering the Constitution as it applies to church-state
issues, thought it time for an in-depth scholarly investigation into
the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses as they apply to schools.
Last year, he published the book Does God Belong in Public School?
“I believe it is acceptable and often necessary to discuss religion
in the classroom, depending on the age of the student and the
course being taught,” says Greenawalt, who has a bachelor of philosophy degree from Oxford U., and a law degree from Columbia U.
“It’s crucial, though, that the teachers not say one position is right,”
he says, emphasizing the importance of a teacher not saying that all
students “should be religious.”
The issue becomes more complicated, he says, when one has to
consider questions such as: Is it OK for a teacher to state his or her
religion? Would it be a good idea to have the children discuss what
they think is the right position? Would it be OK for the teacher to
take a position and say, ‘This is what I think personally about this
subject, but it’s not the position of the school or government?’

54 : swarthmore college bulletin

Greenawalt answers the first question by saying he believes it’s
acceptable for teachers to state their religion. “In a small community,
the kids are probably going to know the religious affiliations of the
teachers anyway,” he says.
The other two questions are harder to answer, Greenawalt
acknowledges. “It depends a bit on how sophisticated the children
are and how old they are. Generally I don’t think it’s good to have
debates in the classroom even if the teacher is neutral. The risk is
that if most children have one view and a few children have a different view, the minority is going to feel ganged up on. In a college
classroom or even senior year of high school, it would be different,”
says Greenawalt.
Subject matter is crucial to the religion in school debate.
In the case of a natural science course, Greenawalt believes “teachers
should be teaching plausible-only positions that have the support of
natural science, and standard creationism certainly does not fall
into that category. A class on different cultures is an appropriate
place to talk about creation stories, but you can’t teach them as science.
“A modest version of intelligent design says there are just a few
things that evolutionary theory can’t explain and that an intelligent
designer is needed to plug the gap. It is much harder to show this
version is wrong in comparison to standard evolutionary theory.
The more modest the intelligent design theory gets, the less it
diverges from what evolutionary theory asserts as a complete
explanation.
“If intelligent design is taught as the alternative, then it is religious enough to violate the Establishment Clause. If a teacher says,
‘This is one possibility.’ That would probably be acceptable, ” said
Greenawalt, who clerked for Supreme Court Justice John Harlan II,
and, from 1971 to 1972, served as a U.S. deputy solicitor general
during the Nixon Administration.
Discussion of religion in a history class would be a different matter, he says. “To not say anything about religion in a history course
would be a serious mistake,” Greenawalt says. For example, teachers
should discuss the Reformation and teach the foundations of
Roman Catholic and Protestant views, but “they shouldn’t say these
are the right views and these are the wrong views. They should be
teaching about religion [as it was the milieu for the historical events]
rather than teaching religious truth,” he says.
“To take a modern politics course and not say anything about
religious movements would also be a distortion. I mean, how do you
describe the political situation in this country right now without
saying something about the religious right?” he asks rhetorically.
“Religious groups in the past were active in the civil rights movement and in opposition to the Vietnam War. Now, of course, that’s
changed. The most active groups tend to be on the right side of the
spectrum.”
—Audree Penner

books + arts

Easy,

Simple,
and

Freebo
A CELEBRATED SIDEMAN

Freebo ’66, Before the Separation, Poppabo Music, 2005
One message of the counterculture of the 1960s was that people
needed to change themselves before they could change the world.
Freebo proves the point as he celebrates human freedom on his
latest album. But his own creative freedom had to come first.
Freebo (born Daniel Friedberg) came to Swarthmore in fall 1962
from Mahanoy City, Pa. In high school, he was president of his class
and an All-State football player. He continued to play football in college and joined Delta Upsilon. His politics were small-town conservative. “Like most of us who grew up in postwar America,” he says,
“I was formed by my parents and that society. I believed in the box.”
But as Friedberg became Freebo, he broke out of that box. “I
wound up with a group of rock and rollers [he had also been an AllState tuba player], started playing electric bass, grew my hair, joined
the counterculture”—and dropped out of Swarthmore in 1964.
By 1969, he was playing the Philadelphia club scene—Second
Fret, Main Point, and Electric Factory—with the legendary Edison
Electric Band, whose 1970 album Bless You, Dr. Woodward was
named one of the “100 Best Philly Albums of All Time” by Philadelphia Weekly in 2004. (It was recently re-released on CD.)
Singer Bonnie Raitt—herself a dropout from Radcliffe—heard
Freebo while playing the Electric Factory and, after Edison Electric
broke up, invited him to play his fretless bass on her bluesy first
album. He recorded and toured with Raitt throughout the 1970s,
establishing himself as a musician of unusual talent and versatility.
Later, he settled in Los Angeles and became a sought-after studio
musician, touring occasionally with artists such as John Mayall;
Crosby, Stills & Nash; Maria Muldaur; and Ringo Starr.
Still, Freebo says he had another box to break out of: “As I got
older, instead of trying to get other people to do the musical things
I wanted to see done, I realized I had to do them myself. But I was
afraid, and fear can be a subtle thing—lots of judgment and pressure from others. Through a series of mistakes along the way, a
process of elimination, you gain wisdom. Sometimes, you find out
what you want by doing what you don’t want to do.”
Before the Separation, his third disk as a solo performer, is the
felicitous result. Its songs reflect many musical influences—folk,
soul, rock, and the classic California sound, with its sweet harmonies
and airy, post-psychedelic guitar. There are hints of singer-songwriters as different as Country Joe McDonald, Otis Redding, Jesse Colin
Young, and Donovan. Yet Freebo’s music never sounds derivative.
58 : swarthmore college bulletin

PHOTOGRAPH BY JEANS©

STEPS TO THE FRONT OF THE STAGE

Some tracks recall the idealism of the ’60s but are firmly rooted
in the present—and in Freebo’s stubborn optimism about the
human condition. In the anthem-like “Stand Up,” he exhorts us to
“Stand up, be strong / Why take it, How long?” and observes that
retaliation only feeds more conflict: “Pay ’em back, and soon you’ll
find, / An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”
A more overtly political—and deliciously sarcastic—song is “The
Freedom Wall,” which envisions a gated Fortress America as a “better place for all.” In martial tempo, he sings: “There will be no enemies, / Here amongst our own. / They will all be kept away, / Outside the Freedom Zone.”
Yet my favorites are reflective tunes such as “Before the Separation,” “To the Light,” and “It Goes By Fast”—delivering gentle messages about unity of spirit and nature, our fleeting existence, and the
need to find our own paths to peace and harmony in a world beset
with conflict. On each track, words and music blend effortlessly, and
Freebo’s listenable voice is informed by his innate musicality. One
wonders why we had to wait so long for him to come to the front of
the stage.
The poetic “Soul Mates” follows two childhood friends from
their “sandbox wonderland” to a meeting much later in life. Its lyrical chorus seems to characterize an approach to life that permeates
all of the music on this album. Singing, “Easy, simple, and free /
Somehow, you knew that we / Were soul mates / Soul mates,” Freebo brings you into his light and rewards you for being there with
him.
—Jeffrey Lott
Freebo’s albums are available from his Web site at www.freebo.com, where
you can also learn about upcoming live performances.

Books
Robert Austin ’84 and Stephen Bradley
(eds.), The Broadband Explosion: Leading
Thinkers on the Promise of a Truly Interactive
World, Harvard Business School Press, 2005.
In this essay compilation, the editors marshal the latest thinking from experts in the
digital world as they tackle the questions
that arise from this high-stakes arena.
Dean Baker ’80, The Conservative Nanny
State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to
Stay Rich and Get Richer, Center for Economic
and Policy Research, 2006. The author
shows that conservatives, contrary to the
myth that they favor the market over government intervention, actually rely on a range
of “nanny-state” policies that ensure that
the rich get richer, leaving most Americans
worse off.
Virginia (Stern) Brown ’49, Mildred Miller
Remembered: An Intimate Portrait of an American Artist, XLibris, 2006. The author presents a fascinating glimpse into the life and
art of Mildred Miller (1892–1964), a dedicated painter who struggled quietly within
the societal constraints of a male-dominated
profession.
Ann Cudd ’82, Analyzing Oppression, Oxford
University Press, 2006. The author argues
that the fundamental injustice of social
institutions is oppression and that the key to
its eradication lies in the theories, principles,
and methods underlying liberal and analytic
traditions.
Robert McKeever and Philip Davies SP
’69/’70, Politics USA (2nd edition),
Pearson Education Limited, 2006. The second
edition of this studentfriendly guide to U.S. politics, originally published in
1999, has been updated to
include analyses of the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks; the first George W.
Bush administration; Bush’s
reelection; and the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
A Brief Introduction to U.S.
Politics, Pearson Education
Limited, 2006. This guide to
the intricacies of U.S. political
institutions provides students with a

detailed overview of the
main institutions, including
the presidency, Congress,
and the Supreme Court.
Iwan Morgan and Philip
Davies SP ’69/’70 (eds.),
Right On? Political Change and
Continuity in George W. Bush’s
America, Institute for the
Study of the Americas,
2006. In essays that analyze
the president’s ambitious
and controversial agenda,
contributors assess the presidency in terms of its historical context, first-term
record, and second-term
prospects.
Joshua Foa Dienstag ’86,
Pessimism: Philosophy, Ethic,
Spirit, Princeton University
Press, 2006. Challenging
the received wisdom about
pessimism as a negative tradition, the author argues for
the philosophy of pessimism, which, as an ethic
of radical possibility rather
than a mere criticism of
faith, can be energizing
and liberating.
Christine (Rosenblatt)
Downing ’52, The Luxury of
Afterwards: The Christine
Downing Lectures at San Diego
State University, 1995–2004,
iUniverse Inc., 2004. This
collection of
lectures sums
up 10 years

The Couple at 80 (mixed media) by Jason Corder ’91.
A resident of La Chalosse in the Basque region of
Southwestern France, Corder was one of two artists
selected from 50 to exhibit their works at a show,
Forged Spirits, in the City Gallery at Waterfront Park,
Charleston, S.C., from Sept. 16 to Nov. 19. He trained
under Senegalese artist Ousseynou Sarr in France,
learning a West African earth- and glue-based technique that incorporates dozens of natural pigments
along with collage, thick cotton string, and oil paint.
Corder and his family later spent 5 months in Sarr’s
home village in Senegal, where he became more
involved with the technique. Corder says of his art:
“The paintings are sometimes like chronicles of places,
like Senegal, Thailand, or La Chalosse. However, more
often they are images of a more internal world—that
of spirits, dreams, the dream world, and the Earth.”

of annual celebrations honoring Downing’s
career. The annual Christine Downing Lecture was established by San Diego State’s
Chair of Religious Studies Alan Sparks, who
suggested that Downing herself should be
the speaker.
Preludes: Essays on the Ludic Imagination,
1961–1981, iUniverse, 2005. In 25 essays
about the Spielraum or space necessary for
the wheel of life to turn soulfully, Downing
offers a possible prelude to the play of a truly
ludic imagination, which, according to
author David Miller, “quietly enters the soul,
working into the heart, awakening a secret
melody to be noticed only later.”
september 2006 : 59

books + arts
Ronald Dworkin
’81, Artificial Happiness: The Dark
Side of the New
Happy Class, Carroll & Graf,
2006. The author
investigates the
role of doctors in
treating everyday
unhappiness, the
conflicts that
have arisen within the medical profession as
a result, and the competition between medicine and religion over control of the human
mind and the definition of spirituality.

Thomas Hammond ’69, Chris Bonneau,
and Reginald Sheehan, Strategic Behavior and
Policy Choice on the U.S. Supreme Court, Stanford University Press, 2005. This book provides a comprehensive and integrated model
of how strategically rational Supreme Court
justices should be expected to behave in all
five stages of the Court’s decision-making
process.
Josef Joffe ’65, Überpower: The Imperial Temptation of America, W.W. Norton & Co., 2006.
Mixing military history and diplomatic
analysis, the author offers an assessment of
the United States as an unchallenged global
power and the burdens that accompany its
singular standing. (See
excerpt on p. 12)
D.H. Kerby ’86, It Fell
From the Sky, It Must be
Ours: A Poem for Peace with
Justice, Blitz Publications,
2006. This personal and
self-questioning poem
gives authentic snapshots
of our chaotic world, from
the streets of Jerusalem,
Frankfurt, Managua, and
Port-au-Prince to the
pressroom of the United
Nations.
Susan Munch ’67, Outstanding Mosses & Liverworts of Pennsylvania and
Nearby States, Susan
Munch, 2006. With
detailed color photographs, this first color
field guide for mosses in
the mid-Atlantic region
allows for easy identification—without using a
microscope—of many of
the most common and
striking mosses and liverworts.

Max Mulhern ’84, Wind Root , 2006. Taking the geometric
language of weather maps, the artist, for whom weather
has been a natural obsession since childhood, abstracts
their stark symbols to create a world peopled with raging
weather monsters and whimsical weather trees. The
Galérie Artemisia in Paris exhibited Mulhern’s works from
March 7 to April 1.
60 : swarthmore college bulletin

Cesare Lombroso, Criminal
Man (translated and with
a new introduction by
Mary Gibson and Nicole
Hahn Rafter ’62), Duke
University Press, 2006.
Using excerpts from all
five editions of Lombroso’s
1876 classic of criminolo-

gy, this annotated translation along with its
introduction show the progression of the
author’s thought and his positivistic
approach to understanding criminal behavior.
Jeffrey Shandler
’78, Adventures in
Yiddishland, University of California Press, 2006.
Tracking the
transformation of
Yiddish since the
Holocaust, from
the language of
Jewish daily life
to what he calls
“a postvernacular
language of
divers and expanding symbolic value,”
Shandler draws on language learning, literary translation, performance, and material
culture as manifested in children’s books,
board games, summer camps, klezmer
music, cultural festivals, language clubs,
Web sites, cartoons, and collectibles.
Yankev Glatshteyn, Emil and Karl (translated
by Jeffrey Shandler), Roaring Brook Press,
2006. In a new translation of this 1940
novel for young readers about two boys—
one Jewish, the other Austrian—during the
early days of the Holocaust period, Shandler
places the novel in its historical context and
explains the author’s approach to his subject.
Elisabeth Sussman and Fred Wasserman
’78, with essays by Yve-Alain Bois and Mark
Godfrey, Eva Hesse: Sculpture, Yale University
Press, 2006. In a collection of essays, this
work provides a rare opportunity to look at
Hesse’s artistic achievement within the historical context of her life through family
diaries and photographs. It was published
in conjunction with the May 12 to Sept. 17
exhibit of the same name organized by The
Jewish Museum, New York City, where
Wasserman is the Henry J. Leir curator.
Let the Bulletin know about your latest
scholarly, literary, visual, theatrical, cinematic,
or other artistic effort at bulletin@swarthmore.edu or by sending press releases, photos,
or review copies to Books & Arts, Swarthmore
College Bulletin, 500 College Avenue,
Swarthmore PA 19081.

profile

Artful Energy

2

HERBERT LOTZ

ROBERT STORR ’72: CURATOR, ARTIST, TEACHER, CRITIC, HISTORIAN, AND WRITER

After curating the 2007 Venice Biennale, Robert Storr will turn
his attention to expanding Yale’s art program.

T

he staccato rhythm of Robert Storr’s fast-paced words and his
energetic enthusiasm reveal a man who has retained the
“unbounded energy and creativity” that William R. Kenan Jr., Professor Emerita of Art History T. Kaori Kitao saw in him as a student.
As he leads our phone conversation full-speed ahead detailing one
project after another, it becomes clear how this Chicago native has
achieved so much since graduating from Swarthmore in 1972.
Yale President Richard Levin’s announcement of Storr’s appointment as dean of the University’s School of Art confirms that Storr’s
intense drive has not waned over time. “Rob Storr is deeply knit into
the contemporary art world and has an interest in educating the artist
of the future,” Levin said.
In New Haven, Storr is settling into his newest role at one of
the most selective art schools in North America and spending the
fall learning the ropes. Yet, before he directs his attention to expanding and fine tuning Yale’s program—one of the few institutions
where art-making is the central focus—he will take an agreed-upon
leave of absence during the spring semester to curate and direct the
2007 Venice Biennale.

62 : swarthmore college bulletin

Storr explains that the Biennale, which began in 1895, is the oldest international exhibition of visual art and the baseline for all others. As the first American invited to hold this position, he regards
the offer as “a huge opportunity that I couldn’t turn down.”
Three classmates who have followed the path of Storr’s career
offer startlingly similar descriptions of him—intellectual, intense,
thoughtful, and decent, a man of energy and ideas. Peter Canby,
senior editor at The New Yorker, describes Storr as “a high octane
mix” of these qualities. To Saralinda Bernstein Lichtblau, manager
of the school programs at the Hudson River Museum, Storr “was a
larger-than-life figure, romantic, with a flippant shock of blonde
hair.” Carola Sullam Sheperd, remembers that “Rob had a certain
trademark look—classic white shirt with casually rolled-up
sleeves—and a wide circle of friends, connected to him through
aesthetic interests or radical politics.”
Storr grew up in a family of academics. Both parents graduated
from Swarthmore—Richard Storr in 1937 and Virginia Vawter Storr
in 1938. He studied French literature and history as an undergraduate, but, as he told an Arts and Antiques writer in 1996, he was always
“drawing quietly.” In 1978, he earned a master of fine arts degree
from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
When Storr was at the College, Swarthmore’s art curriculum was
much different—there were studio art courses, but an art major was
not available. Looking back, he recalls the lack of art options and
the conservatism of the institution. As a result of those limitations,
he “was inspired to find out what I’d been missing.” He attributes
his great interest in knowing how a piece of art is made, not just
how good it is, to two art history professors—Hedley Rhys and
Robert Walker, both now deceased—with whom he spent many
hours talking about art. Sheperd recalls that she and Storr had “a
shared admiration for the wit, wisdom, and verve of Rhys.”
While he serves as Yale’s dean, Storr will continue as consulting
curator of modern and contemporary art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He is teaching one last class at the Institute of Fine Arts
at New York University this fall and will see his current graduate
students through to completion of their theses. And he will continue working on several books and creating art.
From 1990 to 2002, Storr was a curator and then senior curator
of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA),
where he prepared major exhibitions. Storr’s paintings have been
exhibited in New York galleries, and his work is in the collections of
the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and MoMA.
Reflecting on his hectic pace, Storr says: “It allows me to do what
interests me. I have high powers of concentration but no desire at
all to be a specialist in any one area to the exclusion of others. If I
have brought people’s attention to art and ideas that they would not
have been aware of otherwise, then I have done my job.”
—Susan Cousins Breen

profile

Suds and Science

MAX DELAUBENFELS

BIOLOGIST GRETCHEN MARGARET MELLER ’90 HELPS TO CREATE AN INFORMAL OPPORTUNITY TO SHARE SCIENCE.

Minas Tanielian of Boeing Phantom Works at a Science on Tap
meeting co-organized by Terri Gilbert (center), Gretchen
Margaret Meller (right), and (not shown) Anne Kao, Jennifer
Wroblowski, and Rob Carlson. Volunteers interested in starting
up events in other districts of Seattle should write to info@scienceontap.org.

S

eattle residents who were thirsty for a beer and a dose of intellectual stimulation headed for the Ravenna Third Bookstore
pub on July 24. There, they were able to enjoy a drink and listen to
Minas Tanielian of Boeing Phantom Works bring Star Trek technology to life as he described the rapid advance in research on new
types of materials—“metamaterials,” that render objects invisible to
radar. During a short break following Tanielian’s presentation, audience members discussed the topic among themselves and then had
the opportunity to ask him questions.
Tanielian was one of the speakers who appear monthly at the
pub in a series called Science on Tap, co-founded by molecular biologist Gretchen Margaret Meller ’90. The program provides a local
forum for scientists to debate scientific and technological issues
with the public. The pub is open to audience members of all ages.
Science on Tap is based on Café Scientifique, which began in
1998 in the United Kingdom to promote public engagement with
science. It currently has more than 50 venues located on five
continents.
Meller, a researcher in the Center for Perinatal Studies at Seattle’s Swedish Medical Center, says she was motivated to start Sci-

ence on Tap by conversations with friends, who, knowing she is a
biologist, would question her about science articles they had read in
magazines and newspapers.
“I realized the problem with writing about science,” Meller says,
“is that the reader doesn’t get to ask questions—and we all have
questions. When you go into the community and give the public a
chance to learn about science and ask questions in a safe, informal
setting, then they have a better opportunity to really understand the
topic. The informality of the space is critical to promoting discussion.”
Along with other scientists and science writers, Meller lined up
some speakers and opened Science on Tap in the cozy bookstore
pub in September 2004. So far, they have not missed a single
month, except for December, when they break for the holidays.
Topics have included dark matter and dark energy, stem cells,
childhood obesity, space elevators, electric airplanes, evolution and
intelligent design, the science of brewing beer, and understanding
health reports in the media. Typically, a speaker talks for about 20
minutes, followed by a short break; they conclude with a discussion
of up to an hour. Meetings usually attract from 30 to 50 participants. “For Evolution and Intelligent Design, we had 70 people,”
Meller says, “but, thankfully, that’s unusual because the space is
pretty small.”
Meller has never presented at Science on Tap herself. “We’ve
never been that hard up for a speaker,” she jokes. She has, however,
talked to community groups about basic concepts of molecular biology, genetics, and gene therapy. “I really enjoy giving those types of
talks because it forces me to let go of the details, which is hard for a
scientist to do,” she says. “Scientists are known for their jargon. But
the simplest talks are often the most compelling.”
Science on Tap, Meller stresses, benefits both audience and
speakers. “These sessions are very interactive,” she says. “The speakers really get a chance to discuss their work and learn about the concerns of people.”
She hopes that the interactive nature of Science on Tap is only
the beginning of a trend toward outreach by the scientific community and, in turn, interest from the community in science.
“There is so much that scientists can learn from an audience—
and this audience represents the people who will be voting on issues
that affect science,” Meller says. “I believe that this interaction
between science and the public is long overdue. The pedestals on
which scientists have put themselves—or on which others have put
them—need to be knocked away. Scientists should be able to talk
about their research with anyone who is interested, at any age,
so that the sparks of scientific curiosity can blaze into meaningful
discussion.”
—Carol Brévart-Demm
Upcoming talks are listed at http://www.scienceontap.org.

september 2006: 69

in my life

Back to My Nature
LESSONS FROM FRUIT AND VEGETABLES
By E li sa b et h Co m m an d ay S wim ’9 9

“Are you wearing a belt?” my stepbrother Eric asked as he walked me to the
beds of Sun Gold cherry tomatoes behind
the packing shed. I had left my double life as
office worker and classical singer in New
York City to harvest vegetables and learn
about Christine and Eric Taylor’s sustainable farming practices. This was the first
time that I had spent more than a day with
my extended family at Table Mountain Garden in Murphys, Calif. Before this, the closest I had ever come to growing my own food
was sprouting sunflower seeds on my Bronx
living-room windowsill.
“No, but my pants have a drawstring,” I
answered. Eric smiled and told me to tie my
bucket to the waist of my pants. “That way,
you’ll have both hands free for picking!”
He was still beaming with pride after harvesting the year’s first Brandywine tomatoes. One full tray of thin-skinned, bulging
beauties would be enough to send the
next day’s market customers into a buzz of

the vine diagonally. Most of them came off
whole, their little green top-stems still
intact.
Self-doubt began to drip away like the
sweat from my brow as I discovered a part of
myself that had been hidden for years in the
chaos of my urban life. The work became a
meditation, the tomatoes my teachers. I
began to watch my thoughts come and go as
I continued my singular task of ushering
ripe fruit into my bucket. From time to time,
I let myself drift away on the currents of my
mind, but, then, a carelessly picked green
tomato would remind me gently to come
back to task.
The next 2 weeks would be a course in
what Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh
calls “the miracle of mindfulness.” Whether
picking green and yellow squash from under
their broad leafy canopies in the purple light
of dawn, digging in spiny cucumber brambles for white fruits with just the slightest
tint of yellow, or grooming patches of baby

Self-doubt began to drip away like the sweat from my brow.
The work became a meditation, the tomatoes my teachers.
anticipation of the bounty to come.
The mid-afternoon sun beat down on us
as Eric showed me how to pull the round,
orange jewels off their vines. “You want to
pick them sideways,” he said, “that way, they
won’t break. If you’re good, you should be
able to fill a bucket in about half an hour.”
He grinned and started off toward the other
side of the garden. I looked down at my
small hands, still pale from city office work,
and at the large bucket hanging from my
waistband.
Left alone with the orange fruit, I soon
discovered that my little hands were ideal
for picking clusters of tomatoes that hung
in the inner shade of the vines. I began to
search for the ripe fruit using the sensory
nerves in my skin. I would delve into the
center of each patch feeling for warm,
smooth bunches of fruit and ease them off
70 : swarthmore college bulletin

lettuce to keep the weeds from making it
into the harvest, I began to relax into the
work and to surrender my mind to the
vegetables.
I was amazed as I watched my sister-inlaw, Christine, work twice as fast as I felt I
could. She must have some sort of deep
bond with the vegetables that guides her to
the ones that have reached their peak. Or
maybe she has just become so familiar with
her patches of green that she has detailed
maps of the plant beds painted onto her
subconscious.
Even following Christine around the garden, working under deadline to pick for the
market, became an exercise in mindfulness.
I tried to keep my mind calm and open
while working as quickly as possible. This, it
seemed to me, was the essence of right
work—full presence of mind in even the

most difficult or repetitive physical tasks.
After 10 days, my body had adjusted to
the odd schedule that had me up before
dawn, unconscious in the afternoon, and
picking or partying until sundown. It
seemed like no time had passed when my
mother and stepfather arrived to help with
the harvest before driving me back to their
home in Walnut Creek, Calif.
On my last morning as a farmer, Christine gave my mother and me an unexpected
treat. After we emptied our wheelbarrows of
squash and cucumbers, Christine told us to
gather two pairs of clippers and three buckets filled partially with water. We met her
out at the center of the farm to help her pick
and arrange sunflowers and zinnias, a ritual
she usually enjoyed alone.
Teddy-bear sunflowers towered over
patches of lemon basil and purple peppers,

CHRISTINE TAYLOR

After 10 days on the farm, Swim’s body
adjusted to the schedule that had her
up before dawn, unconscious in the
afternoon, and picking or partying until
sundown. The proprietors of Table
Mountain Garden aim to create an
ecologically sustainable local food
system using farming practices that focus
on healthy soil life, crop biodiversity,
and land stewardship. Learn more at
www.tablemountaingarden.com.

flaunting their bright yellow petals. Beaming, I looked over at my mother, who shared
in my disbelief. Never in her regular visits to
the farm had she been invited to join Christine on this meditative quest for beauty.
We picked up our tools and followed her
along rows of green tomatoes to the beacons
of yellow. Christine taught us to find heads
with long stems that would fit into a vase
and mix well with other flowers. We marched

on to the perimeter of the farm, next to the
road, where we found crimson and black
sunflowers standing guard over beds of new
potatoes and heirloom melons.
We hovered below the dark mandalas,
carefully choosing those with the straightest
and longest stems that looked most likely to
withstand the hour-long drive up Highway
Four. Our last stop was a zinnia patch that
played host to a few stray tomato plants. We
picked dusty pink, orange, and crimson blossoms with crooked petals stiff as construction paper springing from wiry, pipe-cleaner
stems.
Other workers wrapped fragrant bouquets
of basil and loaded wooden crates of vegetables into trucks while we three focused our
attention on a rainbow of blossoms. We
scrambled to tie our treasures into sellable
bunches before it was too late to load them
into the van, where they would find shade
next to tubs of young lettuce and baskets of
elephant garlic.
After 3 hours of weighing vegetables and

selling our sumptuous flowers, I suddenly
realized that this colorful life was about to
end. Soon, I would no longer be the humble
student of a thousand tomatoes. I would
return to New York to tap on a keyboard
behind a glass wall on the 13th floor of
Hunter College in midtown Manhattan. I
would buy genetically modified pears in
black plastic bags from my favorite fruit vendor on 68th Street and wonder how many
weeks had passed since their harvest.
Before climbing into the truck that morning, I had thrown the only tangible evidence
of my labor, my grandmother’s old linen shirt
and the once–sky-blue drawstring pants,
onto the compost heap with a prayerful wish
to leave behind the demons of self-doubt I
overcame in the garden. Working with the
earth had connected me to the core of my
own being. I had learned to leave the shelter
of continuous thought to become present in
my physical body and more mindful of my
intuition.
The garden had changed me. What I did
not know was that my fantasies of selling all
of my belongings and hitching a ride out
West would come true in a matter of
weeks—sort of. Back in New York, I was able
to embrace my daily commute and office
tasks with freshness of mind. Still, something didn’t feel quite right. Part of me was
still in the garden, waiting for the melons to
ripen.
Missing home was nothing new after 10
years on the East Coast, but this discontent
felt like a directive. I was tired of living in a
big, competitive city far away from my family,
working in a job that had little relevance to
music—what I really wanted to do. I had a
decision to make: Stay in New York with the
best opera coaches and high-stakes performance opportunities, barely making a living; or
head West, not knowing how long I would
have to live in my mother’s spare room.
Six months later, I am once again behind
a computer keyboard. This one belongs to
the San Francisco Opera, where I am working as a part-time editor and writer. I have
time for singing, teaching, and for my family.
I’ll have to wait until the fall to put on my
picking boots again; in the meantime, I feed
body and soul with regular trips to the Berkeley farmers market on my roller skates. T
Elizabeth Swim welcomes your comments at
commandayswim@gmail.com.
september 2006 : 71

Q+A

Why Is Rafael Zapata So Connected?
“MY RELATIONSHIPS ARE WHAT I VALUE MOST.”
By Alisa Giardinelli

B

ecause as assistant dean and director
of the Intercultural Center (IC), he
served this month as the point person for freshman orientation for the third
straight year. Because, in response to student interest, he has more than doubled the
number of student groups affiliated with the
IC. Because those groups include the Latino, Asian, Native American, and queer student organizations that were here when he
arrived 4 years ago as well as those for,
among others, South Asian, multiracial, and
Muslim students and those who support
immigrant rights. Because the IC’s annual
dinner reflects that inclusiveness. Because
he helped inaugurate Class Awareness
Month last fall, also in response to student
interest. Because, last semester, he developed and helped teach a class that focused
on the experience of Puerto Ricans in the
United States, the first course of its kind at
the College. Because the Forum on Social
Justice and Activism, which he initiated at
NYU and brought to Swarthmore, now takes
place on both campuses. Because, through
his work with the IC, he collaborates with
local community-based organizations such
as the Asian Arts Initiative (headed by Gayle
Isa ’93), the Prison Moratorium Project, the
Central Committee for Conscientious
Objectors, and Taller Puertorriqueño.
Because this summer he began his tenure as
board chair of the latter, which promotes
Latino arts and culture throughout the
Philadelphia area. Because, last year, he
trained the readers for the Gates Millennium Scholars Program after 5 years of serving as a reader himself. Because every week
he plays bomba, the drum that gives its
name to an Afro-Puerto Rican folkloric
music and dance tradition. Because as a
dean, he can advise any student, including
those who, like he was, are first-generation
college students from urban environments.
Because family and friends know him as
“Papo.”

76 : swarthmore college bulletin

Why is the Intercultural Center awards dinner
so important to you?
At the dinner, students make connections
and learn about the key people in each
other’s communities and in their own. I
changed the model from awarding only the
heads of a few different groups to that of
recognizing more members of the community who do important work. That could mean
faculty, staff, or students who are not always
at the forefront. You don’t have to be a
member of the IC to be recognized. This all
helps build community. It’s how I fashion
this space.
That space is often a political one—how do you
stay focused when you’re serving the needs of
such diverse groups?
I’m very intentional in making time for all of
our constituents. The goal is to make sure
your students know they can come to you.
The point is also to get at the various issues,
not just simply agree. One year, we had an
African American scholar whose studies of
white nationalism tie its rise to policies on
immigration and affirmative action, among
others. It was a great event. She made some
fascinating points and others that I disagreed with, but the important part was the
dialogue. I’m proud of that. For this year’s
Puerto Rican Week in New York City, I invited Puerto Rican Swarthmore students from
the New York area to the mayor’s reception
in Gracie Mansion. This spring, I joined
another group of students as the guests of
Jim Hormel ’55 at the Equality Forum in
Philadelphia. That’s the deal. I get to do cool
stuff like that.
How did the class The Latino Experience come
together?
Omar Ramadan ’08 approached me with an
intense desire for a class like this. I had
taken him to Taller, and he was thirsty for
more. So I said, “Sure, let’s see what we can
do.” I never had a class like it myself, even in
grad school. Whatever I knew, I had learned
on my own. But I helped put together the

lessons and the syllabus, Milton [Machuca,
former visiting assistant professor of Spanish] finalized it, and we put it on. After I
covered a class for Milton, the students
asked me to come back. I was touched—and
Milton saw me as a resource. That I helped
play a role in making this course happen—it
matters that I’m here.
What is your idea of earthly happiness?
Peace of mind and sharing my good fortune.
What do you consider to be the depths of
misery?
Being disconnected from those I care about.
When do you feel most indulgent?
When I get a massage and pedicure.
Who is your fictional hero?
Marge Gunderson, the cop in Fargo, if she
can count. She is just so human—a hero in
everyday life.
And heroes in real life?
Malcolm X, Richie Perez, and my mother.
What is the quality you most admire?
Resilience.
Which quality do you most despise?
Selfishness.
Do you have a treasured possession?
My relationships are what I value most.
What is a talent you wish you had?
I wish I could break-dance.
Do you have a motto?
Treat people right.

Rafael Zapata outside Taller
Puertorriqueño’s education building
in Philadelphia

GEORGE WIDMAN

2007

Alumni College Abroad

For almost 30 years, the Swarthmore Alumni College Abroad Program has combined education
and travel to provide alumni, parents, and friends with opportunities to explore with and learn
from distinguished faculty members. Join us this year on one of three exciting trips.

Salmon River Whitewater
Adventure (Idaho)
with Associate Professor of Biology
Sara Hiebert Burch ’79
June 18–24, 2007
Join fellow alumni, family, and
friends in our open-air classroom on a Salmon River Whitewater Rafting Adventure. Spend
5 days on mostly Class III whitewater (for beginners age 7 and
up) rafting and camping in central Idaho. Daily opportunities
for hiking, fishing, visits to historic sites, and exploration of the
Salmon River canyon are
planned. We will spend the first
and last nights at the Little
Salmon Lodge in Pollock and
every other night camping in luxury on gorgeous white-sand
beaches. Trip leaders will handle
the daily camp chores and preparation of spectacular meals.
Because of limited accommodations at the Little Salmon Lodge,
our group size will be small, so
make your reservations early.
This trip is $1,599 per person,
based on double occupancy.

Russia

Russian Potpourri
with Professor of History
Robert Weinberg
July 18–31, 2007
Sail the waterways of Russia,
from the political capital of
Moscow to the cultural mecca of
St. Petersburg. Explore places
beyond the reach of conventional
tourism such as Uglich and
Yaroslavl. Admire the 18th-century wooden Church of the Transfiguration on remote Kizhi
Island. Visit famed sites such as
Moscow’s Red Square and St.
Basil’s Cathedral and enjoy a private tour of St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum. Immerse yourself in Russia’s cultural heritage
with visits to the ballet in St.
Petersburg and the Moscow circus. Prices start at $2,295 per
person, double occupancy, so
reserve your place now.

China

Idaho

Experience China
with Associate Professor of Chinese
Haili Kong
October 2007
Join us as we explore China’s
extraordinary history at some of
the country’s most popular sites,
including Beijing’s historic
Houhai district, the Qing
Dynasty Summer Palace, the
Great Wall, and the magnificent
Forbidden City. Attendance at a
traditional Peking Opera performance is also planned. Visits
to Xian to see the 2,300-year-old
terra-cotta warriors and to the
modern city of Shanghai are on
the itinerary as well as cruises on
the Li River, to observe local fishermen using trained cormorants
to catch fish, and the Yangtze
River through the Three Gorges.
Details of this trip are not yet
final. If you are interested in
participating, contact us, and we
will provide complete information as soon as it is available.

To learn more about these
programs, call the Alumni
Office toll free at (800) 7899738, e-mail alumni_travel@swarthmore.edu, or visit the
Alumni College Abroad Web
site at www.swarthmore.edu/alumni_travel.xml.