Swarthmore College Alumni Bulletin 2015-04-01

SPRING 2015

ALL ABOUT HONORS

Periodical Postage
PAID
Philadelphia, PA
and Additional
Mailing Offices

p26

MIGHTY MICHIGANDER

p38

PROFS AS COACHES

p36

ISSUE

III

500 College Ave.
Swarthmore, PA 19081–1306
www.swarthmore.edu

VOLUME

CXII

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

ALUMNI WEEKEND 2015
JUNE 5–7

Scientific
Siblings
p18

SPRING 2015

Go back to class and learn from world-renowned
faculty.
Sun yourself with friends on Parrish Beach.
Grab a bite in Sharples.
Hang out in the dorms.
Remember what it was like to be in college.

THE POWER OF 3

View a full schedule of events and frequently
asked questions, and register online at

+ ALUMNIWEEKEND.SWARTHMORE.EDU.

‘OUR CLIMATECHANGE CLOCK IS
TICKING’
ELIZABETH UPTON ’16

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in this issue

38
PROFILE

Great Lakes
Gladiator

Michigan’s just-retired
senior U.S. senator, Carl
Levin ’56, is not ready to hit
the brakes on causes that
need a champion.
by Sherri Kimmel

MOMENT IN TIME

JAMES KEGLEY

Swarthmore’s next
president, Valerie Smith, a
distinguished scholar and
dean at Princeton, met the
campus community Feb.
21. For more on the 15th
president, see Page 11.

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in this issue

38
PROFILE

Great Lakes
Gladiator

Michigan’s just-retired
senior U.S. senator, Carl
Levin ’56, is not ready to hit
the brakes on causes that
need a champion.
by Sherri Kimmel

MOMENT IN TIME

JAMES KEGLEY

Swarthmore’s next
president, Valerie Smith, a
distinguished scholar and
dean at Princeton, met the
campus community Feb.
21. For more on the 15th
president, see Page 11.

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18 2 72
26 9
32 43
FEATURES

DIALOGUE

The Science of
Siblings

Letters
Community Voices
Rewind
Books
Global Thinking

The Lingappas stick together
to target lethal viruses.
by Dana Mackenzie ’79

COMMON GOOD

SPOKEN WORD

WEB
EXCLUSIVES
ALL RIDERS UP
Check out a video and photo gallery
of a therapeutic riding program led by
Marcy and Art Laver ’64:
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
USE YOUR IMAGIN-ATION
Diversity initiative features photos
of 24 College community members:
bulletin.swarthmore.edu

‘Would You Do
Honors?’

Graduates of Swarthmore’s
distinctive program employ
skills in daily lives.
by Carol Brévart-Demm

Stories of
Swarthmore
Liberal Arts
Lives

Hannah Kurtz ’13
Michael Buehler ’89

CLASS NOTES

by Sherri Kimmel

MANUSCRIPT IMMERSION
Carin Ruff ’87 teamed up with
Canaan Breiss ’16 for a virtual
externship: bulletin.swarthmore.edu
ASK THE AUTHOR
Dana Mackenzie ’79 will serve up
answers on the cover story:
bulletin.swarthmore.edu

ON THE COVER:
Photo of Vishwanath Lingappa ’75 by
Ron Wurzer

Aligning
Aspirations

College’s first sustainability
charrette provides framework for future action.

MARSHALL’S MARGINATION
Young alum leads innovative nonprofit in Troy, N.Y., that grew from
Chester Garden Project:
bulletin.swarthmore.edu

Alumni News,
Events, and Profiles

SPRING 2015

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dialogue
LETTERS

Barrier-breaking director recalled

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

The Feb. 3 death of Ike Schambelan ’61 brings a close—or at least an intermission—to
his deep devotion to Swarthmore, especially its theater program.
Ike was internationally known for Theater By The Blind, as noted in a July 2013
Bulletin article. The troupe began in New York in 1980 and was renamed in 2008 to
Theater Breaking Through Barriers (TBTB) to reflect that blindness was only one
barrier. Today’s TBTB includes actors using crutches and wheelchairs.
In 1999 Ike wrote that he and I probably met at Little Theater Club productions
of Glass Menagerie, Winter’s Tale, and Family Reunion. “I assistant-stage managed
or stage managed all three,” he said. “I was a lowly freshman, so barely noticeable.”
(I wrote background music for the plays. Both Ike and I were heavily indebted to the
encouragement of Barbara Pearson Lange ’31.)
My frequent correspondence with Ike was unusual for me. He was an enormously
busy person who often began letters, “Thank you so much for your super contribution of $10 in support of our work.” But the bulk of our correspondence was about
plays. Had he ever performed a play from ancient Greece? I asked. Why not Oedipus
Rex, in which Oedipus has solved the riddle of the sphinx?: “What creature walks in
the morning on four feet, at noon upon two, and at evening upon three?”
I once asked Ike if anything could be done with John Milton, who wrote poems
about his blindness. Since a poem is not a play, someone would first have to write a
play about Milton. Unfortunately, we never discussed that possibility and who might
write it.
Both Ike and I knew Yeats’ line, “In dreams begins responsibility.” Ike was a
dreamer. In TBTB he took responsibility for realizing his dreams.
—CHARLES A. MILLER ’59, New Market, Va.

Editor
Sherri Kimmel

THE REDESIGN: HIGHS AND LOWS
If I may add some feedback on the recent redesign of the Bulletin: I, for one,
like the new format. It is attractive and
very readable. I’m so glad that you haven’t
succumbed to the fad that seems to be afflicting almost every other magazine, where
the goal seems to be to include as many different fonts and colors as possible on a single page—so you end up with a jumble and
it’s hard for the reader to know where to enter the page and how to flow from one detail to the next. And none of that “by the
numbers” fad, where the reader is assaulted with a string of “factoids” devoid of context. Kudos!
—BOB CUSHMAN ’71
Oak Ridge, Tenn.

The new Bulletin is a delight to the eye
and fodder for the mind. Thank you!
—BILL AYRES ’64
New York

A Photographic
Surprise

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I don’t know what in the world possessed
you to reduce the size of the print in the
new design of the Bulletin. The only reason
I can imagine is to get more words on the
page. If that is the case, attention should be
paid to the relative importance of the information presented. The design is attractive,
but readability rates low. The printing under
most pictures is as minuscule as directions
on a pill bottle.
I used to read the Bulletin cover to cover,
but now I just select an article that I strongly want to read. If I were selecting a book
at my local library, I would reject one with
print this small. My vision is pretty good
considering that I am 85, and I am not asking for so-called “large print.” But please
go back at least to the type size of a normal
newspaper.
—EMILY DAYTON SLOWINSKI ’51
Minneapolis

Associate Editor
Carol Brévart-Demm
Class Notes Editor
Carrie Compton
Designers
Zehno
Phillip Stern ’84
Photographer
Laurence Kesterson
Editorial Assistants
David Fialkow ’15
Aaron Jackson ’16
Administrative Assistant
Janice Merrill-Rossi
Editor Emerita
Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49
Website: bulletin.swarthmore.edu
Email: bulletin@swarthmore.edu
Telephone: 610-328-8568
Facebook: www.facebook.com/
SwarthmoreBulletin
We welcome letters on subjects covered
in the magazine. We reserve the right to
edit letters for length, clarity, and style.
Views expressed in this magazine do not
necessarily reflect the opinions of the
editors or the official views or policies of
the College.
Letters and story ideas may be sent
to bulletin@swarthmore.edu.
Address changes may be sent to
alumnirecords@swarthmore.edu.

The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN
0888-2126), of which this is volume
CXII, number 3, is published in October,
January, April, and July by Swarthmore
College, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore,
PA 19081-1390. Periodicals postage
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Postmaster: Send address changes to
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Please recycle after reading.
©2015 Swarthmore College.
Printed in USA.

To my surprise, and that of my brother Eugene ’53, the picture of the
conscientious objectors’ Thanksgiving dinner that was on Page 32 in
the winter Bulletin includes a man who we think is our father, Saxe
Commins. He is seated at the end of the table with a hand on his knee.
We knew he worked in a copper mine in Arizona during the Great War
under terrible conditions but never knew more.
—FRANCES COMMINS BENNETT ’52, Haverford, Pa.
SPRING 2015

3/18/15 12:43 PM

On Civility...
CLIMATE CHANGE
CONTENT NOTED
I was happy to see a photograph in the
winter issue of students and alumni
at the Climate Change March in New
York City. I was also interested in
the article introducing Greg Brown,
the new vice president for finance
and administration at Swarthmore:
“Sustainability, Access on Tap.”
Although I applaud Mr. Brown’s
practical approach to improving the
carbon footprint of the Swarthmore
campus itself, I am more sure than he
is that divestment can be an effective
tool in slowing the juggernaut of accelerating climate change. The students’
movement, Swarthmore Mountain
Justice, inspired me to clean up my
own personal portfolio some more. The
result was that I felt good, and the portfolio itself became even more successful with some new diverse investments.
All people, especially people in technologically advanced countries, need
to make changes in beliefs, attitudes,
behavior and expectations. For me, this
means that I must conduct my personal
life in a way that reduces my “carbon
footprint” drastically (I no longer drive
or use airplanes, eat meat, buy “stuff”
or “busy myself” for example), that I
change my financial base, that I am
convincingly truthful with myself and
others about climate change when I get
an opportunity, that I am responsible in
my community, and that I understand
the spiritual significance of charity of
heart.
As a Quaker-founded institution,
Swarthmore itself has an opportunity
to stand up for life-sustaining principles. In the long run, the survival of the
institution, even in a practical sense,
cannot withstand the consequences of
climate change.
Thank you for increasing consciousness of this most important issue.
—ANN ERICKSON ’65
Monte Rio, Calif.

I was heartened by what Laura Rigell ’16 had to say about civility and justice (not to say civility versus justice) in the civility article in the winter issue of the Bulletin. My Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “civility” as polite, reasonable, and respectful behavior.
This seems fair at first glance, but these characteristics of behavior are, in some telling
cases, inimical. Although that which is reasonable and respectful deserves politeness in return, it is sometimes reasonable to be impolite and disrespectful in response to blatant injustice, particularly in a community that values equity above courtliness.
In my experience, a certain amount of civility is important in keeping violence out of the
struggle for justice, but too much civility acts as an unguent, greasing the skids on the road
to complaisance and thereby postponing the kinds of uncomfortable change necessary to ensure personal dignity and genuine respect for diversity. Civility can in fact work against civil rights, especially when it crosses the line and becomes mincing nuance. Not every action,
statement, or position deserves a civil response. In fact, it is sometimes our civic obligation to
be actively impolite in making a point, e.g., in calling out persistent bigotry.
Speech must sometimes be blunt to be effective. As Gandhi said, “There is nothing passive
about nonviolence.” In that spirit, to the suggestion that it is uncivil to call out injustice plainly and clearly, my response is, “Oh yeah? Says who? You and how many Straussians?”
—BOB DIPRETE ’70, Amity, Ore.

I write in regard to the interesting piece on incivility appearing in the recent issue of
the Bulletin.
Incivility, I believe, is just the tip of the iceberg, just one indication of the absence
of culture, a shortfall that is today responsible for an unstable society and for the
civil unrest which feeds the political appetite for a totalitarian state.
Community can only exist where people trust one another. A random mix of
self-interested careerists will almost certainly fail to achieve community, although
they may learn good manners and come to respect one another. Conflict arises out of
mistrust, and although you may engineer a resolution to conflict, you have only dealt
with the symptom, not the disease.
An individualist’s freedom is achieved by casting off the common bonds—a
shared experience, empathy, human understanding—the ties that bind a community. An ideological commitment to justice, truth, and equality can’t return the isolated and alienated individual to the protection and place offered by the community.
Unfortunately the highly prized individual possesses nothing in the way of personal
security, only the illusory safety offered by the laws, the handgun, and by police-state
mechanisms such as the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security.
The communard can count on the loyalty and protection of fellow human beings.
The enemy is the tribe across the river or over the border. Alas, for the individual, the
enemy is everywhere.
—NED BRIGHT ’56, County Cork, Ireland
I didn’t attend Swarthmore because of any perceived civility,
and I hope current students aren’t either. Barry Schwartz is
right (for once)—maybe Swarthmore and other campuses used
to have an edge that has disappeared. Now we hear about “triggers” and “microagressions” and
the like. Calls for civility are too
often calls for (self ) censorship.
Comedy, satire, parody, and, yes,
ridicule are entirely appropriate
and useful tools in political and
other debate. Sometimes, the
other side is, well, full of it, and
there is no reason not to point
that out “uncivilly.”
—DAN GARFIELD ’89, Denver

I’d like to praise the Bulletin for printing the
hatefully negative letter about Arthur Chu
(Jeopardy!? Is this a joke?) in the fall issue. In
fact, you could have printed it again in the winter
issue, as an example of incivility! Lauren Gilman
’88’s letter in response was excellent. Lastly,
I’m always glad to hear about what a wonderful
career and life Maurice Eldridge ’61 has made at
Swarthmore. I was two classes ahead of him and
remember him as a freshman very well. Again,
with the idea of civility, as I remember him, he
was an example of it. He was his own man in
what was an uncomfortable situation.
—SUSAN BARKER GUTTERMAN ’59
New York

+ SEE MORE LETTERS ONLINE AT bulletin.swarthmore.edu.

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COMMUNITY VOICES

PETER ARKLE

A DEEP LOOK

College makes progress on sexual misconduct prevention

E

Domitrz, an award-winning author and
IGHTEEN MONTHS
speaker, who presented an engaging proago, Swarthmore
gram about consent. In February, our
made a committeam hosted a series of events on healthy
ment to do things in
relationships including a panel about
a new way and to be a
men, masculinity, and relationships.
leader in higher eduThe team has several events planned for
cation in responding to and preventspring, including programs on bystander
ing sexual misconduct. Since 2013, the
intervention, survivor support, sexualSwarthmore community has taken a
ity, and faith, among othdeep look at itself: It conby
ers. All of these events help
ducted internal and external
to increase campuswide
reviews, created new posiunderstanding of issues
tions, began new initiatives,
related to sexual violence
and adopted a new sexwith the goal of educating
ual harassment and assault
about consent, healthy relapolicy. (For a complete list
tionships, bystander interof actions the College has
vention, and survivor support.
taken since spring 2013, see bit.ly/
• *New* New Student Orientation. The
TitleIXSteps.)
Dean’s Office created a new orientation
Much work has been done—and we
program, including intentional sexual
have a lot of work still to do. In my eight
violence and relationship abuse prevenmonths here, I’ve focused on learning
tion programs. Every new student was
about this campus and meeting as many
required to take an online course from
people as I can. I’ve been inspired by the
Campus Clarity called Think About
many students I have met who are absoIt and attend a presentation by Nina
lutely committed to healing this comHarris, Swarthmore’s violence prevenmunity, supporting one another, and
tion educator and advocate.
helping this campus they call home. I’ve
• Title IX House & Fellow. Abigail
worked with students, faculty, and staff
Henderson ’15, the newly hired Title IX
to create the structures that will take us
fellow, joined the office of the Title IX
to the next level. What follows are some
coordinator in January. The office is in
of the new initiatives already underway,
a newly renovated house on Fieldhouse
with more to follow.
Lane and includes office space and a
• Student Title IX Advisory Team. A
comfortable meeting room.
group of 10 dedicated Swarthmore stu• Expanded support for survivors. The
dents meet with me weekly to give guidaforementioned Nina Harris continance, offer suggestions, and work in one
ues to provide advocacy services to stuof four subteams—website developdents—cultivating new resources for
ment, athletics, events, and policy.
support and working across campus to
• Expanded Prevention Education.
improve accessibility to support. In addiThe new Title IX Education Team is
tion, she routinely sponsors survivor
busy planning regular events on gender
dinners and has created regular drop-in
equity, healthy relationships, consent,
hours at the Women’s Resource Center.
and sexual violence prevention. Events
• Continued improvements to
have included a visit in the fall by Mike

KAAREN
WILLIAMSEN

Title IX Coordinator

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adjudication and reporting. This winter,
a small team of staff reviewed the new
sexual harassment and assault policy,
an annual exercise that ensures that our
policies are current with changing federal requirements and match the values
and needs of our campus.
• Sexual Misconduct Task Force.
The task force completed its work,
distributed its report on campus, and
presented it to multiple groups. The
report will continue to inform policy, procedures, and programming
improvements.
Sexual misconduct is a community
issue, and it will take a community to
prevent it. I focus on this issue in four
ways: through campus policies that
reflect federal guidelines and campus
values; a response/adjudication process
that is clear and supportive; ongoing
sexual violence prevention and healthy
relationships education; and creating
a survivor-supportive community. We
have made progress in all four areas,
and I look forward to working with the
Swarthmore community to continue
this vital work.

“Sexual misconduct is a community issue,
and it will take
a community to
prevent it.”

SPRING 2015

3/18/15 12:43 PM

BILLY SMITH II

REWIND: ‘TO WHOM MUCH IS GIVEN … ’
Aid provided in student days inspired
a passion to volunteer

in general. And so it’s to Swarthmore
AS A BLACK, HISPANIC female
that I owe my commitment to giving the
from Linwood, Pa., I was not the
three T’s—time, talent, and treasure.
typical Swarthmore engineering
I volunteered as an admissions interstudent. In fact I was only able to attend
viewer, then joined the Swarthmore
thanks to Swarthmore’s generous finanAlumni Council, serving eight years,
cial aid package. While a student, my
including two years as president and
mother frequently reminded me of the
an ex officio member of the Board of
biblical quote from Luke 12:48: “From
Managers. Through my
every one to whom much
by
Alumni Council service I
is given, much shall be
learned about the College
required.”
from a new perspective
For me, that meant studywhile meeting Swatties
ing hard, completing my
ranging from the ’50s and
assignments, and never
’92
’60s to the Class of 2014.
missing class. Following
My council tenure ended in
graduation, I decided to pay
2011, but my passion for service didn’t.
back some of the aid I’d received by conCurrently, I volunteer 30 to 40 hours a
sistently donating to the College. Over
week for nine nonprofits in the Houston
time, I discovered that an even more
community that focus on education,
gratifying way to give back was through
services for the blind, and the arts.
volunteering—not just to benefit the
Of all my volunteer activities—from
College but ultimately the community

SABRINA
MARTINEZ

fundraising for student scholarships to
a broadcast program I’ve developed to
spotlight volunteers—one in particular
combines my two great loves, theater
and assisting visually impaired individuals. I volunteer for Sight Into Sound,
transferring written material like textbooks and magazines to audio. Every
week I read People magazine on Sight
and Sound radio, a Houston station that
is also a dot.com and a smartphone app,
so anyone, anywhere can access the
station.
As a theater lover, I’m a member of a
group that “audio-describes” live theater performances for blind audience
members, who listen in on headphones
as I sit in a sound booth and describe
on-stage visuals not able to be detected
through the dialogue. My mission is for
blind patrons to “see” the show as well
if not better than their sighted counterparts. I describe at five Houston theaters and the Houston Livestock Show
and Rodeo.
Sometimes, as a volunteer, I also
experience what I describe as small
miracles. Once, while ushering at a performance of The Lion King for autistic children, one young but big boy was
acting out—lying on the floor blocking
the aisle, refusing to cooperate with his
caregivers. When the show ended and I
was ushering people out, the boy came
up to me and held my hand. His father
freaked out, thinking I would be upset,
but I said, “It’s cool.” The boy held my
hand until the theater emptied. I hear
from people who work with children on
the autistic spectrum that things like
that don’t happen.
I will always be driven to give back,
not because it is required, but because I
have something to contribute. As Gene
Lang ’39 told me during a conversation
on Parrish Porch when we were both on
the Board of Managers, “If you can do
something that takes little effort from
you but provides so much to others, why
would you not do it?”
Sabrina Martinez ’92, an employee at a
Houston-based multinational energy corporation,
co-authored three books last year: Change Your
World So You Can Change the World, Pebbles in
the Pond: Transforming The World One Person at a
Time, and The Art of Activation: 24 Laws to Win, to
Thrive, to Prosper, to Rise.

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dialogue
BOOKS

A REVOLUTIONARY DUET

Cultural confines, classifications, and
corsets are shed
by Jamie Stiehm ’82

THE MATCH GIRL AND THE HEIRESS is an unconventional love story at the heart of a great social-justice crusade
that began roughly a century ago. While this new scholarly
work presents as a post-Dickensian novel, the power of its
authenticity makes it resonate more than fiction. Two women
crossed over class privilege and wealth, the widest gulf in
England, to express deep feelings and take care of each other,
in sickness and health—till death did them part.
Was it what we now call “same-sex desire?” This window to
the past could hardly be more timely.
Seth Koven ’78, a historian who teaches at Rutgers
University, invites the reader to early 20th-century London
as it shed the cultural confines, classifications, and corsets
of Victorian England even as global capitalism bore down
hard. The book’s focus is Bromley-on-Bow, the teeming
Cockney district of East London where a massive match factory, Bryant and May, was located. This is where the sprightly
Nellie Dowell, born into next to nothing, worked filling boxes
of matches as part of a mostly young female army. In any case,
the factory workers were “girls.”
Nellie emerged vividly for Koven in his research travels,
and he deftly handles specifics of her working-class experience, illuminating a life that would otherwise be lost to history. As a young woman, she was hospitalized and then treated
as just another “pauper lunatic” at the Whitechapel Asylum.
Like millions, she lived at the mercy—or lack thereof—of the
Poor Law.
Who was Muriel Lester? Famous in her day, way ahead of her
time, she was a global pacifist humanitarian Christian revolutionary with a lovely upper-class aura, voice, and “white clean
hands,” which Nellie spoke of admiringly in her letters. Those
hands seemed to symbolize the distance between them that
could not be bridged: Nellie’s hands were hurt by factory work.
Committed to improving poverty, Muriel eventually “gave
back” part of her family fortune to support Nellie and to
enrich and organize the Bromley-on-Bow community. She
became a central part of it by building Kingsley Hall, similar
to Jane Addams’ Hull House. As Koven tells us, she came to
see residents less as charity cases and more as “rights-bearing citizens.”
Muriel and Nellie were at the forefront of the era’s union
and suffrage struggles. And as the guns of the Great War
resounded, denizens of the movement they built stood with
conscientious objectors.
After the war, the avant-garde Kingsley Hall gained wider
renown. In 1931, Mahatma Gandhi came to call at the hall.
Koven quotes often from Nellie’s inventive, compelling

6

SETH KOVEN ’78, The Match Girl and the Heiress, Princeton
University Press, 2014, 445 pp.

correspondence, for example, “You have been my best friend
on this earth, and I always feel I belong to you somehow. …”
Nothing, however, is saved from Muriel’s end. His hope of capturing the “loving mates” in epistolary conversation is lost.
What remains in the archives is Muriel’s biographical account
of Nellie. From her voluminous annals, we can almost hear her
bright voice saying of her partner, “She cherished it [the hall],
helped it to grow, made it seem real.”
The heiress, who died in 1968, outlived the match girl by 45
years.
Koven expresses the painful reality that, in the end, Nellie
left this earth with much less of everything than her beloved
Muriel. Absent a clear proclamation, it’s hard to precisely
chart the coordinates of desire. That is not the end game, however, when their intimacy is the true story. By investigating the
revolutionary duet in class, politics, social change, love, and
friendship, he has given each their just due. In Koven’s elegant
narrative, he also enlightens all of us.
—JAMIE STIEHM ’82, a history major, is a Washington, D.C.,
columnist on politics and history. She writes for Creators
Syndicate and has contributed to Disunion, the Civil War
series in The New York Times.

Swarthmore College Bulletin / SPRING 2015

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3/20/15 11:45 AM

HOT
TYPE

New books
published by
Swarthmore
graduates
Betsy Polk and Maggie
Ellis Chotas ’89

Power Through
Partnership: How
Women Lead Better
Together, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2014;
154 pp. This book
encourages women
to form workplace
relationships based
on mutual encouragement, flexibility, and
accountability.

dearest friend Silvana
Mauri, translated by
Maria Ottieri, is an
epistolary memoir and
tribute to the miracle
of enduring friendship.
Louis Jargow ’10 and
Suzahn Ebrahimian

E//O: A Remythologized Epic Poem Based
on a Memory of a
Memory of a Memory,
Publication Studio
Hudson, 2014; 95 pp. A
contemporary retelling of the classic story
of love, death, and a
trip to the underworld
to rescue love seeks
reasons for Eurydice’s
decision to remain in
Hades.

Lou Ann Matossian ’77
(translator)

Special Mission: Nemesis, Editions Sigest,
2014; 63 pp. This
graphic novel by Paolo
Cossi, J.B. Dijan, and
Jan Varoujan tells the
true story of a young
Armenian on trial for
shooting the man who
killed his family and
planned to annihilate
his people.

Carol Gaiser ’57

Promettimi di non
morire, nottetempo,
2013; 255 pp. Gaiser’s
collection of her published articles, poems,
and letters to her

Linda Barrett-Osborne ’71
and Paolo Battaglia

Explorers Emigrants
Citizens: A Visual
History of the Italian
American Experience
from the Collections
of the Library of
Congress, The Library
of Congress, 2013; 318
pp. In his foreword,
film icon Martin
Scorsese commends
this book as commemorating “a way of life
that is now almost
gone.”
John Ridland ’53 and Peter Czipott (translators)

Paul Frischkoff ’60

Dr. Chuckle and
Missed Her Ride: Puns
and Malapropisms,
Wild Ginger Press,
2014. With 250 original puns and hundreds
of malapropisms, the
author keeps readers
laughing out loud.

Doodling on the Titanic: The Making of Art in
a World on the Brink,
Sudden Sun Press,
2014; 183 pp. Meditating on the creative
process, Neumann
questions issues such
as art’s relevance in
an era of cultural and
socioeconomic crisis.

Osha Neumann ’61 (formerly Thomas Neumann)

All That Still Matters
At All: Selected Poems
of Miklós Radnóti,
NewAmericanPress,
2013; 205 pp. These
harrowing poems,
recently translated,
were recovered from a
notebook found on the
poet’s body, exhumed
from a mass grave in
1946.
Philip Rutter, Susan
Wiegrefe, and Brandon
Rutter-Daywater ’00

Growing Hybrid
Hazelnuts: The New
Resilient Crop for a
Changing Climate,
Chelsea Green Publishing, 2015; 260 pp.
This book is the first
comprehensive guide
to growing a crop
designed to address a
host of problems with
conventional modern
agriculture.

Maya Schenwar ’05

Locked Down, Locked
Out: Why Prison
Doesn’t Work and How
We Can Do Better,
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2014; 240 pp.
While showing how
the institution that
locks up 2.3 million
Americans is tearing
families and communities apart, the
author looks toward a
world beyond imprisonment.

Benjamin Schwartz ’06

Right of Boom: The
Aftermath of Nuclear Terrorism, The
Overlook Press, 2015;
276 pp. Drawing on
historical research
and service in the departments of defense,
state, and energy,
Schwartz constructs
the scenario of a
nuclear attack on the
United States.
John Oliver Simon ’64

Grandpa’s Syllables,
White Violet Press,
2015; 92 pp. This
legendary poet of
the Berkeley Sixties,
working in 11-syllable
lines, writes fancifully,
among other things,
of aphids, “the color of
lemon lollipops longlicked by luscious
tongues.”

Abigail Swingen ’97

Competing Visions of
Empire: Labor, Slavery, and the Origins
of the British Atlantic
Empire, Yale University Press, 2015; 271 pp.
Swingen offers a new
framework for understanding the origins of
the British empire and
explores the influence
of England’s imperial
ambitions on politics,
labor, economy, and
foreign trade.
Peter Unger ’62

Empty Ideas: A
Critique of Analytic
Philosophy, Oxford
University Press,
2014; 258 pp. In this
provocative book,
Unger challenges contemporary analytic
philosophy, positing
that it focuses predominantly on “empty
ideas.”
Susan Erlandson
Washburn ’60

My Horse, My Self:
Life Lessons From
Taos Horsewomen,
Casa de Snapdragon,
2014; 146 pp. The author’s heartwarming
compilation of stories
by 18 horsewomen
from New Mexico
is enriched with delightful photos by Jett
Ulaner Sarachek, wife
of Norm ’60.

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dialogue
GLOBAL THINKING

SEEKING ASYLUM

Bruce Leimsidor ’63 works globally to better refugees’ lives
by Heidi Hormel

BRUCE LEIMSIDOR ’63 isn’t a one-issue crusader. Although the focus of his
work since the 1970s has been refugees and asylum law, that doesn’t mean
he isn’t interested in other aspects of
human rights, including, most recently,
the recriminalization of homosexuality
in India.
Currently, he teaches European asylum law at Ca’ Foscari University in
Venice, Italy, and he also has been counselor for asylum in the Venice municipality’s program for asylum seekers.
While he’s spent decades working with refugees, his undergraduate
and doctoral work would be a surprise
to many. He didn’t go to law school (he
said most of those working in asylum
law haven’t), was a Spanish major at
Swarthmore, and earned a master’s and
doctorate in Spanish literature from
Princeton University.
“The segue from academic life to refugee activism is not as bizarre as one
would think—one developed out of the
other,” says Leimsidor, whose family considered social action extremely
important.
His area of scholarly interest included
the Spanish Inquisition, which may have
grown out of the discrimination he faced
as a Jew. When Leimsidor applied to colleges in 1959, only Swarthmore offered
him a place. By 1963 the U.S. Supreme
Court had declared the religion-based
quotas that had limited his choices
unconstitutional, so when he applied to
graduate schools, he had 11 offers.
After graduating from Princeton, he
taught Spanish literature at Indiana
University and Occidental and Oberlin
colleges, until the funding for humanistic studies dried up, and his students
couldn’t get jobs. He changed directions and took a job with the Hebrew
Immigrant Aid Society, an international
refugee organization.
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While there, he helped draft the 1980
Refugee Act; aided in the Mariel Cuban
refugee boatlift; played a major role in
arranging the exodus of Jews, evangelical Christians, and other dissidents from
the Soviet Union; and established the
U.S. refugee program for Iranian religious minorities.
In 2002, he moved for a year to the
U.N. High Commission on Refugees as
the senior resettlement specialist in
Nairobi, Kenya, before teaching asylum
law in Venice.
“The urgency is still there,” he says,
explaining why he has stayed in the field,
even as the work has become “more
and more frustrating because the existing legal structure is being taxed to the
breaking point.”
With increased mobility, more people
are fleeing economic stress and inappropriately getting into the refugee system,
making “it more difficult for those fleeing persecution or war to be able to get
heard properly,” he adds.
A part of the problem, he says, is that
the current system was set up under the
Geneva Convention in the early 1950s,
when large numbers of people could not
easily move around the globe.

“It is more difficult for those
fleeing persecution or war to be
able to get heard
properly.”

BRUCE LEIMSIDOR ’63
Law professor, human rights
activist

Last fall, with a grant from his university, he visited India to study humanrights issues, including the effect of the
December 2013 recriminalization of
homosexuality. This legal change also
created issues under international asylum law because, as Leimsidor explains,
persecuted gay individuals have the
right to claim asylum under the Geneva
Convention.
According to Human Rights First,
about 600 people have been prosecuted
under India’s recriminalization, which is
a small number in such a large country,
Leimsidor concedes. “The prosecutions
are not the issue,” he adds emphatically. “The issue is that recriminalization makes the gay community totally
vulnerable.”
He continues to work with the
International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Trans, and Intersex Association in
Geneva and with the Society for People’s
Awareness, Care, and Empowerment in
India on this issue.
In 1959 when Leimsidor applied to
Swarthmore, he says, “A Jewish boy
from New York had limited options.”
That experience now informs his work
to make the lives and options for refugees better around the world.

SPRING 2015

3/18/15 12:43 PM

common good
SHARING SUCCESS AND STORIES OF SWARTHMORE

ON
THE
WEB
PASSING IT ON
More than 200 student
externs gathered
invaluable experiences
and insights from alums
in a wide array of fields.
+ LEARN MORE
bit.ly/SwatExterns

SPREADING
THE LOVE
Student “ninjas” deliver
homemade truffles and
Valentine’s cards to a
not-really-unsuspecting campus—all for a
good cause.
+ WATCH
bit.ly/NinjaLove

ADAM MASTOON

PERILS OF
IMAGINATION
Historian Timothy
Burke discusses why
he finds it useful to
teach a course on
counterfactual history.
+ LISTEN
bit.ly/BurkeTalk

WEB EXCLUSIVE

ImagINe All the
People …
Project enriches campus
community through photos
and personal narratives

IF A PICTURE IS WORTH a thousand words,
ImagINe, a campus initiative showcasing the
diversity of the Swarthmore community, exponentially raises the stakes. Photographic portraits of 24 faculty, staff, and students feature the
subjects’ handwritten narratives about meaningful aspects of their lives—from growing up
poor to struggling with identity. This celebration
of individualism is meant to promote conversations about diversity on campus.

+ READ THE FULL STORY ABOUT THE PROJECT:
bulletin.swarthmore.edu.

by Carrie Compton
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common good

NEW STUDENT
JOURNAL
FOSTERS
SCIENCE
LITERACY

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LAURENCE KESTERSON

T

hree enterprising
seniors are exploring
the way natural sciences intersect with
the College’s other
academic offerings.
Claudia Luján ’15, Ariel Parker ’15,
and Randy Burson ’15 launched The
Swarthmore Journal of Science (SJOS),
an online publication, in January. Their
mission is to explain science in a manner easily understood by a broad, general audience.
The biology majors originally conceived the journal in 2011 as a way to
communicate STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) concepts in
an interdisciplinary manner. SJOS packages science content in a visually exciting way to stimulate dialogue between
science and nonscience readers.
Submissions, which come from students, include research articles, opinion
pieces, photography, and even science-themed poetry.
Amy Vollmer, department chair of
microbiology, is one of many faculty
supporters. “From time to time, students think about doing some sort of
journal,” says Vollmer. “In my experience, few of those ideas have been initiated by a group of students who are as
thoughtful and thorough in their ‘background’ work.”
Vollmer believes SJOS enhances science education at Swarthmore through
its articles, which are “thoughtful and
deliberate and can uncover gaps in
understanding or logic,” she says. “When
those gaps are filled, the student’s knowledge of the subject is stronger.”
Whether a journal topic explains the
science behind the Ebola epidemic or
solar physics, its relevance to a broad
readership is paramount, according to

Seniors, from left, Claudia Lujan, Randy Burson, and Ariel Parker , shown here in a science lab
in Martin Hall, launched the College’s first student science-journalism publication.

Luján. Burson expects the magazine will
be a valuable resource, especially for
underrepresented students pursuing
STEM interests.
By combining relevant content with
intuitive design, the journal founders
hope to make SJOS a strong, compelling, and campus-driven publication.
“A scientist, at the most basic level, is
an investigator. At Swarthmore, we are
all broadly trained to investigate and
ask questions,” says Parker. “At SJOS,
we ask that readers investigate our articles and join the dialogue.”
— AARON JACKSON ’16
+ READ THE DEBUT ISSUE OF SJOS at
bit.ly/SwatJournalOfSci.

“A scientist,
at the most
basic level, is
an investigator.
At Swarthmore,
we are all broadly trained to
investigate and
ask questions.”

SPRING 2015

3/19/15 7:50 AM

COLLEGE WARMLY WELCOMES
ITS 15TH PRESIDENT

+ SEE VALERIE SMITH meet the campus community:
bit.ly/15thPresident.

1

LAURENCE KESTERSON

WARMLY WELCOMED on a snowy February day,
Valerie Smith met hundreds of the students, staff,
faculty, and Board members she will soon serve as
Swarthmore’s 15th president.
An intensive six-month search for a successor to
Rebecca Chopp, who became chancellor of the University of Denver in August, resulted in the Board’s
unanimous approval Feb. 21 of Smith, Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature, Professor of English and
African-American Studies, and dean of the college at
Princeton University.
A search committee of faculty, students, staff, and
alumni Board members, led by Salem Shuchman ’84,
selected Smith following extensive communitywide
consultation.
In sharing the news with the Swarthmore community, Giles Kemp ’72, chair of the Board of Managers
said, “Valerie Smith is a respected scholar and a wise,
effective leader with impressive accomplishments
that closely align with Swarthmore’s values. Her colleagues consistently praise her judgment, integrity,
and commitment to making a liberal arts education
accessible to all students.”
Smith’s appointment was warmly and enthusiastically received. In addition to the energetic buzz at Eldridge Commons on that snowy Saturday, the news
ignited Swarthmore’s social media platform and continued for days.
Smith, who has authored more than 40 articles and
three books on African-American literature, culture,
film, and photography, has spent most of her career at
Princeton, where she founded the Center for African
American Studies. She became dean in 2011. Smith
received a B.A. cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from
Bates College and M.A. and Ph.D. from the University
of Virginia.
Before Smith’s appointment officially begins July 1, Constance Cain Hungerford will continue as interim president. During the transitional period, Smith
plans to visit campus quietly to learn as much as she
can about the College. She intends to spend her first
year “listening to and learning from different members of the community, both on and off campus,” she
says. “I’m eager to begin those conversations. I’m excited to be working for a college with such an inspired
sense of mission.”
In seeking the position, Smith says, “I was interested not so much in being a president but in being
the president of Swarthmore. I found your defining
features to be irresistible—the way you put such a
premium on the value of collaboration, that you are
committed to academic rigor, yet inspired by the importance of making a difference and having an impact
on the common good.”

2

1. Valerie Smith will become Swarthmore’s new president July 1. 2. Hundreds of
College community members crowded into Eldridge Commons to meet future President
Valerie Smith Feb. 21.

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common good

HONORARY DEGREES
ANNOUNCED
FOUNDER OF the Chester Children’s
Chorus and former Swarthmore
music professor John Alston; longtime Delaware Supreme Court Justice
Randy Holland ’69; and educator and
world-renowned authority on plant
genetics Molly Miller Jahn ’80 will
receive honorary degrees at the 143rd
Commencement May 31.
Alston, former associate professor of music at the College, founded
the Chester Children’s Chorus in 1994,
using music to offer children from the
Chester-Upland School District the
chance to expand their intellectual and
cultural horizons.
To further academic achievement
and artistic excellence in the Chester
community, Alston founded the Chester
Upland School of the Arts in 2008,
a precursor to the Chester Charter
School for the Arts, which opened in
2012 to 325 students. In 2013, Alston
left Swarthmore to focus on his work in
Chester.
Appointed in 1986, Holland was
the youngest person on Delaware’s
Supreme Court and is that court’s
longest-serving justice. His written

opinions, including many landmark
decisions, number more than 700.
He is one of three Americans named
honorary Masters of the Bench at
Lincoln’s Inn in London, along with
Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader
Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens and is
considered one of the top 100 influencers of corporate governance and business ethics in the nation.
Jahn is a professor at the University
of Wisconsin–Madison with appointments in the department of agronomy, the laboratory of genetics, and the
Center for Sustainability and the Global
Environment.
She researches genomics and plant
breeding of vegetable crops, with
emphasis on the molecular genetics of disease resistance and quality
traits. Her research programs at the
University of Wisconsin and earlier at
Cornell University have produced vegetable varieties grown commercially
and for subsistence on six continents.
Jahn also has been deputy and acting
under-secretary of research, education,
and economics at the U.S. Department
of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.

Happiness Is …
To cartoonist Charles Schultz, it was a
warm puppy. But what does happiness
mean to you? Tell us in 350 words or fewer.
We’ll run a selection in the print or online
magazine to accompany a future article on
the topic of happiness.

+ SEND US YOUR HAPPY THOUGHTS before
May 1: bulletin@swarthmore.edu

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A month or so from now, the campus will
hum with excitement, as parents, faculty and
staff, and members of the graduating class of
2015 stream into the idyllic Scott Amphitheater for this year’s Commencement exercises.
Awestruck spectators will be treated to words
of wisdom and inspiration from three of
Swarthmore’s finest in the areas of education,
law, and science: honorary-degree recipients,
from top, John Alston, Randy Holland ’69, and
Molly Miller-Jahn ’80.

SPRING 2015

3/20/15 12:01 PM

LAURENCE KESTERSON

HISTORY BUFFS

A Revolutionary Revelation

I

T’S NOV. 16, 1776: Do you know
where your ancestors are? Two
Swarthmore staffers do, and,
inexplicably, they were together.
After a conversation about genealogy, Michael Patterson, media
services manager and Eric Behrens ’92, associate
chief information technology officer, realized that
their great-great-great-great-great-grandfathers
fought in the same Revolutionary War battle.
Upon learning about Behrens’ Hessian ancestor, Patterson—an ancestry.com buff who can
trace his lineage to King Edward I—asked to
see the 3-inch-thick book compiled by Behrens’
relatives that traces the bloodlines of that soldier. Patterson would discover that a Hessian
regiment, which included Johannes Nicholas
Bahner, Behrens’ ancestor, captured a garrison
of Continental soldiers during the Nov. 16 Battle
of Fort Washington in northern Manhattan.
George McCreary, Patterson’s ancestor, was in
that captured group.
“There were only about 9,000 people involved
[in the battle] and these two were there. That
just blew my mind,” says Patterson. McCreary
was imprisoned for two months on a British

ship before being paroled and returning home
to York, Pa. Of the 2,800 troops captured in that
battle, he was one of only 800 to survive the
wretched conditions.
Meanwhile, Bahner’s regiment crossed into
New Jersey, fatefully garrisoning at Trenton just
before the bellwether Battle of Trenton in the
wee hours of Dec. 26, 1776.
After the Hessian defeat, Bahner was captured and marched to Lancaster, Pa., likely as
an indentured laborer, before returning to battle after a prisoner swap 18 months later. In April
1779, Bahner deserted his post near Savannah,
Ga. He does not officially resurface until 1782
when he paid taxes on a cow in Lebanon County,
Pa. He would eventually settle on 700-plus acres
of farmland in nearby Northumberland County
where many descendants remain.
“Even though we work together every day,” says
Behrens, smiling, “I swear Mike has never made
any derogatory remarks about ‘mercenaries’ who
fought on the wrong side of The Revolution.”
—CARRIE COMPTON
+ WHERE WERE YOUR ANCESTORS during the Revolution? Comment on this story at
bulletin.swarthmore.edu.

Eric Behrens ’92 and
Mike Patterson brave
the winter temps in
front of Philadelphia’s
Independence Hall.

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LAURENCE KESTERSON

common good

LAURENCE KESTERSON

Karl Barkley ’15, a guard from Davidson,
N.C., spends time on sports and sustainability.

A STAR ON THE COURT
AND IN THE COMMUNITY
Supriya Davis ’15 (left) and Kate Wiseman ’15, in the Ware pool, look toward the end of their
highly successful College swimming career.

Swimmers to Swammers
“EVERY YEAR, I have that moment
where I ask myself, ‘We’re swimming
back and forth for five months to try
to swim fast in one weekend? That’s
absurd. But when I see my team, I know
I’m doing it for a good reason, and I love
it,” says Kate Wiseman ’15.
Embracing this absurdity has guided
Wiseman and Supriya Davis ’15 to being
two of the most decorated swimmers in
Swarthmore history. While both have
broken many school and conference
records, perhaps none were more satisfying than their performances at the
Centennial Conference championships
in late February. In one weekend, the
duo broke eight school records and four
conference and championship meet
records.
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They attribute their success to their
team—their family away from home at
Swarthmore.
“There’s so much energy, and I want
to swim fast for my teammates,” says
Davis.
“The energy from [relay] events especially makes me realize that if I didn’t
have this team, I wouldn’t be swimming,” adds Wiseman.
Wiseman, who will be in Chicago as a
Teach For America corps member postgraduation, and Davis, a Fulbright finalist who intends to enter medical school,
have begun to reflect on what the transition from “swimmer” to “swammer”
will look like.
—DAVID FIALKOW ’15

Karl Barkley ’15 was recently
named to the 2015 Allstate NABC
Good Works Team, which honors
college basketball players nationwide who have given back to their
communities. Barkley has been involved in many sustainability projects on and off campus, including
weatherization and retrofitting efforts in Chester, Pa.,–area homes to
increase energy efficiency.
Barkley, who has helped sponsor
Zero Waste Games at campus athletic events, traveled to the NCAA
Men’s Final Four in Indianapolis to
work with other winners on a community-outreach project.

+

READ MORE ABOUT KARL BARKLEY at

bit.lyBarkley15.

SPRING 2015

3/18/15 12:43 PM

LEARNING CURVE

STILL KEEPING THE BEAT

EARLY DAYS

ROB LEWINE ’67 has played with some of the best classic rockers since
transferring from Swarthmore to UCLA’s film school his junior year..

At UCLA, Lewine wrote and directed a film featuring then–good buddy Harrison Ford. “It was a colossal
disaster,” he recalls, but Ford went on to work with
Lewine on a documentary of The Doors’ 1968 tour,
Feast of Friends.

by Sherri Kimmel

NEW DIRECTIONS

JOE DOHERTY

While hanging out at the home of The Monkees’ Peter
Tork, Lewine “would find myself playing with people
like Stephen Stills and David Crosby.” He played bass
with the Illinois Speed Press, “brother band to Chicago,” and other groups, including early versions of The
Grass Roots and Little Feat.

1

PIVOT POINT
Abandoning music in 1972, Lewine used film-school
connections to begin producing classroom filmstrips
for Encyclopedia Britannica. That gig evolved into a
freelance photography career. “ I’ve been a photographer ever since,” he says, shooting for magazines
such as Life, Time, Esquire, and Smithsonian as well
as ad agencies, design firms, and entertainment and
corporate clients. In 1993, he began producing stock
photography for photo agencies, including Corbis and
Image Source.

NOW
2

1 . Rob Lewine ’67 strums bass with his current band the Enzymes with the Active
Ingredients. 2 . Lewine (center) from a 1969 album cover

“In 1969 I jammed with Jimi
Hendrix at a club in Hollywood.
We played one tune for a full
hour. It was like being transported to another galaxy.”

This spring, Lewine is launching a new endeavor, Fotoliterate. He’s encouraging corporate marketers to
abandon stock photography and instead have him
shoot lifestyle imagery to promote their brands.
He’s also making music again. In 2006, with former Blues Brothers keyboardist Murphy Dunne, he
formed the Enzymes with the Active Ingredients—a
rock band that meets weekly to rehearse and record
original material. They perform around LA in small
theaters, public libraries, art centers, and for special occasions. Lewine lights up when a recent listener compares the Enzymes to the veteran roots-rock
band NRBQ. Says Lewine, “NRBQ looms large for
us—they’re a great, quirky band. But the Enzymes are
quirky too. Maybe even more so.”

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common good

LIBERAL ARTS LIVES

MAP QUEST
MICHAEL BUEHLER ’89
Rare-map dealer

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Michael Buehler makes
his living telling stories
though rare maps.
by Carrie Compton

“WHAT I DID WAS kind of crazy,”
says Michael Buehler ’89. Twelve years
ago, Buehler and wife Anne Vaillant
’89 were expecting their second child
when he decided to leave his management-consulting career to become a
dealer in rare maps.
“I jumped into this capital-intensive field where I had little expertise, no
particular connections, and little savings,” says the owner of Boston Rare
Maps. “I got very lucky when another
dealer took me under his wing and gave
me a lot of mentoring.”
Buehler’s decision to morph from
antique-map enthusiast to boutique
rare-map dealer—one of only about 20
in the country—brought with it a steep
professional learning curve.
“You have to be a historian and a
connoisseur. You have to understand
marketing and the Internet. You have
to know how to manage clients, colleagues, and conflicts of interest,”
Buehler says of his work.
“I’m very grateful for Swarthmore,
because all I really had [in the beginning] was the ability to write, to assimilate and synthesize information, and
tell a story,” says Buehler, an honors
philosophy major.
This winter, Buehler—whose interest in maps began in 1992 after spontaneously stopping in an old print
shop—was savoring the most important
acquisition of his career: a map of the
1782 Battle of Yorktown, Va., drawn by
a major in the Continental artillery who
was present at the event.
“This map has it all if you’re a collector of printed Americana. It’s beautiful, it’s important, it’s by someone who
was there, and it’s very rare,” he says
enthusiastically.
“I love maps because they reveal
wonderful stories about ourselves and
our history.” He adds, “For me, that’s
what it’s all about.”

SPRING 2015

3/18/15 12:43 PM

SHERRI KIMMEL

LIBERAL ARTS LIVES

1

2

1 . Hannah Kurtz ’13 ventures into the Phnom Penh bustle on her moto. 2 . Cambodia’s capital city is festively lit to ring in the new year.

TAKING IT TO
THE STREETS
IN PHNOM
PENH

In Cambodia, Hannah
Kurtz ’13 motors on
as an international
service worker
by Sherri Kimmel

Maneuvering through the blitzkrieg streets
of Phnom Penh is not for the faint of heart.
Motorbikes (“motos” in local parlance)
swarm the streets like flies at a backyard
barbecue. No traffic lights diminish the disarray.
In late December Hannah Kurtz ’13 ventures out after dark for the first time on her
red Vespa, a loaner from the Mennonite
Central Committee (MCC), in this city of 1.5
million people.
Kurtz, a Mennonite from Somerset County, population 28,000, on the Eastern Shore
of Maryland, has been an MCC volunteer
with a small stipend for living expenses
since graduation. She spent a year in Jordan as a teaching assistant at a school for
the blind. Recently, she began a three-year
stint in Phnom Penh working with the Returnee Integration Support Center, which
serves individuals who came to the United
States as Cambodian refugees but were deported after being convicted of felonies.
Many of her clients grew up as Americans, sport tattoos, and speak perfect English. Kurtz helps them readjust to life in
Cambodia by helping them find jobs and
housing. Earlier this day, she visited some
who’d run afoul of Cambodian law and were
in prison, providing them with toiletries and

money for food and water, which the prison
doesn’t supply.
Kurtz also works with Women PeaceMakers on women’s rights and antiviolence
issues.
“I love this work,” Kurtz proclaims. “I’ve
always wanted to work abroad.” Armed with
the knowledge gained in her peace and conflict studies major, she feels well equipped
to understand “how structures work.”
After her MCC service, Kurtz anticipates
graduate school, then a return to international humanitarian work.
For now, she is stretching herself in many
ways—not just by riding a moto but with her
home-cooked curries and pad thai. “All I ever ate at Swarthmore was hamburgers,” she
says with a laugh. “Donnie [in dining services] was my best friend.”

HANNAH KURTZ ’13

International service worker

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VISHU ’75
SWARTHMORE

OLDEST
BROTHER

LIVES IN
SAN FRANCISCO
CEO,
PROSETTA
BIOSCIENCES
INC.

THE SCIENCE
18

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SOLE
SISTER

YOUNGEST
CHILD

LIVES IN
SEATTLE

RESEARCHERS,
UNIVERSITY OF
WASHINGTON

OF SIBLINGS
RON WURZER

JAISRI ’79
SWARTHMORE

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Scientific siblings
stick together to
target lethal viruses
by Dana Mackenzie ’79

JAIRAM ’80
SWARTHMORE
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W
hen you meet Vishwanath “Vishu” Lingappa ’75, one of the
first things you notice is his voice. In a blog for National
Geographic, Carl Zimmer calls it a “radio-talk-show-host”
voice. Other descriptions could equally well apply. It is a
CEO’s voice and an orator’s voice. A simple interview with
Lingappa has more dramatic pianissimos and booming crescendos than a Beethoven symphony.
Most of all, though, it is a big brother’s voice, loud and
encouraging and demanding at the same time.
“I have a favorite story about Vishu,” says his brother,
Jairam ’80. “As kids, when we were watching TV and got to a
commercial break, he would say ‘Jai! I’ll bet you can’t make me
a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich and milk and bring it back
upstairs in less than a minute!’ ”
As the youngest sibling, Jai always looked up to his big
brother. He would race downstairs to make the sandwich. He
didn’t realize that as soon as he left the room, Vishu would
stop counting and then start again when he heard Jairam
approaching. “Sixty-one! Sixty-two!” Vishu would say as
Jairam burst into the room. “You almost made it! Next time
you’ll do it!”
In a literal way, Vishu has always been there for Jairam
and his sister Jaisri ’79. When Jaisri and Jairam were undergraduates at Swarthmore, he arranged for them to work

20

in his Ph.D. mentor’s laboratory at Rockefeller University
during the summer. When Jairam decided to go to medical school after getting a doctorate in biophysics, he chose
the University of California–San Francisco (UCSF), where
Vishu was an attending physician, and Jaisri was a resident.
The three Lingappa siblings lived in the same house, and their
weekly discussions of cases from the New England Journal of
Medicine were the stuff of local legend.
In the competitive and individualistic world of academia, it
is a rare thing for three siblings to stick together the way that
the Lingappas have. Not only have they stayed close physically (Jairam and Jaisri now live in Seattle and teach at the
University of Washington), they work in similar fields: Vishu
and Jaisri focus on understanding how a host cell’s proteins
get co-opted by viruses after infection, while Jairam uses
human genetics to understand how viruses might enter the
host in the first place. All have been involved with Vishu’s
company, Prosetta Biosciences, either as founders or scientific advisers. Now 12 years old, the company is closing in on
a new class of drugs that would be effective against multiple
viral diseases.
“If we are right that we have found the next generation of
drug targets, it will change the face of the pharmaceutical
industry,” Vishu says. He’s using his full-on CEO voice now—
the one he used this winter to clinch the latest round of capital funding for his company. Viruses, beware! In the power of
three Lingappas, you have found a worthy adversary.
FROM GENEVA TO SRI LANKA … TO SWARTHMORE
Vishu was born in 1954 to parents who had a remarkable story
of their own. B.T. and Yamuna Lingappa had met in India, after
she wrote and published a story about two star-crossed lovers
searching for knowledge. B.T., a great believer in the power of
education, admired the story and became her pen pal. Before
long, Yamuna was traveling hundreds of miles to meet him,
and eventually they married. In the India of the late 1940s, it
was absolutely unheard-of—a marriage for love, between people from two different Brahmin subcastes.
“There was a big hullaballoo in the extended families,” Jairam
says. The Lingappas moved to the United States to pursue doctoral degrees. After graduate school at Purdue (where Vishu
was born) and postdoc positions at the University of Michigan
and Michigan State (where Jaisri and Jairam were born,
respectively), they settled down in Worcester, Mass., to teach
and do research at Holy Cross College.
But their days of wandering were not quite over. In 1969 and
1970, their sabbatical year, B.T. and Yamuna spent 13 months
traveling the globe with Vishu, Jaisri, and Jairam. It was a formative experience for the younger Lingappas.
The first stop was Geneva, for five months. “My parents, in
their brilliant and maverick way, decided not to send us to an

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international school but to place us in a French-speaking local
school,” Jaisri says—even though she and Jairam spoke not a
word of French. “We had to learn very quickly.”
The next stop was Turkey—and another eye-opening lesson outside the classroom. “Right next door to the hotel was
a Turkish sweet shop,” Jairam says. “The owner lavished us
with sweets, until the very last night, when he found out we
were Americans, and he abruptly wouldn’t let us back into the
store. It taught us how much politics impacts our lives, how
the U.S. is regarded both positively and negatively abroad.”
India came next. “We wandered all over the subcontinent,
from Kashmir to Sri Lanka,” Vishu says. For the first time, the
Lingappa children were confronted with the enormous economic disparity between their homeland and the homeland of
their relatives.
“I remember taking a rickshaw one time,” Jaisri says. “Back
then, it was the equivalent of a taxi. But it showed you how
human life was devalued, with people treated as almost beasts
of burden. The person pulling our rickshaw did not look well.
Mother asked him some questions and found out that he had a
fever, and she helped him get medical care.”
“It just didn’t seem right,” she says. “We had so many experiences like that, where it was clear that a small intervention
could make a big difference. How powerless we felt … That
experience made all three of us activists.”
Of course, the ’60s were a time of social upheaval in
America. In 1967, Vishu’s parents appointed him the family’s

“WE WANDERED
ALL OVER THE
SUBCONTINENT,
FROM KASHMIR
TO SRI LANKA.”
–VISHU LINGAPPA ’75

From left, Jairam, Jaisri, and Vishu enjoy a rare moment together 10
years ago at Mount Baker National Recreation Area in Washington state.

representative to the historic march on the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam War.
“That was when I first saw the name of Swarthmore,” Vishu
says. “There was a small contingent from Harvard and a small
contingent from Stanford, and then there was a very large
contingent from Swarthmore.” Curious about this small college with an outsized antiwar movement, Vishu read up on
Swarthmore’s Quaker heritage, and Swarthmore moved to the
top of the list when he applied to colleges.
Swarthmore was the second transformative experience of
Vishu’s life. “Never again in my life did I have to work half as
hard as I did at Swarthmore—and I’m a guy who still works
12 hours a day, seven days a week,” Vishu says. “I was miserable for the first two years, until I figured the place out,” he says.

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FROM [PROFESSOR
RICHARD] SCHULDENFREI, VISHU LEARNED
TO CHALLENGE THE
“NAÏVE REDUCTIONISM” THAT PERVADES
MODERN SCIENCE—
THE VIEW THAT THE
WHOLE IS NOTHING
MORE THAN THE SUM
OF THE PARTS.
“Then it became enormously fun and one of the most intellectually pleasant experiences I’ve ever had.”
Three professors had a lifelong impact on him: philosophy
professor Richie Schuldenfrei, Russian professor Thompson
Bradley, and biology professor Bob Savage. From Schuldenfrei,
Vishu learned to challenge the “naïve reductionism” that pervades modern science—the view that the whole is nothing
more than the sum of the parts. Without the ability to see the
bigger picture, he believes that he would not have discovered
the new drug targets that Prosetta is working on.
FOLLOWING A MORAL COMPASS
From Bradley, Vishu says he learned a “moral compass,” and
he learned to take a historical approach. In biology, this means

22

paying attention to evolution. “Anything that we discover in
biology today, evolution has already figured out, and 100 times
more,” he says.
“It also means recognizing, as scientists rarely do, that history doesn’t end with us,” Vishu adds. In the early 2000s, scientists were proclaiming the human genome as the be all and end
all of medical knowledge. In fact, as they soon discovered, the
genome is only the beginning. You can’t understand anything
in a cell without proteomics—the study of how proteins change
their shapes to perform various tasks. And Lingappa has gone a
step beyond that. While most biologists focus on individual proteins, he studies groups of proteins. Where most scientists try
to simplify, Vishu complicates, not for the sake of complication
but to follow the golden thread laid down by evolution.
After Swarthmore, Vishu joined the laboratory of a future
Nobel Prize-winner, Günter Blobel, at Rockefeller University.
There he learned Blobel’s technique of “functional reconstitution of protein biogenesis in cell-free systems.” That
mouthful of words means simply recreating in a test tube the
hard-to-decipher events that occur in the crowded interior of
a cell. In a living cell, many processes happen too fast for scientists to see, as if powered by jet fuel. The same reactions
happen more slowly and inefficiently in a test tube, as if they
are powered by a sputtering kerosene lamp. This inefficiency
is actually a boon for the researcher. The ability to slow reactions down and observe the intermediate steps helped Vishu
discover the multiprotein complexes that lie at the heart of his
current research.
LISTENING TO LITTLE SISTER
Until the 1990s, the main influences on Vishu’s career were
older people: his parents, Schuldenfrei, Bradley, Savage,
Blobel. But there was one more piece that still had yet to fall
into place, and it came from his younger sister.
Jaisri had followed in Vishu’s footsteps to a great degree—
going to Swarthmore, taking classes with Schuldenfrei,
Bradley, and Savage, working in Blobel’s lab next to Vishu, and
learning the power of cell-free systems. But she didn’t plan to
follow him into cell biology. She intended to go into neurology
instead. Then, in 1987, she had a life-changing experience of
her own. She moved to San Francisco and found herself at the
epicenter of the AIDS epidemic.
“I spent the first half of my internship giving out death sentences,” she says. That’s what AIDS was back then: a 100 percent fatal disease for which no treatment was known. But
halfway through her internship, a new drug came out—AZT—
and changed the whole equation. “Suddenly people were surviving,” she says. “There was hope and a sense of what science
can do.” Her plans went out the window. Now Jaisri wanted to
understand how HIV worked.
She zeroed in on one particular part of HIV’s life cycle. Like

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RON WURZER

any virus, HIV consists of RNA (its genetic code) enclosed
within a protective shell, called a capsid. The capsid is assembled from a single type of protein—2,000 or so bricks assembled into a sphere. But what does the assembling? According
to conventional wisdom, backed up by experiments, the process is spontaneous: Get enough copies of the protein and the
RNA together, and the virus will self-assemble with no additional input of energy.
To Jaisri, this idea of spontaneous generation didn’t sound
right. Maybe it could happen in the artificial setting of a
recombinant DNA lab but not in a real cell. The inside of a cell
is a fantastically busy place—think of Grand Central Station or
the streets of Mumbai. How can 2,000 copies of a protein find
one another within this chaotic environment?
Surely, she thought, they needed help from the cell itself. To
prove it, she showed that a reduction in the cell’s fuel supply
(called ATP) would slow the process down. The experiments
used cell-free systems, where the reactions were already
slow in the first place. Her apprenticeship in Vishu’s lab was
already paying dividends.

Vishu Lingappa’s research on protein complexes is based on the idea
of recreating (and slowing down) cellular reactions inside a test tube.
These “cell-free systems” have enabled him to understand what viruses
do inside a cell—and how to stop them.

At first no one believed her idea that capsid assembly in the
cell was not spontaneous, except Vishu. Even Jaisri wasn’t
entirely sure. The first few experiments gave negative or everso-slightly positive results, the kind that leave a researcher
wondering if she is chasing a will-o’-the-wisp. But Vishu was
always 10 steps ahead of her. “I could bring him data, and he
would make me see it in a completely different way,” she says.
She learned that negative data doesn’t necessarily mean the
effect isn’t there: You just have to ask the question a different
way. It was the same lesson she had learned at Swarthmore,
from Savage’s biology courses.
Even after she had established to her satisfaction that the
virus tapped into the cell’s fuel supply, “she had a really hard
time publishing it,” says Mike McCune, a professor at UCSF
who is on Prosetta’s board of directors. “Now it’s accepted, but
at the time, some of the giants of the field didn’t accept it.”
One reason Vishu welcomed her idea was that it fit right
into his own hypotheses, which are still controversial. He
introduced a concept known as “protein bioconformatics,”
which says that the same protein can do different things,
depending on what shape it assumes. An important corollary of this idea is that what are currently called “misfolded”
proteins may actually represent (or have represented in the
evolutionary past) alternatively folded forms with different
functions.
In the Lingappa model as applied to virology, the virus pulls
together what Vishu calls “assembly machines” and what the
rest of the profession calls “RNA granules.” These are complex
sets of proteins that the cell temporarily uses to build its own
structures. Think of auto parts lying around a garage, which
the cell puts together to make an engine. Now think of the process gone horribly awry. The virus enters the cell and combines these parts in a way they were never intended to go. It
turns the cell’s assembly machine into a misshapen creature—
call it a Transformer—that is, nevertheless, very good at doing
what the virus wants it to (finding viral proteins and chaperoning them into a capsid). When the job is finished, the virus
releases the pieces of the Transformer back into the cell, and
nobody can tell the Transformer was ever there.
In the slowed-down world of the test tube, the Lingappas
have seen this process. They have seen the partially assembled
capsids and the Transformers and shown that they consume
the cell’s fuel.
FINDING THE LATCHKEY
Why does it matter that capsid assembly is energy-dependent and chaperone-dependent? It means that if you can create a drug that latches on to the Transformer during the brief
period when it is active, you can stop the viral assembly in
its tracks. The drug won’t have side effects on healthy cells,
because when the assembly machines are in their normal

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Central Hypotheses
of Prosetta’s Work

Virus

Viral
Proteins

1. Viral proteins
recruit host proteins.

1 Viral capsid assembly

is facilitated by critical
viral-host interactions.

2. Host protein complex is
converted to “Transformer.”

CELL ENERGY
INPUT

5. Capsid complete
and host proteins
discarded, the virus
is ready to escape.

4. “Transformer”
assembles viral
proteins into
capsid.

The virus enters the cell and
combines these parts in a
way never intended. It turns
the cell’s assembly machine
into a misshapen creature—
call it a Transformer—that
is, nevertheless, very good at
doing what the virus wants
it to do (finding viral
proteins and chaperoning
them into a capsid). When
the job is finished, the virus
releases pieces of the
Transformer back into the
cell, and nobody can tell the
Transformer was ever there.

CELL
MEMBRANE

3. “Transformer”
moves to cell
membrane.

2 Targeting these viral-host
interactions will yield
inhibitors of virus
assembly.

Why does it matter that capsid
assembly is energy-dependent
and chaperone-dependent? It
means that if you can create a
drug that latches on to the
Transformer during the brief
period when it is active, you can
stop the viral assembly in its
tracks. The drug won’t have side
effects on healthy cells, because
when the assembly machines
are in their normal (non-Transformer) shape the drug won’t
bind to them.

24

1. Anti-viral does not
bind to host proteins
in normal configuration.

2. Anti-viral binds to and
disables “Transformer.”

3. Viral proteins fail to
assemble into a capsid.

Anti-viral
Molecule

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(non-Transformer) shape the drug won’t bind to them. And
the virus won’t develop resistance because, unlike every other
antiviral drug ever developed, it doesn’t attack the virus. It only
latches onto the cell’s own proteins and prevents their misuse by the virus. The virus simply can’t use the cell’s machinery for its own nefarious ends—like a bank robber who can’t
find a teller.
Prosetta is now in hot pursuit of drugs that will bind to the
aberrant assembly machines. It’s not easy, because they are so
fragile, but “Vishu has figured out how to isolate them in a test
tube so that they’re stable and druggable,” McCune says.
Last year Vishu and several colleagues (including Vishu’s
daughter Usha and Jaisri) published an article in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences about a drug
active against the rabies virus that he hopes to have ready
for clinical trials in about a year. This wasn’t headline news,
because rabies vaccines already exist and are very effective.
But maybe it should have been headline news. Rabies is the
most lethal virus known, with essentially a 100 percent fatality rate.

ONE DRUG
CAN TARGET ALL
FLAVIVIRUSES—A
FAMILY THAT INCLUDES
DENGUE, YELLOW FEVER,
WEST NILE VIRUS,
AND HEPATITIS C.

“It makes Ebola look like a walk in the park,” Vishu says.
Though it may seem like a thing of the past, rabies kills more
than 50,000 people a year—and probably a lot more, because
most of the victims live in poor societies with inadequate disease-reporting systems. Prosetta’s drug could be the first one
to treat rabies after symptoms start.
But the rabies drug is only the beginning. Perhaps the most
exciting feature of the new drugs is their versatility. For example, one drug can target all flaviviruses—a family that includes
dengue, yellow fever, West Nile virus, and hepatitis C. Contrast
this with the limited repertoire of conventional antivirals such
as Tamiflu, and you begin to understand why Vishu expects to
reshape the pharmaceuticals business. It’s the lesson of evolution again. Viruses can easily make small changes to develop
resistance to a drug. But mutating into a whole new viral family
is highly implausible. “I’m not expecting them to develop resistance in my lifetime or my kids’ lifetimes,” he says.
SCIENCE AND SERVICE
When Vishu told his colleagues in 2002 that he was resigning his academic position at UCSF to start a company, they
were incredulous. But it was important for him not to have a
fallback position. “I was prepared to put it all at risk,” he says.
And it turned out to be a smart move. “Savvy investors realize they’re investing in a person,” he explains. “If that person is
willing to put it all on the line, they’re either crazy, or they’re a
good bet. The big question for the investor is whether they’re
crazy or not.”
So far Vishu has done a pretty good job of convincing people
that he’s sane. Prosetta’s seed money has come from wealthy
donors, and this year for the first time he took his case to institutional investors. That’s a sign that the financial community
is starting to see the company as a less speculative venture.
Yet the money is only the means, not the end. Deep in his
heart, the idealist endures. In the early 1980s, Vishu wrote,
“Science in a capitalist society is a reflection of capitalism
itself—shackled by the same fetters on creativity and justice
that burden society as a whole.” He still stands by those words.
He dreams of equality and justice, especially for those who
don’t have access to health care. He hasn’t forgotten the rickshaw driver in India or the 50,000 victims of rabies. But his
methods have changed. He has started a nonprofit foundation
and funded it with Prosetta stock. Someday, if Prosetta has
been successful, he plans to dedicate those resources to combat the inequities in our society, starting with health care.
“The whole Lingappa family has always been committed
to two passions, science and service,” says McCune. “That’s
why I wanted to join Prosetta. It’s so different from the other
biotechnology companies. Vishu isn’t interested in making
money. He is interested in making people healthy.”

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“BEING IN HONORS
WAS LIKE HAVING
TO LEARN ANOTHER
FOREIGN LANGUAGE”

“The need to write and present
to peers on a weekly basis and
tackle complicated issues in a
finite period of time is very relevant for life in public health.
—Anne Schuchat ’80, H’95

—PATRICIA PARK ’03

“You had to
be engaged,
whether you
were presenting
or not.”

“There’s no
anonymity in a
seminar, no hiding
in the back row.
You’re required
to be up. And you
want to be.”
—Alberto Mora ’74

—Antoinette Sayeh ’79

“The ability to work
in groups, present
my own ideas and
listen to the ideas of
others, then compile
those ideas into a
useful whole, was
definitely enhanced
by being in the Honors Program.”
—Robert Scher ’89

“It was really satisfying to go
through the process of understanding new ideas and then presenting them in my own words.”

LAURENCE KESTERSON

—Walter Luh ’99

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WOULD
YOU
DO THE
HONORS?
Absolutely

Graduates of Swarthmore’s
distinctive program employ
skills in their daily lives
by Carol Brévart-Demm

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most honors candidates, once engaged
in discussion with their examiners, find
the oral exams uplifting. Testing their
knowledge with experts and receiving positive feedback, they leave the
exam room jubilant at having conversed
on equal footing with a distinguished
scholar.
Scholarship displayed by
Swarthmore honors students is often
compared to that of graduate students
at other schools. By graduation, many
have authored academic publications
and/or presented at conferences.
Craig Williamson, Alfred H. and
Peggi Bloom Professor of English
Literature and Honors Program
Coordinator, says, “When I talk to honors alumni, they say that doing honors
is the most important thing they ever
did in terms of their work. And honors
graduates are not just academics. They
represent all walks of life.”

HONORS STUDENTS are oblivious
to time when they’re in the classroom.
Three-hour evening seminars extend
into discussions lasting until after
midnight. When a professor stands to
announce the end of class, students
cluster like bees around a honey pot,
protesting and pleading:
“But we’re not done yet!” “Just one
more question?” Professors leave only
when each student is satisfied.
Two members of the College faculty
have experienced honors as both students and teachers.
Richard Valelly ’75, Claude C. Smith
’14 Professor of Political Science, says,
“The idea that intellectual life is not
only intense but also pleasurable was
the principle I took away from honors.
The Honors Program is the efficient
secret that underlies the commitment
to academic excellence at Swarthmore.
Even for those not in honors, it regulates the entire life of the College in a
way that’s not heavy-handed but supports a serious commitment to thinking, talking, and writing about ideas.”
For Professor of Educational Studies
Lisa Smulyan ’79, “Honors was a really
appropriate, supportive way of ‘doing
Swarthmore’ for me. I encourage students to take a seminar, if possible, for
the powerful learning experience it provides, engaging deeply with a group of
people on a particular topic, then doing
an oral exam and feeling like they’re
part of a larger intellectual community.”

28

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Patricia Park ’03, an English literature major with a psychology minor,
noting her “immigrant, blue-collar
background,” says, “Being in honors was
like having to learn another foreign language. That posed a problem for me. I

Walter Luh ’99 is the founder of
Corona Labs, which enables everyone
to build apps for smartphones and other
devices 10 times faster. It was recently
acquired by Fuse Powered.
Luh says that reading James
Michener ’29’s autobiography influenced his decision to pursue an honors physics major with a minor in Asian
studies. He especially enjoyed the seminars. “It was really satisfying to go
through the process of understanding
new ideas and then presenting them in
my own words.”
Ironically, Luh, says, it was the Asian
studies component—“so different from
the hard sciences”—that was difficult.

LAURENCE KESTERSON

The Honors Program, based on the
Oxford tutorial system, was initiated in
1922 by President Frank Aydelotte. One
of the oldest in the country, about 25 percent of juniors enroll in the program. In
seminars, all must participate in erudite discussions based on papers they’ve
written and shared with the group.
In some disciplines, students can
choose to write a thesis instead of
one seminar. In others, seminars are
replaced by pairs of related courses or
a performance or artistic presentation.
Part of the final examining procedure
for all candidates includes a 45-minute
oral exam on their learning with outside
experts, often alumni.
The program is rigorous, the time
preceding orals nerve-wracking. Yet

Here is a sampling of some of
Swarthmore’s diverse honors
graduates:

had to step up my game and fast.
“Swarthmore and the honors seminars threw me into the rarified world of
academia. I learned how to engage academically. It was great primer for grad
school and good preparation for teaching college students.”
Now a writer whose work has been
featured in The New York Times, The
Guardian, and Korea Times, Park has
taught writing at Queens College in
New York City, Boston College, and
Ewha Woman’s University. Her debut
novel Re Jane, a Korean-American take
on Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, will be
published by Penguin this spring.

Previous page: Stefan Tuomanen Masure ’15 presents for the honors seminar of Amy Graves,
professor of physics. Sophie Diamond ’15 (above) listens as Assistant Professor of English Literature Rachel Sagner Buurma ’99 makes a point in her seminar.

SPRING 2015

3/18/15 12:43 PM

“My seminar on Greater China was
in the political science department. The
sheer amount of reading was probably
the most stressful part.”
Drawing parallels between his
career and doing honors, Luh says that
the same passion for excellence that
inspired the Swarthmore slogan “anywhere else it would have been an A” is
equally prevalent among those seeking
success in the startup business.
“The Honors Program really gave me
the ability—skills, discipline, and confidence—to make it happen.”
Anne Schuchat ’80, H’95, director of
the National Center for Immunization
and Respiratory Diseases at the Center
for Disease Control, was an honors
philosophy major and honors biology
minor. Deciding to participate in the
Honors Program was easy, she says.
“The size of seminars and the opportunity to focus intensively on issues
together with classmates and professors seemed to be the essence of the
Swarthmore experience,” Schuchat
says. “My cohort of students majoring or
minoring in philosophy was stimulating,
and our professors were inspiring.”
Philosophy professor Hugh Lacey’s
seminar on The History and Philosophy
of Science in particular “provided
insights that I return to frequently,”
Schuchat says. “The need to write and
present to peers on a weekly basis and
tackle complicated issues in a finite
period of time is very relevant for life
in public health. Whether I’m considering the values that enter into parents’
considerations on having their children vaccinated or managing the emergency response to pandemic influenza
or the Ebola epidemic in the context of
resource constraints, the experience of
tackling life’s big questions in the honors philosophy program is helpful.”
Robert Scher ’89, first assistant secretary of defense for strategies, plans,
and capabilities, says that the Honors
Program is one of the things that lured
him to Swarthmore. The history major
got an early chance to see the seminar format in a special first-year course
and found it a useful and worthwhile
approach to education. “I was hooked
from the beginning,” he says.

“When I talk to honors alumni, they say
that doing honors is the most important
thing they ever did in terms of their
work. And honors graduates are not
just academics. They represent all
walks of life.”
—Craig Williamson

“Honors was a
really appropriate,
supportive way of
‘doing Swarthmore’
for me.
—Lisa Smulyan ’79

“The cooperative learning environment was tremendously helpful,” Scher
says. “Thanks to the connections with
my professors, I learned how to learn,
take tests, interpret and incorporate
information, and articulate what I’d
learned in a way that made sense.”
Scher believes that doing honors
contributed to his career success. The
professors serving as discussion facilitators rather than information distributors were especially influential.
“Most of my work involves some
kind of collective search for an answer
or a process, and the ability to work in
groups, present my own ideas and listen to the ideas of others, then compile those ideas into a useful whole,
was definitely enhanced by being in the
Honors Program.”
Katherine “KC” Cushman ’12, an
honors biology major, honors engineering minor, and course math minor
chose honors when she switched
majors from engineering to biology
early in her junior year.
“When I changed my major, I was
very interested in using tools from

engineering and math to explore biological questions,” Cushman says. “When
it was time to review for honors exams,
it was neat to see how the same principles of fluids were used in biomechanics, water quality, and my senior thesis
investigating plasticity and mechanics
of barnacle feeding behavior.”
Cushman says that the Honors
Program helped define her career path.
“Although my interest in math and
science began before Swarthmore, the
first time I seriously considered pursuing a Ph.D. was during my senior thesis research, working with Professor
of Biology Rachel Merz and participating in the National Science
Foundation’s Research Experience for
Undergraduates Program.”
Cushman followed graduation from
Swarthmore with a two-year internship
at the Smithsonian Tropical Research
Institute in Panama before embarking
on a doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University.
Leonard Isamu Nakamura ’69, a vice
president and economist at the Federal
Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, majored
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in honors economics, math, and political science at a time when eight honors exams were required. He even took
two honors seminars in psychology for
course credit.
“I really liked seminars,” he says, “and
learned as much from fellow students
as from the faculty, who were, for the
most part, quite amazing.”
Nakamura has fond memories of the
late Professor of Economics Bernard
“Bernie” Saffran and his seminar on
economic theory—“for me an enduring
model of great teaching,” he says.
“And the econometrics paper I wrote
for a seminar on linear programing and
econometrics, taught by Bernie and
mathematics professor Eugene Klotz,
helped me get my job as a research assistant and upped my ability to connect
economic theory to the real world.”
Being in college at a time of student
protest, Nakamura says, created an
intellectual ferment that “deepened our
considerations of the issues we studied, adding further value to the honors
courses I took.”

“I mentally reference honors a lot
in my daily life. ... I
learned skills after
college that I use
daily, thanks to the
honors approach to
learning.”
—Dan Hammer ’07

Antoinette Sayeh ’79, former minister of finance to Liberia, is director
of the International Monetary Fund’s
African Department in Washington,
D.C. An economics major and history
minor, Sayeh chose honors “because it
promised to allow me to delve deeply
into issues, in small groups, with lots of
individual attention from professors,”
she says.
“It was the in-depth research, then
presenting it to my classmates and getting feedback from them that I enjoyed
most,” she adds.
“You had to be very engaged, whether
you were presenting or not,” she says.
“I was shy and found it difficult sometimes to express my thoughts, but the
small group offered the level of comfort
I needed to speak up. In honors, I gained
a degree of confidence that still helps
me today.”
Dan Hammer ’07 is a Ph.D. student at
UC Berkeley and a 2014 Presidential
Innovation Fellow who is helping
NASA design its open-data policy.
Though expecting honors economics to be stressful, he found his experience to be “consistent with the values I
care most about: thoughtfulness, caring,
and empathy with both the subjects and
people you engage with intellectually.”
The program helped Hammer after
college: “I mentally reference honors a

lot in my daily life. I’m a programmer
now, and I didn’t study computer science ever. I learned skills after college
that I use daily, thanks to the honors
approach to learning.”
Mara Hvistendahl ’02 is a journalist
and the author of Unnatural Selection,
a 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalist. Before
Swarthmore, she studied Chinese and
Spanish.
“An honors major in comparative literature in English and Spanish, with a
Chinese minor, offered me the opportunity to go beyond the basic language
classes I would have taken otherwise,”
she says.
Hvistendahl, who opted to write a
thesis, says, “The experience of spending long hours reading and compiling a
thesis prepared me for writing books.
Regular meetings with professors readied me for interviewing experts.”
Thanks to her honors experience,
Hvistendahl says, she enjoys lasting
relationships with her Chinese professors, even though Chinese was a chore
because of “all the rote memorization involved in learning the language.”
Now, she lives in Shanghai and speaks
Chinese daily.
Dan Perelstein ’09, a composer and
award-winning sound designer in the
Philadelphia theater arena, was an

“The Honors Program is the efficient secret that underlies the commitment to academic excellence at
Swarthmore ... It regulates the entire
life of the College in a way that’s not
heavy-handed but supports a serious
commitment to thinking, talking,
and writing about ideas.”
—Richard Vallely ’75

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3/20/15 7:39 AM

LAURENCE KESTERSON

Centennial Professor of Economics Philip Jefferson (left) leads his honors students though a seminar in mid-February.

honors major in music and honors
minor/course major in engineering at
a time when neither department had
many honors candidates. “My honors
exams became an avenue for the College
to find world-class experts in my very
specific fields to come and work with me,
examine my knowledge base, and push
me further down the road,” he says.
Since he was seeking a job in a field
without a clear career ladder to climb,
Perelstein says, “I had to be able to
paint a picture of myself as an expert in
my line of work. The Honors Program
taught me to feel secure in viewing
myself that way.”

terms of history, it teaches you to think
less like a consumer of history and more
like somebody who might produce history at some point.”
Distributing papers to all seminar participants and responding to their comments during scholarly discussions was
challenging, “but I loved it,” she says.
Zahra was inspired not only to continue to pursue history research but to
emulate the honors teaching format.
“Now I have this vision of what a
really great undergraduate or even
graduate course should be like,” she
says. “I haven’t quite been able to live up
to it, but it’s an ideal.”

comprehensive study of the subjects,
often held in professors’ homes.
“The intensity of inquiry and discussion, the academic rigor, and frequent
writing assignments taught me lessons that were qualitatively different
from the traditional classroom experience,” Mora adds. “There’s no anonymity in a seminar, no hiding in the back
row. You’re required to be up. And you
want to be. I went through three years
of law school thinking that the whole
lecture-hall format had nothing to do
with education. The Swarthmore honors seminars ruined me for any other
kind of educational format.”

Tara Zahra ’98, a professor of East
European history at the University
of Chicago, award-winning author,
and 2014 recipient of a MacArthur
Foundation “genius” grant, double
majored in history honors and economics course.
“Honors students get a graduateschool experience as an undergrad,”
she says. “You have to take responsibility and advance your own learning. In

Alberto Mora ’74, H’08, senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s
Carr Center for Human Rights Policy,
is an attorney and former general counsel to the Navy who in the early 1990s
led an effort to oppose coercive interrogation methods used on detainees at
Guantánamo Bay. An English literature
major who also enjoyed political science
courses, Mora says he was “delighted
by the small seminars demanding

Although the preceding array of alumni
found honors stressful—especially
before orals—when asked if they’d do
it again, the answer was a nearly unanimous “Absolutely!” Park, the lone
standout, says, chuckling, that she still
mourns the Paces parties she missed
due to honors preparations.

+ LISTEN TO TALKS by Sayeh, Hvistendahl,
and Mora: bulletin.swarthmore.edu.

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IF YOU’VE READ ZOLA, you may have seen the term
charrette in his 1885 novel L’Oeuvre/The Masterpiece.
To the French author, a charrette was a handcart that 60
frantic architecture students collaboratively commandeered
in a mad rush to transport design projects to an evaluation
site. To the 100 Swarthmoreans who collaboratively attended
a two-day sustainability charrette, the term meant “a thoughtful and deliberate opportunity to evaluate proposals, compare priorities, and eventually coordinate aspirations with
budgetary realities,” as Interim President Constance Cain
Hungerford noted in her introduction to the February event.
Hungerford, who has chosen sustainability as her presidential priority, stressed the urgency of the issue. Unlike Zola’s
students, “Our deadline is not overnight or in a week, but our
climate-change clock is ticking inexorably; time is most certainly running out on our foolish and unsustainable misuse of
resources, such as our willful reliance on fossil fuels and our
squandering of precious water.”
The plan to host a think tank on sustainability began to
emerge this fall after Hungerford invited members of the
College community to send her big, but concrete ideas about
how the College could be a better steward of the Earth. As she
noted in her call to action,
Swarthmore had made
commendable progress toward creating a
more sustainable campus, with energy-saving steps taken in recent
years to meet the goal of
net-zero carbon emissions by 2035 and the
February 2014 hiring
of the first sustainability director, Laura Cacho
(for more on Cacho, see
Page 76). By the Oct. 10
submission deadline
160 ideas had arrived.
Cacho grouped them into
nine categories: curriculum, building energy and
infrastructure, transportation, waste, the natural environment, water,
food, advocacy for local
College’s first sustainability charrette provides framework for future action
community efforts, and
finance.
by Sherri Kimmel
The idea for a charrette
came from Vice President for Facilities and Capital Projects
Stu Hain, who was familiar with building-design brainstorming sessions. He proposed that the College host a charrette—
bringing together diverse voices to evaluate the 160 ideas and
consider new ones.
Board funding ensured that a world-class slate of experts on
green building practices, town/gown sustainability partnerships, and green investing could convene in the Scheuer room
of Kohlberg Hall to offer provocative ideas and spark spirited

LAURENCE KESTERSON

ALIGNING
ASPIRATIONS

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particular proposals and attach pricing to them, then bring some of the
more representative proposals back to
the community for wider discussion.”
She expects proposals will proceed to
the Board for consideration in May and
hopes that some projects will begin this
summer.
“There are lots of things we’ve done
already that are really impressive—
including migrating from a central
boiler to localized boilers and getting away from burning oil, changing from incandescent lighting, and
installing several green roofs,” she said.
“The charrette was positive and exciting, a Swarthmore seminarlike kind
of thing, in the context of which we
could talk about what we’ve been doing
for the past 10 years, really because of
the leadership of the facilities staff,”
Hungerford added. “Now there is an
appreciation of the urgency and the
need to move ahead.”

+

FOR MORE ON THE COLLEGE’S RECENT
SUSTAINABILITY EFFORTS, go to
LAURENCE KESTERSON

www.swarthmore.edu/sustainability.
To learn about prior initiatives, see
bit.ly/Greater Green.

From top, clockwise: “We should integrate sustainability in all we do,” said charrette
speaker David Orr, Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics and special assistant to the president of Oberlin College. “If not divestment, then be an
activist-owner,” advised charrette speaker Hunter Lovins, who was named a “green business
icon” by Newsweek. John Fullerton, founder and president of Capital Institute, is a proponent of “impact investment.”

conversation about the College’s aspirational goals for sustainability.
In organizing the event, Cacho
ensured that a wide range of faculty, staff, and students—plus several
alumni, Swarthmore borough officials,
and Philadelphia community partners
—were invited. Board Chair Gil Kemp
’72, Manager David Singleton ’68, and
Hungerford attended throughout.
“The charrette aligned emotions and
the interests of a wide section of the
Swarthmore community,” confirmed
Massey Burke ’00, a natural architecture practitioner from California and a
charrette small-group facilitator.
Another discussion concerned
divestment. John Fullerton, a former
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70021_pp32-35CO4.indd 34

JPMorgan managing director who now
focuses on green investment, encouraged the College to think creatively
about its investments, lest the divestment debate deflect attention from its
sustainability efforts.
An idea that appealed to faculty and
students was creation of a Center for
Just Sustainability that could be a
nexus for interdisciplinary programs
related to social justice and environmental studies.
Proposals that addressed renewable
energy and energy efficiency found traction amid the 160 ideas and at the charrette, according to Cacho.
The first step this spring, said
Hungerford, will be “to research

“The charrette
aligned emotions and the
interests of a
wide section of
the Swarthmore
community,”
—MASSEY BURKE ’00

SPRING 2015

3/20/15 12:20 PM

Q+A
Q+A

Supporting
the College’s
Mission

make 40 percent in one
year and then give twothirds back in a bad year.
We are always looking,
but we are steadfast and
have been with a number
of firms 20 years or
more.
PETER ARKLE

How does the College generate revenue?
Tuition is one answer. Support from grants
and donations contribute approximately
5 percent to each year’s operating budget,
but the other main source of income—and
the most variable, given its source—
comes from revenue generated by the
endowment.
Swarthmore’s Finance Office works with
80 investment managers to manage its $1.9
billion endowment. Their work is overseen
by the Board of Managers’ Investment
Committee (IC).
To better understand the endowment and
the Board’s decision two years ago not to
divest from fossil fuel companies, Alisa
Giardinelli, director of web and media
communications, spoke with Chris Niemczewski ’74, who joined the IC in 1998 and
has chaired it since 2009.
Explain the significance of the endowment.
If you go back 20 years, it contributed about $20
million a year, or a third of the College’s annual
operating expenses. This year, the endowment’s
contribution is about $66 million. Next year, when
we increase spending on financial aid, it will be $76
million, just over 50 percent. So it’s pretty important.
Why is it successful?
We had good performance relative to our peers from
the 1950s until the 1980s, principally because Tom
McCabe [Class of 1915] got us to put a lot of money in
common stocks when other people had most of their
money in bonds. He was ahead of his time.
From the 1980s until about 15 years ago, we
performed less well. It took us a while to understand
new entities such as hedge funds and private equity
funds, so we underperformed.
Then in about 2002 Parker Hall [’55] devised
a new plan that involved investing in those new
categories. We followed his advice, which drives how
the endowment is invested to this day. Mark Amstutz
was also hired as chief investment officer and during
the last 10 years has brought us up to par with our Ivy
League peers and equal to the best of the Ivy League
for the last five. I think the College should throw him
a parade.
Who are our investment managers?
We’ve been able to hire some of the smartest people
in the business. We obviously care about their
performance over time. We don’t want people who will

Tell me about the
Board’s divestment
decision.
Two years ago, the Board
had two concerns that
made it hold back from
divestment. Many of us,
including me, believed
there would be a cost
to the endowment if
we did. Second, there
were some questions
about the efficacy of
divestment as a strategy.
The general sense was
that divestment would
convince those who are
already convinced about
the dangers of climate
change and fail to
impress those who are in
the fossil fuel business.
How much would it cost?
Our best guess is that it
would be in the millions,
perhaps between $10
to 20 million per year.
That’s based on the
past performance of our
current managers.
Why would there
be a cost?
A few of our investment
firms manage separate
(not commingled)
accounts for the College,
which is what my firm
does. In those cases, it
is easy for a client to
come to the investment
manager with specific
needs or requests,
such as for a fossil-free
portfolio (although my
firm does not have any
investments in fossil
fuels).
Most of the College’s
endowment is in
commingled accounts—
our funds are mixed
with the funds of our
investment managers’
clients. For those
managers to divest,
they’d have to divest for
all their clients. Or we

would have to sever ties
with them.
We assume that it
would be difficult, if not
impossible, to replace
our current investment
managers with ones of
similar quality—if we
insist their funds be
fossil fuel free. Now,
one could assume that
one would find very
talented managers with
fossil fuel alternatives. I
don’t believe that option
exists today, though I
expect that over the next
several years, more of
those alternatives will
become available.
The endowment is
large, but it’s finite. If
returns are lower now
and you spend the same
amount of money, you
are reducing the amount
of money available in the
future to people working
here or students coming
here.
When Swarthmore
divested from companies
doing business in South
Africa (and I agree
with that decision), the
College tried to replace
managers with ones of
similar quality, but there
was a performance cost.
Among other things,
students and families
were offered less
financial aid because of
that decision. If we did
this again, it would likely
have the same effect.
It’s not as simple as, “if
we did this, it would be
right,” because you have
competing goals.

don’t know how you
convince people who
care about other issues
that this is the only
issue that matters.

Should the endowment
reflect College values?
I’m totally on board
with those who say,
“Climate change is a
very important issue,
and I’m not going to
invest my money in
fossil fuel stocks.”
But it gets more
complicated when you
say, “I believe climate
change is an issue,
and the implication of
what I believe is for
Swarthmore to give
less financial aid.” I also

What do you hope
happens next?
I wish we could all get
on the same page so we
could move ahead. This
is a really important
issue, and we’re
walking into a corner on
whether we should own
stock in Exxon, which
will not affect Exxon at
all. But there are things
to do. The complexity
here is just not whether
you make the gesture.
It’s, “Who pays for your
gesture?”

A lot of ideas came out
of the Sustainability
Charette (see adjacent
story). What else is the
IC exploring?
New energy
technologies are a
difficult area in which
to make money, but we
look at everything that
comes down the pike.
I continue to believe
that the simplest way
is to shift the College’s
carbon neutral goal
from 2035 to 2025.
It would take a lot
of money, but that’s
something we can
control. I’m also in favor
of the College setting up
a separate investment
vehicle for people who
want to contribute but
who don’t want to invest
in fossil fuels. We are
researching that as part
of our preparation for
the May Board meeting.
Why do you do this
work for the College?
I had a full scholarship at
Swarthmore. It changed
my life. It taught me to
think, challenged me,
and showed me it was
OK to work hard at
being smart. I started
as an economics major
but wasn’t sure what
I wanted to do, so I
became an art history
major.

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“How delightful and fascinating to sit in someone
else’s classroom and see how
people do things similarly
and differently,” says Betsy
Bolton (left), who is paired
with Tomoko Sakomura,
associate professor of art
history and department chair.

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‘ HEY, COACH,
WHAT DID YOU
THINK OF MY
CLASS?’
Professors keep working
on their game through a
peer-coaching program

LAURENCE KESTERSON

by Carol Brévart-Demm

COACHING IS typically associated
with activities such as sports, singing, or SAT prep. Yet, two years ago,
after reading physician Atul Gawande’s
2011 essay “Personal Best” in The
New Yorker, about the lack of mentors
for doctors, Kenneth Sharpe, working on a Templeton Foundation project on Institutional Design for Wisdom,
had a question: “Why shouldn’t faculty members be coached—even coach
one another?” The seed for the Faculty
Teaching Seminar was sown.
Sharpe, the William R. Keenan
Jr. Professor of Political Science,
pitched the idea to Professor of
History Timothy Burke, then recruited
Professor of English Literature Betsy
Bolton.
“Swarthmore’s a liberal arts institution. Teaching is one of our trademark strengths. Shouldn’t we pay more
reflective attention to pedagogy?” says
Sharpe. “The only way to improve at a
practice like teaching is by having people practicing with you or watching you
practice. ”
Supported by the Aydelotte Foundation
for the Liberal Arts, 12 faculty members from disparate disciplines and with

70021 BTextCO2.indd 37

varying levels of experience, including
softball coach Renee Clarke, paired up.
They visit one another’s classes through
the year: observing, being observed,
coaching, and being coached. Every three
weeks, they gather for three-hour sessions to share experiences.
Bolton and her partner, Tomoko
Sakomura, associate professor of art
history, noted a mutual tendency to
self-critique. “Tomoko is trying to stop
me from apologizing in my classes,”
Bolton says. “Some of the conversations that resulted from watching her
seminar have informed my thinking on how to handle my seminars this
spring.” Bolton in turn role-played with
Sakomura on the usefulness of reminding students of the steps of visual
description and analysis.
Although Clark and Visiting
Associate Professor of Educational
Studies Elaine Allard have different aims, Clark says, “Faculty share
the same kinds of issues as coaches.”
During the softball season, she sought
feedback from Allard on her student-coach interactions—individually
and with the team: whether she favors
certain athletes, whether her practice is well organized, and whether she
coached it well.
“What’s admirable about Renee’s
teaching is the atmosphere of overall mutual respect and support she
fosters,” Allard says. “I’m working on
creating a similar kind of classroom

space, where students feel comfortable
taking intellectual risks, supported by
their professor and classmates.”
“Elaine has a phenomenal lesson
plan that keeps the students involved
for long periods,” Clark says. “We also
talked about her wrapping up the class
and not leaving it open-ended.”
Professor of Spanish Maria Luisa
Guardiola, who is teaching Introduction
to Spanish Literature, teamed with
Burke, who is teaching A Cultural
History of Digital Media.
“It’s interesting and incredibly beautiful to me how Maria structures different
kinds of pedagogical exercises, different
ways of connecting to and addressing
different students, moving in and out of
engaging, for example, a student whose
Spanish is a little weak and students who
are fluent,” Burke says.
“It’s good to reflect on your own teaching and compare yourself to someone
going through the same experience,”
Guardiola says. “Our topics and fields are
different, but the struggles are similar.”
Sharpe hopes to make the seminar
permanent, with all faculty members
eventually participating.
“Teaching each other to reflect on our
teaching should be part of what we do,”
says Sharpe, “and the three-hour meetings allow us to discuss very concrete
exercises aimed at improving our practice. Even when we’re done talking, people don’t want to leave. It’s like there’s a
buzz.”
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GREAT LAKES
GLADIATOR
Carl Levin ’56, H’80, retires from the U.S. Senate but plans to continue
his activist role—from Detroit

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JAMES KEGLEY

by Sherri Kimmel

3/18/15 12:43 PM

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3/18/15 12:43 PM

T

AX EVADERS, BEWARE.

They may have smiled two years ago when
they heard the good news. Their nemesis,
relentless Carl Levin ’56, the senior senator from that old rustbelt state, had announced his retirement. For only two more
years would they turn on the network news and see his blue
eyes peering over those glasses slung low on his nose, hear
that voice with its flat Michigander vowels drilling, drilling for
the truth as he led a Senate hearing investigating offshore subsidiaries devised by corporations to evade the taxman.
In December, the six-term senator said goodbye to his staff.
By February, he and wife Barbara were preparing to leave their
Washington, D.C., residence near Capitol Hill for his hometown, Detroit, once and for all.
Tax cheats thought they’d outlasted him. But hold the cork
on that Dom Perignon. He’s not done yet.
In early February, Levin was still wearing his senator’s uniform, a roomy navy blue suit, white shirt with collar unbuttoned and askew, and blue tie that nicely picked up the azure
in his eyes but hung far below his waist in typical rumpled
Levin fashion. He was in makeshift digs in the James Madison
building of the Library of Congress, where retired members of
Congress are afforded a postage–sized office, much as emeriti
professors still occupy small offices in Parrish Hall.
Levin, awaiting the arrival of a young historian from the
U.S. Senate Historical Office who is preparing an oral history
for the archives, talked candidly and warmly about his Senate
career, his Swarthmore days, and his next act in public life.
While Levin is “common as an old shoe,” a saying often applied
to a person who is unpretentious, he is also, to invoke another
cliché, “tough as shoe leather.”
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt ’56 found that out in fall 1952,

40

when they both roomed in Mary Lyon 3. Lehmann-Haupt,
compulsive about getting to bed by midnight, was interrupted
by a clattering and banging in the dormitory living room one
night. Enraged, he ran into the room and swore at the guy
making the commotion.
“Next word’s a punch,” the man shot back.
That was Carl Levin.
“I didn’t know what to make of him,” recalls Lehmann-Haupt.
“He was a new kind of kid for me, comparatively a street kid. He
was tough, he was stocky, and a surprisingly good athlete with
fast hands. I was not about to tangle with him.”
Later, the two became friends, playing games of hearts
before bedtime in Levin’s room. “At some point, I discovered
there was an interior to him that was totally trustworthy in a
way I hadn’t experienced before,” Lehmann-Haupt says. “I was
perceived as being kind of cold and hard to reach. He wrote me
a letter: ‘You’re not what you appear to be.’ He got me.”
Though Lehmann-Haupt isn’t surprised that his friend
became a senator, he says the College political scene in the
mid-’50s was dominated by two other men, Michael Dukakis
’55 and Frank Sieverts ’55. But he got a glimpse of the future
pol at a New Year’s Eve party at the Levin home in Detroit in
1959. “Levin’s family was political, extremely well-established
and connected in Detroit,” Lehmann-Haupt recounts.
By then, Levin—who had been an honors political science major, served on the Student Senate, and dabbled in
Philadelphia politics—was at Harvard Law School. He had followed his older brother there.
U.S. Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.) has been Carl’s beacon of
brotherly love since birth. Sandy, who was elected to the house
four years after Carl, still serves, but their streak as the longest-serving siblings in Congress, 68 years combined, even
surpassing the three Kennedy brothers, is now broken.
“My best lifelong buddy is my amazing three-years-older
brother, and my best current buddy of 53 years is my wife,
Barbara,” Levin says. “I try to distinguish between the two in
that little semantic trick.
“Sandy and I roomed together at law school, and even as
kids,” he adds. “My parents tore down the wall between [the
boys’ bedrooms] because they knew we wanted to live in the
same room. He’s been a mentor in a lot of ways. Sandy was
already in politics for many years by the time I got involved.”
That was in 1968, a year after the five-day riot that rocked
Detroit, leaving 43 people dead and the downtown in flames
before the Michigan National Guard and the U.S. Army put an
end to it. After the riot, Levin, who’d been general counsel to
the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, began mulling a political career. He won the race for Detroit city council in 1968 and
served until 1977. A year later, he won his first run for national
office—the U.S. Senate.
While the riot may have been a catalyst for his shift to a

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career in politics and public service, Levin says the seeds
were planted at Swarthmore. He recalls helping to lead a book
drive to provide a library in war-torn Vietnam and proclaimed
his support for the freedom fighters who were defying the
Russians in the 1956 Hungarian revolution.
“Swarthmore contributed very much to my yearning to be
a public servant,” he says. “It was a very idealistic school. My
heart will always be with Swarthmore.”
In good Swarthmore activist tradition, Levin also took a trip
“with five of my buddies to Washington to support the censuring of Joe McCarthy.” (McCarthy, a Wisconsin Republican,
led the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations hearings in
1954, browbeating witnesses in his quest to expose suspected
Communists.)
Ironically, 60 years later, Levin chaired that same Senate
subcommittee, but with a much different aim.
“I’ve been very conscious of making sure this committee
would not be used for partisan purposes, including my own partisan purposes as a Democrat,” he explains. “We’ve had people
who have pled the Fifth Amendment in front of us, and I respect
their right to do that. My mind goes back to the abuses of Joe
McCarthy and how he used to pillory witnesses who were exercising their constitutional rights.”
Among the gratifying moments Levin experienced as a recent
member of McCarthy’s old subcommittee was helping former subcommittee chair Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) release
McCarthy’s papers, which revealed how uncouthly he operated.
Chairing the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations

honestly and fairly was one of Levin’s proudest achievements
as a senator. Chairing another powerful Senate committee,
the Armed Services Committee, in a bipartisan manner, was
another point of pride. Levin says, “The troops deserve our
support even if there are policy differences as to whether they
ought to be in a particular place. I voted against the Iraq War.
The differences ought to be taken out on the policymakers not
the troops.”
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was a stalwart comrade on both
committees. “We have some very, very strong differences, but
we get along tremendously well and work together tremendously well,” says Levin. “We have total trust in each other,
and I consider him a very close friend. He’s an extraordinary
human being.
“I have a lot of friends on both sides of the aisle,” Levin continues. Former Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) is another friend.
“We don’t see eye to eye on probably more than 20 percent; at
least with McCain, it’s probably 50 to 60 percent,” Levin says.
While his solid steering of two Senate committees and his
embodiment of bipartisanship have been triumphs in Levin’s
Senate career, his keen advocacy for his state has been another.
“I’ve had a lot of involvement in the way in which Obama
helped the auto industry survive but also in the very complex issues involving so-called CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel
Economy) standards [designed to improve fuel economy],” he
says. Another effort that benefited Michigan, he points out,
was “bringing together the government vehicle effort, which is
mainly military, and the private or commercial vehicle effort.

THEN + NOW

Photos on left, from top,
clockwise: Carl Levin
gained his political grounding in his native Detroit
(with Sandy on his left as
little boys) and at Swarthmore (with classmates,
Christopher “Kit” Lukas,
left, and Christopher
Lehmann-Haupt, center).
Photo right: Levin with
longtime friend Sen. John
McCain (R-Ariz.).
+ LISTEN TO LEVIN reflect
on his time in the Senate:
bit.ly/LevinTalks.

AP PHOTO/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE

1956 HALCYON

FROM DETROIT TO D.C.

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“HE HAD THE RESPECT
OF PEOPLE WHO DISAGREED WITH HIM
BECAUSE THEY UNDERSTOOD THAT HIS
POSITIONS CAME
THROUGH ANALYSIS
AND HARD WORK.”
–U.S. REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN ’83, H’14

“I’ve also been much involved in environmental issues
involving the Great Lakes particularly, leading the way for
the designation of all the wilderness in Michigan and [creating] a number of new national parks,” he adds. He’s also helped
ensure cleanup of the Great Lakes, which Levin calls “a unique
resource in the world.”
A longtime advocate for Detroit, he notes, “I’ve been proclaiming its comeback for 30 years now, but I didn’t have a lot of
evidence to support that feeling until maybe three to four years
ago. There are some big things happening now in Detroit—a lot
of entrepreneurial energy, a lot of young people moving back in.
There’s a momentum toward the city from the suburbs.”
Carl and Barbara Levin have kept an apartment in Detroit
during his 36 years in the Senate and are now looking for a
larger, permanent home base there. From the Motor City
rather than the U.S. Capitol Levin will continue to wage his
battle against corporate interests that disadvantage the average American.
“When I came to the Senate I was interested in oversight,
in wrongdoing, but recently my focus has been on income
inequality,” he explains. “What really triggered this was the

42

high increase in executive pay compared to the average worker’s pay. It was one of the issues we took up at the Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations.
“I also introduced a lot of bills that address the issue of closing unjustified tax loopholes that don’t serve any purpose
except to avoid paying taxes,” he continues. “A lot of so-called
loopholes or tax deductions have solid economic purposes, for
instance, the tax deductions for charitable contributions that
give people an incentive to donate to places like Swarthmore
College. Income inequality relates to the tax code that has
allowed a leakage of tax revenue through tax-avoidance
schemes using offshore tax havens or hiding money in Swiss
bank accounts.”
Once he fully relocates to Detroit this spring, he’ll teach at
the newly formed Levin Center at the Wayne State University
Law School, “focusing on congressional legislative oversight
and its ability, responsibility, and authority to impact public policy based on the work I’ve been doing in the Permanent
Subcommittee,” he says. He’ll also be senior counsel at
Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP, advising on areas
of accountability, both corporate and legal.
Levin aims to continue to “bring some real pressure to bear
on some of the powerful interests in this country, both business and individual, who have done things which have not
been proper and gotten away with it, including tax avoidance.”
While some people speculated that Levin sought retirement due to frustration or congressional gridlock, he says
that wasn’t the case. Instead, as he approached his 80th birthday, he wanted to devote his energies to real progress on the
two committees he chaired rather than spend time running a
seventh Senate campaign, including raising money, which he
admittedly hated doing.
U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen ’83, H’14 (D-Md.), who regarded
Levin as “one of the workhorses of the Senate” remarks that
his fellow Swarthmorean “left a very big footprint in the U.S.
Senate in two ways.
“He was a model public servant who focused on what was
100 percent right for his constituents and his country, someone who took seriously his responsibility by doing hard work
and listening to all sides of issues and who exercised independent judgment,” explains Van Hollen. “He had the respect of
people who disagreed with him because they understood that
his positions came through analysis and hard work rather
than knee-jerk reactions.”
Though a senator no more, Levin remains a cheerleader
for the nation. When asked if he is hopeful for the country, he
quickly responds, “Very,” then adds, “We’re a bunch of optimists, and we’ve managed diversity better than any other
country, partly because of our ability to change. That ability
has been a saving feature for us.
“I also believe in the creative spirit that has been with us
from the beginning,” he adds. “Back in the 1830s the French
writer Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about America. He said
Americans innovate. If they see something that’s a challenge they figure out a way around it. That innovative spirit is
another reason I’m so optimistic.”

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LAURENCE KESTERSON

ALUMNI PROFILE

The Lavers have parlayed their love of horses into helping others.

HORSE POWER

Marcy and Art Laver ’64 saddle up
to help people with disabilities
by Amy Stone ’64
CREATING A therapeutic riding program on 12 acres of pastureland near
Swarthmore might seem like an overly
ambitious retirement plan. But to Art
Laver ’64 and his wife, Marcy, it was a
perfect prospect.
After all, the couple had spent 25
years breeding, training, and showing
Arabian horses while Art maintained his
career as a hospital OB-GYN doctor and
Marcy as a nurse in labor and delivery.
Marcy, who had long been interested
in how riding benefits disabled persons,
earned instructor certification from
PATH International (Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship).
The Lavers incorporated All Riders Up
as a nonprofit, with Marcy as executive
director and Art as director of operations. They welcomed their first student
in January 2009.
Now they have 15 students, 11 horses,
two donkeys, 40 volunteers, and four

instructors. Two of the instructors are
volunteers, including Art’s daughter
Rebecca Laver Farrell, whose mother is
Dede Gresham’65.
Marcy trains the volunteers and is on
PATH’s national certification subcommittee for Equine Specialists in Mental
Health and Learning. According to Art,
“her greatest interest is equine-facilitated psychotherapy for abused kids,
veterans, and others with PTSD.
“It is heartwarming to see the progress in our students through their interaction with the horses,” he says. “After a
while, a nonverbal autistic child starts
to speak to the horse, then to people.
A student who came to us on a walker,
barely ambulatory following surgery for
a malignant brain tumor, after a year was
walking and riding independently, to the
amazement of his physical therapists.”
Not all of the Lavers’ sensitive steeds
are Arabians, but after years of raising

the breed, which is known for its agility
and intelligence, they knew Arabs would
be the perfect partners for riders ages
4 to 74 with a wide range of physical,
cognitive and psychological conditions—
from spinal injuries to autism.
The horses seem to have an instinctive gentleness with young children,
sensing their emotions. Even the most
unreachable child responds when a
horse affectionately encircles her with
its neck and inclines its head toward her.
Catie Miller, 9, who has Asperger’s
syndrome, a developmental delay, and
bipolar disorder is one of the regular riders. Catie rarely expresses her
feelings, but after bonding with Potter,
the Lavers’ Tennessee walker pony, she
wrote, “When I ride him I feel like the
deep calm lake. When I ride him I feel
like a bird singing in the bright morning
air. My heart feels free and light when I
ride him.”
Riding lessons stretching muscle
and mind occur in the couple’s covered
arena, with sides open to a view of trees
and a pond.
“Our small size and peaceful environment are especially suited to riders who
may have experienced trauma or mental
health issues or who may have difficulty
concentrating or being in a public setting,” Art says.
All Riders Up has inspired donations
of time and money, including a hydraulic lift that transfers students from
wheelchair to horse, and a sensory trail,
particularly helpful to students with autism spectrum disorders. Swarthmore’s
Delta Upsilon brothers and their friends
are among the volunteers.
A new certification enables the Lavers
to work with wounded warriors seeking
physical or psychological healing. One
longtime regular is Vietnam veteran Jim
Kendrick. With a hydraulic lift to move
him from wheelchair to horseback, he
improves his balance and mobility atop
Daisy, a 2,000-pound Belgian mare.
Kendrick can attest to the power of
horses. So can Art, who likes to quote
Winston Churchill: “There is something
about the outside of a horse that is good
for the inside of man,” and—“woman and
child,” he adds. S

+ CHECK OUT A VIDEO AND A PHOTO
GALLERY: bulletin.swarthmore.edu
SPRING 2015

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REBECCA COOK

ALUMNI PROFILE

The Moneyball-like work Sam Menzin ’12 does creates “a good kind of pressure—one that
makes winning that much more rewarding,” he says.

BY THE NUMBERS

Sam Menzin ’12 takes the pitch to the big leagues
by Mark Anskis
SINCE HIS DAYS on the Little League
diamond, Sam Menzin ’12 has dreamed
of a career in professional baseball
but understood that, realistically, his
chances of making it to the majors as a
baseball player were slim to none.
At age 13, a gift from his father opened
his eyes to a different path to the big
leagues.
“My dad gave me a copy of Moneyball,”
says Menzin. The groundbreaking 2003
book details how front-office executives
for the small-budget Oakland Athletics
baseball team created an unorthodox
analytical approach to field a championship-caliber team.
“The book awakened me. It showed
me that there was a way to make it to the
majors that wasn’t on the field.”

Now 24, just three years after graduation, Menzin is the statistical analysis
coordinator for the Detroit Tigers, one of
Major League Baseball’s most successful
teams in recent years.
In his job, Menzin uses advanced
statistics and analytics to help the Tigers
maintain an edge on opponents. Whereas
the average baseball fan is familiar with
statistics such as ERA and RBI, Menzin
views the game from a different perspective.
“The ultimate question for us is ‘who
will perform better in the future?’ ” he
says. “Any metric we use is trying to
answer a valuable question and predict
future performance. I think our decision
makers are tremendous at consuming
large amounts of data, whether that is

scouting information, statistical breakdowns, medical records, etc. Their ability
to merge those data streams and make
personnel decisions is why they have
been so successful over the years.”
Menzin provides statistical analysis
on Tigers players and their opponents,
which the team’s general manager,
scouting department, and coaching staff
use. His favorite part of the job is using
analytics to help the Tigers with player
evaluations used for trades, free-agent
signings, player procurement and contract negotiations.
“I enjoy the science of roster construction,” he says. “It’s interesting to see
how a roster comes together and what
makes a winning team.”
There has been no shortage of winning in Menzin’s time in Detroit; since he
arrived in 2012, the Tigers have enjoyed
postseason play every season, including
the 2012 World Series.
Menzin’s basepath to the world of
Major League Baseball began when he
was a student at Swarthmore. A fouryear member of the Garnet baseball
team, Menzin was introduced his junior
year to local sports agent Rex Gary (son
of Sam Gary ’48) through the Garnet
coaching staff. The two became friends,
and Menzin began interning in Gary’s
office in Media, Pa.
“Rex taught me everything about
the baseball business,” says Menzin,
who was working with Gary at the 2011
baseball winter meetings when he first
interviewed with the Tigers. “I’m where I
am today because of Rex.”
Menzin still gets curious looks and
an all-too-familiar question when he
explains his job to family and friends.
“So, you’re like Brad Pitt from Moneyball?” they ask, referring to the 2011
Academy Award–nominated film based
on the book that changed his life 11 years
earlier.
“I tell them I’m not the Brad Pitt
character—I’m more like the Jonah Hill
character,” he adds, referring to Pitt’s
chubbier, less-glamorous sidekick in the
movie.
Movie marquee recognition aside,
Menzin is grateful for his good fortune:
“I’m doing exactly what I’ve always
wanted to do.” S

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spoken word
Catch me up on some of the things
you’ve been doing since you arrived?
We launched Zipcar [a car-sharing program] in the late summer, which people
had wanted for a long time. There’s a lot
of interest in expanding our composting
program. We have partnered with a local
company, Kitchen Harvest, which now
takes our compost to nearby Linvilla
Orchards. We’ll eventually be able to
expand composting on campus. A lot of
work has focused on creating a sustainability framework—new building standards that will affect major renovations
and new construction. My priorities
always fall into four categories: improve
our infrastructure, institutionalize sustainability as much as I can, promote or
nudge behavior change, and engage with
the curriculum.

ENGAGING
CHANGE
SWARTHMORE HAS MADE strong
strides in the last few years toward its
goal of carbon neutrality by 2035. It’s
done so through efficient use of energy
and other measures. But one critical
component was missing—a professional
to direct student, faculty, and staff efforts.
Laura Cacho arrived from Melbourne,
Australia, in February 2014 as Swarthmore’s first director of sustainability.
She’d spent the previous six years helping several cities with sustainability-related planning, policy, and education
initiatives. A graduate of the University
of Virginia and the University of Cali-

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SPRING 2015

fornia–Berkeley, Cacho is a Leadership
in Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED)–accredited professional. One
recent achievement was the planning
and implementation of a two-day
sustainability charrette (see Page 32 for
more on the event). Just after her first
anniversary at Swarthmore, Cacho spoke
with Bulletin editor Sherri Kimmel.
How would you say that your work
in Australia has informed the work
you’re doing here?
Australia is a place of extremes, and
climate change there felt real and now. It
was quite striking, coming from the East
Coast where, if we have a bad summer or
a major storm, people talk about it a lot,
but they’re not living it the way a place
like Australia is. Australians have been
dealing with water scarcity and other
issues for a long time.

You’ve mentioned embedding
sustainability into the DNA of the
College.
It needs to be part of every aspect of the
College—all policy, decision making, practices need to align with a commitment to
sustainability. It means changes to our
physical infrastructure and behavioral
practices, but it’ll also require recognition
that sustainability is one of the foundations of the modern liberal arts education.
Many topics, from injustice and poverty
to innovative technology, interlink and
integrate with sustainability.
Do you think there’s an opportunity
for Swarthmore to be a leader among
liberal arts colleges in this effort?
I do. There are other colleges that have a
head start on us, but it could be something
that we take on in a different way, a really
Swarthmore way, particularly because of
the College’s Quaker roots and its focus on
social justice. If we embrace sustainability fully, it could really transform us.

LAURENCE KESTERSON

LAURENCE KESTERSON

I’m interested in the ways you have
partnered with students.
I work most closely with our green advisers. They’re trying to model a way to live
in a sustainable way within our dorms.
They help plan the programming in
dorms that make students more aware of
how to be sustainable in their everyday
lives. I also work with the two Student
Council environmental impact chairs on
a number of initiatives from bike sharing
to waste-bin signage to campus events.

3/20/15 12:33 PM

SPRING 2015

ALL ABOUT HONORS

Periodical Postage
PAID
Philadelphia, PA
and Additional
Mailing Offices

p26

MIGHTY MICHIGANDER

p38

PROFS AS COACHES

p36

ISSUE

III

500 College Ave.
Swarthmore, PA 19081–1306
www.swarthmore.edu

VOLUME

CXII

SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN

ALUMNI WEEKEND 2015
JUNE 5–7

Scientific
Siblings
p18

SPRING 2015

Go back to class and learn from world-renowned
faculty.
Sun yourself with friends on Parrish Beach.
Grab a bite in Sharples.
Hang out in the dorms.
Remember what it was like to be in college.

THE POWER OF 3

View a full schedule of events and frequently
asked questions, and register online at

+ ALUMNIWEEKEND.SWARTHMORE.EDU.

‘OUR CLIMATECHANGE CLOCK IS
TICKING’
ELIZABETH UPTON ’16

p32

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